Bear Grylls Quotes

You can't become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again, a good number of times. There's life in a nutshell.

If you risk nothing you gain nothing

Never depend on those luck moments – they are gifts – but instead always build your own back-up plan.

I learnt another valuable lesson that night: listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind.

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.

I miss him still today: his long, whiskery eyebrows, his huge hands and hugs, his warmth, his prayers, his stories, but above all his shining example of how to live and how to die.

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me… and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different… and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it…

Time and experience have taught me that fame and money very rarely go to the worthy, by the way - hence we shouldn't ever be too impressed by either of those impostors. Value folk for who they are, how they live and what they give - that's a much better benchmark.

The lesson is, the rewards in life don't always go to the biggest, or the bravest, or the smartest. The rewards go to the dogged; and when your going though hell, to the person who just keeps going.

There is little faith involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery, trust, is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return.

Many great people over the centuries have depended on their faith- it is a sign of great strength to need Jesus in your life.

Dreams, though, are cheap, and the real task comes when you start putting in place the steps needed to make those dreams a reality.

got that dark, second-day stubble that gives him just the right amount of ruggedness. He looks like a perfect combination of a New York intellectual and a sexy Bear Grylls.

Our achievements are generally limited only by the beliefs we impose on ourselves.

When you find yourself thinking about someone or something in the same old negative way, just stop yourself. Think. Check. Change. Refresh. Job done. Smile. Move on. Do this enough times and you will change. For the better; for the stronger.

Why is it that the finish line always tends to appear just after the point at which we most want to give up? Is it the universe's way of reserving the best for those who can give the most? What I do know, from nature, is that the dawn only appears after the darkest hour.

That fine line between bravery and stupidity is endlessly debated – the difference really doesn’t matter.

But I also knew if I could somehow replace my doubt with hope, my fear with courage, and my self-pity with a sense of pride, then I just might be able to do this.

Are you the sort of person who can turn around when you have nothing left, and find that little bit extra inside you to keep going, or do you sag and wilt with exhaustion? It is a mental game, and it is hard to tell how people will react until they are squeezed.

Many people find it hard to understand what it is about a mountain that draws men and women to risk their lives on her freezing, icy faces - all for a chance at that single, solitary moment on the top. It can be hard to explain. But I also relate to the quote that says, Iif you have to ask, you will never understand.

All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.

Aim to live a wild, generous, full, exciting life—blessing those around you and seeing the good in all.

If the person you’re speaking to will think worse or less of the person you’re speaking about, then it’s gossip, so cut it out!

If you want it bad enough, you’ll pass.

And if you give your heart to a goal, it will repay you. It's the law of the universe.

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.

Above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look at myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough. Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS. Some things don’t have a price tag.

If Bear Grylls bred with Chuck Norris, I would be their love child. That’s how skilled I am.” Lucy’s face remained carefully blank. “Thank you for that disturbing imagery. But we both know Chuck Norris needs no one. He creates children from thought alone.” “Agree

Life has taught me to be very cautious of a man with a dream, especially a man who has teetered on the edge of life. It gives a fire and recklessness inside that is hard to quantify. It can also make them fun to be around.

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

To me, my Christian faith is all about being held, comforted, forgiven, strengthened, and loved--yet somehow that message gets lost on most of us, and we tend only to remember the religious nutters or the God of endless school assemblies. This is no one's fault, it is just life. Our job is to stay open and gentle, so we can hear the knocking on the door of our heart when it comes. The irony is that I never meet anyone who doesn't want to be loved or held or forgiven. Yet I meet a lot of folk who hate religion. And I so sympathize. But so did Jesus. In fact, He didn't just sympathize, He went much further. It seems more like this Jesus came to destroy religion and to bring life.

I love the quote she once gave me: “When supply seems to have dried up, look around you quickly for something to give away.” It is a law of the universe: to get good things you must first give away good things. (And of course this applies to love and friendship, as well.)

I wanted to work hard. I wanted to prove myself somehow worthy of the good things I had known.

At this point, my greatest enemy was myself. Self-doubt can be crushing, and sometimes it is hard to see outside the black bubble.

Sometimes an ember is all we need.

WWBD - What Would Bear Do? Bear Grylls is the baddest man ever

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 the mountain and having patience on it are the keys to survival.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.’ Pearl S. Buck

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God. Matthew 5, v.2 (The Message Version)

Just let me get moving, I thought, and the pumping blood will shake the stiffness and pain from my back and feet.

Tentative holds no power.

Sometimes you have just got to tackle these mountains head-on.

The DS had told us the parameters – run, you pass; walk, you fail.

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.

This is your life. Be bold with it. Live it with energy and purpose in the direction that excites you. Listen to your heart, look for your dreams: they are God-inspired.

You are wonderfully and powerfully made. In other words: it is no accident you are good at certain things!

Life rewards the dogged, not the qualified.

Say "why not?" rather than "why?

I mean, in the last few months alone, I've been pinned in a big set of white-water rapids, been bitten by an angry snake in a jungle, had a close escapewith a big mountain rockfall, narrowly avoided being eaten by a huge croc in the Australian swamps, and had to cut away from my main parachute and come down on my reserve, some five thousand feet above the Arctic plateau. When did all this craziness become my world? It's as if - almost accidentally - this madness had become my life. And don't get me wrong - I love it all. The game, though, now, is to hang on to that life. Every day is the most wonderful of blessings, and a gift that I never, ever take for granted. Oh, and as for the scars, broken bones, aching limbs and sore back? I consider them just gentle reminders that life is precious - and that maybe, just maybe, I am more fragile than I dare to admit.

Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man with rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To borrow St. Paul's words, the former is as "having nothing, yet possessing all things," while the other, though possessing all things has nothing. Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self respect, is still rich.

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 barrels of sweat.

So, before we go too much further, now is a good chance to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, we are all a little guilty of sometimes living someone else’s aspirations for us instead of our own. And this is a great time to say ‘No more!’ to living out of fear and other people’s expectations.

Whether it is the wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family or friends, so often those closest to us are the ones who get the worst of us. It is as if we feel that they are the only ones we can be grumpy with, and we save our best for our guests or for work. But this is a recipe for struggle. The smart man and woman save the best for those they love. If we show our loved ones the most gratitude every day, then life will smile on us in return. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: three words to help you thrive. Trust me.

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 on to my boys as they grow up.

The thing about a ‘comfort zone’ is that it sounds, well, just too comfortable – and when you are too comfortable you lose your edge. That’s why I call it a comfort pit, because a pit is somewhere you want to get out of as fast as possible.

He had forgotten the golden rule of cold, which the DS had told us over and over: ‘Don’t let yourself get cold. Act early, while you still have your senses and mobility. Add a layer, make shelter, get moving faster – whatever your solution is, just do it.

Any blisters on your shoulder blades would weep painfully, as the weight of the pack went back on. Then somehow your mind would shut out the pain, for a while. Until, by the end of the march, your shoulders would start to wilt and cramp up as if they were on fire.

A challenge that tested Tom to his limit but in return gave him more than he could ever have imagined.

positive word of warning, though: you might find that once you start eating more of the healthy stuff, your body will no longer like it when you eat the bad stuff.

We can’t always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny.

Three words that are the beating heart behind why many explorers or adventurers do what they do. ‘Because it’s there.

Families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts!

Stick to the fight when you're hardest hit, It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

The area became known affectionately by the other recruits as simply: ‘The asshole of the world.

empty vessels make the most noise. It is true. The best adventurers and climbers, and the most successful people I know in life, are all great listeners, and they don’t talk too much.

These made Trucker and me look back on the summer Selection days as quite balmy and pleasant! It is strange how accustomed you become to hardship, and how what once seemed horrific can soon become mundane.

As a former pilot in World War I, Walter had always preferred flying as a means of travel, rather than going by sea. Whenever he was in the Dakota, flying over to Northern Ireland, he always asked for the front seat, joking that if it crashed then he wanted to die first.

We live in a world where everything tends to get oversold, then all too often under-delivers. I’d prefer to be known for the opposite.

Oh boy. Plenty of lessons learnt. Almost always through pain.

Their hands were also huge – two massive leathery mitts that looked like hairy wicket keeper’s gloves.

Tentative is no power.

Both faith and fear may sail into your harbor, but allow only faith to drop anchor.

When my parents were away, I would often be sent to spend the night in the house of an older lady who I didn’t know, and who didn’t seem to know me, either. (I assume it was a friendly neighbor or acquaintance, or at least hope it was.) I hated it. I remember the smell of the old leather photo frame containing a picture of my mum and dad that I would cling to in the strange bed. I was too young to understand that my parents would be coming back soon. But it taught me another big lesson: Don’t leave your children if they don’t want you to. Life, and their childhood, is so short and fragile.

It’s the storms of life that make us strong, and as with all dark nights, sometimes we just have to hang on in there. Doggedly. The dawn will always come. The light will always win. And the fire, in nature, is all powerful.

If I might suggest a course of action?” “Not necessary,” I called, poking my head back out. “Do you mean to say this concatenation of events—“ “Totally planned,” I fibbed. “Scaring off any wild animals and such.” “As one does,” Harry said agreeably. “Like Bear Grylls does,” I said. “You bet your ass.” “What do you see?” Scarrow asked. “A whole lot of fucking dark, since I'm inside a walled-off tunnel, at night, in a snowstorm, you cross-stroking wankbasket.

Hey! Monkey! Over here!’ one of the tourists called. The reverent atmosphere burst like a balloon. The orang-utan paused and looked back at them. Her face was long and grave, as if wondering how anyone could be such an idiot. Then she turned away again and disappeared into the trees. ‘Hah!’ The man clapped his hands, very pleased with himself. Then: ‘What?’ as he noticed the expressions on some of the faces around him. ‘I made her look, didn’t I? We travel for three hours in a hot bus, you want to see something at the other end!

Girls aside, the other thing I found in the last few years of being at school, was a quiet, but strong Christian faith – and this touched me profoundly, setting up a relationship or faith that has followed me ever since. I am so grateful for this. It has provided me with a real anchor to my life and has been the secret strength to so many great adventures since. But it came to me very simply one day at school, aged only sixteen. As a young kid, I had always found that a faith in God was so natural. It was a simple comfort to me: unquestioning and personal. But once I went to school and was forced to sit through somewhere in the region of nine hundred dry, Latin-liturgical, chapel services, listening to stereotypical churchy people droning on, I just thought that I had got the whole faith deal wrong. Maybe God wasn’t intimate and personal but was much more like chapel was … tedious, judgemental, boring and irrelevant. The irony was that if chapel was all of those things, a real faith is the opposite. But somehow, and without much thought, I had thrown the beautiful out with the boring. If church stinks, then faith must do, too. The precious, natural, instinctive faith I had known when I was younger was tossed out with this newly found delusion that because I was growing up, it was time to ‘believe’ like a grown-up. I mean, what does a child know about faith? It took a low point at school, when my godfather, Stephen, died, to shake me into searching a bit harder to re-find this faith I had once known. Life is like that. Sometimes it takes a jolt to make us sit and remember who and what we are really about. Stephen had been my father’s best friend in the world. And he was like a second father to me. He came on all our family holidays, and spent almost every weekend down with us in the Isle of Wight in the summer, sailing with Dad and me. He died very suddenly and without warning, of a heart attack in Johannesburg. I was devastated. I remember sitting up a tree one night at school on my own, and praying the simplest, most heartfelt prayer of my life. ‘Please, God, comfort me.’ Blow me down … He did. My journey ever since has been trying to make sure I don’t let life or vicars or church over-complicate that simple faith I had found. And the more of the Christian faith I discover, the more I realize that, at heart, it is simple. (What a relief it has been in later life to find that there are some great church communities out there, with honest, loving friendships that help me with all of this stuff.) To me, my Christian faith is all about being held, comforted, forgiven, strengthened and loved – yet somehow that message gets lost on most of us, and we tend only to remember the religious nutters or the God of endless school assemblies. This is no one’s fault, it is just life. Our job is to stay open and gentle, so we can hear the knocking on the door of our heart when it comes. The irony is that I never meet anyone who doesn’t want to be loved or held or forgiven. Yet I meet a lot of folk who hate religion. And I so sympathize. But so did Jesus. In fact, He didn’t just sympathize, He went much further. It seems more like this Jesus came to destroy religion and to bring life. This really is the heart of what I found as a young teenager: Christ comes to make us free, to bring us life in all its fullness. He is there to forgive us where we have messed up (and who hasn’t), and to be the backbone in our being. Faith in Christ has been the great empowering presence in my life, helping me walk strong when so often I feel so weak. It is no wonder I felt I had stumbled on something remarkable that night up that tree. I had found a calling for my life.

It wasn’t until the final years of her life that Neville and Patsie became almost reunited. Neville now lived a few hundred yards from the house that I grew up in as a teenager on the Isle of Wight, and Patsie in her old age would spend long summers living with us there as well. The two of them would take walks together and sit on the bench overlooking the sea. But Neville always struggled to let her in close again, despite her warmth and tenderness to him. Neville had held fifty years of pain after losing her, and such pain is hard to ignore. As a young man I would often watch her slip her fingers into his giant hand, and it was beautiful to see. I learned two very strong lessons from them: the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere, and true love is worth fighting for.

But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad . . . Three things these men have in common: faith in themselves, great determination and endurance. *

they are never sufficiently tested. This means I’ve got two good pieces of news for you. The first is that whenever you do something beyond your ‘comfort zone’ and realize you are still standing, the more you will believe that the impossible is actually possible. And on the road to success, belief is everything. And the second piece of news is that we all have much further to push ourselves than we might initially imagine. Inside us all, just waiting to be tested, is a better, bolder, braver version of who we think we are.

Samuel Smiles ends his book with the following moving story of the “gentleman” general: The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences of life…we may cite the anecdote of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercromby, of whom it is related, that, when mortally wounded in the battle of Aboukir, and, to ease his pain, a soldier’s blanket was placed under his head, from which he experienced considerable relief. He asked what it was. “It’s only a soldier’s blanket,” was the reply. “Whose blanket is it?” said he, half lifting himself up. “Only one of the men’s.” “I wish to know the name of the man whose blanket this is.” “It is Duncan Roy’s, of the 42nd, Sir Ralph.” “Then see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night.” Even to ease his dying agony the general would not deprive the private soldier of his blanket for one night. As Samuel wrote: “True courage and gentleness go hand in hand.” It was in this family, belief system, and heritage that Walter, my great-grandfather, grew up and dared to dream.

In every potential sponsor’s eyes, I was a nobody. And soon I had notched up more rejection letters than is healthy for any one man to receive. I tried to think of an entrepreneur and adventurer that I admired, and I kept coming back to Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin. I wrote to him once, then I wrote once more. In all, I sent twenty-three letters. No response. Right, I thought, I’ll find out where he lives and take my proposal there myself. So I did precisely that, and at 8:00 P.M. one cold evening, I rang his very large doorbell. A voice answered the intercom, and I mumbled my pitch into the speakerphone. A housekeeper’s voice told me to leave the proposal--and get lost. It’s not clear quite what happened next: I assume that whoever had answered the intercom meant just to switch it off, but instead they pressed the switch that opened the front door. The buzzing sound seemed to last forever--but it was probably only a second or two. In that time I didn’t have time to think, I just reacted…and instinctively nudged the door open. Suddenly I found myself standing in the middle of Sir Richard Branson’s substantial, marble-floored entrance hall. “Uh, hello!” I hollered into the empty hall. “Sorry, but you seem to have buzzed the door open,” I apologized to the emptiness. The next thing I knew, the housekeeper came flying down the stairs, shouting at me to leave. I duly dropped the proposal and scarpered. The next day, I sent around some flowers, apologizing for the intrusion and asking the great man to take a look at my proposal. I added that I was sure, in his own early days, he would probably have done the same thing. I never got a reply to that one, either.

Most people never reach their limit because they are never sufficiently tested. This means I’ve got two good pieces of news for you. The first is that whenever you do something beyond your ‘comfort zone’ and realize you are still standing, the more you will believe that the impossible is actually possible. And on the road to success, belief is everything. And the second piece of news is that we all have much further to push ourselves than we might initially imagine. Inside us all, just waiting to be tested, is a better, bolder, braver version of who we think we are. All you have to

Walter came from a strong line of self-motivated, determined folk: not grand, not high-society, but no-nonsense, family-minded, go-getters. His grandfather had been Samuel Smiles, who, in 1859, authored the original motivational book, titled Self-Help. It was a landmark work, and an instant bestseller, even outselling Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species when it was first launched. Samuel’s book Self-Help also made plain the mantra that hard work and perseverance were the keys to personal progress. At a time in Victorian society where, as an Englishman, the world was your oyster if you had the get-up-and-go to make things happen, his book Self-Help struck a chord. It became the ultimate Victorian how-to guide, empowering the everyday person to reach for the sky. And at its heart it said that nobility is not a birthright but is defined by our actions. It laid bare the simple but unspoken secrets for living a meaningful, fulfilling life, and it defined a gentleman in terms of character not blood type. Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man with a rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To borrow St. Paul’s words, the former is as “having nothing, yet possessing all things,” while the other, though possessing all things, has nothing. Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is still rich. These were revolutionary words to Victorian, aristocratic, class-ridden England. To drive the point home (and no doubt prick a few hereditary aristocratic egos along the way), Samuel made the point again that being a gentleman is something that has to be earned: “There is no free pass to greatness.

Through all these times and formative young years, Lara, my sister, was a rock to me. My mother had suffered three miscarriages after having Lara, and eight years on she was convinced that she wasn’t going to be able to have more children. But Mum got pregnant, and she tells me she spent nine months in bed to make sure she didn’t miscarry. It worked. Mum saved me. The end result, though, was that she was probably pleased to get me out, and that Lara finally got herself a precious baby brother; or in effect, her own baby. So Lara ended up doing everything for me, and I adored her for it. While Mum was a busy working mother, helping my father in his constituency duties and beyond, Lara became my surrogate mum. She fed me almost every supper I ate--from when I was a baby up to about five years old. She changed my nappies, she taught me to speak, then to walk (which, with so much attention from her, of course happened ridiculously early). She taught me how to get dressed and to brush my teeth. In essence, she got me to do all the things that either she had been too scared to do herself or that just simply intrigued her, such as eating raw bacon or riding a tricycle down a steep hill with no brakes. I was the best rag doll of a baby brother that she could have ever dreamt of.

5. Be the Most Enthusiastic Person You Know My mum and dad gave me a few bits of great advice as a young boy (along with a fair amount of scolding for being an idiot, but that’s another story!), but there is one thing my late father told me that has affected my outlook and approach to life more than almost anything else, and it was this: If you can be the most enthusiastic person you know, then you won’t go far wrong. It was always said to me with a wry smile, as if I was being told something of infinite power. And he was right. Enthusiasm so often makes the critical difference: it sustains you when times are tough, it encourages those around you, it is totally infectious and it rapidly becomes a habit! In turn, that enthusiasm adds the extra 5 per cent sparkle to everything we do - and life is so often won or lost in that little extra bit that carries us home over the finish line.

Mr. Sturgess ran the classes with iron, ex-military discipline. We each had spots on the floor, denoting where we should stand rigidly to attention, awaiting our next task. And he pushed us hard. It felt like Mr. Sturgess had forgotten that we were only age six--but as kids, we loved it. It made us feel special. We would line up in rows beneath a metal bar, some seven feet off the ground, then one by one we would say: “Up, please, Mr. Sturgess,” and he would lift us up and leave us hanging, as he continued down the line. The rules were simple: you were not allowed to ask permission to drop off until the whole row was up and hanging, like dead pheasants in a game larder. And even then you had to request: “Down, please, Mr. Sturgess.” If you buckled and dropped off prematurely, you were sent back in shame to your spot. I found I loved these sessions and took great pride in determining to be the last man hanging. Mum would say that she couldn’t bear to watch as my little skinny body hung there, my face purple and contorted in blind determination to stick it out until the bitter end. One by one the other boys would drop off the bar, and I would be left hanging there, battling to endure until the point where even Mr. Sturgess would decide it was time to call it. I would then scuttle back to my mark, grinning from ear to ear. “Down, please, Mr. Sturgess,” became a family phrase for us, as an example of hard physical exercise, strict discipline, and foolhardy determination. All of which would serve me well in later military days. So my training was pretty well rounded. Climbing. Hanging. Escaping. I loved them all. Mum, still to this day, says that growing up I seemed destined to be a mix of Robin Hood, Harry Houdini, John the Baptist, and an assassin. I took it as a great compliment.

Almost a hundred years earlier, to the day, Samuel Smiles had written the final pages of his book Self-Help. It included this moving tale of heroism as an example for the Victorian Englishman to follow. For the fate of my great-grandfather, Walter, it was poignant in the extreme. The vessel was steaming along the African coast with 472 men and 166 women and children on board. The men consisted principally of recruits who had been only a short time in the service. At two o’clock in the morning, while all were asleep below, the ship struck with violence upon a hidden rock, which penetrated her bottom; and it was at once felt that she would go down. The roll of the drums called the soldiers to arms on the upper deck, and the men mustered as if on parade. The word was passed to “save the women and children”; and the helpless creatures were brought from below, mostly undressed, and handed silently into the boats. When they had all left the ship’s side, the commander of the vessel thoughtlessly called out, “All those that can swim, jump overboard and make for the boats.” But Captain Wright, of the 91st Highlanders, said, “No! If you do that, the boats with the women will be swamped.” So the brave men stood motionless. Not a heart quailed; no one flinched from his duty. “There was not a murmur, nor a cry among them,” said Captain Wright, a survivor, “until the vessel made her final plunge.” Down went the ship, and down went the heroic band, firing a volley shot of joy as they sank beneath the waves. Glory and honor to the gentle and the brave! The examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, they are immortal. As a young man, Walter undoubtedly would have read and known those words from his grandfather’s book. Poignant in the extreme. Indeed, the examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, they are immortal.

In a matter of sixty short minutes, that thing could whisk Neil away to civilization, I thought. Hmm. My goodness, that was a beautiful prospect. Somehow I had to get on that chopper with him. I packed in thirty seconds flat, everything from the past three months. I taped a white cross onto my sleeve, and raced out to where Neil was sat waiting. One chance. What the heck. Neil shook his head at me, smiling. “God, you push it, Bear, don’t you?” he shouted over the noise of the rotors. “You’re going to need a decent medic on the flight,” I replied, with a smile. “And I’m your man.” (There was at least some element of truth in this: I was a medic and I was his buddy--and yes, he did need help. But essentially I was trying to pull a bit of a fast one.) The pilot shouted that two people would be too heavy. “I have to accompany him at all times,” I shouted back over the engine noise. “His feet might fall off at any moment,” I added quietly. The pilot looked back at me, then at the white cross on my sleeve. He agreed to drop Neil somewhere down at a lower altitude, and then come back for me. “Perfect. Go. I’ll be here.” I shook his hand firmly. Let’s just get this done before anyone thinks too much about it, I mumbled to myself. And with that the pilot took off and disappeared from view. Mick and Henry were laughing. “If you pull this one off, Bear, I will eat my socks. You just love to push it, don’t you?” Mick said, smiling. “Yep, good try, but you aren’t going to see him again, I guarantee you,” Henry added. Thanks to the pilot’s big balls, he was wrong. The heli returned empty, I leapt aboard, and with the rotors whirring at full power to get some grip in the thin air, the bird slowly lifted into the air. The stall warning light kept buzzing away as we fought against gravity, but then the nose dipped and soon we were skimming over the rocks, away from base camp and down the glacier. I was out of there--and Mick was busy taking his socks off.

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, in full kit, and my patched-up spine could crumple. He didn’t even mention the long route marches carrying huge weights on our backs. Every SF soldier knows that a weak back is not a good opener for life in an SAS squadron. It is also a cliché just how many SAS soldiers’ backs and knees are plated and pinned together, after years of marches and jumps. Deep down I knew the odds weren’t looking great for me in the squadron, and that was a very hard pill to swallow. But it was a decision that, sooner or later, I would have to face up to. The doctors could give me their strong recommendations, but ultimately I had to make the call. A familiar story. Life is all about our decisions. And big decisions can often be hard to make. So I thought I would buy myself some time before I made it. In the meantime, at the squadron, I took on the role of teaching survival to other units. I also helped the intelligence guys while my old team were out on the ground training. But it was agony for me. Not physically, but mentally: watching the guys go out, fired up, tight, together, doing the job and getting back excited and exhausted. That was what I should have been doing. I hated sitting in an ops room making tea for intelligence officers. I tried to embrace it, but deep down I knew this was not what I had signed up for. I had spent an amazing few years with the SAS, I had trained with the best, and been trained by the best, but if I couldn’t do the job fully, I didn’t want to do it at all. The regiment is like that. To keep its edge, it has to keep focused on where it is strongest. Unable to parachute and carry the huge weights for long distances, I was dead weight. That hurt. That is not how I had vowed to live my life, after my accident. I had vowed to be bold and follow my dreams, wherever that road should lead. So I went to see the colonel of the regiment and told him my decision. He understood, and true to his word, he assured me that the SAS family would always be there when I needed it. My squadron gave me a great piss-up, and a little bronze statue of service. (It sits on my mantelpiece, and my boys play soldiers with it nowadays.) And I packed my kit and left 21 SAS forever. I fully admit to getting very drunk that night.

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 struggle. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi. You name them. The list is huge but the common qualities are small. Resourcefulness and a determination to survive the ‘lemons’ are invariably at the heart of these successes. The secret to a life well lived is taking the resources around us - the people we know, the possessions we own, the skills we’ve acquired - and combining them in such a way that they add up to something greater than their constituent parts. That’s the lemonade bit. So often in the wild I have felt totally beaten, but I have kept going, kept trying to think smart, be resourceful, positive, energetic - despite the fatigue - and it has always made a critical difference. We can’t always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny. A life in the wild has taught me not to fear the unexpected, but to embrace it. In fact, I have learnt that those curve balls from left-field are very often the making of us.

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. Hmm, I thought, as I skidded to a halt. I took a deep breath and then confidently walked into their ultraclean, ultrasmart reception, and asked to be put through to the CEO’s office, saying it was both urgent and confidential. Once I had the CEO’s secretary on the line, I pleaded with her to help me get just two minutes of her boss’s time. Eventually after three attempts, due to a combination of pity and intrigue, she agreed to ask the CEO to see me for “literally two minutes.” Bingo. I was escorted into a lift and then ushered into the calm of the CEO’s top-floor office. I was very nervous. The two head guys, Paul Morrell and Alastair Collins, came in, looking suspiciously at this scruffy youngster holding a pamphlet. (They later described it as one of the worst-laid-out proposals they had ever seen.) But they both had the grace to listen. By some miracle, they caught the dream and my enthusiasm, and for the sake of £10,000 (which to me was the world, but to them was a marketing punt), they agreed to back my attempt to put the DLE flag on top of the world. I promised an awesome photograph for their boardroom. We stood up, shook hands, and we have remained great friends ever since. I love deals like that.

I remember, one week, we all started playing strip poker. This is more like it, I thought. It wasn’t really even poker, but was more like: pick an ace and lose an item of clothing. I tried one night to rig the cards so that I could end up naked with Stephie, this girl I really fancied. I carefully counted out the cards and the aces, and rather unsubtly made sure I was sitting next to her, when we started playing. Annoyingly, she then swapped places when someone else came to join us and I ended naked next to Mick, embarrassed and self-conscious. (That will teach me to cheat.) Most of the time my attempts to get a girl fell pretty flat. In fact, whenever I really liked a girl I would always end up losing her to someone else, mainly because I found it so hard to make my feelings known and to pluck up the courage just to ask her out. I remember a friend coming down to the island to stay at the end of one summer, and within twenty-four hours he was in bed with the girl I had been chasing all holidays! I couldn’t believe it. What the hell did he have that I didn’t? I noticed that he wore these brown suede cowboy boots, so I went out and bought a secondhand pair, but I just looked stupid in them. To make matters worse, this friend then went on to describe to me in great detail what they had got up to in that bed. Aarrgh. It kind of summed up my attempts at womanizing.

50. Keep Grounded When was the last time you ventured into the great outdoors? I mean really ventured, where you set out into the unknown with just a map and compass, backpack and sleeping bag - the sort of venturing that makes your heart beat faster. 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 chance to reconnect with both ourselves and planet Earth. At night in the outdoors is also a reminder that the best things in life aren’t things. Money can’t buy the quiet calm that comes from sitting beside a mountain stream as it ‘tinkles’ through the rock and heather. Money can’t buy the inspiration that you feel sat on a clifftop above the pounding of the ocean surf as it hits the rocks far below. You can’t bottle feelings like that. And sitting around a campfire under a sky of stars is the most ancient and wonderful of human activities. It reminds us of our place in the world, and in history - and it’s hard not to be humbled. These sorts of simple activities cost so little yet they give us precious time to be ‘still- - time to reconnect, to clear our heads of the dross, to remind ourselves of our dreams and to see things in the perspective they often require. We all need that regularly in our lives - more than you might imagine.

11. There Is No Education Like Adversity In 1941, as Britain was in the darkest days of World War Two, Churchill told a generation of young people that ‘these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.’ But why was Churchill telling them that those bleak, uncertain, life-threatening and freedom-challenging days were also the best days of their lives? He knew that it’s when times are tough, when the conditions are at their worst, that we learn what we are truly capable of. There are few greater feelings than finding out you can achieve more, and endure more, than you had previously imagined, and it’s only when we are tested that we realize just how brightly we can shine. It’s a cliché, but it’s true: diamonds are formed under pressure. And without the pressure, they simply remain lumps of coal. The greatest trick in life is to learn to see adversity as your friend, your teacher and your guide. Storms come to make us stronger. No one ever achieves their dream without first stumbling over a few obstacles along the way. Experience teaches you to understand that those obstacles are actually a really good indication that you are on the right road. Trust me: if you find a road without any obstacles, I can promise you it doesn’t lead anywhere worthwhile. So, embrace the adversity, embrace the obstacles, and get ready for success. Today is the start of the greatest days of your life…

19. Don’t Assume It’s good training for the rest of your life, too. If something is important, always check - never assume. You might look a little foolish if you always ask the basic questions, but better a fool than an ass! It’s usually ego that stops us from asking the ‘silly’ questions, but I know a lot of ‘smart’ people on expeditions who have tripped over their egos and fallen flat on their faces. When it comes to navigating on an expedition, this ability to be clear and un-‘assuming’ is especially important. All of us have, at times, when navigating from A to B, had a few moments of doubt. ‘Are we here or here?’ we ask. The stubborn press on, ‘hoping’, ‘assuming’ all will be clearer in a mile or two. It rarely works like that. Too many times, if you don’t act fast, a small error in judgement can become a big error with desperate consequences - and that applies to navigating through life as well as through mountains. A good rule with navigating is that if there is doubt, then stop, reassess, ask others for help if you need to. Trust me, a stitch in time saves nine. We would all prefer to be asked than for the leader to get us lost. Besides, I have also learnt that people generally like to help and love to be asked for their advice. So put your ego aside and let people help you. Anyone who succeeds is really standing on many other people’s shoulders - the shoulders of those who have helped them along the way. Assume nothing, be humble, and don’t be afraid to ask for that little bit of help when you need it.

55. The Risk: Reward Ratio In mountaineering, climbers become very familiar with the ‘risk: reward ratio’. There are always crunch times on a mountain when you have to weigh up the odds for success against the risks of cold, bad weather or avalanche. But in essence the choice is simple - you cannot reach the big summits if you do not accept the big risks. If you risk nothing, you gain nothing. The great climbers know that great summits don’t come easy - they require huge, concerted, continuous effort. But mountains reward real effort. So does life and business. Everything that is worthwhile requires risk and effort. If it was easy, then everyone would succeed. Having a big goal is the easy bit. The part that separates the many from the few is how willing you are to go through the pain. How able you are to hold on and to keep going when it is tough? The French Foreign Legion, with whom I once did simulated basic training in the deserts of North Africa, describe what it takes to earn the coveted cap, the képi blanc cap: ‘A thousand barrels of sweat.’ That is a lot of sweat! Trust me. But ask any Legionnaire if it was worth it and I can tell you their answer. Every time. Because the pain and the discomfort, the blisters and the aching muscles, don’t last for ever. But the pride in an achievement reached or dream attained will be with you for the rest of your days. The greater the effort, the better the reward. So learn to embrace hard work and great effort and risk. Without them, there can be no meaningful achievement.

45. No Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy No matter how well you have prepared for something in advance - whether it’s an expedition, an exam, a marriage or a race - when you find yourself in the thick of the action, however good your plan, things happen. Adventure is unpredictable, and you had better learn to be flexible and to swing with the punches, or you will get beaten - it’s as simple as that. Mike Tyson famously once said: ‘Everyone has a plan…until they get punched in the face!’ If the adventure is an exciting one, you can bet your bottom dollar you will get hit by the occasional punch in the face. So prepare for the unexpected, and remember that forewarned is forearmed. Knowing that things will and do go wrong in the heat of battle is actually half the battle. It means that when it happens you are ready for it - you can react fast, stay nimble and you can survive the barrage. We used to say in the military that when things took a turn for the worse you have to ‘improvise, adapt and overcome.’ IAO. It is a good one to remember. It gives us a road map to deal with the unexpected. Being caught out, being caught off guard often makes people freeze - it is a human reaction to shock. But freezing can cost you the edge. So learn to anticipate the unexpected, and when it happens, smile to yourself and treat it as a solid marker that you are doing something right on your road to success. If nothing ever goes wrong then you haven’t been ambitious enough! I also like to say that the real adventure begins in earnest when things go a little bit wrong. It is only then that you get to pit yourself against the worst the wild has to throw at you. When all is going to plan, with all the kit working perfectly and the weather benign, then it isn’t really a test of character. It is easy to be the hero when all is going your way. But when it all goes wrong and life feels like a battle, it is then that we can see what sort of people we have around us. It is only through the hardships that our character becomes forged. Without struggle there can be no growth - physically or emotionally. So embrace the unexpected, feed off it, train yourself to be a master of the curve ball, and you will have built yourself another solid ‘character’ rung on the ladder to success.

I woke in bed, sweating and breathing heavily. It was the third time I’d had this nightmare: reliving that horrible feeling of falling, out of control, toward the ground. I was now on month two of just lying there prone, supposedly recovering. But I wasn’t getting any better. In fact, if anything, my back felt worse. I couldn’t move and was getting angrier and angrier inside. Angry at myself; angry at everything. I was angry because I was shit-scared. My plans, my dreams for the future hung in shreds. Nothing was certain any more. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay with the SAS. I didn’t even know if I’d recover at all. Lying unable to move, sweating with frustration, my way of escaping was in my mind. I still had so much that I dreamt of doing. I looked around my bedroom, and the old picture I had of Mount Everest seemed to peer down. Dad’s and my crazy dream. It had become what so many dreams become--just that--nothing more, nothing less. Covered in dust. Never a reality. And Everest felt further beyond the realms of possibility than ever. Weeks later, and still in my brace, I struggled over to the picture and took it down. People often say to me that I must have been so positive to recover from a broken back, but that would be a lie. It was the darkest, most horrible time I can remember. I had lost my sparkle and spirit, and that is so much of who I am. And once you lost that spirit, it is hard to recover. And once you lose that spirit, it is hard to recover. I didn’t even know whether I would be strong enough to walk again--let alone climb or soldier again. And as to the big question of the rest of my life? That was looking messy from where I was. Instead, all my bottomless, young confidence was gone. I had no idea how much I was going to be able to do physically--and that was so hard. So much of my identity was in the physical. Now I just felt exposed and vulnerable. Not being able to bend down to tie your shoelaces or twist to clean your backside without acute and severe pain leaves you feeling hopeless. In the SAS I had both purpose and comrades. Alone in my room at home, I felt like I had neither. That can be the hardest battle we ever fight. It is more commonly called despair. That recovery was going to be just as big a mountain to climb as the physical one. What I didn’t realize was that it would be a mountain, the mountain, that would be at the heart of my recovery. Everest: the biggest, baddest mountain in the world.

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 spotted a gag that was begging to be played out on the very serious-looking Swiss-German family in the room next door to us. Each morning their whole family would come downstairs, the mother dressed head to toe in furs, the father in a tight-fitting ski suit and white neck scarf, and their slightly overweight, rather snooty-looking thirteen-year-old son behind, often pulling faces at me. The hotel had the customary practice of having a breakfast form that you could hang on your door handle the night before if you wanted to eat in your room. Dad thought it would be fun to fill out our form, order 35 boiled eggs, 65 German sausages, and 17 kippers, then hang it on the Swiss-German family’s door. It was too good a gag to pass up. We didn’t tell Mum, who would have gone mad, but instead filled out the form with great hilarity, and sneaked out last thing before bed and hung it on their door handle. At 7:00 A.M. we heard the father angrily sending the order back. So we repeated the gag the next day. And the next. Each morning the father got more and more irate, until eventually Mum got wind of what we had been doing and made me go around to apologize. (I don’t know why I had to do the apologizing when the whole thing had been Dad’s idea, but I guess Mum thought I would be less likely to get in trouble, being so small.) Anyway, I sensed it was a bad idea to go and own up, and sure enough it was. From that moment onward, despite my apology, I was a marked man as far as their son was concerned. It all came to a head when I was walking down the corridor on the last evening, after a day’s skiing, and I was just wearing my ski thermal leggings and a T-shirt. The spotty, overweight teenager came out of his room and saw me walking past him in what were effectively ladies’ tights. He pointed at me, called me a sissy, started to laugh sarcastically, and put his hands on his hips in a very camp fashion. Despite the age and size gap between us, I leapt on him, knocked him to the ground, and hit him as hard as I could. His father heard the commotion and raced out of his room to find his son with a bloody nose and crying hysterically (and overdramatically). That really was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I was hauled to my parents’ room by the boy’s father and made to explain my behavior to Mum and Dad. Dad was hiding a wry grin, but Mum was truly horrified, and I was grounded. So ended another cracking family holiday!