Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / The Warrior’s Calling: 22 SAS Operator Christian Craighead's Unstoppable Journey

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The Warrior’s Calling: 22 SAS Operator Christian Craighead's Unstoppable Journey · Motivation Mindset Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: You cannot train to become a Tier one operator. You're
0:07
Speaker 1: BoNT to do it. You have to have this certain mindset, physicality,
0:14
Speaker 1: everything to be able to do it. No one I
0:18
Speaker 1: completely deny if someone said, you know what, I'm super fait,
0:22
Speaker 1: super morvid, I'm going to get into the SAS. Maybe
0:26
Speaker 1: you will. But if you will, if you do, that
0:28
Speaker 1: means you always could have got in it. So you
0:30
Speaker 1: had that set up. There's some people who, no matter
0:33
Speaker 1: how hard they try, and no matter what they do,
0:35
Speaker 1: no matter how qualified you are, no matter how good
0:38
Speaker 1: people think you're, they just can't do it. You're born
0:41
Speaker 1: to be in the SAS. If you want to do it,
0:44
Speaker 1: you train, you work hard, and then when it comes
0:46
Speaker 1: to you selection or being selected is you have to
0:50
Speaker 1: be really really fit to get into pass selection. But
0:53
Speaker 1: that's not enough. It's just a tiny tiny bit of it.
1:00
Speaker 1: But you also gotta be really robust, not just physically
1:03
Speaker 1: but mentally robust, because that's the other thing. It's just
1:06
Speaker 1: like the whole the dn'ting. It's the dn't things don't
1:09
Speaker 1: know what's ahead of you, which create these monsters that
1:12
Speaker 1: don't exist, and the monster eats them all up. And
1:16
Speaker 1: then when they face it, they either defeat it or
1:19
Speaker 1: you might say go home. I want to be in
1:22
Speaker 1: the sas the one that they'll tell all the family
1:24
Speaker 1: friends swager around our sas. They don't really want to
1:28
Speaker 1: pay the price for it. It all comes down to it,
1:30
Speaker 1: if you had to do it, and you don't have
1:32
Speaker 1: to do it, And that's what makes selection hard, is
1:34
Speaker 1: that you don't have to do it.
1:39
Speaker 2: In this episode, we fly out to Texas to meet
1:41
Speaker 2: with Christy and craighead sas Legend. Today's episode, as always,
1:46
Speaker 2: was made possible by our sponsors Shule. Find out more
1:50
Speaker 2: with the link down below.
1:52
Speaker 1: And if the if they had to, if you held
1:54
Speaker 1: a gun to you to the head and say you don't,
1:56
Speaker 1: if you don't walk there now in four commas an
1:58
Speaker 1: hour and you're gonna kill your fan, I bet they'll
2:01
Speaker 1: be able to do it. It's going to untapping that resource.
2:05
Speaker 1: But you've got to be and that's the trick of
2:07
Speaker 1: selection is you've got to be able to do it.
2:09
Speaker 1: You're going to want to do it, and if you
2:10
Speaker 1: don't want it, you're not going to get it. Everything
2:14
Speaker 1: has a price. They don't want it. Debits in between
2:18
Speaker 1: the hard the work whatever, whatever job that is where
2:22
Speaker 1: the rule is is absolutely right. So you want to
2:30
Speaker 1: go in the SS. There's always exceptions, but as a
2:35
Speaker 1: general rule, if you're going to go in the SES,
2:39
Speaker 1: whatever unit you're from, whether it be infant resupport arms, whatever,
2:45
Speaker 1: typically the guy going for sas selection is the first,
2:50
Speaker 1: the strongest, the keenest, the one who's excels and everything.
2:55
Speaker 1: It gets good reports all the time, and it's like
2:59
Speaker 1: golden balls. That's the common the common thing, and that's great.
3:04
Speaker 1: So you go in selection. You were extremely hard, you
3:10
Speaker 1: you pass this course was just as such a such
3:12
Speaker 1: a high failure rate, and now you're in the SS.
3:17
Speaker 1: But here's the thing something you didn't think about and
3:19
Speaker 1: no one tells anyone, is you've now joined a unit
3:22
Speaker 1: where every single member is that guy where you were
3:27
Speaker 1: the top of your thirty guys in your opportune. Now
3:30
Speaker 1: you're in. Now you're in a squadron or regiment where
3:33
Speaker 1: every single man was that guy. It's it's good to
3:39
Speaker 1: be around people who are of similar mind. If you're
3:46
Speaker 1: in a combat unit, and it doesn't matter if it's
3:49
Speaker 1: a team one special forces common I think it's splits
3:51
Speaker 1: into into in the categories as well, because one thing
3:55
Speaker 1: I think I saw a lot and as much as
3:57
Speaker 1: my theory. You have sheep dogs on world. You're all
4:01
Speaker 1: working to the same goal, so you've got a common name.
4:05
Speaker 1: But some of the people around your sheep dogs, they
4:08
Speaker 1: can produce the goods if they have to have to,
4:10
Speaker 1: and they're there. They're selected and that's why they're there.
4:13
Speaker 1: But there's some people around who are wolves who have
4:16
Speaker 1: been trained into sheep dogs, and they're they're different people.
4:22
Speaker 1: A lot of parachute regiment soldiers in the SS or
4:24
Speaker 1: wolves wolves turn in the sheep dogs. But it's like that,
4:28
Speaker 1: lots of different units. And I'm not just talking about
4:31
Speaker 1: the sees. I'm talking about lots of high performing units.
4:34
Speaker 1: And people will know what I'm talking about. There's there's
4:36
Speaker 1: people are different. Some people are different. I think the
4:40
Speaker 1: wolves are the ones that will do things when they
4:43
Speaker 1: need to be done without orders of off the wrong
4:49
Speaker 1: back and with toll aggression and commitment, and the sheep
4:54
Speaker 1: dogs will do it if they have to, but won't
4:56
Speaker 1: do it unless the shepherd tells them to do it.
5:00
Speaker 1: You you make your own fear. You you make it. Fear
5:04
Speaker 1: to me is completely self generated. And can be defeated
5:08
Speaker 1: and can be been sometimes sometimes when it's sometimes when
5:12
Speaker 1: it's neck because it's necessary and you have no option
5:16
Speaker 1: but to if you can harness that, if you can
5:18
Speaker 1: rip that skill, so if people can learn how to
5:21
Speaker 1: tap into that and go, do you know what, I'm
5:23
Speaker 1: just gonna I'm just gonna do it. I don't want
5:26
Speaker 1: to do it, but I've got to. Let's go. There's
5:32
Speaker 1: day I got shot in the army in Afghanistan and
5:39
Speaker 1: took the bully on was pretty nasty injury. My arm
5:41
Speaker 1: was hanging by his trice up. Luckily I couldn't get
5:44
Speaker 1: it and it was a lesson and I couldn't get
5:46
Speaker 1: to tonique, so I didn't put one on. An officer
5:49
Speaker 1: later on or not after long after I got shot,
5:52
Speaker 1: when I was put into his vehicle, said oh, shall
5:55
Speaker 1: I put a ton key on there? And I was like, no, don't.
5:58
Speaker 1: If I needed it, I would have bled out by now.
6:01
Speaker 1: And then eventually the doctor at the troul base she
6:06
Speaker 1: sawed me out. She did a brilliant job, and then
6:09
Speaker 1: they got me lifted. They did like surgery on it
6:14
Speaker 1: to investigate surgery. When I came out, the doctor of
6:17
Speaker 1: the surgeon was there and he said, good job you
6:20
Speaker 1: didn't put a tonicy on, because if you put a
6:22
Speaker 1: tonic on, you definitely would have lost your arm. We
6:26
Speaker 1: we can't make the decision where whether to amputy you're
6:28
Speaker 1: on or not. Well, when you get to the Queen
6:31
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, they'll make the call whether you're
6:36
Speaker 1: going to lose your own or not. So I didn't
6:37
Speaker 1: know if I was going to lose my right arm,
6:40
Speaker 1: and then got it, got there and then did the
6:45
Speaker 1: surgery again, a bit of luck came in again and
6:50
Speaker 1: was discharged from possible and then there was nine months
6:53
Speaker 1: of recovery. And this is the thing where I've said
6:56
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it was you know, getting shot one thing,
6:58
Speaker 1: and it's pretty nasty, especially if it goes through a bone.
7:01
Speaker 1: It's it's it's kind of horrific. But but it's a
7:05
Speaker 1: good Like I've said it before, it's a good a
7:07
Speaker 1: good feeling. It's like a it's like if you're like
7:10
Speaker 1: one of these people who want to get amongst it,
7:12
Speaker 1: kind of getting shot and surviving and not having any
7:15
Speaker 1: permanent disability is kind of like a cool thing. It's
7:18
Speaker 1: like I've been shot. It's like it's like getting the
7:21
Speaker 1: essays I've been shot. I've actually been shot, and so
7:25
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool but not cool at the same time.
7:28
Speaker 1: Get shot, that's like hell, pretty angry about it. And
7:35
Speaker 1: do I want to potentially get shot again? Do you
7:38
Speaker 1: want to like step into the line of fire? Right?
7:43
Speaker 1: I do even more so, so get this long fixed.
7:49
Speaker 1: Nine months later, I got signed off, got signed off
7:53
Speaker 1: on the Friday or whatever day was. Yet you're now
7:56
Speaker 1: fit two weeks later back in Afghanistan. Right, you take
8:00
Speaker 1: the fight back to the enemy. And one of the
8:05
Speaker 1: things that's interesting to say is when what was in
8:07
Speaker 1: the Queen Elizabeth and some guys who were really badly injured.
8:11
Speaker 1: The common thing with the British soldier that I saw
8:14
Speaker 1: the British soldiers are there here lost both the much
8:18
Speaker 1: worse condition than they lost, both the legs and an
8:20
Speaker 1: arm triple amtit? What's the first thing they say when
8:24
Speaker 1: you talk to them. I just want to get back
8:25
Speaker 1: out there. I just want to get back into the fight.
8:29
Speaker 1: Some people clearly don't. And I think it and and
8:33
Speaker 1: I've heard some sort of theories that if you get
8:35
Speaker 1: injured that your brain releases some sort of hormone that
8:38
Speaker 1: actually fixes that issue, So it makes you want to
8:42
Speaker 1: go back in it, because it's the most common thing
8:44
Speaker 1: I've heard with anyone who's been badly injured, especially amputees.
8:48
Speaker 1: The common thing they say is I just want to
8:49
Speaker 1: get back into the fight. Life gives them takes. Sometimes
8:53
Speaker 1: what might seem like a curse is a gift, and
8:56
Speaker 1: then other times what seems like a gift is a curse,
8:58
Speaker 1: and it's and it's hard to work that out. And
9:01
Speaker 1: sometimes we're fortunate to get given things in life to
9:04
Speaker 1: then be able to reflect on it and work it out,
9:07
Speaker 1: but most of us live our lives without realizing what
9:09
Speaker 1: was the gift and what was the curse. Whatever that
9:15
Speaker 1: mindset is, if it's like the hero mindset or the
9:20
Speaker 1: give no shapes or don't toller your bullies all these things,
9:23
Speaker 1: or there's a natural foundation that you're born with and
9:27
Speaker 1: then things are built around it, like we're saying, the
9:29
Speaker 1: training starts from when you're born and events will will
9:32
Speaker 1: then shape it. And I think that, like, if you
9:36
Speaker 1: want to call it like a warrior mindset is people
9:40
Speaker 1: all you could argue that everyone's born with it and
9:44
Speaker 1: it's just repressed and then events in life will shape
9:50
Speaker 1: whether it be whether it be your parents or events
9:52
Speaker 1: that you suffer in life will deal with, whether it
9:55
Speaker 1: be good events or bad events, shape how this warrior
9:59
Speaker 1: in crows. And then some some people are like, it
10:03
Speaker 1: comes out naturally, it's it's meant to be out there
10:04
Speaker 1: and other people to take some things. And then a
10:07
Speaker 1: lot of people it doesn't come out ever because they
10:09
Speaker 1: never had to. I don't mean like a Special Forces
10:13
Speaker 1: warrior or a UFC fighter, or it's just day to
10:18
Speaker 1: day life that warrior, that warrior sort of instinct, that
10:22
Speaker 1: stepping up, saying the right thing when there's somethings need
10:24
Speaker 1: to be said, disagreeing with someone saving someone picking something up.
10:29
Speaker 1: Anything couldn't be anything. It's some people, just some people
10:33
Speaker 1: who doesn't exist, some people who doesn't take anything to
10:35
Speaker 1: come out. They've had a great life and everything, but
10:36
Speaker 1: they're still natural warriors. And other people make a conscious
10:40
Speaker 1: effort to try and try and enhance that and rip
10:44
Speaker 1: that out of themselves. There's I think there's athletes and fighters,
10:52
Speaker 1: and it's like the and there's the differences. When there's
10:57
Speaker 1: probably people who are athletes and they'll fire in the
10:59
Speaker 1: octagon and one wouldn't deare fight outside it, and there's
11:02
Speaker 1: others who will have a fight about what because that's
11:04
Speaker 1: what they're live for and that's what drives them. And
11:07
Speaker 1: there's other and then so it's that I think it would,
11:10
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, exists in every occupation, every support everything.
11:13
Speaker 1: There's different different types of people and the and it
11:16
Speaker 1: normally to make it very basic. If there's the two
11:18
Speaker 1: two things, we'll say you're not alone, and you kind
11:24
Speaker 1: of you're not alone and you're suffering. You might have
11:28
Speaker 1: people who love and support you around you, or colleagues
11:30
Speaker 1: who love work with you and who want to support
11:32
Speaker 1: around you, but you are alone in that struggle. You
11:36
Speaker 1: are alone. And I know and it's not my it's
11:39
Speaker 1: not my theory. I know this. You are alone, and
11:42
Speaker 1: it's down to you to get better. Now you can
11:45
Speaker 1: get better. Then how you get better, that's that's that's
11:49
Speaker 1: what you got to do, is like do what works
11:52
Speaker 1: for you. If therapy and talking to the support unit
11:55
Speaker 1: around you get you better, then you do that. If
11:57
Speaker 1: doing physical fitness or shooting or riding your motibike faster
12:01
Speaker 1: than what you should do is better for you, then
12:04
Speaker 1: do it. If having a couple of beers with your
12:06
Speaker 1: friends lines you up and makes you better. Then do it,
12:11
Speaker 1: you know, you just do what you've got to do
12:19
Speaker 1: firstly is keep your head. You can't be if something's
12:23
Speaker 1: going wrong or you've got to plan something. You can't
12:26
Speaker 1: look like you don't know what you're doing or you're panicking,
12:29
Speaker 1: because your leadership abilities or your the people willing to
12:33
Speaker 1: follow you will start falling away if you if you think,
12:36
Speaker 1: if you look like you don't know what you're doing
12:37
Speaker 1: or haven't got control of the situation, then is itsess
12:42
Speaker 1: the situation. You've got to see what's going on. You've
12:45
Speaker 1: got to know what's going on with the information. That's
12:48
Speaker 1: it rules for you right then, so that yeah, information
12:51
Speaker 1: might come earlater on, but right now, given the information
12:54
Speaker 1: that you know, you assess the situation. Then you make
12:57
Speaker 1: your plan. However you do that, that's how you do it.
13:02
Speaker 1: But you may lan on people, but you make your
13:04
Speaker 1: plan because you're in charge, and then you execute your
13:08
Speaker 1: plan if it goes well, if it goes really well
13:13
Speaker 1: and starts changing, then you have to do it again.
13:18
Speaker 1: Keep your head, assess the situation, make a plan, and
13:26
Speaker 1: execute it. If it starts going really bad, same thing,
13:31
Speaker 1: nothing worse. If it goes bad and then someone starts panicking, flapping,
13:35
Speaker 1: losing control. You put your plan out there and you
13:39
Speaker 1: keep your head. You assess the situation as it's unfolding
13:42
Speaker 1: in front of you, and you just make you just
13:45
Speaker 1: make a new plan and then execute that again. Maybe
13:51
Speaker 1: when you die you get given this will replay, or like, hey,
13:54
Speaker 1: I try to help you outloads of towns. And you
13:57
Speaker 1: know when someone said you have how many times someone
14:00
Speaker 1: something or something might happen and it was a sign?
14:02
Speaker 1: And sometimes you say it and sometimes you don't. Maybe
14:06
Speaker 1: we get them every single day. Maybe well, I think
14:08
Speaker 1: we do all have guardian angels and guides and are
14:11
Speaker 1: trying the best they can to guide us and leave messages.
14:14
Speaker 1: And sometimes you say it and sometimes you don't. And
14:17
Speaker 1: it's the kind of there's a lot of writings and
14:20
Speaker 1: things about if you're on the right path, then you
14:22
Speaker 1: kind of say it, but if you're on the wrong path,
14:24
Speaker 1: and who's to say, you know what we say. Some
14:26
Speaker 1: people might say angels and demons, some people might say
14:30
Speaker 1: guides and disruptors, or whether where there's there's people there
14:33
Speaker 1: trying to put you on your right path. And there's
14:35
Speaker 1: also a little bastards there trying to pull you off
14:37
Speaker 1: it and put you on the wrong path, and just
14:40
Speaker 1: because that's what they don't I wasn't born Christian Craighead.
14:48
Speaker 1: I mean, I know toed pseudonom but I wasn't born
14:50
Speaker 1: that character. I developed it over after incidents and and
14:56
Speaker 1: and yeah, I got into the SAS when I was dirty,
15:01
Speaker 1: and the Kenyan incident happened when I was forty three,
15:04
Speaker 1: so all of that was developing him to that point.
15:08
Speaker 1: This is going out to everyone out there who's fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
15:13
Speaker 1: fifty three, doesn't matter, Life's not over. Don't give up
15:19
Speaker 1: on it. Don't give up on it because you, like
15:22
Speaker 1: I said, all these all these like strange roots, and
15:25
Speaker 1: it might seem that everything is going so so wrong
15:29
Speaker 1: for you, but actually that's what's supposed to happen. And
15:33
Speaker 1: I know it's really it's kind of patternized when someone says, oh,
15:35
Speaker 1: everything that's supposed to happen is supposed to happen, and people,
15:38
Speaker 1: it's up to you if you want to believe this
15:40
Speaker 1: or don't believe it. But it's that it's that I
15:44
Speaker 1: think it's shaping life is shaping and the things that
15:48
Speaker 1: and even to the people will say, well, he died
15:52
Speaker 1: and you know, and you didn't do anything when I
15:57
Speaker 1: say about I was training for that incident all my
15:59
Speaker 1: life life. Yeah, but what you could also say is
16:03
Speaker 1: everything that my mother did, everything that my grandfather did,
16:08
Speaker 1: everything that their grandfather did and their grandfather did, everything
16:12
Speaker 1: was shaping everything up to that fifteenth of January, and
16:16
Speaker 1: everything I'm doing it is and then so you don't
16:18
Speaker 1: know your actions. It might not be it's easy to
16:21
Speaker 1: look at it at a selfish point of view, but
16:23
Speaker 1: your actions might be shaping the or making the path
16:27
Speaker 1: for your grandchild, for someone else in life. So it's
16:31
Speaker 1: so don't be like again, it's it's easy to look
16:34
Speaker 1: about it's all about me, it's all about us, but
16:37
Speaker 1: we don't know what with life's too complicated to humanize.
16:41
Speaker 1: And some people say, yeah, you live your bone, you die.
16:43
Speaker 1: Cool if you want to believe that, I believe that.
16:44
Speaker 1: I don't. I think we've all got a role to
16:47
Speaker 1: do in some way. But it's when you feel hopeless
16:50
Speaker 1: and I've seen too much stuff go on in this
16:52
Speaker 1: world now to make sense of it, and just don't
16:56
Speaker 1: give up don't give up on yourself and just you've
16:58
Speaker 1: got to go alone, do whatever it takes, and just
17:02
Speaker 1: come back. That's all it means.
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