Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / Royal Marine Commando: Life-Altering Advice for Success – Insights by Aldo Kane

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Royal Marine Commando: Life-Altering Advice for Success – Insights by Aldo Kane · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Courage, determination, unselfishness and cheerfulness in the face of adversity.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Now those four things, if you can employ them and
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: put them into everything that you do, then anything is possible.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: My name is Aldo Kaine.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'm a former ROA Marine commando and I now run
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a company operating in extreme, remote, hostile locations around the world.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: So I grew up on a housing estate, which is,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you know, in a cul de sac, down at the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: end of a road, which is probably how the majority
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of people are actually brought up in the UK, you know,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: working class, and you know, I had a very outdoor lifestyle.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I was born.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Near Glasgow but live on the west coast of Scotland,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: so down you know, near the sea.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Just across from Northern Ireland.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So my upbringing was was, as far as I know,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: fairly standard than normal. When I was very young, I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: joined the Beavers, which is like Beavers Cub Scouts, like
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Boy Scouts in American Boy Scouts of America, but it's
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: all one organization and it was joining them at very
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: young age which gave me a glimpse into the outdoors
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and how you can not just survive but thrive outdoors.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And so my twin and I spent years before I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: joined the Marines.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: We spent years going.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Away, camping, hiking, learning how to nab gate, how to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: live off the land. And so for me, the boy
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Scouts were like a fundamental part of my childhood and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: growing up.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: And fast forward from there.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Ten fifteen years and then you know, an elite war
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: marine commando sniper operating in the Middle East, you know,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: using the skills that I learned in the Scouts. I
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: was not academic at all at school. The Scouts helped
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: me get outdoors and stay outdoors. I didn't play computer games,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't an indoor kid. And the more
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that you did that, the more that I did that,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the more I realized I didn't want to have a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: normal job. And so I got to the point where
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I was looking at what jobs I could do and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: would want to do. In the military seem to offer
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: this lifestyle of being outside, adventurous boyzone sort of adventure,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and that what I was in the Scouts for.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: That's what I was in the Cadets for.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And so I went to the careers office up in Glasgow,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and you've got like the Navy, the Air Force, the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Army and I went into the naval one and there's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a marine in there, Roll Marine in the commando and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: he basically said, there's no point going to the rest
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: We're the best.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And then for the next two years I was like focused.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I was joining the Marines, regardless of what my parents
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: thought and regardless of what anyone thought. The green berry
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: is like the coveted headdress of the roll Marine commandos.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: It's it's renowned and revered throughout the world. And the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: first time I actually saw one was at a cadet
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: camp and the air cadet camp up in Scotland, north
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of Scotland, and this helicopter pilot sort of swagger to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the front of the queue that I was in and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: he put it down on the desk. He was buying something,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and I remember just seeing it and just being like,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that looks beautiful, like the black anadized globe and Laurel
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: badge on it and the green berry and back I
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: just thought, that is That's what I'm going to have
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: basically wanted to join the Marines from like thirteen or fourteen.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: By the time it came to joining up, like I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: knew inside out what the training was what was happening
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in what week, and the only bit that I didn't
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: know was whether my body would be physically strong enough
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: to complete it. You know, my head was my head
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: game was good, you know, I knew that's what I
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: wanted to do. And it's the longest infantry training in
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the world. It's thirty odd weeks, very intense. You know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: there's very hardly any days off through the whole process,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and every week is like a culling phase, you know,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: getting rid of dead wood in the troops. Right of
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: maybe fifty people that join, fifty men that join, then
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: at the end there might be seven or eight that
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: finish it. Joining at sixteen, my bones weren't fully developed
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and my body wasn't fully developed. It was essentially still
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a boy. I knew that it was going to be tough,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and I knew that that wouldn't last forever. You know,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: there wouldn't be people staying in the Marines for ten, fifteen,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: twenty years if it was as hard as it was
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: every single day in training. You just couldn't last that long.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: It was the first part of my life where I
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: started to realize.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: That you can literally become what you think about you
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: can have what you want as long as you know
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: what it is that you want. And I think a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: lot of my friends at school they just didn't know
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: what they wanted to do, you know. You know, they're
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: going to prolong a bit more to a levels or hires,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and then go to university, still don't really know what
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: they want to do, choose a course that they're not
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: that interested in, come out twenty three to twenty fourth,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: still not know what they're going to do, dodge around
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: a few jobs.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: You know. By the time I was twenty six.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I'd done ten years as an elite soldier, you know,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and that you know, I just shortcutted that whole ten
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: years and messing around by knowing exactly what it was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to do and then breaking that down.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And that's really you know, my life up till now
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: has been based on those fundamental points of you know,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you can have anything and be anything and do anything
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that you want. You just have to know what that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: thing is.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: The Romrines training is hard physically, you get smashed every day,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you know, relentlessly for the entire time that you're there.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: But as a young man you're fairly robust.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: You're fairly resilient to that sort of training if.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Your mindset is good.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: You know, of fifty people that start, let's say ten finish,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: not all of those faulty that don't make it have
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: physical injuries. You know, the majority of those probably just
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: don't have the minerals to finish the course. If the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: y isn't big enough, then you'll never have the drive,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the determination to get out of bed early and finish
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: that thing. And so let's say I just say I'm
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: going to join the Marines. There's nothing else going on,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: like my apprenticeships finished, and you get down there and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: you're in week ten and you're getting smashed and you're
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you know, cold, wet, hungry, chiled, then it's very easy
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: to just stick your hand up and say I'm sacking off.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Whereas if that's all you've wanted to do, and that
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is your end state is to get there, then like
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: for me in those hard times, I was in my
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: absolute element.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I was living my dream.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I Like, it's hard to explain it, but I had
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: this like the fire inside my stomach that I was
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: doing the thing I wanted to do, and it was
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: such an amazing feeling and I feel lucky that I
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: found out early on because it shaped the rest of
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: my life. You know, for me, what I took away
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: from that was not all the hard corese skills. I've
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: been able to shoot from a long distance and been
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: able to run miles and miles and not feel tired.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: What I took away from it was the soft skills.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And they call it the command of spirit, and that's courage, determination, unselfishness,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and cheerfulness in the face of adversity. Now, those four things,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: if you can employ them and put them into everything
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that you do, then anything is possible. When I was
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in the Marines, i joined Wreck and then I'd done
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: my sniper course.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: The Roll Marine Sniper course is one of the hardest
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: sniper courses in the world to pass. Has lots of difference.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's not just about pulling the trigger or sneaking about,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you know, there's so many different sections of being a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: sniper that make you more of an elite soldier effectively.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And so by the time I did that selection past
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: that course, I was twenty or twenty one, so I
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: would have been one of the youngest trained snipers in
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the you know, in the Roll Marines, at that time.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And that was again.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Come down to me knowing what I wanted, and instead
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of waiting five or six years, you know, until I
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: was ready, I thought, why don't I just go and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: do it, and if I fail it, at least.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I'll know what I failed on.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And then I can improve on that, and then I can,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and then I'll go back and do it
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: again by actually past the first time. So yeah, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that required, you know, a lot, focused lot of training
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and a lot of I suppose mental fortitude.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I think to.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Become a sniper you need to you know, there's two
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: parts of it. There's all the practical pops, which are
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you know, field craft basically, and you have to be
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: very good at operating on your own. And then the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: second part is more your personality and your personality traits.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Are you happy and confident operating on your own? You
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: don't need another thirty guys behind you. Do you have
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the courage in your own convictions about making decisions. What
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I love about it is the fact that you live
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: by and die.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: By your own sword.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: It's very easy in a group of people in any
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: walk of life to hide and to blame other people
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: when things go wrong and the shit hits a fan.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: As a sniper are you're working in you or your
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: sniper pair. You are effectively responsible for your own life
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and lots of others. And you know there's nowhere to hide.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And I quite like that stripped bear. You know, this
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: is the nuts and boats of life, and this is
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's how right is how I work
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and operate?
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Now, you know, I love the fact that.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I'm responsible for being successful or unsuccessful. If why isn't
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: big enough or strong enough, then you'll never get out
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of bed, money, you'll never get up when things are hard.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: But with courage, determination, un selfishness, cheerfulness, and face of dacity,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: which is like the command of spirit, you can.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Almost achieve anything.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: One of the big things that I think that people
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: are anxious about is fear of the unknown and thinking
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: is this, it is this all I've got?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Is this what I'm doing with my life? If you're
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: lucky enough to be that.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Introspective and thinking about yourself and your life, because most
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: people are too busy with the minutia of everyday life
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that they don't give tomorrow and the next week, in
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the next month, or second thought. If you're in that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: position to think about the future, then you're one of
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the minority. And then if if you're able to think
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: about the future and shape it, then then you're in
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the top one two three percent of people on earth,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: and that is is quite a powerful place to be.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: By this time, I've already been to rack, I've already
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: been fighting and more. I've already realized that time is
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: more valuable than money. I've realized that, you know, you
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: can earn as much money as you want. You know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: it comes and goes daily, monthly, weekly, whatever. You know,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: when you're up, you're eventually going to be back down.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: But time doesn't, that's just gone.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And you know, if you are privileged enough to get
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to old age, then then that's one of the best
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: things that that can you know, physically happen to you.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And so so for me, when I went off show,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it was very much about using you know, I was
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: sacrificing two weeks of my life.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: To then have two or three weeks off which I.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Could then use effectively into reshaping, retraining and regrouping on
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: what I valued and what I felt was important in
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: which direction I wanted to go in life. And when
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you're off Sure, it gives you opportunity to reflect, because
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of time when you're not working, and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: it gives you a lot of time to reflect and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to plan.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: If you're of that mindset.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: There's also you could easily blink and you've done twenty
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: years in the offshore industry, which means you've spent ten
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: years on an oil rig, which to me was, you know,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: it's not what I wanted to do with the rest
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: of my life. I wanted to use it as a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: leg up to then use the time to eventually get
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the qualifications and experience that I needed to.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Do the job that I do now.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: And when you look back, when I look back, like
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the dots joined perfectly, like it's twenty twenty perfect. I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: was selling gas an electristy. It was a really horrible time.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I'd left the Marines.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And I didn't leave the Marines because it ran its
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: cove or anything. I left the Marines because I was
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: like at the top of my game, and it's the hardest.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: The easiest thing to do for me would have been
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to stay in and see out my twenty two years.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: That was easy. The hard thing to do is leave
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: something when you're very good at it because you you know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: it's completely unknown. It's very easy to stay in that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: one in that rut. And I didn't want to be
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: in that rut. You know, I'd done as much as
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I thought I could do in the military, I'd gained
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: as much experience. I just knew there was something niggling
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: me that there was something that I wanted to do
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that was that was I don't know that there was
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: just something that was niggling at me that made me
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: want to sort of put my notice in and leave.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I then had this transition period of coming from being
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: one of the most elite fighting soldiers on the planet
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to no one to just not having any backup, you know,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I was I was just this guy who was out
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: in the port with everyone else looking for work. And
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: so I took on this job of being a gas
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and eletricty sales and so I did that for two
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: or three months, and you know, it was utterly so destroying.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But at that point I still hadn't connected the dots
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: with you know, I just decided that I wanted to
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: join the Marines. I decided I want to be a sniper.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I decided that I wanted to be in wrecky. I
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: did all these things, but I hadn't really fully grasped
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that everything was in my control.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have a plan.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: You become part of someone else's. And that's exactly what
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was happening. In the book, I talk about acres of diamonds,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and it's an old fable.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: About a farmer who who's you know, looking to find diamonds.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: He's got a stretch of land and he's essentially thinks
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: he's exhausted. It sells, it moves on, and the next
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: guy who comes in, you know, digs and just spends
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: hard work, hard graft, and he finds this rich seam of.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Diamonds in his own backyard.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: We often look, you know, as a human race, we're
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: looking at what's next, and you know, adventurous spirit, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: let's go outside, let's go here, let's go there, and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: we're looking and chaining this thing which is never there,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and and and essentially what it means is like for me,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: was look at what you've got, look at what you're
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: good at, and how can you turn that into service
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to then help other people. You know, everyone's looking outwards
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and at everything they can go and get and have
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and and actually what I needed to do was look
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: at what I was good at, what skills I had,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and what I could then offer as a service, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to to you know, by becoming valuable to people in industry.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: You know, that's that's the way you become successful. If
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: something's easy to do, it's easy not to do. It's
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: easy to eat an apple a day. It's also easy
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: not to.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I think we live in.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: An age now where people want instant gratification. You know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: they want something now. You know, the internet's fast, five
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: g's fast. Everything's like now now, now you'll do something online,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: It's here the next day, all the same day.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: You know. Delayed gratification, you know.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: You is the art or the discipline of postponing something,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: kicking it down the street a bit so that you
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: have something bigger, better, longer, stronger, whatever that thing is.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And that comes down to process and craft. Like were
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: talked about finding your passion and there's no promise at
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the end of it, but if you can block out
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the noise, Like if I'm sat looking at everyone else
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that does my type of work in looking at them
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and worrying and social media, I'm not putting in one
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: hundred percent into what I'm doing because I'm paying attention
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to what they're doing.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: You'll find that.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Successful people I don't care what's happening around about them.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: They don't care, they're not in competition with anyone potentially
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: other than themselves, or they just want to make an
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: exceptional product or offer that service to the masses. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: when you start to do that and block out the noise,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: it's amazing what you can actually achieve. And controlling the controllables,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: controlling what you actually have dominion over. It's quite a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: small thing, but control that. You control your mind. You
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: can control what's in your immediate vicinity, but you can't
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: control the weather, you can't control what other people are doing,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and you can't control what other people think. So stop
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: trying to. We become what we think about. It's just
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: as simple as that. And if you're not thinking about anything,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: or if you're thinking shit thoughts, then that will be
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: your life. You know, everyone is exactly where they are
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: in life because of decisions they have or haven't made.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: It sounds quite callous because lots of external things can
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: happen to someone, but we always have options, Like people generally,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: especially where we live. We know, we're very privilege is
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: where we live in the Western world, where you know,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: we have all of the mod cons you know, we
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: we have the privilege of making decisions and following them through. So,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the biggest, the biggest thing that
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I can see looking back is that I knew where
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted, what I wanted to be, and what I wanted.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: To do, and that just worked hard to get there.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: The things that you focus on and spend your time
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: on and process in graft, then you'll get there.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: That's that's the bottom line.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Like there's no magic formula, there's nothing else like what
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you think about and what dominates your thought process from
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: when you GetUp in the morning to when you go
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to bed will become your reality. The military part of
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: my life is, you know, I owe almost everything to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it because it's given me the confidence and the ethos
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and the courage of my own convictions to do what
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I want to do. Now, you know, it certainly doesn't
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the military part doesn't mean I'm any better, you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: at anything than anyone else. But I think in my
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: own head and confidence, you know, I know that I
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: passed one of the hardest infantry training in the world
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: at the age of sixteen. That means, you know, in
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: my head, I had this confidence that you know, I
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: can I can do most things, you know, I just
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: haven't been taught most of them, or you know, if
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: someone teaches me something, then I'm very focused and dialed
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: on learning that thing. But the thing that made me
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: join the Scouts was adventure. The thing that made me
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: join the Marines was adventure. And then after I left
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and I started messing around and went off shure, I
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: then started to formulate this idea that I would then
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: work in outdoors, not as an outdoors instructor, because there's
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: too many people doing that and you know, very qualified,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and it's not well paid. And also it didn't give
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: me that you know, I didn't want to be taking
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: groups out on the hill.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And you know, I led a.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Lot of expeditions in South America and all over the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: place with young adults, and it just like I didn't
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: quite know television existed yet. But all these parts were
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: starting to like slot together.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I had all my training that was ready.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I was like ready for whatever job came my way.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I'd spent all that time off shore getting ready for that,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: had the confidence of my background in the military. So
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that was all done and dusted, and then someone asked
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: me if I could get film career inside an active
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: volcano for a TV program and I was just like, yes,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I can do that, and then it just like the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: penny dropped. I was ready. I didn't know what was
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: preparing for. But when that job opportunity came along, it
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: then suddenly clicked.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Everything clicked into.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Place, from scouts right the way through like over that
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: fifteen years to taking that job when you're when you're
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: too busy with the minutia of everyday life, three kids,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you know your job twelve hour shifts, but but that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you don't have time to stick your head above the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: parapet and think about tomorrow, never mind next week, never
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: mind next year. But that's what the offshore part of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it give me, was that time to then work out
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: this plan, and so when I eventually got to doing
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that job in a volcano, it was like all of
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this just went into position and then it was just
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: like fine. So I went to Congo, got a BBC
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: film crew inside one of the most active volcanoes in Africa,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: biggest life a lake on earth epic, epic sort of
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: environment to be in, and it used every ounce of
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: my skill set to get the crew in and out safely.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: And then I sort of came.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Back and had a couple of weeks off and just
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: like I was like, this is amazing because I never
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: watched television, and to be honest, it never crossed my
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: mind that television was a you know, an industry that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: you could work in, and so it just and it
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: was right at the time when Adventure TV was picking
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: up and getting busy, and so with all the preparation
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and things I was doing. It just I was perfectly
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: placed at that time to get stuck into it. And
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I'm you know, there are a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: million people out there better qualified than me in cave diving,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: than skydiving, in climbing and all these things. But you know,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: my main focus is more of a like step back.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I have a jack of all trades basic understanding of
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: these adventurous activities, but I also have a more holistic
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: approach to looking after people and crews and making sure
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that they're safe in these extreme environments. You know, my
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: job really is is you know, with you guys, that's
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: with the crew. It's everyone working together to get this
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: end product. And whether that's same jungles or up in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the high mountains of the Himalayas or way down in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a cave system, you know, wherever it is on Earth,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: or dealing with narcos in the jungles of South America,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it's the same. It's about can do, attitude and looking
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: after people. And it goes back to what I was
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: thinking about acres of diamonds. It's like, what service can
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I provide someone else, you know, by adding value to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: someone else as something else, And it's like.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Enlightened self interest.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I get to do all these cool jobs
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and get to gob off about it on social media
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and have cool pictures with cool people in cool places.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: But really, you know, you're helping other people achieve their
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: goals and achieve their ambitions, and that, you know, that's
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: quite important. Worked a lot with investigative journalists, so during
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the bullet outbreak in West Africa, which I talk about
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: in the book, or chasing down target traffickers in Southeast Asia,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: or doing the narco stuff in South America, and these
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: guys using the medium of film and journalism, you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: have have so you know, they're giving a voice to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: for example, tigers that don't have a voice, you know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and they're being slaughtered at a rapid rate of knots
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: for luxury goods.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: So you know, if you can find a way of.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Telling that story and telling it effectively by you know, film,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: then you know you have much more reach than you
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: do any other way.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I think, h.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: H oh.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Kind of got to the point where I'd done a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff in the military and I wanted to
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: give something back in a way that, you know, to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to for example, animals that don't have that voice, and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to be able to train anti poaching units. And I
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: was down in South Africa doing that for a while.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And and the more I was doing that, and I'd
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: been working in television a while, I thought, there's there's
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: opportunity here to tell stories of you know, of for example, trafficking.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: And that's how I got involved with doing the Tiger film.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: That was a BBC investigation into tiger trafficking, but it
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: was much more about using my skills. Again, what can
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I do with my skills that provides a service to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: someone else. So we were helping the EIA Environmental Investigation
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Agency with some of their operations investigations. So it's yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it's about It's about again, not what can I get
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: out of this?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: But what can I give?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And I always find that's a more useful way of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: approaching situations is what can I do?
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: What can I give? How can I help?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You're in the military, you have purpose and passion, and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I would say ninety percent of people in the military,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: certainly speaking from in the Marines.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Have you know, this passion and fire in the belly.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: And then they leave and then that's gone, and it's
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a very slippery slope, like you're standing on top of
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a sandpit there.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: And about to end up going, you know, falling down
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: into it and.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Not being able to get your way back out of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: it because of passion and purpose. You know, if the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: y isn't big enough, then you don't have the drive.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: You won't get out of bed in the morning. And
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that's why when I go to schools and I speak
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to kids and they're like, I want to be a YouTuber,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I want to be famous. I want to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: be an influencer, And you dig down, You're like, why
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: do you want that?
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And they don't know, what are you going to talk about.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: You can't just be on YouTube sat in your bedroom
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: with someone pointing a camera. You like, what are you
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: going to what you're going to talk about? So for me,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: it's about finding that passion. There's a there's a bit
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: for everyone, but you have to know what that passion is.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: You have to or you have to know what that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: thing is that you want to be interested in. And
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I think you know, for me, I've always had a
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: passion for adventure and an adventurous life, and it's always
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: led me to make decisions based on that. Probably would
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: do better by finding what actually floats their boat, not
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: just they want to be famous for whatever reason.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: One of the.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Biggest anxieties that people have is fear of the unknown
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: or you know, just just general anxiety about thinking that
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: everything's falling apart, life's bad, you know, and and it's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you know, it's very common. It makes such a difference
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to right problems physically, pen paper and write it down,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: and when you see that on a piece of paper,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: it then becomes quite easy.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Or working down this.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I feel scared because of this, and then the exercises
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to then write underneath that, and then this will happen
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and then this will and you work it down to
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the nth degree. You know, when you wake up at
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning and your entire life is
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: falling apart, and that little voice inside your head is
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: just telling you that you know that everything's a mess
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and worrying about everything, then in the morning it doesn't
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: seem as bad, right. So the biggest thing that you
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: can do with that is control the controllables. It's a
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: simple thing. Is you can't control all of these other things.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: And often what's worse is you're making your judgments and
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: opinions on other people's opinions, you know, which is other
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: people's judgments, which is just mental. Never compare your inside
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: to someone else he's outside, because that's everyone's everyone's different.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Control what you have in your dominion, which is your thoughts,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and get outside and exercise. It's amazing what that does
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: for you, even if you know you've never done.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: It in your life before.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Get outside, you know, go for a walk to five
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: meters today ten twenty one hundred five miles ten miles.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: The main, biggest thing that people can do is take action,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: because in the year's time, you're going to wish you
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: started today, everything that I do is balanced risk and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: hazard and likelihood. You know, when I when I go
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: inside and act to volcano, I know that I could
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: die in there.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: I know that.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: But what I do is I mitigate as many of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: those hazards as possible. You know, wing Haw to Heart's
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: going in at the right time with the right crew,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: doing the right thing, not pushing it. Like, we mitigate
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: as many of them as possible. But if the volcano
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: decides to wrap in there, then you'll die, right That's
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: that's like Big Boy steaks, And the same with the row.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: The stakes were high, you know, a capsize and coming
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: out the boat as death, and probably a slow one
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: because you'll be separated and floating eventually drowned. So it's
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the stakes are high, but it's also testing you you
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: mentally and physically, testing me mentally and physically. And that's
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: what I enjoy. I enjoy those high stakes. But it's
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: not about taking risks. It's about controlling hazards, you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: It's about controlling them and controlling the risk of things
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: happening and being as prepared as you can be. For
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: me personally, it's it's an internal thing of testing myself
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: against the environment and testing my thought process.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: You know, I talk a lot on social.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Media about you know, having a strong mindset, but I'm
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: often asking myself, when was the last time I was
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: really tested? When was the last time I really put
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: myself through the ringer? Instead of just talking about being
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: resilient and talking about being you know, having mental forultitude
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: or having courage or determination. In the Marines, you would say,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: don't tell show, and that that's one thing that lots
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: of leaders and managers don't do, is like lead from
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the front and show people how to do things, don't
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: tell them how to do things. So for me that's
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: always been a you know, I like to test and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: keep myself current. And also by pitching yourself against the environment,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: you realize how small and significant you are, and I
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: find that truly motivating. But you can go down, you
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: can go down a one whole of social media and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: think everyone's got a better life than you, and you know,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: it's very easy to just see the glossy side that
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: people portray there. But you know the other side, the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: flip side of a job in my lifestyle is that
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you know, home life is can often be chaotic and
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: bouncing from one job to another, and you know, missing
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: my son's birth and risk. You know, people might think
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: that I'm a risk taker, but I'm not. You know,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I control risk, I control hazards, I control all of
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: these things. So I'm more of a control freak than
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I am a risk taker and very cautious, so I
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: don't think my outlooking my the way that I operate
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: will change. Decision making is one of the biggest things
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that people can do, even if it's the wrong decision,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: make a decision, follow it through and often opens another
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: door that that wasn't available, you know before, by sitting
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: doing your normal stuff every day. You know, to change
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: your life and to change what you're doing, you must
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: change something. If you do the same thing every day,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: you're not nothing's going to change. The outcome isn't going
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to change. As soon as you go down the route
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of thinking you know everything ego, et cetera, then you
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you're you know. Or building the walls to protect yourself
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: is keeping ideas and things and people out. The biggest
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: obstacles that we stumble across a probably ourselves and what
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the one of the language that we use in the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: woods that we use to talk ourselves out of things,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and you'll find that successful people are very good at
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: talking themselves up. So I think one of the biggest
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: obstacles for achieving anything is probably ourselves and that nagging
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: voice that tells you're not good enough. You know, certainly
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: when you come from you know, I didn't come from
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: a back bad background, but I came from a background
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: where nothing much is expected of anyone, and it's quite
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: easy to drop back into that, into that thought process. So, yeah,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I'm strict with myself and I'm I'm forgiving with other people.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Ego in my line of work will get you killed, right,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: that's sport nine.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And so again the old adage of don't tell people
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: how good you are, don't tell people what you can
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and can't do, show people and do it quietly. Get
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: on with the thing that you want to be doing,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: get on with it quietly, and become very good at it,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: and become exceptional at it, and one day people think, well,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: it's all right for him or her because they're lucky
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: because they got there. But you know, everything process, knowing
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: what it is that you want to achieve, and just
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: putting in the hard yards to get there, a process
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and graft are the two things that people don't see.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: They look at successful people and think it's all right
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: for them, but actually what they forget is they've had twelve, fifteen,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: however many years of just doing the basics, and doing
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the basics well, the almost almost com