But the winners are those who know that when things get really hard and others start to fall away, that is the time to dig deep and give that little bit extra.
But what the heck does that mean?!You see, I think ‘trying’ isn’t the only word you should jettison from your dictionary.Let’s take the word ‘problem’ - that one instantly seems to me like a hassle an...
And who better to have as a guide than the person who made the path or the mountain in the first place!
Zkoušeli jste někdy vyhrabat ze sněhu auto? No tak zkuste vyhrabat loď z antarktického ledu.
Eventually, two Swedish climbers and a Sherpa called Babu Chiri found Mick. By chance--by God’s grace--Babu was carrying a spare canister of oxygen. Neil and Pasang had also now descended, and met up...
At this stage though, with the greatest will in the world, I wasn’t going to be climbing anything, not unless I could raise the sponsorship.And little did I know quite how hard that could be.I had no...
At the end of the ridge we leaned on our ice axes and looked up. Above us was the legendary Hillary Step, the forty-foot ice wall that formed one of the mountain’s most formidable hurdles.Cowering fro...
Another time, while on patrol with a small four-man team from my SAS squadron, out in the deserts of North Africa, we were waiting for a delayed helicopter pick-up. A 48-hour delay when you are almost...
Have you experienced the hypnotic patter of rain on your tent, the clear call of an owl or the rustling of the wind through the leaves at night? It’s a feeling of absolute freedom and belonging - a ch...
But one thing I know for sure: it is only by doing what we fear that we can ever truly learn to be brave.
Look at the stories of people who have changed the world - they have so often started with little, but they distinguished themselves by how they approached life, opportunity, relationships and struggl...
I finally persuaded the University of the West of England (UWE) (which was the less academic version of Bristol University) to offer me a place studying modern languages. (Incidentally, I had only pul...
He would always say that what really matters in life is to ‘Follow your dreams and to look after your friends and family along the way.’ That was life in a nutshell for him, and I so hope to pass that...
Cowards criticize mainly because it makes them feel better about their own lack of courage to try anything daring themselves. So the best (though often the hardest) thing to do is to ignore their crit...
As Harrison Ford once said: ‘Them that stick it out are them that win.
A few years ago, I led an expedition to return to Mount Everest, the mountain I had climbed aged 23, a mountain where I had risked everything and survived - just. I had always held a secret dream to r...
He needed to do ten days’ worth of work in one.Early the next morning, before the sun came up, Mark was awake and downstairs, getting ready for his monster mission to get through his to-do list.He mad...
None of this was in the game plan for my life.I had been hit hard, broadside and from left field, in a way I could never have imagined.Things like this just didn’t happen to me. I was always the lucky...
I was soon discharged from the rehab center and sent back to the SAS. But the doctor’s professional opinion was that I shouldn’t military parachute again. It was too risky. One dodgy landing, at night...
At this stage, I was also living a pretty unhealthy lifestyle. I was eating too much, smoking, and drinking (which is always daft), and not training at all.Predictably, I piled on the pounds and looke...