Habits and Hustle - Episode 223: Dean Stott: How to Be Relentless with a Tier One Special Forces Soldier

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Dean Stott is a Tier One Special Forces Soldier, Security Consultant, and World-Record Breaker. After dedicating 16 years of his life to the British military, Stott suffered an injury while parachuting that tragically cut his service short. He and Jen discuss what led to his time with the Special Forces, how they trained him in "Kill Rooms", his time undercover, and more recently his work getting embassies and civilians to safety in crisis zones, his friendship with Prince Harry, and more. This man has lived an incredible, storied life and in this over 2 hour long episode they get into it all. Not to mention he also broke a cycling World Record on a whim. Seriously, this guy is hardcore! If you've ever wondered what's going on in the minds of these intense Special Forces soldiers, or maybe just interested in the unbelievable stories someone like that has to offer, you absolutely must catch this episode! Thank you to our sponsor! Try Notion AI for FREE by heading over to Notion.com/habits Find more from Jennifer: Website: Jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today on the podcast, we have Dean Stott, who is the real life James Bond. He is a former British Special Forces soldier. He is a two time world record setting cyclist. He's an adventurer, philanthropist, a global speaker, and the author of the book Relentless, where he shares extraordinary inspirational stories of his life. And his life is nothing if not extraordinary. This guy's mental fortitude and mental toughness is bar none. He makes Dave Goggins look like a boy scout. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. We talk all about his experiences, as a Tier 1 Special Forces agent, where he was in the Special Boat Service, which is the hardest

of all military to get into. We talk about his friendship with Prince Harry and so many other things in his life that I think you guys are going to find so interesting. So have a listen. Let me know your thoughts. Leave me a comment. Leave me a review and enjoy. Today on the podcast we have Dean Stott. He wrote a book called Relentless and he is the guy. He actually makes, and I said this earlier, before we even started, he makes Dave Goggins look like a girl scout. Literally, I'm not even joking. He is what he's, all your stuff, like he's a British, you're like a, you are like a James Bond, like you're a British,

like a British, am I, was it, am I seven, am I six? What do you call it? Am I six is international, am I five is homeland. So am I six is equivalent to the CIO, yes. Okay, so someone like you, I think pretend that I'm a complete moron when it comes to this stuff, even though I'm obsessed with people like you,

there's the green braze, there's the marines, there's a Mars score, there's, Marsok, yeah. Marsok, okay, sorry. There's obviously the Delta Force, Special Forces. So where are you in the hierarchy? Are you at the top, the tippy top, the tier one? Where are you in that whole thing?

So I was in the Special Boat Service, which is tier one, Special Forces. So in the UK, we have the special boat service and the special air service. Right. The SPS and the S. And the S. A.S. Yeah. And so unlike here in the US, where you have Delta Force and SEAL Team 6, which is our counterparts, which are tier one. And they're two separate selection courses, two selection processes. Wait, so Delta in the US, we have Delta four, she said NCL Team six, and they're different.

They're different, so Navy SEALs are classed as Tier two, but the Tier one is SEAL Team six, so those SEALs then have to do an additional selection process to get into SEAL Team six, and the big difference there is they then do hostage rescues and you have Delta Force, which also is Tier 1. So there was a Colonel back in 1977 who came over and spent two years with the British SAS. And you know, he saw the model and came back in 1977 and set up Delta Force. So the UK Special Forces model is where majority of the Special Forces

around the world are sort of stemmed from. So you guys more badass than the ones in the US being the Delta Force and the SEAL Team 6? I'm not even more badass. We have more history. You know, we have a lot of history. When you sort of talk about history, like America was formed in the 1700s. No, our Royal Marines was formed in 1664. And there was a reason that we came over. Right, right, right. So I think because we've had more history, we've had more conflicts, we've learned what worked, what hasn't worked,

and developed our own sort of TTPs, SOPs, Americans have sort of mirrored that as well. And obviously with the more recent conflicts, with the biggest allies to the US is the UK. The first phone call that George Bush got after 9-11 was St. Tony Blair. And it was like, we're behind you. I remember that, right?

And we've always been there. And so that cross pollination, as we call it, Shannon, we just learn from each other. So I think, you know, SEAL Team 6, Delta Force, SSS, and SPS, they're now on par. But you're still, that's still, you said that tier two, you're tier one.

So you're still above, you're in like hierarchy, you're still above. Like, as far as roles and responsibilities are slightly... Don't be humble and polite. I need to know, we need to know the facts. So I'm gonna say, you're just being nice. So you are, if you're considered tier one and that's tier two, you are technically higher than them.

That's it. Everyone likes to use the word special forces. It gets thrown out there quite a lot. Yeah, everyone's in the special forces. Like what's Dave Goggins? What level is he? So he was an AVC also. He was tier two. I think I'm really ready, but I did know that he went for Delta Force selection and

didn't pass. So he didn't pass the tier one selection process. Right. I heard that too. Yeah. So he was he was classed as tier two. And the big differentiator between tier two and tier one is I always see like the tier two guys, the selection process, you're Tier 1 is, I always see the Tier 2 guys, the

selection process, you're getting shouted at. The instructors are screaming and bawling at you and they're giving you whether it's motivation or not. Tier 1 is slightly different. No one shall see you. You have to be self-motivated. You're more of a thinking soldier. No one will shout at you on selection.

Really? They don't need to shout. It's hard enough as it is. They tell you what you need to do. And you also need to be able to retain information as well. Now, they'll tell you once, they'll tell you twice. If they tell you the third time and you're not the right person for it. So everyone has this perception that,

you know, tier one special force is a six foot eight, you know, massive and brief fire. You know, they don't. They're actually very nimble, very agile, but they're thinking soldiers. They can retain information and they don't need someone screaming in a shout-out and to motivate them. They have to be self-motivated

because at majority of times, they may be in situations where they are on their own. And you don't have that person shout-out, yeah. And so you need to find that in a strength to push forward. But the main differentiator in the roles and responsibilities is the hostage rescue. That changes completely. When you're going on to oil rigs, cruise ships, hotels, you need to know exactly what you're doing where the rest of the team are, and it's just that extra level of professionalism. So basically then, oh my god, I've got so many questions. So basically the Navy SEALs, the Tier 2s, do they, so does that mean that's the main indicator of the main differences?

Are they not as self-motivated then as people like you? No, it's not that at all. It's a stepping stone so everyone will probably start. But it's like sharpening the knife just a 0.1% more. That's it as well. You know, some guys will be happy where they are and some guys will be looking for that extra. And there'll be ones that are shining. And you know, for the UK, majority of the guys at Go SES

and SBS come from the parachute regiment and the Royal Marine Commandos, which are our tier two. So tier two is almost like the start point, you know, and then you then start carving yourself out. You know, it's not for everyone. I had so many friends who were more than capable of going to tier one, but they just, they didn't want to take that leap. You know, it just wasn't for them.

And so, I'm so interested. So basically, okay, so you're a tier one special forces officer. You're also a world record breaker. Now you do security. I want you to start from the beginning because there's so much information. And what I'm so, you're so nice.

And it seems like you're so like sweet. And then like you're like this like animal you're like this animal in this other world. The fact that you're able to do some of the things that you did in your book, it does. It feels like it was like a fictional book. I can't even believe that's like real stuff that humans could actually do. Yeah, my wife actually jokes one of the things

you said that you look quite sweet. You know, one thing she's told about the SPS and SES, guys, they're so humble, they're so polite, they don't really swear as much. You know, everyone, and a Hollywood has this perception of special forces guys in a biceps and bullets, I call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you know, covered in tattoos and swear and in cursing, whereas my wife's that, no, you guys are very, very humble, we have humility, You're your gentleman. But we know when we can switch on and switch off. Right. And that's another key trait of tier one special forces. You know, we go out, we do a job when we come back, we can differentiate between being on a mission and being at home. And some people really struggle with that as well. So this SPS, okay, so what's the, what is the, and by the way before I've been asked you about that So then like the green braze and all those are they concerned tier two as well. Yeah, they're tier two special forces

They're all special forces in their own right? Yeah, and and tier two and then they'll have their own We don't have you know, I do a lot with the honor foundation in the US, which is a A special forces transition program when they're leaving the special forces in the US to civilian street and I wasn't aware that there was 59,000 special forces in the US, you know, that's probably the size of the UK army. Wow. Yeah, yeah, so there is a lot. Yeah, and so there are certain special forces units will have their own areas of responsibility. You know, I understand like, and I may be incorrect, seven special forces concentrates on South America. Certain seal team groups will only concentrate

on the mountain in the Arctic and the desert. So because you have a larger force, you can, they specialize in certain areas only, whereas we don't have that. And so we sort of like the jack of all trades, we do a little bit of skiing, we do a little bit of desert stuff. That's so crazy. But you do have such an amazing and large force that you can sort of like, you know, carve them for that area of responsibility, which we don't, we don't have that.

So what is that, what is S, is the SPS that you were in, which is the most coveted hard thing to get into? Why? Like what is it? Like what's the... So as we have the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service, Special Air Service was primarily,

you had to be in the army to go to the Special Air Service. And the Special Boat Service, which is the Navy Special Forces, but ironically, there's only ever been one Navy guy pass over the years. It all come from the Royal Marines. But I was actually in the army. And so for me, I could only go Special Air Service. I spent eight years in free commander brigade, do commander reconnaissance with the Royal Marines and the commandos. And I was also the senior dive instructor for the Army, so I loved being in the water. So I wanted to go SPS. But unlike here in the US where you have SEAL Team 6 have their own selection process and you have Delta Force have theirs, ours is actually joint.

Right. So there is no easier option. So I decided actually I wanted to go to the SPS and the SPS were losing raw marine recruits to the SPS could not everyone likes diving, you know, it's quite an alien environment. Yeah. And so much to discuss to my friends in the SPS, you know, I volunteered to go SPS and they tell you to be the gray man on selection, Try and blend in, don't stand out for the right or wrong reasons. And eventually you will be exposed as the numbers dwindle. You know, we started with 200 and eight pass, you know, six months later. And we only have two courses a year.

So you can imagine, you know, we don't have many people passing. I was the gray man for two minutes. As soon as I turned up on day one, the instructor shouted my name out and they're like, why are you going SBS? And I was like, I like diving. And I was like, that's not a good enough excuse.

But I believed in my own abilities. Yes, I was above the radar. But I went on, a friend of mine and became one of the first Army guys to go SBS. And now 15% of the SBS come from the Army. So we do a lot together to get the SS and SBS because we don't have big numbers. We have to combine.

What a key. Can you walk? Walk us through the actual training or the process to become an SBS person? Yeah. So we have a six-month selection process. training or the process to become an SPS person? Yeah, so we have a six-month selection process. The first month is called the Hills. And basically, you're wearing a backpack

or a bergen as we call them. And you start on day one, and they weigh about 50, 55 pounds. And you get on a truck, and then the instructor will give you a grid, and you just have to run to that grid up and over the mountains, whatever is in between you and that grid point. And you just keep doing this all day, so you do about 25, 30 kilometres a day. But you have to be moving at four kilometres out, which doesn't sound that fast. But that's four kilometres out when you're looking at a map

from above. So if there's a mountain in the the way you've got to get through that mountain. And so a lot of people who are quite poor navigational will probably just go straight. Where's actually you have to look at the, read the land and see the best route. It might be a bit further, but it might be, might be quicker. So this goes on for about four weeks. I mean, on the last week, it's timed. You have to come in on time. But you can imagine the waste that you've got guys who like realize they're not fit enough, guys that are sort of self-analysing, guys that are getting injured. So people are dropping off. And then on the test week, you have to come in on those times. If you don't, you get a red card, you get one warning,

and then second, you're off. So you probably lose a good 50 to 60% of the people on that one. Just on that hill's face. No one even knows your name at this point. But on the last week, you're coming on those times. I think the last day we have to do 30 kilometers, we have four hours rest and we have to do 40 miles in 20 hours and carry in 70 pounds minus all your equipment. But as I said, no one's shouting at you. No one is saying anyone even knows you're name it. You're just known as a number. And then you finish that.

And it's quite a big hurdle passing the hills phase. And then the chief instructor comes in and said, right, selection starts now. I'm like, really? So that's not even the beginning at the start. That's not even the beginning, yeah. That's just like the, what'm like, really? So that's not even the beginning, at that time. That's just like the, what is that even called? Just to, it's just so you can like be in the room or I don't understand.

Yeah, I think you've shown them that you can be self-motivated. You have the fitness. Now we're gonna start carving away. Now that's the great thing about selection. It's not, you could be the fittest person in the will, but if you can't, you know, you can run over the mountains, but if you can't operate that radio, then you're not the right person for you.

So for them, that's just a box ticking, right? They have the physical attributes and they have the endurance. Now we need to start, now is that carbon away. So we have, in our special forces, we don't use the same weapon systems as the rest of the British military. So we're in our special forces we don't use the same weapon systems as the rest of the British military. So we're having to learn about new weapon systems, new communications

and the way that they, the special forces do tactics is very different from what I call the Green Army. So you're having to learn all these new sort of skill sets. And so sometimes when you're a bit older, now I joined quite late, I was a sergeant, and so I'd probably built up some bad habits. How old were you? I was 28 when I did my selection. And you were a deaf for a long time. Yeah, I did six years in them, and I got injured and fortunate.

I know, so I was late in my career, but I was happy to learn new skills. And then we go to the jungle for six weeks. You know, the jungle of all the environments is the hardest environment to operate in. You can't even see 10 meters in front of you. So those that have managed to get through the hills phase by following people navigation wise

will get caught out in the jungle. So how long was it you said, I'm sorry, you said a week was the first phase, the first? So four weeks for the hills. Oh, sorry, four weeks for the hills. For for the hills then we have two weeks of learning the weapons and doing what we call section attacks and communication but everything is Is live firing we don't fire blanks? Everything is live ammunition from from that day onwards.

Dop it because yeah because when you're in the jungle you you can only you can hardly see The guy to your left and right so it's understanding you have to be safe with your weapon, you have to be able to communicate. I always think it's a great thing to do. When you're firing blanks, people realize that actually no one's going to get hurt. When you're firing live ammunition, your situation awareness is heightened. It has to be. And so they're looking for safety things. They're looking for things to pick you up on.

And everyone thinks being special forces, you need to be able to do triple backwards, summersault, and fro ninja stars. And there's nothing like that. It's actually basic soldiering done well. And that's it. They're not asking for anything else of it of them being a basic soldier because people nowadays like to take shortcuts.

Yeah. And so actually doing the basics is actually hard. And so that's all there is. That's anything in life, by the way. Yeah. Not only in that, like everyone's always looking for shortcuts and everything. And everything.

And it's always the basics that like get you to the, you know, finish line. And true, and the instructors now will also start tagging you as individuals and they'll start playing mind games. They'll start telling you that you're not good enough to be in their unit. Save your time. Let's save the next few months of pain. Just go home, your family will be missing you.

And that does eat away at some of the guys. Some guys generally believe that. But I always remember the chief instructor saying, look, let us fail you, don't fail yourself. You know, we will tell you when to go, don't you make that decision. But every day the helicopter would come in, and you're in the schoolhouse in instructor said, anyone want to go and the guys would just be leaving. And I'm like, they were good operators. But it's one of the ones for me. I did see guys leave, but that gave me more of a confidence boost. I thought, well, I'm doing something right, because I didn't want to be leaving. But underneath the canopy is it in the jungle?

Can be quite claustrophobic for some people, you know. Like what's happening in the jungle for six weeks? Like what are you guys doing besides shooting it? The majority of stuff is the shooting. It's been coming under ambush. What you do? But can't you get shot then? Can't someone shoot it by accident? Yeah, there's been coming under ambush. What do you do? You get shot then. Can't someone shoot by accident?

Yeah, there's been incidents where you guys have ricochets, instructors have been hit, but it's just, you know, that is part and parcel of being special forces. It everything has to be live, live firing. So we do patrol and we do camp attacks. We do ambushes, close target reconnaissance. What is this all? I saw that as an...

I don't even know those words, me. I understand one of the words. You said, like, give me, talk pretend like I said, pretend I'm four years old. OK. What would you say, explain it again? So a camp attack would be if we wanted to hit a camp in the jungle.

A camp attack, I got that one. Yeah, so obviously dominate the camp. An ambush would be A camp attack I got that way. Yeah, so yeah, obviously dominate the camp. And ambush will be, yeah, we've got that. And a close target reconnaissance is when you're trying to get information on a target. So if you were about to, if you were looking to do a camp attack, but you needed to get close, you needed to get some information from that target, which helps you formulate your plan. It means you need to get close to that target. So you work in two-man teams and you're just literally on your belt buckle gathering as much information from there.

And then you go back and then that will help you and your team formulate your plan. So how do you practice that? Did you guys, did your instructor team you guys up in pairs and say go now and are there people who pretend to be these people or how does that? No, they team you guys up in pairs and say go now and are there people who pretend to be these people or how does that? No, they'll team you up in pairs and they will teach you everything from fresh.

So I spent eight years in free commander brigade and brigade reconnaissance force. Right. Well, that was our bread and butter was doing these type of jobs, but the special forces do it slightly different. And so, you know, I had to sort of learn their methods and just what they were doing. Don't take shortcuts. And so they would do that, and they would mix the groups up as well. They would, you know, see how you work in teams. You know, a lot of guys, as I said, come from the parachute regiment and the and the raw marine commandoes and

the commando units. So that's a lot of that focus on their selection process is about being part of a team. So the Navy SEALs, the Green Berets, the Rangers, you touched on, they focus more on teamwork. So they know that you have that sort of capability, but in the special forces, it's not rare for you to be taken from one team to another. And so you need to be able to get on with everyone. So they do that.

They see how you merge and play with others. Yeah, yeah, you get along with others or you've got to be a team player. And there's no room for knife sharpness as the chief instructor said, we don't want these people on the bed in a sharp way. Yeah, yeah. You have to be part of the team. And as we touched on as well, we used to work with other units like sealAL team 6 as well. You know, we would be working with them. So you have to be able to get them out. But also, they also test and it what you like as an individual.

You also have to be there's going to be times you operating on your own. And you need, you don't, you can't be relying on that team. So your temperament, it sounds like is really important. So that means I probably lie people who are at your level, they all have your similar temperament it sounds like is really important. So that means I probably lie people who are at your level, they all have your similar temperament, right? Like that's the truth, right? Because that's what you're very, you are, you have a lot of humility, your soft spoken, your nice, like I guess that's part of it, like you're like the strong silent type basically. Yeah, strong silent type, but you know when to switch on and switch off. So when instructed you

to come at your shower, can I remember one day turning up on the range? And I hadn't been down the range yet. And this instructor came at me screaming and shouting in my face, telling me if I'd pull weapon handling and if I was to do it again, I was on the next helicopter out. But he was waiting to see what my reaction was. I actually hadn't been on the range yet. And so I just said, yes, staff.

You know, agreed with what he said and just went on. And I sort of knew that this was part of the game, but you do see other guys reacting. Right. You know, because they are pride and they're proud of what they, and they believe that they didn't do anything wrong and it's like, it's a game. It's a game.

Okay, so then what's the next, so you pass the jungle and then what happens? So you pass the jungle. So the jungle, when you finish the jungle, the instructors get together and they decide who's passing, who's not. But they don't tell you for another four days yet. And so you're there in Brunei, almost self-analysing the last six weeks. And some guys have been given the nod already by instructors. No, I'm like you're out or you're in. Some guys have been given the nod already by instructors.

No, I'm like, you're out or you're in. Yeah, Sanier, you've done enough and some guys haven't. And so some guys like, did you get the nod? Like, yeah, did you know? And so people start, it's a mind game. It's a mind game. So I did get the nod, but I still wasn't happy until I went back.

And what I like about selection as well is that there are, there are individuals that will clash. There are people who won't get on with each other. And I hear it, you know, the instructor didn't lie to me, so I failed. But what they actually do on selection on the last 10 days, they swap the instructors. So if there is any animosity between the student and the instructor, they've got a separate set of eyes. So they can't use that excuse for it. So yeah, those last four days,

they fly back to Heriford and we spend four days and we play football and walk along the beach and clean our equipment, get ready to go back. But you are self-analysing and one way you've done enough. And then you go back and then you have an interview with a traininging and one way you've done enough. And then you go back, I mean, you have an interview with a training officer and he tells you whether you've passed that phase or not.

And I saw some great guys leave. And then you're like, well, though I had been given the nod, I was still very nervous until they said. And then once you get given a nod, you turn up on Monday, I mean, it's the continuation training, the next three months.

What's the next, yeah, what's the next phase? We do your parachute in, we have to go away, do our parachute, and we do CS. Where is that made? That's how you got injured later. We'll talk about that later. Yeah, yeah, that's how you got injured later. But tell me what that means, parachute. So, like... So, we would do squares, parachutes, so we jump out the back of a tailgate of a C-130. I mean, it's directional, you can fly the parachute to the target area.

So some of the guys may have come from the parachute regiment, but they're used to round parachutes. So you're direct. So look at the street, hold on a minute. So the next phase is parachuting. So you jump out of a plane, essentially. And you're controlling the parachute. So it's different in sky diving. Yeah, but no, it's like sky diving. You have the same sort of canopy, it's a bit bigger. Okay. But you're just steering it, you have more directional control

of where you're going. How high do you do this? So we do the Hado up to 15,000 feet before, I mean, it lads it, go on to do Hado courses when they go to the SS and SPS, go up to like 28,000 feet on oxygen. Have you done that? No, I've not done a halo, I've done a halo, which is the 15,000 feet. So why didn't you do the halo 28,000? Because I wasn't in air troop. So when you go to your unit, there's different troops that you go to, which specialise in certain areas. Got it. Okay. But the, and I ended up in boat troop because of my diet and the dates.

Yeah, yeah. And so we, yeah, we go do a long as that, by the way, the parachute. That's about two or three weeks, depending on the way we went out to Cyprus and did that because the weather's a lot better than the UK. So you just jump out all day, just jump out. All day, get your qualifying jumps. So basically, what they're doing by the end of selection is they're giving you enough skill sets

that you can slot in to your unit. And then all the additional skills, they will start carving out out of you. So they just give you. They're very versatile though, versus like, that's what's interesting it sounds like. The other, like the CLT, the Delta Force, they're very specific.

You guys can do everything. Yeah, we have to do everything. You know, I'm a military ski instructor, I'm a yacht master, I'm a dive master, you know, the stuff that you have to, because we're not relying on other units to support us. We need to be self-sufficient. So guy, you just learn all these new skills.

You know, we're not experts in one but we can we can do all that. We can do all that. Yeah, if called upon. So we we have a question for you. I don't see interrupt, but like I'm just so you remember that movie mission in pot like last mission impossible or is it or maybe didn't it? Yeah. Remember he he he Tom Cruise jumped out of a plane and it was like a big deal because he did his own stunt and it was like really high. How high was that? I don't know, I don't know,

I'll never watch Michigan Bustler. Oh God, but you don't watch TV. I don't really watch much TV. Oh, okay, so he had to wear an oxygen tank. So anything, so it would be an above 15,000 feet. Yeah, it would be fun. Because anything above 15,000 feet, you have to have oxygen.

Okay. So yeah, it could be in anywhere between 15 and maybe 28,000 feet. Right. It was like a big000 feet, you have to have oxygen. So yeah, it could be anywhere between 15 and maybe 28,000 feet. Yeah. It was like a big, okay, sorry, I didn't, I digress, okay, go on. So then you passed a parachute. I mean, the next one, which is pass and fail,

is survival of Asian resistance extraction. So you go on the run for a week with no food, you have to cover 20 to 30 kilometers a day, and you meet agents, and they start giving you the next grid references. But at the end of the week you then get captured by a hunter-force and you get interrogated for 36 hours. So you then go for the whole interrogation process. For 36 hours. For 36 hours. But because you've been on the run for a week, you're depleted of

food and water, you know, you're not fully engaged, you're not fully switched on. And that's what they want, they want fatigue, they want you to be tired, they put you in stress positions, and then you get pulled in, and then you have various interrogation processes from good cop, bad cop, ways of being able to trick you to do things. Like what, that's what I want to know. I want all these details. So for example, one, you know, if I was to your pen, if I was to give you your pen, you know, nowadays because of, you can edit TV, you know, I could give you a bit of paper and I can give you a pen, you know, you hold that pen, you know, they could make out that

you've signed something, you know, but what you do is, if you give me the pen, if they offer you the pen, you hold it like that. So there's no way that they can say that you'd sign that. But you have agreed to what they've asked for, which is to hold the pen. Right. And then, for example, if you give me a bit of paper,

oh my God, so see. You know, they'll tell you to, you know, read from this. So I'm sort of reading from this, but what you need to be careful of is what's actually written on the other end. You know, yeah, we're guilty of dropping bombs on women and children. It's just little things like that.

You've got to be conscious of that. They can't be manipulated or... So what are you doing? You grab the paper then. What do you do? So what I would do is I'd see what was on the back first. And would it... There was something on the back.

What would you do? So I just wouldn't read. I would hold it down. So they can't film it. So they're just looking at ways of tricking you. And then you have the good cut back up where someone comes in and is like, look, I'm trying to help you. You know, you know, don't want the other person coming in shouting. But then you also teach you that any opportunity you see, an opportunity to eat or drink, you know, grab it.

I remember one I came in and it ripped the, um, the sandbag off my head and there was a the whole bowl of jelly beans. So I just grabbed the jelly beans, threw him in my mouth and I, you know, I got hit and they put the, the sandbag over my head, but I did the right thing. You know, I was trying to get food where I could. Um, I mean, another situation was, you know, that they came in and my blindfold was slightly up, so I could see the room, they'd left the room and left us in there, but there was a table with sandwiches on. So the best thing for me to do was actually go grab the sandwiches and start feeding

my friends. You know, they came in and screamed and shouted as, but we did, we did do the right thing, yeah. So, yeah, so there's all the, you know. Oh my God, this is like, Jedi mind tricks. Like, you have to be really smart though. People don't understand, it seems to me it's not, now talking to you, even reading your book, like it's like so, why boggling? But the physicality is seriously,

like very small, it's a big part, but bigger part is like your mental strength, like true mental strength. And that's what they're not testing for the physical. It is the mental, that's the big part, but bigger part is your mental strength, like true mental strength. And that's what they're not testing for the physical. It is the mental, that's the big difference between. And that's why they deplete your food or water because you're at your lowest point and see if you are still able to switch on,

you're still able to understand what's going on or read the situation. Where you, by the way, like, okay, so it was only 36 hours and you know, do they tell you before it's only gonna be 36 hours or do they leave it like open ended? Like, to be able to open it. I mean, you know, open ended,

but you know from your friends have been there before. Of course. Yeah, of course. But for me, I'd done this course before when I was in the Commander Reckys. Right. So, I'd experienced it before and I knew what was coming. But they put you to lay down on the floor and you sort of fall asleep and you think you've

been asleep for like five minutes and it probably actually been asleep for an hour. But the purpose of the exercise is the enemy has changed. Long before Geneva Convention years ago was name, rank, number, blood group, date of birth religion. Long before, no, Geneva Convention years ago was name, rank number, blood group, date of birth religion. And that's all you ever said. Right. Wow. But now the enemy's changed.

You know, they won't, you know, they'll just, maybe just kill you. And so, do they beat you up when this, there's a shower? They do rough you up. I mean, excuse me, the instructor sometimes, you know, you get there,

do they do the question of face? What do they do? Yeah, some guy, the, of course, the course before is a there was a situation in Iraq where two SES guys got captured by the police and got roughed up so they introduced that on our course as well right at the end of the course and you know the course before guys had broken nose, lost their teeth and so could you have to have that that shock a capture although you sort of know like the government spending millions of pounds training me, I'm sure they're not gonna kill me.

But it has to be, you know, start playing tricks on your mind and stuff like that. But the aim of the, is to befriend your captive, is give them enough information to keep you alive. Because the difference between days of old with name rank number, blood group, they are birth religion, we didn't have Google. Right.

Now you have Google. Right. So there's certain things you can talk about, which are on Google anyway, you're not giving away, but there's certain things where I can't disclose that you just don't talk about. And so as you know in, you know, can I? Can't I talk about it? Is that gonna help me, will the captive see me as a human being and not the enemy? And that's what you're doing.

All you're trying to do is delay and delay for the guys to come rescue. And that's what you can do. Stay alive as long as possible. So once you pass that, then are you in? No, no. What? You then what stands us out from the rest

is the counterterrorism, the hostage rescue. Again, that's new weapon systems. That's in the jungle or when you're on the battlefield, you can see the battlefield. And in the jungle, you can see enough, but when you're in a blacked out building with a respirator, with lasers and there's hostages and people running around, you need to be able to, that's your situation awareness being at its peak. That's 100%. 100%.

100%, don't you take a shot? You have to positively ID before you take the shot. If you're in doubt, you don't take the shot. But because of the nature of it, when we do go loud as we call it, it's about speed and aggression. You need to get through that ship, that hotel, that aircraft as quick as possible for all the start killing hostages. And that's where that's the differentiated

between tier one and tier two. And did they actually, how did they train you for that? If that's the last part of the, I guess of the trading to be an SPS, how long does that last? How did they train you for that? That's four weeks as well, that's four weeks. And they just teach you the basics as well.

They'll just give you enough skill sets that when you go to your squadron, you can slot into the team. And then it's there that they then start evolving and do more tactics with you learning more skills. You know, you may be an explosive method of entry. You may be the person blowing in the wall. You know, you'll learn all that when you get to your SPF.

But what they'll do is enough for you to be able to just slot into a team. Right, right, right. But what do'll do is enough for you to be able to just slot into a team. Right, right. But what do they do? You go on a period like you get, how do they simulated, I guess. So they have, they have like, they have buildings at a court killing houses. They have built, they can change the format of the room. So you know, you go to some of these ranges and they're all the standard, you know, that's set in one thing. But once you keep going through, you know, you're always playing, you're playing it. So they change it around. And so, you know, they would either have you absailing down from the helicopter through the bill, through the roof, whether you're coming in on the vehicles, different ways of coming in, how to clear the rooms, you know, communication, how you talk to the team. Because the majority is done silent,

it's all done on touch. The majority of stuff we don't even need to talk. Because once everyone becomes fluid, everyone knows what they're doing. And so for me, if I was at a door, I wouldn't go in until someone squeezed me. As soon as someone squeezed me, I know we go in and then the guy opposite,

he'll flow a flash cross or a grenade in and then we just go in. I mean, you're not like waiting for your, your, your, your opo, you know, you've been onto the next one. You're just about speed and aggression getting through until you, what we call jackpot, you find the hostage. Okay. Amazing. Okay.

So then obviously you pass that. Yeah. And then you become the SPS. And then you go to the SPS. So the SPS get there, bury in the belt and then we get our berry in the belt. And then we have another free months training. We have to then go do our special forces diving and our boat in course, which is another free month.

So just when you think you're there, you're like, you know, got another free months. And because that's the difference between the SPS and the SES is the diving capability. We're able to dive onto targets if need be. I'm speechless because what is the, I know you come from a military background, right? But can you give me a little bit of like, what kind of mindset, what kind of person is able to eat?

Did you know at a younger age that you had this ability to even be this person? No, it's all like, my father was in the military, my grandparents in the military, but I, you know, it was never forced upon me to continue that family tradition. I was five foot seven and probably about 140 pounds when I joined the military. I wasn't the figure that I am today. Look at you, Matt, but you're so crazy fit. And this is, by the way, if you're only listening and not watching, he is insanely fit,

but he does no weights, all functional. It's all body weight. It's all body weight. It's all body weight. All body weight. It's all body weight. And the reason for that is when I was doing courses in the military, some of the courses they'll have an entrance test for you to start that course, whether it's the commando course, the diving course, or special forces selection. But it was all about pull ups, dips, press ups, sit ups.

Basics. And running. Yeah, it wasn't about, you know, how much can you curl? How much can you bench press? And so for me, I would always train for that, so that I was in my best peak condition to pass that test. But as I went on in my career, you know, there was occasions where I'd see guys who looks, you know, looked amazing.

Yeah. But they were too big, and they weren't able to do their job. You know, they were that big that they couldn't climb ropes, and they couldn't climb out of the rope out the jungle. And so for me, they weren't operation capable. Mm-hmm. And so for me, it was having the balance of being able to still be able to do my job

as well at the end of it. And so for me, it was always the body weight stuff. And the functional, it's true. Like you can go to a gym and do a push-up machine. But I see it all the time. And then those people kind of do a push-up. It's amazing. Because you're relying on a machine

or resist, I guess you could do dumbbells, but it's not the same as your own body weight. That's real strength. That's real strength. And some of the exercises we do in the military are some of the things we actually have to do. For example, like maybe the counterterrorism diving. We may have to swim five kilometers onto a target, and then we have to climb these caving ladders, using muscles that you can't use in the gym or yeah, so it's muscles that are used or engaged when you're doing bodyweight.

And so that's why I just stuck stuck with that. I mean, obviously it worked. Okay, so then you're a hundred and you're five seven, a hundred and forty pounds. You're I know your dad. So then like basically them now what happens, you're like you so you weren't like the strong mind you wouldn't have this mental strength. Just I had a competitive streak about it. My father was the army, I wouldn't say football soccer, the army soccer manager, player and coach.

So a lot of my friends, their fathers, they wore green kit. They went on deployments, they were parachewists or commandos. My dad would come home wearing a tracksuit. Yeah. And you know, we call them tracksuit soldiers. Those that maybe not went professional in civilian sector, but then joined the army and then had a career in sport. So there was always that competitive streak

from my father, even on Christmas Day, we would be competing over the board games and things like that. So there was that competitive nature anyway. So you wouldn't let you win, right? He wouldn't let me win. And I'm glad he didn't, because when I did win, I earned that win.

And I still do it with my son and my kids now. Good, yeah. I'm gonna wife say that, let him win, I was like, no, they will win when they're cable winning and it won't be long before they do both beat me. I totally believe in that also, because it's like, you're not teaching your kids that there are people are winners

There are winners and losers in life and you have to work for it if you want to win if you want to be the best You have to work for it. Yeah, you have to it should be it should be given to you and and you appreciate more When you do get it, but yeah, my I actually always wanted to be a fireman as a young boy, but when I left school There was like 2000 applicants for one one job I actually always wanted to be a fireman as a young boy, but when I left school, there was like 2000 applicants for one job. It was like in the early 90s, there was a bigger recession at the time. And so that was going on. And then so I went to college. And my father was very strict. He's an old school Scottish sergeant major. So when I was at school, he wouldn't let me go play with my friends unless I did all my homework. So when I went to college, it was like part time really, I had free lessons, free periods,

which then extended into not even going to college. I've always loved surfing since a young boy. Me and my friends went to New Key in Cornwall on the surfing holiday for two weeks, which for me turned out to be six months. I just never went back. They had long before the mobile phone, my father then came looking for me and found me. Really? They found me in a surf shop. Right, you've wasted your life, what are you going to do now? And so, you know, there's no point in arguing with my father, you know, I mean, you can argue with someone to

you blue in the face. For me, the best course of action was action. And so I told him, I would, you know, join the military. And that's when he told me I'd last two minutes, which wasn't the words I was expecting, but was that drive and that fire in the buildings and say, okay, well, let's do this. But I never had aspirations. I never even heard of the special boat service when I joined. And so I went to the careers office. And when my father then saw that I was being serious about it, he then sat me down and explained a bit more about the military to me. But I didn't, he thought I was gonna do minimum time. He was like, get as much as you can from the military.

He was in the Royal Engineers. And so I joined the Royal Engineers as well. He thought, get a trade and come back out. And I did one course, I did my basic training and then went on the next course, and as soon realized actually I was one of the lead guys in the group. I just looked at the net course, and before I knew it, I know by the age of 21 I was a Para Commando diver and a PTI, I had done every arduous course you could in the Royal

Engineers. So you actually had it in you, but you had no idea basically. I had no idea, but as I was doing these courses, I was physically, in a short period of time, I went from 140 pounds to 200 pounds in the probably about 18 months and I grew four inches. Wow.

But physically and mentally, I was getting stronger and it was like, well, what next? What is the next thing I could do? I mean, at 21, I went back as an instructor on the commando course. And that's when I sort of clicked in that, yes, I do have the ability to do this. And I saw friends going off to the special forces.

I went on selection the first time and I got injured. I tore my lateral meniscus in my knee. And so, but I learned from that. When I was training for that, I was running up and down the mountains with kit on my back. Next time I did it, I made sure that I wasn't aggravating a knee. I just spinning was just coming out, spin bikes. Yeah, I've got to find it. Yeah. And I was the senior diving instructor, and I didn't have the opportunity to run up the hills. I was running courses myself

And so I would just go on on the spin bike for two hours a night and just worked on this speed and the strength and just had a backpack on and So I sort of learned From my first selection and that helped me with my my second What's amazing to me also is that people don't even know what they're capable of, right? Until they put themselves in those situations. And like look at you, your dad thought you'd last two minutes. You never thought you wanted to be, you know, you're working in a surf shop, and then you become like the lead and like become like who you are.

It's unbelievable. Like people don't want to put themselves, like there's so much self-doubt that people don't even put themselves in those situations to even see what they're made of. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, looking back, probably the psychology. Yeah.

You know, he said that, but you know, like if Tommy, my son, came to me and said, I want to join the army or the military, you know, words are quite powerful. You know, the fact I'm still talking about, you know, 28 years later. Yeah. I probably wouldn't tell him those same words. But, you know, for me, yeah, I think that's potentially

might have been reverse psychology with him. Like, you could, you, you want to prove yourself. Yeah. To yourself and to him. Yeah. It's just, we have you ever been captured? No, thankfully not. Never been captured.

Never been captured. Keep coming back. You got plenty of space. Oof. Not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can rely on, like USAA, who has helped guide the military community for the past 100 years. USAA, get a quote today.

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I was trying to like, I wanted you to kind of say it. But one story that's great is the, and it's got nothing to do with any being shot out or being blown up. It was a situation where I was dressed up as a local, as a Taliban. You start the book like you talk about this. Yeah. And, you know, what we would do is we had free vehicles.

I was in the lead vehicle with my Afghan turp, and we would drive past an agent in Canterhart. We had to pick up agents. And so my lead vehicle would go by to identify that the person was there. Second vehicle would pick him up. The third vehicle would make sure there's no follow-up. And so each day we would go into Canterhart. There's no point in planning a route because each day you go in that there's road blocks all the time. And so, this one day, there was a roadblock in front of me which direct me to the right. And so, I went down the street, but it was very narrow street. There's this market stall site at both sides. And it was bumper to bumper with traffic. I had a black beard dressed as a local, but I don't like anything in my eyes.

I had quite piercing blue eyes. You do, actually. We had makeup on to brown our skin, and people were knocking on the window and pointing at the vehicle. My immediate thought was we'd been compromised, because you know you shouldn't be there. Your senses are heightened. I shouldn't be in a situation so you're thinking of the worst. And so all I'm thinking is CNN, orange boiler suit tonight. And so I speak to my turpent, I said I think we've been

compromised in the eagrees. And so it goes radio silent, you know, we've got internal comms. And so I then get and ask questions in my ear and, you know, you can't really talk. You acknowledge it with beeps and tones, like two beeps for yes, one for no. And they're like, you happy with the drill. And in my ear, I'm like, yeah. And I was the great thing about tier one, special forces. No one's going to question your judgment. You know, you're that person.

You're the person facing the enemy in front of you. Not someone 30 miles away in an optimum. Right. And they're like, yeah, you're the person facing the enemy and, in front of you, not someone 30 miles away in an opt room. Right. And they're like, yep, you take the lead. And so the initial thing you want to do, there's a weapon called an MP5 Kurtz. It's underneath your seat. And it's got no short barrel.

And you just empty the whole magazine into the windscreen, all 30 rounds, and you just drop it. But what that does is gives you time for you to run, you know, it gives you a bit of time. You grab your weapon, you go to the rear of the vehicle, there's an RPG in the vehicle and you blow up the vehicle because you don't want them having the comms kit. So all this is going on in my head at the time. You have to think about all of this time. Yeah, you have to sort of remember what you're doing. So I'm like, okay, happy with that. But as this is happening, my vehicle slowly nudging forward.

And as I go to grab the weapon, thankfully for me, my friend in the second vehicle has just come around the corner. And he's actually seeing what's going on. And he's like, stop, stop, stop. So I just dropped the weapon. And he said, your turbans caught in the door. And so for me, I totally misread a situation. I fought because I was in the bad place.

Everyone was bad. When actually everyone was actually being generally nice telling me that my turban was in the door. Oh my God. And so for me, that was my scariest moment. But I know I use that a lot when I'm guest speaking, how you can

misread a situation. People run into a situation and see what they want to see when in fact if you just slightly pause and take it all in. And so yeah so on that day onwards I made sure that you know, Heck, Mac, my guy, I made sure my turban was in the door. So it was nothing to do with my eyes. And actually a lot of Afghanistan is people in Afghan have blue eyes and have ginger beards because of I just thought my turban was in the door, so it was nothing to do with my eyes. And actually a lot of Afghans, people in Afghans have blue eyes and have ginger beards because of the Russian war. Oh, really?

Yeah, there's a surprising, there's a lot. And that was, you're saying the scariest moment you had? That was my scary story. I was never sure. And I was never sure, yeah, because I was on my own. And I was also playing out in my head how it could all go wrong because it literally if I had engaged that and grabbed the weapon I was running 17 miles in my flip

flops in my gear back to camp to the nearest friendly forces you're on your own so it's how it could have played out and but inside that was when I was most fearful because when you are in combat, you know, you get that question as well. It's almost like second, because you've trained and trained and rehearsed and rehearsed. It's so fluid and second nature. You sometimes don't even realize,

it's only really when you're on the helicopter flying back that you sort of assess what's just happened. But that one was more difficult for me because I was on my own. Wow. Okay. So how about like in terms of the hostile, you did a Canadian embassy, there's so many things that you did. Can you talk about a couple of the things that you've done? Yeah. So I was in the military. I love my military career. And I'd reached the pinnacle in my career. You know, I'd work, I was working on side-light-minded individuals. I was doing a job. But I was a lifer, as they say.

I had no aspirations of leaving the military. Unfortunately, I then, on a pre-deployment train on a high-out shoot, high-open jump, I had a parachute accident, which changed my life from there on. I joined the military at 17. I was now 33, 16 years. That's crazy.

Yeah. Are you the longest person that ever be in this type of position? No, not at all. A good friend of mine came over and visited me recently. He joined a military at 16. He's retiring next year at 55. Are you serious?

Yeah, we do that level. Yeah, you can stay. You don't tend to be, when you progress in your career, you end up more of a management role as we call desk jockeys. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to do it, pull in the paper, you end up more as a management role, as we call desk jockeys. Yeah. You know, I mean, everyone's doing it, pulling the paper, but because of their experiences, they get involved in the planning.

You know, the door kickers, as we say, the guys in the savor squadrons, they tend to be the younger guys. And because, and also, whether you're still there, you know, eight people passed my selection, I think, only four of us are still alive, you know what I mean? And there's guys that naturally get killed, guys get injured and guys retire. It's so dangerous though, like how, like you have to have like a,

how do you like, how do you like reckon with that in your brain? Like what you're gonna be doing, especially if you have a family or, or do you have a family or do people, or do most of these people not have a family at that level? I know you have a family now, but was it after the fact? Was it because like how do you... I'm at my wife towards end of my career,

but I think Special Forces has a 95% divorce rate, and it's not because they don't love each other. And you have to remember that we're all volunteers. You're not told that you have to go Special Forces. You're volunteered for the C. And you wanna do it. It's like, you wanna do it. It's in, and I have to remember that we're all volunteers. You're not told that you have to go special forces. You volunteered for the C. And you want to do it. You want to do it. It's in your blood.

And it's here, Dren in Russia. And it's what you signed up for. You know, it's everything that, you know, these kids now they play called a duty. This is your day, you know, your day in day out job. And I joined at the height of the war in terror. And it was the busiest time for UK and US special forces. So we were doing so many high profile jobs

in a short period of time, which appears before us, it being weight in 10, 20 years before. Right, and you were just doing one after the other, which I want to get into. And it used to be a saying that, you know, it's the one, you know, this is the operation of the year, but the operation of the year,

we were doing two or three a night for what they were doing before us. What was the highest, okay, so I want to, I'm jumping all over just because it's so fascinating to me. What was the highest profile thing? And then I want to talk to you about the injury that you had with the parachute that you were kind of alluding to a few seconds ago. Yeah. So, it's something the highest profile thing to me, I was fortunate to do the first ever

operational jump for the SPS. And we did that in Afghanistan. We did a number of jumps after that. I did operational jumps to do hostage rescues. Yeah, did you do the after 9-11? You weren't involved with the Assamma bin Laden thing. Were you? No, no, that was still Team Six.

So that's your tier one. That was our tier one, guys. That's our tier one. That's your tier one. That's the voice. So you weren't there? No, no, that was still team six. So that's your tier one. That's your tier one guys. That's your tier one. That's the voice. So you weren't there. No, no, no, no, I wasn't there on that one, but, um, but yeah, you know, 9-11 going back to 9-11 just changed everything in regards military and special forces. So when I'm talking about my peers, they were like pre 9-11. Everything after that was, it was almost like an open book. It just changed. And as we've seen, the world has changed since it's never been the same as pre-9-11. Right. Now, when you go to the airport, I can't imagine not having your bags checked.

I know. Is that crazy? And so, yeah, that changed everything 9-11. It probably helped with recruiting. What you're finding now is, Afghans have been shut 10 years. Every military you're struggling with recruiting because the guy, people joined because of what me and my friends were doing and they're not seeing that anymore. Wow. Why not though? Why they're not seeing it at all anymore in terms of? Not at the same scale. I generally, it is my theory, is that especially in the UK, we have a war every 10 years.

And unfortunately, there's money in war, but also keeps the recruitment up. So we had the Falklands war in the beginning of the 80s, 1982. Yeah. The first gold war in 1991, 9,112,11 2001 for 20 years. And now we've got Ukraine.

So every 10 years, every decade, there tends to be something. How is that possible? So why do you think that is? That's my theory. So this is for recruitment to keep, you know, you need people to be coming through the gates. And you need to be combat ready. Because, you know, you soon lose that experience.

A lot of the guys from my time are now out. Absolutely. And there's guys now have been in 10 years, 11 years, never seen combat. And it's not their fault, it's just they've not experienced that. And so you can't be experienced with our experiences. That's one thing I say. I know you say that I love that statement.

It's not true. We had so much experience in a short window time. So much there, which can pass on for decades. But as those guys start retiring and leaving. So that's why there's guys like my friend, staying until 55, because they have that knowledge and experience to pass on to those afterwards. Like many of you out there, I love Notion.

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right now at notion.com slash habits. So do you think that it's planned? Like these are like governmentally organized every 10 years or like it's kind of something that's part of, I don't know what happens in the back channels that we just don't know about. Yeah, I think it's my fairies, the recruitment, there's money more, you know, some of these aminitions have shelf life.

Yeah. You know, if you say right, all that ammunition obsolete, that's money more. Some of these aminitions have shelf life. If you say, right, all that ammunition obsolete, that's billions of dollars of ammunition, or we could use it. If shelf life? Some of them have shelf life, so yeah, yeah. And the equipment as well, and you have the new technology equipment,

people need to get contracts, people. Wow. So who are the people who control this then? I wouldn't know who they were, but. But is it like a special, another special ops group that we just don't know who they are? No, no, not really. I think we're in a, we're in a world now where there's always

going to be a threat. There's always going to be a threat. But it's how it's sort of interpreted to us. You know, I, I generally, you know, we only hear a small percentage of what's going on. I think if the world knew exactly what was going on to be manic. Do you know that you guys find out and know more than we do and then you guys are not at like, so based on me, I'm like a regular civilian, right? You're not. So how much more of a percentage do you know what was going on when you were doing it versus the Lehman personally. So when I was in the special forces, you know, I was aware of serving

But actually then when as a private security operator, you're aware of other other things as well You know, so I was doing more sensitive jobs as a civilian when I was doing when I was in In the special forces because I had more freedom. I wasn't governed by a government. By the government? Yeah, by the government. Yeah, so I see more as well. Would it be really surprising to people how much we don't know, basically?

Yeah, it'd be surprising. You see about these terrorist attacks that have been foiled and compromised. But there's a lot more that you don't see. I know, what don't we see? Can you tell us what we... Can you tell us exactly what we don't see? Like, what sort of things do we not see that we'd be surprised about? Keep it big.

No, I just... I know, yeah, quite be vague. I can't really say. Be not big. I can't say. Okay, I'm saying. But we would be surprised and shocked of how much we just don't know. Yeah, there's certain ones that have been shown you see on the news, but there's certain ones that you don't see, and then they're not as bad

as the ones that have been compromised. It just, if you knew the enormity of those that were in a bit in planning, you know, I'm trying to think of the figure ways, but I know the UK cost millions and millions of pounds to have these people under surveillance. And it's like, why are you putting them under surveillance? It's like, could we need to know what they're doing? We'd rather be seeing them and keeping eye. And that's what we did in our role in the Special Forces. We never went out every day to fight the Taliban.

Our role in the Tier 1 Special Forces is to knock out the command infrastructure. Those that are responsible for the funding, the planning and stuff like that. Right, right. And when we were on target, we would gather information, you know, you know, get biometrics of those and identify who, what country's they've been to, who they've been visiting and you start to build a bigger picture. So that's what we get involved with more in, yeah. And then, okay, so I wanna get into the security part,

but we still haven't talked about... Parachute. Yeah, parachute and the highest profile thing that you were involved with, the Canadian Embassy, was at the most. Yeah, as in the security. Yeah, that's one of them in the security. Oh, that's security.

Yeah, we'll go into that one, though. I wanna get into that one, but do you want to first talk about the parachuting accident? Yeah, so each, we'd already been to Afghanistan and done our high-outchid high-opening jumps. We had some new lads that had just passed selection. And so they needed to do their, their, their, their, hey, ho, jump. So our sergeant major's like, well, you guys, you know, we've got the aircraft here. You guys do a fun jump. I never believe there's a fun jump in a guys, you know, got the aircraft here, you guys do a fun jump. I never believe there's a fun jump in the military.

You know, civilian, yes, there's fun jumping, but not in the military. So we were doing hay-hoed jumps and it was like third jump at a day and I normally like to go at the front and so I can turn around and face the plane and just mess about. But they moved me into the middle of the 16-man. But as I exited the aircraft, I've done hundreds of these jumps before. I soon realized there was a problem. Unlike hey, hey, low skydiving,

where you're free of the lines, you're actually still attached to the aircraft. So as you exit the tailgate, you're almost fall back into a seated position and the wind drags you forward. And you count to 5,000, you know, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, and then you parachute, and then you look up,

and your canopy should be there. So that's what you normally do. As I exited the aircraft, I, my leg was caught in the line above my head. And so I have five, five seconds to clear my leg before the parachute opens. And I couldn't clear my leg in time. And it pulled my leg over my head into the parachute opens. I couldn't clear my leg in time and it pulled my leg over my head into the right. Thankfully my ankle cleared the line and it didn't rip my leg completely off.

Hold on a second. Let me just get this straight. Your leg was stuck in the rope on top and hit five seconds to take it off. At five seconds, and I'm frantically, and obviously you'll go in fast with the playing going that way. And yeah, my leg cleared, but the poor my leg over, and the pain instantaneously, I knew, I'd never experienced pain like it, you know, I was vomiting because of the pain, it was that bad.

What happened? Where was your leg? So my leg did release, and it was sort of hanging there now, but I just didn't want to touch it at all. But I also had to cut out 15,000 feet on a hey-ho jump. You still have a travel up to 30 minutes in the air to the target area, or 50 kilometers. And so, and on 15,000 feet on the limits of auction, it's finesse. So I was also drifting in and out of consciousness. But still, as I was coming to, I could see the

rest of the guys in my team. It was covering them vomit. But there's no point in me coming on the radio to them, we're all on comms and telling them I've got a bad leg because there's nothing they can do. So my first problem is I need to land this and it needs to be good landing because if I land it badly, there's risk of damaging my now one good leg. And so I watched the approach to the other parachewis and I engaged my approach and I landed it one leg, it was a great landing but unfortunately the damage sustained in my career. I tore my ACL, my MCL, my lateral meniscus, my hamstring, my calf, and my quadriceps. So normally, you can tear your ligaments and your leg would support it, but all the muscles

had been torn as well. And so my friends all flew off to Afghanistan. It was the same time as the memory Iceland volcano which grounded all aircraft around majority of the world. I'm still on this, what's happening to your leg. Okay, yes, I remember. So I couldn't get a flight back to UK, so they just threw me in a hotel for five weeks on painkillers. And you know, my friends went one way to Afghanistan and I got sent home and they had to start the recovery process.

But there was a whole spiral of errors then. They lost my MRI scans. And so for me, I was going for what was known as the identity crisis. I'd seen my friends going one way and I was sort of told you got to go another and thank you for your time, but you're no longer of any use to us. So for me, Alana and my wife was trying to build me up. We were looking beyond the military and without sounding like Liam Neeson, people with our skill sets tend to work in the security industry. Normally, you would have a lead up time to leave in the military

and make a plan for a career, But I didn't have that choice. And to sort of add to the pressure, Alana was eight months pregnant. By the time I left the camp gate. So I was wondering whether there was any workout there. How was I going to support my new family? What is my role within society? Really going through. And at the time, I didn't see it, but on

reflection, yeah, an identity crisis. I was having mental health problems. And, you know, I got to where I had in the military through my physical attributes, and now I couldn't even run 100 meters without my knee, give him way. But thankfully for me, within 48 hours of leaving a friend rang me. It was the Arab Spring in May 2011. And he said, look, I need you out in Libya. Gaddafi was now surrounded in Tripoli, and all these security companies, all these oil and gas companies,

NGOs were now forming up in Benghazi. So I helped set up one of the projects with the British Embassy. But as soon identified that the Libyans didn't want to be in another Afghanistan in Iraq, they wanted to take control of the country once Gaddafi had fallen. So we were given weapons, but I never actually used them. I just kept them in the room, out of respect. I analyzed the threat and there was no threat.

But all these big companies, I'll call them the big five, I'll never name in shame, but they were charging six, seven figures sums for crisis management and evacuation plans, which weren't actually in place. And as we see more recently in Afghanistan, they're still not in place. It's almost the paper exercise for some of these organizations. And so I flew back from that trip, Atlanta gave birth to Molly, and I wanted to find a niche within industry. I didn't want to be doing, a lot of my friends were doing the maritime security in Somalia. I didn't want to be competing with them. I didn't want to be going out

to Afghan and Iraq on six, six week rotations. I wanted to learn about the industry and sort of see where, where I could sort of exploit an area needed, needed assistance. And so I, there was a huge proliferation of weapons at the time in, in Libya. And so I went back in and I bought 30 weapons on the black market and I buried them between Tunis and Egypt and just designed my own evacuation plans. You know, bought these large pellicases, put communications equipment in there, a large amount of money and weapons and I spent a month burying them. in strategic locations between June as an Egypt border near safe houses, which I'd located. I mean, I sold that to the oil and gas sector, hopefully never needing to use it.

And I'm very fortunate for me, my wife, Alana, you see people when they leave the military, some people's transitioning to be quite smooth and others is quite turbulent. Mine was smooth because of Alana. I'd gone from the militia like your mother, your father, they clothe you, they feed you, they pay you on time. You don't know who provides gas or electricity, you can't, they deal with that. So you can just concentrate on your job. Alana was a bank manager at the time, very entrepreneurial. She took all those responsibilities that the military normally did for me. And so I still don't know who provides the gas or electric as well. But the way I sort of, you know, have come from an environment where, you know, from the age of 17 to 33, when I'm planning missions

and say, right, I need two Chinook helicopters, I need 40 guys, I need fast air, we need ammunition, we need it. No one gives me a bill. Yeah, yeah. No one gives me a contract or an NDA. And so I didn't know anything about the corporate world, but Alana picked that up for me.

She ran the business. Alana is a wife by the way. Alana is my wife. She did all the business. She trained herself as a close protection officer, surveillance officer, maritime. So unfortunately, she found out she was pregnant with Molly during a close protection course.

But it meant when I was out on the ground that she could, if any inquiries came in, she could deal with them. But again, very fortunate having a Larna, I was doing ad hoc work. Each job I was doing was a different job. One phone call, can you go train the Kurdish special forces in Iraq? Next phone call, the London Olympics.

So a short period of time, I was finding myself going to new countries I'd never been to. Some countries I had been to with the military, but was learning so much about the industry, the secure industry, and seeing it from a different set of eyes. Because when you're in the military, you only see it from one set of eyes. Absolutely. And the intelligence that they tell you, and whereas actually now I was seeing a lot more that they didn't see. And actually we do a lot in the security industry as intelligence back to the special forces, because we can get to areas that they can't get to. Can't get to. And so, yeah, I was learning so much in a short period of time. And then in 2012, I just finished the London Olympics.

And I was out in Benghazi, September 11, 2012, when American ambassador got killed. And I mean, it made a movie called 13 Hours. Yeah. And I was there that evening, and I single-handedly got a German oil company from Benghazi to Tripoli through safe houses. And successfully. I mean, two years later, which leads to the Canadian Embassy, I'm in Brazil, my client's visa,

and in nice five-star hotels watching the Will Cup, and I get a phone call from the Canadian Embassy saying, your name, your name keeps coming up, not company name, you know, everyone's gone, we need your help. So as the Tripoli war, it was a civil war between the militias and the government, which had now really just sort of raised it heading around Tripoli, Tripoli International Airport had been burnt down and everyone has sort of shot shop and left. Unbeknown to the rest of the world, the Canadian Embassy had done an

assessment a year before and it cost $20 million a year to run an embassy in somewhere like Libya. And all these embassies around the world are there for trading investment, looking at opportunities when it sort of opens up. But Libya being the way it was and the downward spiral, it's going to be another 10 to 15 years before there's any sort of trading investment. So the Canadians have made a decision that they were going to leave Libya, but they needed a window opportunity to leave. So when the Tripoli war happened, everyone else shot shop and left at the early opportunity that the Canadians were collapsing

their embassy, they were shredding all their paperwork and stuff, so they were sort of caught behind. They had 18 military with them and they would rotate every four months at close protection, but they would fly in and out, tripling to national airport. But during their four months that are there, they never left triply. They went from their accommodation to their offices. So, although triply to Tunisia, there's only 100 kilometers coastal road, they'd not seen it. And so they hadn't had a look or seen potential this scenario unfolding. And so I got the phone call, I went back in, I'd already evacuated a few people and actually put them in taxis. You know, people were going, I just get back in, what did you do?

All right, so I landed in Tunis and I drive across the border. Oh, you drove in? And then what did you do? I walked on the door, and then what did you do? I'm off on the door, like what did you do? Yeah, I turned up to the, to the, to the terror combination and showed and introduced myself to them. But the, we got a few people out the week before on just in taxis. Everyone was rushing around.

And people were tagging the armoured vehicles. So I was just doing it low profile. The British Embassy got shot at the week before at every checkpoint between Tripoli and Tunis. So the Canadians were worried and they still had two or three more days before, you know, they could safely say that their embassy had shut down. And so this was worrying them. And so I had a fixer who was a 50 year old internet shop owner from the UK. And he's got no military experience, no private security experience, but he's from the tribes that would pass through.

Right. What is a fixer exactly? So a fixer is someone who's from that country, a local, so normally when I go into countries, you can't really do anything about a good fixer. So he would have good knowledge, or she would have good knowledge of, you know, if I need drivers, if I need accommodation, you know, and things like that. And I have a real understanding of what's going on in the country. And so Libya, for example, has got 167 tribes.

And so the problem is, if you have the wrong fix or the wrong driver from the wrong tribe in the wrong area that Can cause you problems and these are the sort of things that you need to think about and so one of the reasons You know, I've been so successful in the industry. I want to see in the special forces You know 25% what we do is offensive action is what they do in Hollywood. You know Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stey from The bombs the biceps and Bullets, the sexy bit. That's what you actually look like, though, which is ironic, right?

Because you look the part. You look the part, yeah, but it's not the same. So, but actually 50% of what we do is support an influence. It's hearts and minds. It's understanding the demographics, the politics, the tribal influences. What's actually happening on the ground? Not what's been told to you on TV.

You need a lot of emotional intelligence too, and understanding new wants. It's actually, I didn't realize what I did, but there's so many things, you need to be really bright in a lot of ways. Yeah, you need to, my wife said, Emotion Intelligence, she said, my USP is that I can talk to anyone.

Yeah. From any culture, any background. I can see that about you, even. And I, I used to work on my own a lot as well, you know, for me, you know, I used to go to Yemen, Somalia, on my own, and, you know, I, I, I stand out. Um, but no, for me, it was like, I, for me, I'm just looking after myself. I'm not having to look after a team of six or eight. Yeah. I'm not worried about their welfare,

the way that they're talking to people, treating people. And so that's what would get me into certain places I couldn't be for. So, you know, it sounds very sexy and Hollywood, you know, evacuating embassies, but actually that's what it was, is being able to understand the demographics

and the characteristics. So we, yeah, the British embassy got shot at the week before, every checkpoint. So me, my fixer, rather than go to the guys who hold in the weapons, and we spoke to the tribal elders, and we sat down with them, and we had coffee, and we shared lunch, and it was actually just showing them respect. Let them know who we were, we were no threat, what our intentions were, when we were planning on doing it. And that's it. Yes, we may have harmed hands with a few hundred dollars, but that's all they wanted was respect.

And the British embassy had just decided to drive straight through. And so that's what the problem was. And so, got them out completely, used two fish wagons as well for all their specialist kit, because we couldn't get all their kit into the vehicles. And so, I knew that the fish wagons as well for all their specialist kit, you know, because we couldn't get all their kit into the vehicles. And so, I knew that the fish wagons daily would go from triply to tunas, moving the fish from triply poor.

And so, they know they're not going to get stopped at the border. Right. Do you put the people on the fish wagon? No, not just the equipment. They're crumbling at the same time. They stayed in their vehicle, but all the watching to me movies. Yeah, yeah. All their equipment was there. It got straight through.

And so really, it was just looking in a different way. I see security companies around the world, and they'll try and do it themselves. They'll go in the guys, look like me, six to eight guys armed and in a sort of bullied, but you're only gonna get so far. So for me, everywhere I work around the world, I try to use as many local

people as possible and put food and water on their tables because they are going to respect you, they are going to look out for you, they want the mission to succeed. There are certain jobs that I can't give them, but as much as I can for them, I do. So that's how I differentiate for other security organizations. But before the transition from after your injury to becoming the security guy that you are now, and of course, the Guinness World Breaker, all that too, how long were you kind of like in a bad place mentally because it was such a transition for you to how long were you down and out. So from from from my injury from leaving the military in May 2011 to July 2014

was the Canadian embassies that three year period. Three years. I was. I came home from the Canadian Embassy and normally, I, Lana washes my kit and I charge my phone and I get ready for the next phone call. Right. We sat down that evening and it was almost like a throw away comment that I just evacuated the Embassy and we sat down with two bottles of wine and Lana highlighted to me that I'd only been home 21 days in a 365 day calendar. 21 days? 21 days.

21 days. I totally disconnected from society and what I thought was normal wasn't normal. And so we then realized actually I was trying to match your adrenaline rush that I had when I was in the special forces without coming to terms with the fact that I'd left. I didn't have that support network. My friends weren't going to start parachuting out the sky to come rescue me. If you've gone wrong, it goes wrong. Bad.

Luckily, so chapter 16 in my book is called Dead or Divorce. This was the conversation me and Alana were having at this point. So something needed to change. But it was also, Alana thought I wanted to go away, and I thought that she wanted me to go away to her money. She was now a property developer, very successful, and I didn't need to go away. So it was literally, it was just a lack of communication.

We sort of misread each other. Right. And then when she told me, you know, you said you can't be doing this anymore. So I took a sabbatical from the security industry at that point. I mean, started working with Alana in the property industry. But wait a minute. So before you started that, like in 2011, it was when you had your injury with your

leg, right? Okay. But when that happened, how long until you started to do all these private missions by yourself, like straight away straight by yourself. Like straight away. Straight away. Straight away. Yeah, straight away. Even though you were mentally not...

Yeah, I was getting some job through other organizations. And then I soon started, it's a great network of security. You know, you know certain people. But did you know already? Like, I'm saying, like, you weren't expecting to have that injury, right? Like that happened. Yeah. Like like really shocked. And then, how long was the recuperation, first of all,

to get back on your legs? How long was it? Well, it wasn't long at all. Actually, I talked about earlier, there's a spiral of errors with the medical stuff. Right, you said that. So I actually had to threaten the military to get me operated on before I left,

because they were just dragging their heels. And so, you know, we threatened legal action. Wow. I mean, got the operation. And then I already knew I was leaving. And they offered me, physiotherapy, which can be another three months. I'm, no, I'm ready to go now. I know. So, so I didn't really have much much much much physical. So after the Canadian embassy, this leg now was two kilos lighter than this leg because of the muscle weight. I hadn't done any sort of cardiovascular exercise. I took a TRX with me now and then in and around hotels, but No, wait a minute. So the tier, sorry, the, so I thought the Canadian Embassy was in 2014, right? Okay, your injuries in 2014, oh, love it. 11, yeah.

So between those three years, you did nothing for three years. I, no, I, as in working on myself, as in my injury, you mean? Well, yeah, no, no, the injury was how long? Six months to get better, eight months to get here. I don't know, I literally, I got operated on and I was out. Oh, you were fine after that?

Yeah, yeah, I was fine, but I didn't do any video because I just needed to work to support my family. Oh, okay, so then you, that was my next question. So then you started to work into the private sector like three months later after the interview. Straight away, no, 48, 48, literally. So the injury, sorry, so good. So the injury was in 2010.

I left in 2011 because there was a spiral of errors. They'd lost my med dogs. Oh, okay, so that was a year. And so yeah, it took so long for me to get out, but I wasn't even, I wasn't operated on for nearly 10 months after the injury. But after the operation, the recovery was only what? I was only about a couple of weeks.

That's right. That was a question. That's crazy. Because that injury sounded sounds like it would take six months to recuperate from. And I love the military. I love everything about the military. And I always promote the military. I learned so many skillsets from me.

For me, unfortunately, it was a dark cloud that I left under. My last sort of... Harah. Harah was arguing with them to get me fixed. I know. And actually, it wasn't until five years later when I had a tribunal hearing, I didn't get paid out in the right pension. I had to appeal and want a tribunal hearing against a military to finally get paid out.

And so for me, I wasn't really aware how much it was affecting me until I won the tribunal here. I then felt like I'd been reciprocated for my time and everything else. But again, that was affecting my mental health. For me, I love the military and I don't want to rock the boat. And Alana's like, no, rock the boat. You deserve this. And so did you pay you like how much you guys get paid to be in this in this special forces we don't get paid much at all we as a sergeant as a sergeant we're probably 50 60 thousand pounds a year okay in American money probably about 75 thousand dollars and then so when you left you're making about 75,000 a year.

When I left I was earning a lot more. Yeah, when I left the SPS, I was making that. Yeah. And then do they give you money for life or do they just, oh that's it? Like goodbye, yeah. Yeah, depending if you've done your full 22 years, you get a pension, but your pension, not that great. I get now, you know, I get, oh, it's about 1,200 pounds a month tax-free for the rest of my life. That's it. 1,200 pounds. That's it. That's it. Wow. After everything you've done. Yeah, they did a, they had a group come in, I think it was accounting. So and basically looked at the SAS and SPS, followed the guys on operations, looked at what they did and said, how much do you think we should be paying these guys? And they're like 250,000 He looked at the SAS and SPS, followed the guys on operations, looked at what they did

and said, how much do you think we should be paying these guys? And they're like £250,000 a year each. More. Is that, yeah, we can't do that. Yeah, we can't do that. And so, yeah, we don't get paid a lot, but we don't do it for the money. Right, you just need a transfer. You do it for the adrenaline and for the job, you know, the job security, knowing that

you are going to get paid at least each month If you do have a mortgage and things that And if you get but if you get hurt like you did Then that's all you get for the rest of your life is these little pensions until you Yeah, until you make a career to make a career. Yeah Okay, and then what happens you know God forbid if something happens to you. does your family get taken care of? Or not you, but does the person's family get taken care of?

If I was in this, best of horses and I got injured, then yeah, you'll find that we have the SPS Association, the SES Association, and they are, that is their sole purpose is to be able to support family. And there's guys later on who may have hit hard times and they're there to support them as well

So we do have something in the background should that should be should you fall on hard times? Hard times, yeah, and then okay, so then you transition into this this like private security now Where does Prince Harry and Megan I have to ask you right and Megan Markle come into this whole thing Because yeah, I know that you have a relationship with him. Prince Ari came in in actually 2007 when I was in the SPS. I was going out to, again, on an Afghan tour. And I was going on a J-Tack course,

a joint tactical air controller. So a forward air controller. So your role within the team is to talk to the jets, know, to drop the bombs. And so I turned up, RIF Lehman in Yorkshire, and it's a little, the classroom's a little wooden hut, they ended a runway on an Air Force base.

So no one in the Air Force cares about the military, it's in the army or the Marines. But on this day that I turn up, every man in his dog's air from the Air Force, I'm like, a strange. I walk in the classroom and there's 18 students and the four guys at the back are special forces, there's two SPS guys and two SES guys and we're students as well. And sat in front of me, he was, it was Harry. And then we're talking now, 2007, so he's 23 years old, he's a young second lieutenant and

he joined a unit called the Blues and Royals and they were going to Afghanistan and he wanted to go to Afghanistan with them. But he couldn't just go. He needed to have a job tie or a role or a purpose. So his commanding officer was an SIS guy and he said, well look, go on to JTAC course. If you pass that course and you could be the regimental JTAC. So that was his reason for being there. So this open and address every man and his dog comes in and to get a bit of face time with him, he then leaves the room and within address by the course officer in the sergeant agent they said, look, you know who's on the course?

There's no preferential treatment, treat him like one of your own. Is that okay, perfect. So he comes back in and the first lecture is on call signs. So on course, you'll call jackpot one to jackpot one eight. And that's so the pilot knows which student he's talking to. When he goes to your unit, you have your own prefix call sign. So I'm mayhem for free, so SPS is mayhem.

And so Harry puts his hand up and he's like, if I'm successful in this course, do I get a cool sign? And I just blurted out, yeah, your fox piss one. I don't know why, but it was ginger hair or whatever. And then of course, you could see everyone's faces in like shock as like you can't say that. And then he looked around smiled.

And that was it then. And sad made it like you two a parted off for the six weeks. And so we, yeah, we became close friends. No, and I saw his career, you know, when he first went to Afghanistan, got compromised by the press. He came back, he then went on a flying course. And actually, I met him at Twickenham Stadium me and my wife, Alana, and he just passed his flying course on the Friday. And he said, look, I need to make a decision on Tuesday

what I fly. And I said, well, what is the choice? He said, well, links helicopters, which is more like a glorified taxi driver for the generals or AH-64 Apache gunships. And I said, and when we're talking to the Apache pilots in Afghanistan, they're called ugly,, Ugly 1 and Ugly 2. And so I said, well, look, I tell the lads to go ugly early.

I said, do what you want to do. Don't feel what you need to do for the public. And so he rang me on the Tuesday and said, oh, I'm going ugly. And so I like to think I sort of steered him towards that. Wow. The Apache gunship. And then him and I did a lot in charity together. You know, I used to be the SBS ambassador for Scotland,

so he would sometimes come to some of my events, some of the events that we would hold. And they closed door events. You'd have the prime minister there, England rugby team, and such. And I remember one evening, the auctioning item, it was like a silver statue, a SPS statue, and it went for like £40,000, and Harry's that, oh that's amazing, how's that?

I know the bronze one was about £75, so I waited the following week and I bought it, and I got it engraved, and I did his flying call sign. Congratulations on being ugly, Mayhem 4 free. And so, yeah, we just kept that relationship. That's so sweet. Yeah. So you guys became like, like, friends, friends. Yeah, friends, friends.

Yeah, and then when I worked in the private security sector, I had an intelligence fusion cell based in Mozambique in Tanzania for one of my pressure stone clients. But we soon identified a smuggling route from the stones from Africa to Asia. But it was the same smuggling route as the ivory coming out of African continent to Asia. So every three months I would go to Ken's in Palace and I'd sit down with Harry and I'd sort of show him this information and he would then disseminate that to the charities. And so we did a lot together behind the scenes.

But he was here. Is he a nice guy? Yeah, you know, I've met him, you know, mentioned Megan now. I met him before I met Alana and before Megan. So I've known him forever. For, yeah, 15, 16 years. Has he changed since since he has he has changed. You know, I know he always wanted to be a father, you know, when his brother and Kate had, you know, his nieces and nephews, you know, you could see that. You could see that he wanted to be a father. So, you know, I'm pleased that he's got that. You know, I saw him when, probably when he was in the military

the only time he could be as normal as possible, like someone from his background. You know, no one was judging him because he was a prince. You know, he was actually a good soldier, a good officer. He was a good officer. Yeah, he was very, you know,

when you're talking to the pilots, he was very calm, you know, under pressure and, you know, he knew what he was doing. And so he was being judged on his soldiering skills, not on his other stuff. And that's where I saw him at his most relaxed. So when this whole thing happened where they left the royal family, blah, blah, blah, they moved to the US and they had no security. Did you step in and become a security team?

So I got a message from him in February. And so me, my wife, we always wanted to move to America. And a wife was a property developer and we were just about to build our forever home in Scotland. And in December 19, we were like, well hang on. Let's look at what we always wanted to do. And that was America. You know, we sort of blinked and my door was nine and my son was four in 10 years of

flown by. So we put a pause on that. And then in February, but we didn't know where we were going to go in America. And then in February 2020, Harry stepped back from Royal duties. So he messaged me, he said, look, you are the security guru. He said, can you ever look at this proposal which has been pushed to me? So I either look at the proposal

and it was one of the big five I talk about. And so, but probably the big five, is it not, the biggest doesn't mean they're the best, but you also have a lot of staff. They have a lot of overheads and things like that. So the price, you know, get super high. Yeah. So I looked at this. How much price, you know, get super high. Yeah. So I looked at this.

How much are these things about? Can you give us some prices like? So yeah, so I'll tell you what the price is. So they started at 6.8 million a year. For a year, for security. For security, for 24, 7 security. By the time I'd given my free pages of bullet points back, they dropped their proposal price by 48%.

No. Yeah. And sorry, no, drive their proposal price, sorry, by 80% in 48 hours. I got it from 6.8 to 1.7. Wow. Which I still think is still quite low, 1.7, but they're the biggest security company private security company in the world. And they probably could have afford to do it pro bono and, and so yeah. Yeah, wow. And so, you know, he, you know, and then we had March 20 and COVID hit. He then moved over.

Me and my wife didn't come over to October 20, right in the middle of COVID, but he'd already had a secure organization. So for me, I advise I don't get involved in the security. Oh, wait, is this the one that Tyler Perry was paying for? Yeah, I mean, it was, yeah, yeah. Oh, power. Yeah, I mean, it was Tyler. So when someone, I think it was, yeah. Oh, power. Yeah, I think it was Tyler.

So when someone funded it at the beginning. Really, he couldn't pay for his own security, really? I don't think he knew where their income was coming from at the time, you know, it was all quite, yeah. Now they could afford more than just the security. They can afford way more than that. They were making deals left, right in the center, Apple, Netflix, here, there.

Exactly, so I think it was that, you know, it was that sort of transition period. They didn't know where they were going to be. You know, because we did see them all go into Canada. I mean, all of a sudden they can pull in LA, but they had, they came to somewhere that which wasn't governed by the Commonwealth, you know, you know, it wasn't their, their first choice. So they were, what, this wasn't their first choice? No, no, no, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada. Was it really, I like that? Yeah, and they're all part of the Commonwealth. See, I assumed because of Megan,

she wanted to be in Hollywood because she was an actress, they'd wanna be here. No, I don't mean that was the case. No, I know, having known Harry for so long, Africa is where his heart is. Yeah. Africa is where he loves. So yeah, this wasn't their first choice.

They left anyway now, right? Didn't they leave? Leave. The California? Don't they just go back to... They're still here. England? No, they're still here.

Probably for a visit. No, they're still in Montecito. Oh, they are still. They're still in Montecito. But for me, with the security one, it's interesting because I bumped into the jungle drums back in UK. I was at a show in Vegas, the shot show, the largest gun in ammunition show. And there's a lot of law enforcement, special forces.

And guys will, I see you're running Prince Harry's security and I was at it. I mean, another guy is like, you're running Elon Musk. Does that know? I'm actually doing Neva is like, you're running Elon Musk, was that? No, I'm actually doing neither. Yeah, I heard you were running Harry and Megan's. Yeah, no, I advise, but the reason I don't, because we wanna keep the, you know, I've come in on a couple of occasions,

I mean, to sort out, you know, could the problem you get is companies will come in and they'll win the contract, they'll get their feet under the table, but the standards won't be maintained, you need to maintain that quality control. But they're winning contracts on the back end of who they're providing. Oh, okay. And so, yeah, there's been a couple of occasions where I've come in and I've had to sort of, as a third party, not getting paid, which is really important as well.

When you're not getting paid, I can say what I want and highlight certain points. But for him and I, we've always wanted to keep that professional and personal relationship distant. There was an occasion where I thought I was going to have to potentially come in during a transition period and go with them on a trip. But he rightfully said, you can't, because in the past, I have openly defended him on TV interviews and radio interviews back in UK, especially when he was stepping back from World Shoes.

If I was then working on a professional capacity, it would discredit everything I've said in the past room. And so, yeah, which is interesting, you know, you know, because he probably would love me to be there, but he has to be aesthetically, what does it look like? Exactly. Like, perception, so I would imagine in that level, so it's so important.

So important. But for me, you know, I get the kudos of being able to be his security advisor or offer him advice or problem solve. That's where I come in. And that's what I do now is I tend to come in and problem solve. And sometimes it might be, you know, a lot of people have these, these security companies. Um, and it's, it's quite expensive to take a whole company out and replace it.

Or actually, why don't we just come in and train them up? You know, I mean, also you can train the, we can train them out. Yeah. So the big, big difference I'm finding here in the US and the UK, so the UK, we have the security industry or for it. So if you work in the security industry, you have to have done a course, whether you're in man, guard, in close protections of aliens, you have to have done a course which is recognized by governing bodies.

So it's reached certain criteria in standards. Right. You have a baseline. Right. What you have here in the US is you don't have a baseline. You can, you can do an online eight hour close protection course get a concealed carry and that's you in the secure industry. So you have everything from excellent to really poor. There's no baseline.

And so that's the problem you've got here. And so what I'm trying to do is sort of introduce that baseline. You know, this is the baseline or train people up. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So then who can you talk about that are some of your clients that we I would know? You don't have Elon Musk. You don't have Harry now. I don't know that you cleared that you know, cleared up that rumor. I don't work with celebrities. No, no, and there's a happy, just anything like in terms of like, you said visa or whatever. Yeah, visa, you know, more your visas, your halibur and your oil companies, KPMG, and it tends to be more that the board level sort of coming in and also doing crisis management.

You know, where my specialty is lie is the crisis management, the evacuation plans. Me and my- Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah, like when the Afghanistan thing all kicked off. Yeah. We ended up getting 1,200 people out of Afghanistan. That's the same.

And not even with my clients, it's just because people had heard about my story. But what you have is in the security industry, you have your insurance companies. And actually, again, the big five, two of the big five in Afghanistan didn't realize they weren't insured for Afghanistan until it was needed. But they're getting retainers from their clients. And so we were picking up clients that weren't ours originally. But insurance companies, sometimes we call

Force Majored, there's a lot of lessons left from Afghanistan and I'm now working with some insurance companies and they're changing their model as well. But some are called forced mjure. But again, some of these corporates need to look at the small print, you know, what they actually covered for and what they're not covered for.

And it's sort of tend to find out at the wrong time. But you can get an aircraft into Kabul, you know, it's part of insurance thing. But what they don't do and what we're specializing is the first mile, how you're going to get from A to B, and that's not covered in insurance. And so that's where we, me and my team sort of tend to come in as we look at, good, once you're at the airport, that's fine, it's just paperwork. It's getting you from that point to that point.

Is that the, is that the lion's share of how you make a living now is through private security? Yeah, I had a phone call a couple of months ago with a head of CIO for Station for Yemen. I've just googled you. You're a cyclist. I said, look, there's two Dean stars. There's the one that's doing some TV, some books, and guest-speaking. I said, this is the one that's doing some TV, some books, and guest speaking. I said, but that's the side hustle. My passions are in the security. Although people will see Google Dean start, I'm probably not the person who's smuggling people across borders anymore and burying weapons, but I still have access to those that can do that. And so for me, I'm always trying to put work to my friends at a leave in the military. But I understand

that transition period they're going through is difficult. It's difficult. Could you went through it? I went through it. Yeah, and I'm now just allowing myself with the Honor Foundation in America, which is a nonprofit, which is a transition program for special operators, special operators to civilian industry, because I can relate to that story. So it's maybe not so much me, but it is working. Some of these media profiles is helping. I had the Cambodian government getting touched me on LinkedIn because they'd heard me on Jocco's podcast

talking about the Canadian Embassy. Right, I'm telling you. That Jocco, yeah, that one crushed it for you. Yeah, that was a big one, yeah. That was a big one. And a surprise, because I'd never heard a Jocco. But it was a big one. I know, it's what's interesting is in America here,

he's one of the more popular Navy SEALs because he went on Joe Rogan abunds and he's friends with this guy named Joe. Do you know what Joe Rogan is? I know Joe Rogan is, yeah, yeah. And yeah, but you were saying also, like he's tier two. Yeah. So for you to be tier one, like to him,

like that's like a big, I mean, that's where the respect level comes in, right? Cause you're like, to him, you're all to everybody, I guess, but like your next level, next level. Yeah, I think you automatically have respect for anyone from any nation on what they've done exactly, and what they've done. So they did all that automatic sort of bond, you know, before I went down on Jocke, I'd say, I don't listen to podcasts.

I could, I don't, and it was quite interesting because Jocco, when I sat up to him offline, he said he likes you to talk about yourself. He doesn't want you, you reference in podcasts, whatever. Yeah, yeah. And so, so a lot of friends were saying, oh yeah, he's hardcore, you know, he's, he's intense and I met him outside his gym and he just gave me the biggest man hug. And I was like, okay, this is good. This is going gonna be fine. It turns, not to me, is that.

He's very excited. Yeah, so that was nice. But yeah, you automatically have respect for those. But the thing is with Tier 1, a lot of guys in Tier 1 like to still stay in the shadows. There's not many Tier 1s out there. That's what that's what it seems to be. And for me, I wanted, I was always in the shadows.

I turned down TV opportunities, but it was only when I did my bike ride that my head then popped above the parapet, and that's when I, people then realized who I was. I was happy to stay. And to the rear. And to the rear. And to the rear. And to the rear. And to the rear.

And to the rear. And to the rear. And to the rear. And to the rear. And to the rear. And to with me at the right, you know, at the time. They went on to be great TV programs, but for me, it just was the wrong time. Well, two things to that. Number one, what he's referring to is you broke the world record in...

You drove your bike, but the Pan Am road, the Pan American Highway, yeah. Pan American Highway in record time. Was it 99 days that you did that in? Yeah, yeah. So it's the world's longest road, which runs from southern Argentina to Northern Alaska, 14,000 miles, two continents. And by the only ever cycle, 20 miles

before I applied for the world record. You know, Alana, when I was working with the property industry, as we've heard some of my backstory, you know, she could see that I was bored. Yeah. And I didn't want to be smuggling people across borders. So she said, you need to do something to keep yourself physically

mentally engaged. So I just bought a push bike because this leg was two kilos lighter than this. But only eight miles there, eight miles back. But straight away, that cardio of Asuka, they're getting those lungs going. I felt there was almost like a weight off my shoulders. I could, I was getting that identity back. That lungs going. I felt there was almost like a weight off my shoulders. I was getting that identity back. That physical attributes that I'd sort of lost with my injury, which is part of who you are. Which is part of who I am. And so I know I can't run anymore,

but I thought, well, cycling's good. So I said, I fancy doing a world record. And I was about a month before my 40th birthday. And Alaner actually found the world's longest road. So I joke when I say she wanted me out the house. And so I actually found the world's longest road. So I joked when I said she wanted me out the house. And so I applied for the world record. And Guinness came back, you know, six weeks later, said you've been successful on your application. So I don't mean to ever sound arrogant. I know, I talk about early, you can be, you can only be experience of experiences. I knew I had the mental

fortitude and resilience and endurance my time in the special forces. I just had to apply that in a sport I'd never, never done before. And so I just took a military set of orders, put it on this project and just crossed out ammunition and just planned the whole project, Laan and I planned it. But I needed to do it for, my objective was for me to keep cycling each day and to get out was, was the will record. I have to have an, you know, it's a military thing. You have to have a mission or an objective. So mine was the world record and that's why I applied for that.

We then spoke to Harry, you know, I rang him up, I said, look, I'm going to cycle the world's longest road. What should we do it for? And him and his brother and Kate, again, before Megan was on the scene, we're about to launch a campaign called Heads Together, which focused on mental health. And I've seen mental health issues in the military, but I wasn't aware how big it was throughout the whole society, post-natal depression, young children, teenagers, veterans. And so I said, yeah, that's the perfect, that's the perfect campaign message. So we had the campaign, we had that Harry introduced me to the Royal Foundation, you know,

sat down with them, and they're like, how much are you looking to raise, target them a million pounds? Could I want it to keep them at the table? I mean, I'm just claps their folders and walk out. But then the second question was, what is your trying to promote this challenge? And I hadn't really thought about it. And I then looked internally and I said, well, physical activity helps your mental state. This was 2016, I said, no, physical activity helps your mental state. No, this is 2016.

He said, no, you can't use that. I said, why not? And I said, because it's not being scientifically proven. I said, that's fine, but I don't need a scientist to tell me that I feel good. And so I ignored him anyway. And as you know, now one of the coping mechanisms for mental health is physical activity. No, I mean, if they say it's better that if working out is a better for you, if you've depressed or have anxiety, it's better than anxiety medications, better than depression

medication. I mean, there's tons of research. There's tons of research now. I guess spoke at, on mental health day at Scotland, rugby in Scotland, football, and the doctor came up to me afterwards, I was a presentation, slammed down this big folder, and said, there's all the evidence you need. So I'm glad that I continued banging that drum. So yeah, I went to planning, you know, train for a year, Alana did run the whole campaign, she got me fundraising, you know, she managed to get me half a million

pounds sponsorship as a non-cyclist. Yeah, and we went on, I broke the world record by 17 days, I did it in 99 days and became the first man in history to do under 100 days. At the age of 40, 41. But I was trying to prove to people it's never too late to start a sport, but also be good at it. A lot of people can be, I was chatting to a group of cyclists and I remember the woman saying that when she first turned up to a cycling club, it was almost like a first day at school. Everyone was in their little

groups and she just felt intimidated, didn't know where she sort of fit it in. And it is. And it is. And it is a bit like that. And so for me, I just see, you take away the like, or take away the helmet, and actually, it's just individuals on a bike. But yeah, it's amazing that it had its challenges. I spoke to the previous record holders. They started in Alaska and finished in Argentina, but all their issues were in South and Central America, but bureaucracy at the borders, languages,

spares for the bikes. So being the military guy, I was like, well, why would you not address those issues early? Why would you not get them out the way? Yeah. Because one of the things we do in the military, one of the reasons one of the best in the world is because we always learn from our mistakes. And I still do this now in business as well as we would do what's called a hot debrief. So every time we came off the ground, before we go clean our weapons, have food or do anything else, we would discuss

what we've just done and the three questions were what worked, what didn't work, and if we were to do that again, what would we do differently? So we're always evolving. You know, we're always evolving our tactics. And so I asked the previous record holder is that and the information I got was that all the issues were in South and Central America. So one of the things I was quite proud of is actually just because everyone did it that way didn't mean it was the right way and I turned it on its head and started in the South and then headed north. But I took it. I love that. I think that is such an important message because people just think that because it was done before, that's the

way they should do it. But that's not necessarily or usually what you should be doing. No, yeah, don't follow it. Just because everyone's going that direction, doesn't mean it's the right direction. And 100%. Yeah.

And yeah, so we got to, wow, I took 10 days off the South America World Record. My decision to go South to North was a good decision from a psychoan perspective. We had issues, I crashed the bike into a sign in Chile. I got food poisoning twice in Peru, knocked off my bike in Colombia. But from a psyching perspective, I was getting a tailwind for the majority of South America, which was great, which has helped me. Yeah. But on the logistics perspective, it was slowing us down. You could get a vehicle from Alaska to Argentina,

as long as you cross the Daringap. But coming up, we had to swap the vehicles at every border crossing, which was slowing us up. So we'd bought a four by four in an RV in Fort Lauderdale, and it was gonna get shipped to Panama. And then once we flew from Cartagena, we'd pick up the keys, and those vehicles

would take us all the way to Alaska. So, Alana's run in the whole campaign. She rings me when I'm in Ecuador about two weeks out from Cartagena, and she said, look, I've had a phone call from the shipping company. The vehicles haven't been loaded onto the container. They're stuck in Fort Lauderdale, and I said, okay, she could leave it with me. There's Alana though. She tries to keep all the distractions away from me. She sounds pretty amazing. Yeah, she is. And so my wife, can I borrow her?

She's like, the South, like she's like a big brain, the brains behind the scene. She is the behind the scene, yeah, definitely. So she, her and my PA and two of my friends had foresight, and they flew over to Fort Lauderdale. I had to sit down protest until they could release the vehicles. And they drove the vehicles 4,000 miles in eight days from Fort Lauderdale through Mexico, all the way through Central America.

So I broke the wheel record in Cartagena in the morning, took 10 days off that wheel record. flew over at noon. A liner in the team came in and our later handed over the keys and we continued. So the reason I made that apparent is because we talk about the special forces. We have a number in the UK for every tier one special forces operator to step out of a helicopter, jump out a plane or dive, it takes seven other people. You don't see seven to one ratio. And so it's important to having a team around you. And it was actually that team that made it successful for me. I was a line of jokes. I had the easy job. All I had to do was cycle the bike. Right. Right. And so we get into Del Rio in Texas on day 70, and I'm 14 days ahead of this world record,

and I'm like, perfect. You know, I can take the foot of the gas, well, within time, and within an hour of getting in Texas, I have five missed calls on my phone from Alana. And so again, I've talked about how she keeps all those distractions away from me. So my initial thought was there was a problem

with our children. So I bring her and I said, look, you're okay, she goes, yeah, she goes, what do you wear to a royal wedding? I said, sorry. She goes, what do you wear to a royal wedding? I said, I don't know. She goes, well, we've been invited to Harry and Meghan's wedding. I said, oh, that's nice.

She goes, no, you don't understand. You need to be finished by a day 102. So going into the phone call, I was 14 days ahead of the wheel record. 10 minutes later, I'm now a day behind. And so I had to change the way that I cycled in North America to try and get in and time for this wedding. So my mission, my objective was still there, just to tie the time in a change completely.

So I got into Lubbock the next day. We had 60 mile an hour winds in tornadoes. And there's an app on your phone called Windy TV. And it gives you the strength and directions of the winds. And so I was now two days behind. And so I just put pen to paper. I had to cycle 340 miles in the next 36 hours to miss the next weather window.

In South America, because of the security issues, we had to be off the road at night. So I had to cycle from first light to last light, and for security reasons, be off the road. In North America, we had the luxury of being able to cycle at night. So the majority of my cycling was done at night in North America, and I was playing chess with mother nature with the winds. But also using it to my advantage, I got to Cheyenne in Wyoming, and got a 50 mile an hour tailwind and cycled 270 miles in 11 hours.

And so we had 17 days planned for North America and I did it in 11 and a half days. And so I gained all that time. And made the wedding. A bit, again, I then had another hurdle. I got a week outside and I was in town called Whitehorse and I was eating as much McDonald's as I could because I was losing weight.

And my friend messaged me and told me about a professional cyclist, young 26-year-old lad, he's already got free endurance world record, sponsored by Red Bull, all the big brands. He come out and social media that day and said he was going to be the first person to do under 100 days. And so for me, I just wasn't comfortable in sort of resting on what I'd achieved so far. And so I cycled for 22 hours in the last 30 hours in minus 18 to come in. Minus 18? Minus 18. Stop it.

Yeah, we had everything from plus 47 degrees centigrade in the Atticarm at desert to minus 18 and everything in between. And that was the attraction about the challenge for me. It wasn't just cycling in one environment. You've been pushed through different environments seen different cultures, different countries. And so yeah, I came in in 99 days, 12 hours and 56 minutes. It wasn't the original plan to do under 100 days.

It's just how things had sort of unfolded on the challenge. If I'd known about the guy, the guy or Harry's wedding at the start, you know, did the guy, what did the guy do by the way? Yeah, he'd be my will record. Yeah, but he'd get what he'd get. Oh, I mean, got my 88 days. He smashed it. Yeah, 88 days.

88 days. I met him in Vienna and we went cycling together. And, you know, but he said, look, you are the first man to do 100 days, but I'm not a cyclist, you know, for me, he was a cyclist. Oh, he's been cycling on his like, you can't count that then. I don't count. You're still the number one. But what was comfortable for me, what I was really comforting for me was that he was going to go a slightly different route. Right.

And then when he, him and his fiance and his team were following me, they, they chose my route and they said, your route was perfect. You know, you planned it perfectly. And they said, your route was perfect. You'd planned it perfectly. You know, he got a police escort through Mexico. I didn't have the luxuries of that. Oh, that's up. But we'll record.

It will record there to be broken. You know, for me, I dipped my toe in cycling. You know, and for me, but what was more impressive was we raised or re-raised, Elana raised $1.3 million for mental health along the way as well. Amazing. With every penny going to them because I sponsored,

you know, covered all the additional costs. That's amazing. The last thing I wanted to ask you about was that I heard that you're doing a docu-series on your life or things that kind of are similar to your life. Is that true? Yeah, that's true. I've been approached to do a docu-series.

It's more military-based. So it's in my lane. It's not a gardening show or a baking show. So it's something I'm comfortable talking about. So yeah, so we're in process of filming that. It's under embargo, so I can't disclose too much. But it's going to be exciting. So I'm looking forward to doing that.

When is that supposed to be out to be? I think that I'll be out towards the end of this year. That's the plan. What made you decide, and this is the last thing, and then I'm gonna wrap you up, because I don't even know how long hours. What made you decide? So you didn't wanna ever do TV.

The first thing that you ever did in the media was the world record of what's it called pan? Pan American Highway. Pan American Highway. Why now? Why did you decide now? So what did the Pan American Highway? I didn't look beyond the Pan American Highway.

I didn't see a career in guest-beaking or books. You know, I did it so I wasn't smuggling people across borders. I actually only just started social media on the campaign. And so my head had popped above the parapet. You know, I spoke to the MOD, they love what I was doing

because I was putting a military in a good light. And so all these other opportunities arise. And my next challenge, my next challenge I wanted to do was kayak the river now. It's never been done before from source to sea. Oh wow. Originally started planning them and COVID hit, then we moved over here.

And then when I sort of brought it back to the table, it doesn't matter how many millions you've raised for charity or how many will record you got. The feedback I was getting was, how many Instagram followers you got, was that really? Yeah. And this unfortunately is the society that we're in.

And so for me, these other TV opportunities are rising. And I thought, well, let's put that to the side then. And let's focus on building the profile. Let's do these TV shows. Let's raise that profile. So people know who you are, hear your story. But then what I can then do is then bring the now challenge back then that helps with sponsorship, helps with TV,

but also from a fundraising aspect, more people, more eyes on it, I mean, we can potentially raise more money. So yeah, that's the difference for me. This is so crazy to me. Like someone like at your level and they're still haranging about Instagram and social media followers.

Like it's so insane, like what our world is these days. It doesn't matter what you do offline. If only if you're visible to a bunch of Yahoo's online. It doesn't make any sense to me, bother me. But I think you have to also be authentic as well. I'm learning a lot, but I understand the benefits of social media, I can see it. But for me, I still, and Alana has a go at me, but I still have imposter syndrome.

I can do TV and things like that, but I struggle talking to my phone. I don't know if it's the humility thing or whether it's just something new to us, but as long as I'm true to, I'm organic, I'm true, I'm authentic. Totally. And there's been opportunities before.

I could have taken the easier it had gone on TV and made millions because my friends who did that. And so for me, I was always conscious on what the Special Forces community thought about what I was doing. And I've always been mindful of that. But now I have this sort of blessing after the bike ride and stuff like this.

Yeah. I feel like, you know, it's been 10 years since I've left now, 12 years. And so for me, it's like, that is my past, you know, this is my new life. But, you know, trying to find the balance, you know, securities where my skillsets are, I like to help people, whether it's in philanthropy or in security situations. And okay, well, the guys, this book is called Relentless. You look like you're still 28 with that body.

How often do you work out every day? I try not to work out every day. Well, I'm trying to find a zing and yang balance. But what I tend to do is I have a pull-up bar in the house. And so every time I walk under the door, I do pull-ups. Yeah, I do pull-ups. Yeah, I do pull-ups. I don't allocate an hour to do training, but I know by the end of the day,

I've probably done 10 sets of 15 pull-ups, or 10 sets of 15%. But if you were just 15 pull-ups, what is someone, I know I said I was gonna wrap it and now I'm gonna go to a whole other freaking litany of stuff, but no. Okay, so you don't look like that from just doing like some push ups

when you're like walking outside, that you know, underneath the door. I would also you doing, like give me your regimen. You take supplements, when you eat, are you wanna, are you like a carnivore, are you a vegetarian? No, I'm a carnivore. It's quite interesting about the nutrition, you know?

I got approached by all the, all the big cycling brands when I was doing the bike ride, but I was 40 years old. And for me, again, I'm only now learning about nutrition and the benefits of nutrition, the science behind it. When I joined the military in 1995, and there was the gym instructors, the exercises and stretches we were doing are all legal now.

You know, because there was no signs behind it. But for me, I've always seen food as fuel. Yeah. And so I would eat whatever. So, and at the age of 40, you're already developed anyway. But Alana was, she was looking at sports nutritionists and it just weren't getting me.

So she trained to be a sports nutritionist herself. So she, yeah, could, she tried to find, she couldn't find anything that had enough calories for what I needed. You guys are hilarious. So we couldn't figure out what to eat. So I just became, my wife became a sports nutritionist because that's what everybody does.

And they become a property developer because that's how we, and then we become like this, we become like that. And then we become an author, I know the books. She's now sat the bar, you know She she she if people don't work to her standard she'll learn that job and do it herself She's now studying law and because she's on the pay for solicitors serious Yeah, no she and and I want her on the podcast Yeah, and she's found her passion now in writing, you know, she's an incredible and sort of going back. She's just been honoured on the New Year's Honest List. So we go

back to UK in Forfe of July and King Charles is going to give her her MBE for supporting vulnerable women and mental health awareness. It's amazing. So yeah, it's great that she's been recognised for everything she does behind the scenes. Totally. It's incredible. So yeah, it's great that she's been recognized for everything she does behind the scenes. Totally. It's incredible. She sounds incredible. Yeah, by genuinely believing, I never mean to sound arrogant about this. I genuinely believe that anyone can break a real record.

If someone is looking after the business, the children, the mortgage, and all I've got to do is train for what I need to do. I love that you said that earlier, because I think that people, I don't think anybody is self-made. I think everybody needs a really strong team behind them to do it, and when people don't give credit where credits do, it's a real pet peeve of mine, because what you said to your point, when one person's jumping out of that parachute,

take seven other people to make that happen properly and safely, and I think that was, it's very, I don't know, I think that it's a really nice quality that you give credit where credits do because a lot of times people just pound their chests and they don't say these things. And I think it's a really important thing to realize that we all need a village to be successful. To be a good mom, you need to have a nice support system. You need to be a good anything. You need to have people around you

who are supporting you to do that job. Yeah, it's true. I see people, Emma and I always, me and Alana always look behind them. Well, who's enabling them to do that? And it's not just famous people or sports people. It's like a military. A lot of these wives had to stay back

while the guys away look after the family and support them. You know, in most relationships, one will sacrifice so the other, you know, does well, you know, Gmail has always end up being the one that's pregnant. They're careers always put on pause. So we, you know, I'm mindful of that and I always, when I speak to people, I tried to identify who's the team behind you, who's enabled you to get to where you are. Could I do see people and I'm like,

you mentioned a couple before and it's like, it's very wide. 100% yeah. Yeah, wives. I think especially in the business that, what I do here, I have a lot of people who are super, super successful, I talk to all the time.

And when you really, you know, can of see what happens behind the curtain or like peel the layers back, it's like, okay, you know, like this is why this has happened for you. You know what I mean? It's not just because you're extraordinary. It's because people have helped support you and do this.

And it's not just, you know, like to be relentless and to do these things, you need to have people who allow you to be relentless in other areas, to take care of your life in other areas. Yeah, and I think also knowing your team, knowing the strengths of the weakness of Llan and I, Llan, I can't ride a bike, you know, yeah, she only, I taught her to ride a bike during COVID. She'll learn, she'll become the next last song from the film. Yeah, but I know nothing about business contracts and the A's, you know, Llan, you know,

so we know our strengths and weaknesses. I'm the sociable character. I'm the one who can open doors and things like that. And Alana's almost like, as she calls the bitch that comes in with a contract. That's good. This is a partnership, it's a partnership. Well, you know what you're good at.

She knows what she's good at or whatever and you lead on those strengths. That's what it's about. Yeah, by struggle, because I came from an environment in the military where you trust the person next to you with's about. Yeah, by struggle, because I came from an environment in the military where you trust the person actually with your life. And you believe that they had the best interest in you.

And when I came out into the corporate world, I thought everyone was the same. And I love is that. No, that's not the case. That's naive. That's naive, yeah. And so she would see Frula, and she would, you know, she'd seen people take advantage of my goodwill and, you know, I was trying to explain earlier on, I was chatting is like, you know, we don't, no one gives

us a bill when in the military when we plan his operations. And some of the stuff I do now is, you know, and in the special forces, they're there to rescue life. And so I don't see a price on life. And so there's been occasions where, you know, Canadian embassy are only charged $7,000 because I couldn't be bothered waiting for to get cleared. We do have time. Right. Whereas, and then afterwards it's hard to then say, this is what it's worth. Yeah. And so Alana sort of puts it in act. You know, I just think

about saving people when actually she said they're the the monetary value. 100%. You go to monitor. you got to like prefer the table got prefer the table. Yeah, but for me is like I also don't like see and I see some of these big security companies, especially like Afghanistan really taking advantage of a a bad situation and charging and it's like no you shouldn't take advantage of that and it will come back 10 fold. Yeah, you know, so there's a time and a place for that. And it will come back 10 fold. Yeah. You know, I mean, so there's a time and a place for that. 100%. Dean, this has been so interesting. I'm so happy that you actually finally got, we got you on the podcast. This was really fascinating. Can you just tell people where they can find you since now you want to have it? Now you're on social media. So what are your handles?

Where do people find out more about you, get your book, all the things? So I am on social media, but who are not? Dean's stock for Facebook and Instagram. I have a website www.deans.com and you'll see some of my future projects on there. You can buy the book on Amazon, but you can also buy it from my website. And five dollars of each book for my website goes to the Honor Foundation. Love it.

Which is the transition program for the Special Forces. So still trying to do my piece for the veteran community. I love it. Thank you so much James, but a pleasure having you. Thank you for having me appreciate. Hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your

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