So that is how we came to be standing in a sparse room, in a nondescript building in the barracks at SAS HQ--just a handful out of all those who had started out so many months earlier.We shuffled arou...
So how do you get to know yourself?The first way is to spend some time alone - just you - without all the outside influences of peers and family that so powerfully shape our aspirations. Give yourself...
Slova Edwarda Whympera jsou pravdivá dodnes: „Lez, jestli tě to baví, ale pamatuj si, že odvaha a síla neznamenají bez opatrnosti nic… S ničím nepospíchej, dávej pozor na každý krok a od začátku mysli...
It took me quite a while to begin to recover physically from Everest.The thick, rich air of sea level, in comparison to the ultrathin air of Everest, was intoxicating--and at times it felt like too mu...
I remember once, on a family skiing trip to the Alps, Dad’s practical joking got all of us into a particularly tight spot.I must have been about age ten at the time, and was quietly excited when Dad s...
For eighteen hours we had neither drunk nor eaten anything. My body and mind both felt strangely distant. Both were aching for some relief.In the porch of our tiny single-skinned tent, I reached out t...
Fail your way to success.
The line between life or death is determined by what we are willing to do.
Winston Churchill (him again!) once said words to the effect that everyone gets the chance to make their fortune once, but not everybody takes it.
The next morning I would be returned to camp with the others who hadn’t made the grade. I was totally dejected.That night in those woods, warm and dry under my shelter, blisters attended to, dry socks...
The next day’s call would be vital.Then at 12:02 P.M., the radio came to life.Bear at camp two, it’s Neil. All okay?I heard the voice loud and clear.Hungry for news, I replied, smiling. He knew exactl...
So I got lucky. But then again, it took me many hundreds of rejections to manage to find that luck.I am sure there is a lesson n that somewhere.Someone had taken a punt and had faith in me. I wouldn’t...
Over the next few days we spent every waking moment together. We made up silly dances, did puzzles in the evening, and she stood smiling on the beach waiting for me as I took my customary New Year’s d...
One thing I am clear on, though, is why the show has been so successful.I consider it is down to the magic three: good fortune, an amazing team, and a willingness to risk it all.My magic trio.There i...
Just under the South Summit I could make out the shape where Rob Hall lay. He had died up here some twenty-four months earlier.His body, half covered in drift-snow, remained unchanged. Frozen in time....
I will never forget the day I finally passed SAS selection. At the end of the long, grueling process of elimination, where 140 recruits had steadily been whittled down to only four of us, I finally fo...
I have been so lucky to lead amazing teams to incredible places: the remote Venezuelan jungles of the Lost World in search of Jimmy Angel’s lost gold; or the remote white desert that is Antarctica to...
My faith is an important part of my life and over the years I've learnt that it takes a proud man to say he doesn't need anything. It has been a quiet strength and a backbone through a lot of difficul...
You see, if you quit, you lose. But so long as you stick it out, you’re still in with a chance.As Harrison Ford once said: ‘Them that stick it out are them that win.
William Blake said: He was right. We need time and space and adversity to really get to know ourselves. And you don’t always find that in the grind, when your head is down and you are living someone e...