But, that guy who quit also missed the real point. Good things come through grit and hard work, and all things worthwhile have a cost. In the case of the SAS, the cost was somewhere around a thousand...
And finally, remember that light can only shine through broken vessels, and we are all a little broken.
Sometimes things just don’t ‘feel’ right - even if all the outward signs seem to be pointing us towards a certain course of action. When that happens, listen to that voice. It is God-given and it is o...
All you have to do is give it an opportunity to be unleashed.
All you have to do is give it an opportunity to be unleashed.So pick big targets and surprise yourself with how capable you really are deep down.Remember David and Goliath? Rather than David, the youn...
You climb only because the mountain allows it. If it says wait, then you must wait, and when it allows you to go, then you must struggle and strain in the thin air with all your might. Listening to th...
You are wonderfully and powerfully made. In other words: it is no accident you are good at certain things!
When I woke up a man in a green beret with a big feather poking out of it was leaning over me. , I thought.I blinked again but he didn’t go away.Then this immaculate, clipped British accent addressed...
We were eighteen thousand vertical feet above sea level, in the mouth of Everest’s killer jaws. I noticed my hand was shaking as I fumbled with the ropes through thick mittens.It was pure fatigue.An h...
Since I did Selection all those years ago, not much has really changed.The MOD (Ministry of Defence) website still states that 21 SAS soldiers need the following character traits: Physically and menta...
It was a feeling that I could be a little different from everyone else of my age, and that, if pushed, I could battle against the forces of nature and prevail. Adventure felt the most natural thing in...
Finally, I could see the four-ton trucks below me, parked in a small turnout next to a dam at the foot of the mountains.I raced down to the dam and clocked in.I knew I was slow, as I could see all the...
At 10:50 A.M., the radio flared into life. It was Mick’s voice. He sounded weak and distant.Bear. This is Mick. Do you copy?The message then crackled with intermittent static. All I could make out was...
But just as I was about to burst into tears, my dad would then start to applaud me.Applaud the fall?But why?Dad wanted me to understand that I could only become a horseman if I had fallen off a horse...
Trying often comes before failure. Endeavour more often leads to success.But they are just words, I hear you say. Why does it matter whether we say ‘try’ or ‘endeavour’?It matters, believe me.
The summer of 1999, we went on holiday to Spain to visit my cousin Penny, who runs a horse farm in Andalucia. It is a beautiful, wild part of the country.Shara would ride out early each day in the hil...
The journey up to battle camp started badly.If you can’t even load a bloody truck with all your kit properly, then you’ve got no bloody chance of passing what’s ahead of you, I can assure you of that!...
Pretty soon after returning from Everest, I was asked to give a lecture on the Everest expedition to my local sailing club in the Isle of Wight.It would be the first of many lectures that I would even...
Later that week, I was bicycling down a pavement in the City of London when I passed a company called DLE, which stands for Davis Langdon & Everest., I thought, as I skidded to a halt.I took a deep br...
Just let me get moving, I thought, and the pumping blood will shake the stiffness and pain from my back and feet.