Speaker 1: Mute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to SOFTWAB Radio Special Operations, Military Models on
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on? Welcome to another episode of soft
Speaker 2: Rep Radio. I am your host, rad and I have
Speaker 2: a very special guest with me. But first, as I
Speaker 2: must mention, we have a merch store soft rep dot com.
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Speaker 2: that out, read a book, gain some mental knowledge, and
Speaker 2: then let's talk about it somewhere on the internet. Okay,
Speaker 2: but without further ado, I have Dean Stott former SBS,
Speaker 2: which is Special Boat Service, not to be confused with
Speaker 2: Special Air Service.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's all right, that is correct, Yeah, very correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But also extreme athlete, father, husband, someone who misses
Speaker 2: his family when he has to deploy and has to
Speaker 2: write letters or thinks about them, you know, This is
Speaker 2: somebody who's living a life among us, probably teaches soccer
Speaker 2: to his kids and next to your kids. You know,
Speaker 2: these are folks that just go above and beyond the
Speaker 2: athletic spectrum, right, extreme athletes like Olympians and Dean you
Speaker 2: fall into that, I know, you know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, purely by accident. Yeah, but it was Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's true, Yeah, it is true. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean one of the things that I've investigated, you know,
Speaker 2: through getting ready to talk with you, is that you
Speaker 2: did a fourteen thousand mile trek all the way to
Speaker 2: Alaska from Timbuctoo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the bottom of argent then the southern tip of
Speaker 3: Argentina to northern Alaska's it's the world's longest road runs
Speaker 3: as you touched on fourteen thousand miles or twenty two
Speaker 3: thousand kilometers depending where your listeners come from. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a world record attempt, and I'd never cycled
Speaker 3: more than twenty miles before I applied for the world record,
Speaker 3: and so just sort of decided, no, I wanted to
Speaker 3: test myself. I always wanted to do a will record,
Speaker 3: and you know, as a young boys to read the
Speaker 3: Guinness Book of Records. But unfortunately had a parachute injury
Speaker 3: which shortened my career in the Special Boat Service.
Speaker 4: I did sixteen years and had to leave.
Speaker 3: And so the will Record had to be a challenge
Speaker 3: or had to be a sport that wasn't gonna be
Speaker 3: hampering my knee. And so yeah, my wife then found
Speaker 3: the world's longest road. I'd only cycled twenty miles I
Speaker 3: at the age of forty, I applied for the will
Speaker 3: Record and six weeks later Guinness said, yes, you've been
Speaker 3: successful on your on your application.
Speaker 2: Well here was that that you went through with that?
Speaker 3: So that was I applied for the will Record in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen and I set off. It was first of
Speaker 3: February twenty eighteen, so only five years ago from now.
Speaker 2: So congratulations on getting that world record achievement. It's not
Speaker 2: like you're just stacking pennies in a minute, okay, like
Speaker 2: who could step the most pennies in a minute. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like you're putting your body. You're like you're saying,
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure I'm not going to
Speaker 2: hamper my knee, right, everything else seems to be good
Speaker 2: on you. You know. Funny you said you were jumping
Speaker 2: out of an airplane when that happened. Yeah, my dad
Speaker 2: being a former SF guy Green Beret, they dropped him
Speaker 2: on a night jump out here in Utah. But his
Speaker 2: whole team got hurt when they were above the mountain.
Speaker 2: But it was a night jump and they couldn't see
Speaker 2: the mountain below, but the elevation was at stacked. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I dropped them on the mountain in a Elvis's
Speaker 2: broken things. My dad got head injuries, you know, team
Speaker 2: just in training.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can imagine, Yeah, we did. I was very
Speaker 3: fortunate when I joined the SBS. It was a business
Speaker 3: time in UKSF history. You know, we were the SAS
Speaker 3: were in Iraq, the SPS. We're in Afghanistan, rescue hostages
Speaker 3: off the east coast of Africa. So we're doing a
Speaker 3: lot in a short period of time which guys before
Speaker 3: has had probably been waiting ten, fifteen, twenty years in
Speaker 3: their career to do. So I was fortunate to do
Speaker 3: the first ever operational jump for the SBS, and that
Speaker 3: was in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: And so I can I can relate to what your
Speaker 4: father was saying.
Speaker 3: There is actually because of the high grounds, you know,
Speaker 3: the altitude, and there was a couple of occasions, Yeah,
Speaker 3: where you know, we had it slightly wrong and thought
Speaker 3: we had still two and a half three thousand footmen
Speaker 3: and next thing we've connected with the side of the hill.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's part and parcel of Yeah, jumping at altitude,
Speaker 3: especially with a different attitude from.
Speaker 2: The DZ or at nighttime was just a night time time.
Speaker 3: Everything's at there. Everything we do is at nighttime, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they call his green eyes.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, actually got your not you got night vision hunt,
Speaker 2: you got your.
Speaker 3: Night vision on. Yeah, and that's it. That all the
Speaker 3: all the Taliban knows as his green eyes because any
Speaker 3: time grazed at night. Yeah, that's actually could be actually
Speaker 3: picking up on their icon chat when you know that
Speaker 3: they're talking about is they're talking about green eyes the
Speaker 3: reference in.
Speaker 2: So they could pick it up there, they've got something
Speaker 2: that's picking up your green ice. They've got night vision,
Speaker 2: they're probably picking up night vision.
Speaker 3: Night vision not so much they had it, but you
Speaker 3: know they they can you know, close up, they see
Speaker 3: that's all they can see around the right here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just around the base, you know. So we're kicking indoors.
Speaker 3: That's all their references to. So they don't references to
Speaker 3: specific units. They just say green eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the light from the night vision is on
Speaker 2: the skull sock of the ice sockets. Yeah, I got you.
Speaker 2: The same with thermals, they do the same thing. So
Speaker 2: we do war games here in Utah and we hunt
Speaker 2: guys that he's got. My guys got thermals, and I
Speaker 2: like to hunt him because when you get a predator
Speaker 2: like that, like you know, the thermal guy, Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: just something that you put in your the notch of
Speaker 2: your gun right there. It's like I'm going to notch that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he's still sucked into tunnel vision because he's still
Speaker 2: using that technology. You know. It's just like you know,
Speaker 2: obviously you forget some senses around you, but if you're
Speaker 2: not using it, you'll see that glowing eye socket. It
Speaker 2: is true.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, yeah, And technologies have banned so much
Speaker 3: over the years. I remember picking up my first firm
Speaker 3: limagure back in nineteen ninety nine in Egypt on an exercise,
Speaker 3: and this thing had a gaspot all the size of
Speaker 3: my chest, which we had to you know, twist on them,
Speaker 3: and you know, it almost had to start this thing up.
Speaker 3: It was making a noise, and now you get these
Speaker 3: handheld flirts and you know depth perception now on the mvgs.
Speaker 3: You know, it's so it's so different from when the
Speaker 3: first generation. I'm currently we'll probably share a bit later,
Speaker 3: but I can't go into too much detail. But I'm
Speaker 3: currently doing an episode documentary on the Special Forces with
Speaker 3: one of the biggest broadcasters in the world. Well, that's
Speaker 3: one thing that's really stood out to me as we've
Speaker 3: been visiting these units is the evolution of equipment and
Speaker 3: how equipment has changed so much. And when I was
Speaker 3: in you know, first generation plate carriers, which you know
Speaker 3: is probably the weight of this table, to like now
Speaker 3: these things I don't even know, like.
Speaker 2: A three D near nylon, it's like three hundred. It's
Speaker 2: not even five hundred. It's not even a thousand cordua.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, these different weights because guys like
Speaker 2: you are carrying such a load then are moving through
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, terrain and having to get
Speaker 2: from point A to point B. The lighter the load,
Speaker 2: the better the movement on your body. So now it's
Speaker 2: like the laser cut Molly inside of all of the vests,
Speaker 2: taking off the webbing the West.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, yeah, it's one last thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: One of the nations who went to I can't really
Speaker 4: go into detail, but.
Speaker 3: They had the old style jungle webin that I was
Speaker 3: used to on my selection, and then my two co
Speaker 3: hosts were there with all the modern stuff and I said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm using the old stuff again. Just just one one
Speaker 3: lasting Like.
Speaker 2: Alice Harness on your body, it moves with you, you know,
Speaker 2: it just does right am on this side, this side,
Speaker 2: it does, it really does. Well, that's awesome. And so
Speaker 2: you know, we talked so cordially, but you are super
Speaker 2: super famous for you know, doing your shows, right, you
Speaker 2: want to tell me a little bit about the shows
Speaker 2: that you're you can talk about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, actually I don't know whether I'm more famous
Speaker 3: to the shows. How I sort of came into becoming
Speaker 3: a public figure where it started as we touched on
Speaker 3: I had I had that parachuting accident after sixteen years,
Speaker 3: and so unfortunately I had to leave the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: I never I never really, I never had perception. I
Speaker 3: never had any aspirations of leaving the military at all.
Speaker 3: I was a lifer. I was going to go onto
Speaker 3: my twenty two I was going to get commissioned, and
Speaker 3: I was going to stay until I was until they
Speaker 3: kicked me out. Basically I didn't want to be a civilian.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, the parachute accident, you know, changing the course
Speaker 3: and direction of your life, and so I ended up,
Speaker 3: you know, leaving the military of sixteen years or I'd
Speaker 3: never known from the age of seventeen to now thirty three,
Speaker 3: coming on thirty four, was that military environment as with you.
Speaker 3: My father was in the military, My grandparents were in
Speaker 3: the military. I grew up, as we call them, a
Speaker 3: pads brat or military brat. Yeah, we call them paths brat.
Speaker 3: And you know, because a pad is your home, your
Speaker 3: homes were called pads. So that's what I was, pads
Speaker 3: brat and so that's all I ever really, ever, really knew.
Speaker 4: And then you know, change of direction.
Speaker 3: Met my wife. My wife and I were together anyway,
Speaker 3: and she's very entrepreneur or entrepreneurial.
Speaker 2: And credit too, right I think.
Speaker 3: Yes, she's an awful now as well. Yeah, but she
Speaker 3: you know, when you're in the military, the military will
Speaker 3: protect you know, they provide the heat and the accommodation
Speaker 3: everything else. You know, they take all those distractions away
Speaker 3: from you so you can focus on the job that
Speaker 3: you need to be doing. And so I was worried
Speaker 3: about entering this alien environment, which was a civilian environment
Speaker 3: for me, but my wife, you know, took those distractions
Speaker 3: away from me and without sounding like leam Neiss. And
Speaker 3: people with our skill sets naturally go on to the
Speaker 3: private securities sector. And so my screen's frozen.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I see you just like to see me, okay, cool?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, So people with our skill sets and
Speaker 3: naturally go onto the security industry. And so within forty
Speaker 3: eight hours, I was out in Libya join the Arab Spring,
Speaker 3: helping set up the British embassy in Benghazi. But I
Speaker 3: soon identified that a lot of the big security companies
Speaker 3: were charging six seven figure sums for crisis management, evacuation plans,
Speaker 3: stuff that's not in place, and as we've seen more
Speaker 3: recently in Afghanistan, they still haven't sorted themselves out, but
Speaker 3: still selling the service. And so I bought thirty weapons
Speaker 3: on the black market and I buried them between Tunis
Speaker 3: and Egypt and designed my only evacuation plans and sold
Speaker 3: them to the audience. So I was starting to then
Speaker 3: get a reputation within the security industry. You know, I
Speaker 3: was learning in a short period of time the whole
Speaker 3: about the security sector. You know, when I tell people
Speaker 3: I'm in the secure industry, they think you're because of
Speaker 3: the way you look and that the build you are,
Speaker 3: you're a dormant from the local nightclub. You know. It's
Speaker 3: everything from surveillance, close protection, coaching, mentoring, you know, geopolitical analysis.
Speaker 3: There's so much in that arena, and I was learning
Speaker 3: a lot quickly. I just finished the London Olympics in
Speaker 3: twenty twelve. When you're American and I was in Benghazi
Speaker 3: the evening your American ambassador got killed and made a movie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they made a movie thirteen hours. So I was in
Speaker 3: the city that evening and I single handedly got a
Speaker 3: German oil company from Benghazi back to TRIPLEI through safe
Speaker 3: houses that I had, so I'd proven the concept of
Speaker 3: my evacuation plan. And then two years later, I'm at
Speaker 3: the Brazil World Cup again, another big sporting event and
Speaker 3: joining you know, doing security, but and join the environment.
Speaker 3: And then I get a phone call from the Canadian
Speaker 3: embassy in Libya telling me that it's now the Tripoli War,
Speaker 3: which is a civil war between the militias and the government,
Speaker 3: and all the embassies had shut shop and gone, all
Speaker 3: the security companies and left and they were stuck behind.
Speaker 3: But they'd know that I had a reputation to help
Speaker 3: people in in these situation. So I went back in
Speaker 3: and I single handed and evacuated the Canadian MBC out
Speaker 3: of Libya on my own, eighteen military and four diplomats. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so when I came back from that trip, that's
Speaker 3: when my wife highlighted to me that I'd only been
Speaker 3: home twenty one days in a three hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: five day period.
Speaker 4: And this is five years from my injury.
Speaker 3: And so I was trying to match adrenin rush I
Speaker 3: had when I was in the Special Forces without coming
Speaker 3: to terms with the fact that I had left. And
Speaker 3: so something needed to change. And so at this point
Speaker 3: I'm still very much under the radar, you know, people
Speaker 3: don't really know of me outside the SF community. It
Speaker 3: was then that I decided I was going to do
Speaker 3: the bike ride. But before that I had been approached
Speaker 3: by TV crews said, look, we've heard about you. You know,
Speaker 3: we're doing this show called Sas Who Dares Wins? Do
Speaker 3: you know we want you to be the chief instructor.
Speaker 3: But for me, I was always conscious of maintaining my
Speaker 3: reputation within the group.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't you know, it was very new,
Speaker 4: this world and media.
Speaker 2: All of a suddenly it's just like you had a
Speaker 2: and said, you know, I don't mind telling my story
Speaker 2: because you go from.
Speaker 3: No so I in a different Yeah. So I turned
Speaker 3: down that opportunity. I actually one of my friends who
Speaker 3: just come out of prison was in the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: One of the other guys had postal out stress who
Speaker 3: couldn't work in the secure industry, so they were really
Speaker 3: struggling for work.
Speaker 4: And I said, well, look speak to these guys.
Speaker 3: You know, for me, I'm still smuggling people across borders,
Speaker 3: so it doesn't help when you're on TV or you're
Speaker 3: a public figure. They went on that show then became
Speaker 3: a huge hit in the UK. You know, my wife says, oh,
Speaker 3: why do you turn it down? But for me, it's
Speaker 3: about maintaining that reputation within. But that's when I decided.
Speaker 3: You know, when I came back after the Canadian empcy,
Speaker 3: my wife's like, you know, you're taking too.
Speaker 4: Many risks in these to change, And so that's.
Speaker 3: When we decided, you know, I would go work with her,
Speaker 3: but having her my backstory, I wasn't. She was a
Speaker 3: she was a property developer. So I would go join
Speaker 3: on these architects and planners meetings, and I just she
Speaker 3: could see I was just bored. I had no interest
Speaker 3: in what.
Speaker 2: These guys and choosing you know, door frames, h flipping houses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, stick in my eyes, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Just try to stay away. And then so she said, look,
Speaker 3: you need to do something to keep yourself physically mentally engage.
Speaker 3: And that's when we then decided to do the bike ride.
Speaker 3: And then because of the bike ride, you know, Prince
Speaker 3: Harry and I are good friends, been good friends fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Did the jay Tach course, Yeah, did the jay Tag
Speaker 3: course together, did a lot of charity work. You know,
Speaker 3: I rang him up, told him about this bike ride
Speaker 3: I was doing. You know, we did it for one
Speaker 3: of his charities. We set a target of a million pounds.
Speaker 3: The world record was one hundred and seventeen.
Speaker 2: Was brilliant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you know, so really we didn't do
Speaker 3: it for you know, to expose ourselves. We did it
Speaker 3: so I wasn't taking risks and stuff. But also giving
Speaker 3: back to the community. But a year later, yeah, I wrote,
Speaker 3: I smashed the will record by seventeen days. I came
Speaker 3: the first man in history to do an under hundred days.
Speaker 3: But more impressively, my wife raised one point three million dollars.
Speaker 3: So that's when your profile and that's when you then
Speaker 3: became exposed. But where it sat well with the SF
Speaker 3: community is the fact that they knew I could have
Speaker 3: gone the quick option and done TV and done it
Speaker 3: that way, but they actually said, well, you're actually representing
Speaker 3: the community in a good light. You know. The one
Speaker 3: point three million dollars went to various mental health charities
Speaker 3: and stuff, and so we did it in a slower
Speaker 3: manner rather than trying to grab any sort of fame
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. We did it, you know, we
Speaker 3: actually we I didn't look beyond the bike ride. I
Speaker 3: didn't see a career in guest speaking, a book, doing
Speaker 3: other TV. I did it because you're focused. I needed
Speaker 3: that myself, like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Put one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. Yeah, And the bike ride was a perfect
Speaker 3: challenge and I'd never I could before. But you know,
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of stuff in the military area,
Speaker 3: done a lot in the private security sector.
Speaker 4: I literally took a military set of.
Speaker 3: Orders and put it on this challenge and just crossed
Speaker 3: out ammunition, you know, because the military great planet projects
Speaker 3: like this and so and for me the sort of
Speaker 3: character that I am, I can't just buy a bike
Speaker 3: and go join the local cycle club.
Speaker 2: It has to be your full send is what we
Speaker 2: call it in the snowboard world. Bro, It's like your
Speaker 2: full sand You just got to Yeah. It's like if
Speaker 2: you're going to do something, you're just not gonna half asset.
Speaker 2: You're just gonna go all in. It's like if I
Speaker 2: got a tattoo, what's the biggest It's not just like
Speaker 2: a little tattoo. I just got to go like all in.
Speaker 2: It's like, So that's that thought process or snowboarding for me,
Speaker 2: I'm just all in you Yeah, yeah, hard Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So that's how we ended up in this
Speaker 3: situation in becoming more of a public figure and doing
Speaker 3: other TV just purely by accident, thrue charity work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so I had.
Speaker 2: A pushing the human experience, you know, you're pushing the
Speaker 2: human element to fourteen thousand miles on a bike, you know,
Speaker 2: and you're doing it in another seventeen days of the
Speaker 2: other traditional record and now you own the record. There's
Speaker 2: something to be said about that, you know, just where
Speaker 2: was the biggest struggle to get through? Like, was anybody
Speaker 2: like you can't cross this land, We're not going to
Speaker 2: let you, and you're like, you don't understand.
Speaker 3: So I spoke to the previous record holders. When I
Speaker 3: started doing the research on this. You know, I wasn't
Speaker 3: a cyclist. I started buying cycling magazines and I was
Speaker 3: learning a lot from them, but I wasn't getting the
Speaker 3: information I needed for the challenge. You know, the best
Speaker 3: people speak to those that have done it before you.
Speaker 3: You know, people who've been on the ground. So you know,
Speaker 3: one of the reasons like the UK Special for is
Speaker 3: one of the best in the world, it's not because
Speaker 3: of the caliber of the guides or the training. It's
Speaker 3: because we're always learning. You know, anyone, you know, you
Speaker 3: have to always be learning. You're never an expert at everything,
Speaker 3: you know. That's why one of our ethos is the
Speaker 3: unrelenting pursuit of excellents. We're always pursuing our excellence, never
Speaker 3: reach it. And so every time we used to come
Speaker 3: off the ground, whether it's on operations or training or
Speaker 3: whatever we do, and it's a great model or template
Speaker 3: for anyone in life or business. We had a thing
Speaker 3: called the hot debrief, and a hot debrief, you know,
Speaker 3: before we go clean our weapons, get showered and get fed,
Speaker 3: sit there with the ops officer. But it's still fresh
Speaker 3: in our minds, and you'd ask us free questions. You know,
Speaker 3: what worked, what didn't work, and if we were to
Speaker 3: do that again, that operation, what would we do differently?
Speaker 3: So we're always learning from it. So I asked those
Speaker 3: three questions to the previous record holders and they all
Speaker 3: started in Alaska, finished in Argentina. You can get a
Speaker 3: vehicle all the way from Alaska to Argentina if you
Speaker 3: cross the Daring Gap, which is between Panama and Columbia,
Speaker 3: but all the issues are in South and Central America, languages,
Speaker 3: spares for the bike bureaucracy. So being a military guy,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, why take a gamble with the
Speaker 3: second half of the challenge. Why would you not address
Speaker 3: those issues early and get them out of the way,
Speaker 3: and then once you're in America you're so that's why,
Speaker 3: you know. One of the things I was quite proud
Speaker 3: of just because everyone decided to go north south didn't
Speaker 3: mean it was the right way. And I went some
Speaker 3: south north and planned it the other way around. But
Speaker 3: you you know, you we we had all sorts of
Speaker 3: issues of strong winds that you know, I got food
Speaker 3: poison in Peru.
Speaker 2: I crashed food poison.
Speaker 3: Just yeah. Well, actually I met you guys when I
Speaker 3: was in Dubai. I know, I looked at where I was,
Speaker 3: where I was cycling. The Atta Kama Desert in Chile
Speaker 3: is like the driest, non popular desert in the world.
Speaker 3: It was forty seven degrees centigrade, like one twenty plus
Speaker 3: fahrenheit for a week with no shame. And so you know,
Speaker 3: I've been very fortunate in the military. I've been to
Speaker 3: the jungle, the desert, the Arctic, you know, but I
Speaker 3: haven't done it on a pushbike.
Speaker 4: So I wanted to.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to take a risk on the challenge
Speaker 3: and find that actually you struggle at cycling at heat
Speaker 3: or at altitude or in the snow, and so I
Speaker 3: replicated those circumstance, all those scenarios before I am went
Speaker 3: on the challenge. So I flew out to Dubai and
Speaker 3: did heat training out there. Yeah, satisfy myself. And I
Speaker 3: met to two gentlemen, they Axel and Andreas. They had
Speaker 3: the South America will Record as a pair, and they said,
Speaker 3: you will get food poisoning at some point, but know
Speaker 3: that you can still cycle with food poisoning. So I did.
Speaker 3: I got food poison in Peru. But fortunately for me
Speaker 3: going from south to north from a cycling perspective, it
Speaker 3: was a good decision. I had a tailwind all the
Speaker 3: way through Peru. That's two five hundre kilometers of tailwind.
Speaker 3: So although I had food poisoning, it wasn't as laborious.
Speaker 3: It wasn't as hard to cycling because I had that
Speaker 3: wind behind me. So I was still doing one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty miles a day with food poisoning. You know,
Speaker 3: it's still it still wasn't pleasant. I like to call
Speaker 3: Peru who rather than that was my experience?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you were just like pushing through it just
Speaker 2: to get through the ailment. Because yeah, I mean, geez,
Speaker 2: how many days total was it? Ninety nine days is
Speaker 2: what you were on that track?
Speaker 4: It was ninety nine days.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I took ten days off to South America will Record,
Speaker 3: and then I got I got into I got into
Speaker 3: North America America Del Rio on day seventy and I
Speaker 3: was fourteen days ahead of the will record and I'm
Speaker 3: like perfect. You know, my wife's the campaign director.
Speaker 4: She was running.
Speaker 3: She got me to sponsorship, she fundraised, She took all
Speaker 3: those distractions away from me, so all I had to
Speaker 3: do was focus on the on the bike ride and
Speaker 3: she rang me up. Literally had five miss calls when
Speaker 3: I got into Texas. And I don't know what it
Speaker 3: was getting into Texas, but it was just like a huge,
Speaker 3: a huge relief, a huge weight off the shoulders. It
Speaker 3: was almost like being on escaping evasion and getting to
Speaker 3: the war RV. I don't know if it was because
Speaker 3: you know, the language, everyone spoke the same language, the
Speaker 3: culinary options, you know, the food was probably you know,
Speaker 3: more familiar with it, or the fact that having spoken.
Speaker 2: Was their supplies pretty much, even though there is no
Speaker 2: supplies in the world, we seem to have some still,
Speaker 2: yeah you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And I had a support team with me with bikes.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I respect, but I think it was the fact
Speaker 3: that having spoken, the previous record holders, all those issues
Speaker 3: well behind you, behind us, You're behind me, so we're
Speaker 3: on the We're on the home run. And so it
Speaker 3: was like a huge relief, but that that soon that
Speaker 3: soon changed. Within an hour, I had five misscalls off
Speaker 3: my wife and I'm like, oh, there's obviously something wrong
Speaker 3: with the children. And she ran me to tell me
Speaker 3: invited to Harry and Meghan's wedding. I said that's nice,
Speaker 3: and she goes, no, you don't understand. You need to
Speaker 3: now be finished day one hundred and two, and so
Speaker 3: going into the phone call, I was fourteen days ahead.
Speaker 4: I'm now ten minutes later.
Speaker 3: I'm now a day behind, and so I yeah, so
Speaker 3: all those efforts before me had to change.
Speaker 4: So that was probably one of the.
Speaker 2: Homies for me. You're a homie a holly right there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: You're like, all right, all right, you're like that, that's
Speaker 2: a homie. There's that's friendship, right, is it? I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that your friends with the Prince and or
Speaker 2: Harry with yeah and the fairy. Yeah yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: yeah awesome, how awesome? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So so yeah, so yeah, I had to change the
Speaker 3: way that I cycled. I got to love it. In Texas,
Speaker 3: we had sixty mile an hour winds and tornadoes, so
Speaker 3: I was. I was grounded now for another twenty four hours,
Speaker 3: so I was now two days behind. So there's a
Speaker 3: there's an app on your phone called Windy TV, and
Speaker 3: it gives you the strength and directions of the winds
Speaker 3: forecasted every hour for the next two weeks.
Speaker 4: And so I just changed the plan. I just put
Speaker 4: pen to paper.
Speaker 3: I had to cycle three hundred and forty miles in
Speaker 3: the next thirty six hours to miss the next weather window.
Speaker 3: And the majority of my cycling was done at night
Speaker 3: because that's when the winds had subsided.
Speaker 4: So I just played chess with mother Nature found not
Speaker 4: like it winds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and also use it to my advantage. I
Speaker 3: got to shy End oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of open space there.
Speaker 3: Picked up a beautiful yeah, I picked up a beautiful
Speaker 3: tail wind wind I covered. I did two hundred seventy
Speaker 3: miles and eleven hours with ten thousand feet of climbing.
Speaker 3: You know, so was also using it. So I had
Speaker 3: seventeen days planned for North America. Originally I cycled eleven
Speaker 3: and a half days. So you know, the success of
Speaker 3: this challenge was the fact that you know the start
Speaker 3: point in your object active, which is always the same.
Speaker 3: It was just being reactive to the situation changes on
Speaker 3: the ground as they happen. Other people may have struggled
Speaker 3: and been like, you know, been a bit overwhelming, but
Speaker 3: for me, I'm used to that. In the Special Forces,
Speaker 3: you get dropped into and security. You get dropped into
Speaker 3: these situations and you don't know what the infrastructure is like,
Speaker 3: you don't know what you're gonna expect, but you still
Speaker 3: have an objective and you do everything in your power
Speaker 3: to meet that objective.
Speaker 2: Completed. Its wonderful. So okay, let's just pick up what
Speaker 2: you meant. You brought it up. You brought up you know,
Speaker 2: the wedding, and so the day is now what and
Speaker 2: you've made it to Alaska.
Speaker 3: So made it to Alaska on day I did it
Speaker 3: sort of going back again slightly because there was another
Speaker 3: curve as well.
Speaker 4: I was a week outside and.
Speaker 3: I was in a town called white Horse, and I
Speaker 3: was eating as I was eating about.
Speaker 4: Big meals, you know, I mean, I was losing weight.
Speaker 3: I was losing weight from the day that I started
Speaker 3: to So I finished and my mate ranked the two
Speaker 3: gentlemen I met in Dubai told me about this guy
Speaker 3: who's he's a professional cyclist. He does.
Speaker 4: This is a living.
Speaker 3: He's got three Whill records, sponsored by all the big brands,
Speaker 3: red Ball. He's about twenty six years old, you know,
Speaker 3: he's in his prime. And he come out on social
Speaker 3: media and said that he was going to cycle the
Speaker 3: Pan American Highway and be the first man to do
Speaker 3: it under hundred days. And so for me, I was that, well,
Speaker 3: I can't. You know, I was well within my will record,
Speaker 3: and I thought, well if I if I don't push
Speaker 3: on even harder and try to get in on a
Speaker 3: one hundred days, you know, would I be able to
Speaker 3: live with myself.
Speaker 4: So I had to cycle for twenty.
Speaker 3: Two hours in the last thirty hours in minus eighteen
Speaker 3: in the snow in Prudeo Bay to come in under
Speaker 3: that one hundred day things. So again, even to the
Speaker 3: very last day, the plan was changing or the objective
Speaker 3: was changing. So it was a huge fee. Obviously achieved
Speaker 3: it under one hundred days, but more impressively, Alana raised
Speaker 3: one point three million dollars for charity as well, which
Speaker 3: was huge. So as you touched on, we then had
Speaker 3: to like my found my wife and kids. I think
Speaker 3: they're the only kids ever to be at prude Obaker
Speaker 3: as an oil rig as hotels up there, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: the I don't think you call them right, yeah, reflect
Speaker 3: on the Yeah, they were on the they were on
Speaker 3: the flight from Anchorage to prude Obey and wondering why
Speaker 3: there's like an eighteen month old baby and a you know,
Speaker 3: a five year old five year old sorry, six year
Speaker 3: old girl on it.
Speaker 2: The program and new generation.
Speaker 3: Yeah they haven't seen Yeah, they'd never seen kids before.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we left there, went via Anchorage and flew
Speaker 3: back to UK and I got back to the UK
Speaker 3: probably two days before the wedding, but as soon as
Speaker 3: I landed. The first day was fifteen TV and radio interviews.
Speaker 3: The next day was fifteen TV radio interviews, just prior
Speaker 3: to the wedding. And him and I saw each other
Speaker 3: briefly as he came out the castle one day to
Speaker 3: see the public. He ran over and saw that, you know,
Speaker 3: I saw that I was there. Lost my weight, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I lost about twenty five pounds in Weiters well from
Speaker 3: the challenge. But what was really frustrating, not frustrating, it's
Speaker 3: I didn't really get time to a get used to
Speaker 3: being around my family again, you know, and started rebuilding
Speaker 3: that bond with them and just spend time, and I
Speaker 3: really appreciate what we'd achieved as a family as well,
Speaker 3: me and Alana and his two a huge high, the
Speaker 3: world's biggest event that was going on, you know, the
Speaker 3: world's cameras, and so, I mean all the questions I
Speaker 3: had were how are you feeling about the wedding?
Speaker 4: And then post wedding was you know, what did you eat?
Speaker 3: What did you drink? And I'm like, really, I've just
Speaker 3: record to records the first man in history and raised
Speaker 3: one point three million dollars, but no one was interested.
Speaker 3: It was almost like the wedding had overshadowed what you'd done.
Speaker 3: So for me personally, been.
Speaker 2: So like what you eat?
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like yeah, yeah, I would have loved to
Speaker 3: have had had that time to take on board what
Speaker 3: I'd done before. We hadn't had a huge high, you know,
Speaker 3: great for me in Alana, but again at the wedding,
Speaker 3: I was still coming to terms in fact what I've
Speaker 3: done and being around people again. And then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden You're immersed with the Beckhams and Clooneys, the
Speaker 3: you know of the world in the same little room.
Speaker 2: And you go from this again regimented lifestyle, right is
Speaker 2: when I so when I started working out in boxing.
Speaker 2: I've just been going every day now, and then when
Speaker 2: I miss a day, it's like I'm guilty of something. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I'm like I should be there, they're there, I'm not there.
Speaker 2: Why are they there? And I'm not there? But I
Speaker 2: have to take my kid to like back to school,
Speaker 2: so I had to step away take care of the family, right,
Speaker 2: because that's what's important. That's what even put me off
Speaker 2: today was going back to my son's first day of
Speaker 2: high school here and walking them through his classes to
Speaker 2: make sure he knows where he's going. And I'm just like,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I'm done school on that level. But
Speaker 2: I'm always learning still, Dean. It's the same thing you say.
Speaker 2: You can't just stop. You can't just say, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: the teacher now, you have to always be the student.
Speaker 2: Like that's that's always learning, right, Just always what's up,
Speaker 2: what's down? And what would you do differently on the mission?
Speaker 2: And you know when I do my war games with
Speaker 2: my team here, we have those same things. We have
Speaker 2: a hot wash at the very end of every night game.
Speaker 2: We're like how'd everybody do? Give us one up and
Speaker 2: one down? Well, my weapon wasn't cleaned and I could
Speaker 2: have done better. Okay, what went up? Well, the team
Speaker 2: performed well for me, you know, et cetera. So what's
Speaker 2: the one up and one down? And I think if
Speaker 2: we just you know, you can do that in your
Speaker 2: daily life. You can one up and one down? What
Speaker 2: went good for me today? And what could I do differently?
Speaker 2: It's not just something that you know, guys with a
Speaker 2: whiteboard in their office. A lot of Special Forces guys
Speaker 2: have a long whiteboard and they sit there and they
Speaker 2: write on this whiteboard all the way out for like
Speaker 2: four or five years of their lives. I've seen it.
Speaker 2: My dad did it. I know other SF guys that
Speaker 2: still have it who are out of the military. But
Speaker 2: it's like somewhere there's a whiteboard and they're proper planning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's all about that, I mean, and then
Speaker 3: just yeah, proper planning and also not a bit on
Speaker 3: my bike ride, you know, planning was key.
Speaker 4: You know, when I do guest speaking, I contradict myself.
Speaker 3: Guys. I talk about the importance of the planning and
Speaker 3: the planning that went into the beginning, but then also
Speaker 3: not being too upset when the plan has to change.
Speaker 3: You know, that is a plan. It's good to have
Speaker 3: a plan, but there needs to be flexibility in that
Speaker 3: plan as well.
Speaker 2: Well. That's just like making a decisive decision in a
Speaker 2: situation where you're like what do I do and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I got to go right or left? You're gonna deal
Speaker 2: with going left or you're going going right, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: You just got to make that decision.
Speaker 3: Stick with your decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then's fix it. We should lean right instead
Speaker 2: of left, lean.
Speaker 4: Don't go right, and then just keep looking left, right.
Speaker 2: Right, right, exactly, yeah, exactly. That's awesome, dude. And so
Speaker 2: you know as SBS, that's Special Boat Service. You came
Speaker 2: from the regiment though, right, is that the army regiment?
Speaker 2: Is that right? No?
Speaker 3: No, So I came. I came from the Army. I
Speaker 3: was in the engineers. I was I did. I was
Speaker 3: a commando reconnaissance so paratrooper and a commando. I was
Speaker 3: also a diver in the military. So I'd served since
Speaker 3: young around it was green berry, yeah, so save me
Speaker 3: the Royals, the coveted green Beret, and so I spent
Speaker 3: my time working with Rayal Marines. I was an instructordo
Speaker 3: course as well. And and but but as you touched
Speaker 3: on you to go SS, you chorries to go SBS.
Speaker 3: You had before I went was one hundredcent Raal Marines.
Speaker 3: The se S would take Marines, Army Force, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But actually the Marines were losing a lot of candidates
Speaker 3: to the S E S because they didn't like the diving,
Speaker 3: so they then decided to open up Try service. So
Speaker 3: unlike here in the US where you have Delta Force
Speaker 3: have their own selection process and dev grew six Yeah,
Speaker 3: their own one as is the same s S and
Speaker 3: SBS is exactly the same six month selection.
Speaker 4: People don't know that we don't have a separate one.
Speaker 3: So it's not as if like I'm going to SBS
Speaker 3: because it's it's harder or easier than the SS.
Speaker 2: It's the same. You know. I've actually got a funny
Speaker 2: story about I've stood on the spot where the SBS
Speaker 2: was created at Fort Cumberland, really inside the room. I
Speaker 2: had a spot of t just last year as matter
Speaker 2: of fact, and I got to go and check out
Speaker 2: a seventeenth century journal. Yeah, and I didn't realize what
Speaker 2: I was looking at first, you know, and the guy's like, oh, yea,
Speaker 2: it's a seventeenth century urinal and I said, oh, let
Speaker 2: me check this out. And I was like, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: where you piss, mate. And I was like, oh, you're
Speaker 2: all right, And so he turned his head lighter and
Speaker 2: his head torch on, and I'm in there and it's
Speaker 2: this seventeenth century stoned out piss at Fort Cumberland. Right,
Speaker 2: what a great And then I also got a picture
Speaker 2: in front with my buddy Big Phil, who took me
Speaker 2: to Fort Cumberland to go check this stuff out, in
Speaker 2: front of this Royal Marine statue that stands about thirty
Speaker 2: feet tall. It's out front of Yeah. Yeah, yeah a photo.
Speaker 4: Oh you're down down in Portsmouth. Yeah, that's down in ports.
Speaker 2: Hampton area, right Southampton?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, Yeah, that's right, that's it. Yeah
Speaker 3: and pool SBS Where to Portsmouth Southampton and then Pool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all on the south.
Speaker 2: And then I learned that they used Fort Cumberland down
Speaker 2: there to trick the Lufwaffa during World War Two to
Speaker 2: set up the boats out on the harbor as city lights.
Speaker 2: So when the LUFWAFFA would fly back through bombing raids
Speaker 2: and they didn't want to indiscriminately just drop their ordinance.
Speaker 2: They're dropping in the sea.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And across the way is Normandy and Utah
Speaker 2: and yeah enough, yeah no. And I stood there on
Speaker 2: those shores and I looked over like as if Napoleon
Speaker 2: was coming at me.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but yeah, so yeah, much disgusting my friends
Speaker 3: in the in the says. I went to the SBS
Speaker 3: and we started with two hundred, and then six months
Speaker 3: later eight pass and I was one of those. And
Speaker 3: now fifteen percent of the sps come from the army.
Speaker 2: So yeah, right right, so SBS, you're probably Ali, right,
Speaker 2: Ali Architon, Ali's SBS.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't, I didn't serve, and he was he
Speaker 3: was out when I when I went in. But him
Speaker 3: and I just did show together in Australia, Australia.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, and all he did the rumble
Speaker 2: where he boxed against the Navy seal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I did. I didn't want. I don't know
Speaker 3: that much boxing coming from all.
Speaker 2: The guys that stepped in that ring are just good
Speaker 2: at my book.
Speaker 3: A good Yeah, cool, I did. I did someone to
Speaker 3: send me a picture? Yeah no, but yeah no OLLI
Speaker 3: but purely from post military. Yeah yeah, that's not the.
Speaker 2: Same show though. Now it's just a small world, small world.
Speaker 2: I'll get him on here, Yeah, I'll get him on here.
Speaker 3: Smoke community.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. Hey. So you know you say there's a
Speaker 2: lot of family in your life, right, you're talking about
Speaker 2: the support system of your wife helping you transition from
Speaker 2: military to civilian to back to regrouping with the family
Speaker 2: and focusing on your you know, transition. So you know,
Speaker 2: big shout out to your wife. And doesn't she have
Speaker 2: a book that we can mention?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so my wife act she talked about road
Speaker 3: and we've just been in Scotland.
Speaker 4: My wife's just been honor the MBE from King Charles.
Speaker 3: So we're in Scotland a month ago.
Speaker 2: The bad the MBE. That's the bad Yeah yeah, the
Speaker 2: number one badge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think well there's other ones is over right,
Speaker 3: yeah for Civillian Yeah, remember the most excellent Order the
Speaker 3: British Empire. It sounds very archaic.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So she she obviously did the fundraising the fight ride,
Speaker 3: but she works a lot in modern slavey and human trafficking.
Speaker 3: So there was her services to that, which was good
Speaker 3: because you know, everyone sort of sees me, but you know,
Speaker 3: I always talk quite highly of her and what she
Speaker 3: what she's done and achieved. So for me, that was
Speaker 3: great and the fact that you know, she's been recognized
Speaker 3: for that. But yeah, she has a book. She has
Speaker 3: two books. Actually one's a business book, how to Ask
Speaker 3: for Money. And so as a non cyclist, you can
Speaker 3: imagine trying to get sponsorship for a challenge that is
Speaker 3: she got me. She got me half a million pounds
Speaker 3: sponsorship as a non cyclist and then raised one point
Speaker 3: three million dollars. So so the book's great whether you're
Speaker 3: in nonprofit or we're in business. She has her own
Speaker 3: formula being able to how to ask.
Speaker 2: For it's just really the book is exactly what you
Speaker 2: want to do. How to ask for money sounds just
Speaker 2: like Yeah.
Speaker 3: She then started writing because we were chatting with someone
Speaker 3: we worked with wealth management, and they said, I don't
Speaker 3: like talking about money or asking for money. Well, this
Speaker 3: is your job and said, no, you know it's in
Speaker 3: most people's top ten years. Okay, she she's that I
Speaker 3: love asking for money. So she she put that down
Speaker 3: and did her own book, and then she has a.
Speaker 5: She has a hug, she who dares, Yeah, she who
Speaker 5: thees so tell us about her life story as well,
Speaker 5: and then with my book, you know, there's my side
Speaker 5: of the story.
Speaker 3: I mean that she'll be telling it from from a
Speaker 3: partner's perspective undred percent.
Speaker 2: You know, like I was talking to you a free show.
Speaker 2: You know, my mom and dad sit behind me on
Speaker 2: all these shows because they were the team, right. Dad
Speaker 2: was gone for six months. Mom was home doing a
Speaker 2: lot of what dad wanted to be doing. But when
Speaker 2: dad came home, Mom was still running the show. You see. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you got to still like let mom and dad
Speaker 2: kind of like get back together.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. You know a lot of people
Speaker 3: because being in the Special Voys is quite selfish. It's
Speaker 3: quite selfish because you you leave the family behind, expect
Speaker 3: them to carry on. You go do your stuff, and
Speaker 3: then you walk back through the door and expect to
Speaker 3: pick off where you left off. It doesn't work like that.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a you know, it's a lot of
Speaker 3: team where it's a lot of effitt and you know
Speaker 3: a lot of guys un fortunately when they do finish
Speaker 3: their end of the career realize actually them and their
Speaker 3: partners not they don't love each other, just can't live
Speaker 3: with each other. Yeah. Yeah, so there's yeah, no, it's hard,
Speaker 3: but yeah, you know, the wives are the unsung heroes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just want to give them a shout out.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly why I coiled her into my conversation
Speaker 2: with you, so you can smile just like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So thanks to her for kicking your ass.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and she she always challenges me, but she
Speaker 3: always you know, you know, it's quite funny. She goes,
Speaker 3: but if you can't do it, you can't do it.
Speaker 3: And it's like the red rag to the bull. Okay,
Speaker 3: so she pushed, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You can't do that. What what do you mean? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I've been learning from a lot of Arnold Schwarzenegger lately.
Speaker 2: I've been watching his documentary. He's like, you know, I
Speaker 2: just wanted to be Hercules, And so I said, what
Speaker 2: do I have to do to be Hercules on this
Speaker 2: movie cover? And boo? He really did push himself, yeah,
Speaker 2: and manifest himself to be who he is and that
Speaker 2: same thing. Yeah, I'm like, I'm just kind of stealing
Speaker 2: some of that same mental toughness of like, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to be I'm forty five years old, almost
Speaker 2: forty six into boxing. Yeah, I'm boxing though, and I
Speaker 2: like it and I'm liking my shoulders and i like
Speaker 2: how I'm feeling and yeah, and I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: just focused on I just want to be a healthy person.
Speaker 3: Good. Yeah, no, no, brilliant. Yeah, yeah, I'm the same.
Speaker 3: I'm fory six and it's just staying fit and you know,
Speaker 3: being active a good inspiration for the advocate. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: know for me with the bike ride. With the bike ride,
Speaker 3: you know, when Harry and I chatted and we did
Speaker 3: a promo video together and then he introduced me to
Speaker 3: the Royal Foundation. They were like, you know, what is
Speaker 3: it you're trying to promote with his bike ride. So
Speaker 3: the money we raised went to eleven mental health charities,
Speaker 3: but not just veteran it was postnatal depression, young children,
Speaker 3: teenagers of the whole sector. And they said, you know
Speaker 3: what is it you're trying to promote and I said, well,
Speaker 3: I hadn't really thought about it, and I mean after
Speaker 3: I said, well, physical activity helps your mental state, and
Speaker 3: they originally they said you can't use that this is
Speaker 3: back in twenty sixteen, I said, well why not, I said,
Speaker 3: it's not being scientifically proven. I said, well, I don't
Speaker 3: need a scientist to tell me that I feel good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So ignored the many and carried on using it, and
Speaker 3: now it is recognized.
Speaker 2: Now, now it's totally recognized. You know, here in the
Speaker 2: US at the Veterans Administration, they're trying to use recreational therapy.
Speaker 2: But the patient has to ask for it. The veteran
Speaker 2: has to ask for it. It's not quite a brought
Speaker 2: up and they have to be like rated. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a certain up to one hundred percent rating for
Speaker 2: US military personnel. Okay, so if you're like a forty
Speaker 2: percent rated, you may not qualify. But I'm just saying
Speaker 2: that if you're listening to this right now and you're
Speaker 2: going to the VA and you're getting doctor's appointments for
Speaker 2: psychological they're trying to offer you benzos and pills, just
Speaker 2: ask them if there's recreational therapy available, which could be
Speaker 2: snowboying or mountain biking. It can be getting out surfing,
Speaker 2: you know, racketball if you ever played racquetball, like getting
Speaker 2: the ball, tennis, all those things are recreational therapy. Going
Speaker 2: for a hike, so you can try to get that
Speaker 2: through the va here. I just want to put that
Speaker 2: out there to my listener. Yeah, recreational therapy. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that doctorate degree for about thirty more seconds before
Speaker 2: it expires. You know. If we're going to follow the internet,
Speaker 2: just yeah, go outside, go for a walk, you know,
Speaker 2: it feels good. We always always sit around watching folks
Speaker 2: like liked do the record breaker and be like, wow,
Speaker 2: what if I could do that? Well, what if? Why
Speaker 2: don't you go try? Yeah? You know, yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: chase it.
Speaker 3: I always say people, anticipation is worse some participation. People
Speaker 3: will tell you why they can't do it, or think
Speaker 3: about why they can't do but actually, when you do
Speaker 3: take that leap or decide to do it, you then
Speaker 3: look back and realize it actually wasn't that much.
Speaker 2: No, no. And a lot of folks will sit there
Speaker 2: and watch others like work out. They'll see these inspirational
Speaker 2: things on their scrolls and they'll sit there and say
Speaker 2: I need to, I need you, and then three years
Speaker 2: have gone by them, I need to.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, yeah true. And that's why I say
Speaker 3: with people speak to me about doing challenges and said,
Speaker 3: you know, have you got a date yet? Oh no,
Speaker 3: I've got a date. Put the dating and then when
Speaker 3: then it's real, tell people you're doing it, then it's real.
Speaker 3: Just keep moving to the right.
Speaker 2: No, it's serious, it is, It's totally serious. You just
Speaker 2: got to keep moving, stay focused, show up to yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah sure, yeah, yeah, because that's the hardest part. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you know, and if you don't want
Speaker 2: to go somewhere and you feel people are going to
Speaker 2: stare at you or laugh at you, then you can
Speaker 2: just do it in the privacy of your own home.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, no burpies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you can do it. And that's a great
Speaker 3: thing one of the good things about COVID. There wasn't many,
Speaker 3: but that was one of the givings about COVID. People
Speaker 3: had to improvise. You know, you can go to gym,
Speaker 3: do it, do it at home, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I've got my COVID weights right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I never laugh at anyone who's doing any sort
Speaker 3: of training. I see people all shapes and sizes. Well,
Speaker 3: at least they're doing it. I mean I'll never Yeah,
Speaker 3: at least that.
Speaker 2: You've been doing it since you're sixteen seventeen to be
Speaker 2: in your physical shape.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, well that's it. Yeah, and the ship the
Speaker 3: way I'm built, I've never used weights before. It's all
Speaker 3: body weight because when I was in the military, the
Speaker 3: you know, they test you and pull ups, dips, press up,
Speaker 3: how fast you can run you're climbing a rope. They
Speaker 3: don't test you on how how much can you press
Speaker 3: or curl and things like that, and so so for me,
Speaker 3: I would always train for what you were going to
Speaker 3: get tested on and did it that way and then
Speaker 3: managed to get quite big through that, but also finding
Speaker 3: the balance that you needed to be able to still
Speaker 3: perform or fulfill your role. You know, so whether you're
Speaker 3: climbing the side of a ship at night on a
Speaker 3: caving ladder, or whether you're climbing the rope on a
Speaker 3: helicopter to get out of the jungle.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I met some guys in Kosovo from one of the
Speaker 3: other nations and they were like Hollywood, you know, they
Speaker 3: looked like yeah, they looked the part actually with zero
Speaker 3: contribution to the team because they were too big. And
Speaker 3: so I was always conscious my training was geared around
Speaker 3: that body weight stuff.
Speaker 2: Being able to fulfill your role or do you mon
Speaker 2: if I ask.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm five to eleven.
Speaker 2: That hole when you join the military.
Speaker 3: No, actually no, my father actually told me the last
Speaker 3: two minutes when I told him I was going to
Speaker 3: join the military, he was I was five to seven
Speaker 3: and I weighed about sixty seven kilo. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: five eleven now in ninety one. So but yeah, I
Speaker 3: still hadn't really fully formed. You know. I joined at
Speaker 3: the age of seventeen and a half. Still four more inches, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: But within about eighteen months, I shot those four inches
Speaker 3: and I put on that on that weight. But I
Speaker 3: just grew physically, but more important, I grew mentally as well.
Speaker 3: The very first course I did, my base training, you
Speaker 3: know for the engineers, is like ten weeks. And then
Speaker 3: I got to the end of that and I was
Speaker 3: like okay. And then the next was the combat engineering,
Speaker 3: which is twelve weeks. And combat engineering there was a
Speaker 3: lot of bridge building, you know, a lot of heavy
Speaker 3: weights and stuff, so that that was naturally building me up.
Speaker 3: But then I was like okay. And then I did
Speaker 3: the Alarms Commander course and a minute so every time
Speaker 3: I then did a course, I was passing, and I
Speaker 3: was like, I wasn't just passing, I was either becoming
Speaker 3: a top student or up in the top five ten percent,
Speaker 3: And so that then started giving me confidence. Then see
Speaker 3: what what's next. I never had any aspirations of being
Speaker 3: Special Forces at all. It just went one step at
Speaker 3: a time, and literally I did every arduous course you
Speaker 3: did in the engineers and the only route, the only
Speaker 3: course left was tier one, specially.
Speaker 2: Because that's the next level to go to because you'd
Speaker 2: alread accomplished.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was already Special Forces, So it was like
Speaker 3: tier one or don't. But you know, there's some guys
Speaker 3: on my course who from a young age I'm talking
Speaker 3: six seven, all they ever wanted to be was s
Speaker 3: S or SBS and this was their moment and a
Speaker 3: lot of them crumbled under pressure. And the ways I
Speaker 3: went in with an attitude of I am good enough,
Speaker 3: but if I get in, I get in. If I don't,
Speaker 3: you know, it's not something that it's been a long
Speaker 3: life ambition, and I think that that helps you. Special
Speaker 3: Forces soldiers they tape things. They don't tate tape things
Speaker 3: two tiers.
Speaker 2: And a lot of folks don't realize that the green
Speaker 2: beret that you where it goes to the Green Berets
Speaker 2: over here. It wasn't that how it was given to
Speaker 2: you know, the s F Green Beret over here. How
Speaker 2: we have the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that, I think, Yeah, I don't really
Speaker 3: know the history of it, but I do hear I've
Speaker 3: heard of a story of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I mean it's the same with your Delta Force.
Speaker 3: You know, your an old Chuck Norris.
Speaker 6: Norris, he came over and spent two years with the
Speaker 6: SAS and then in nineteen seventy seven came back and
Speaker 6: set up Delt Force and did the selection process from US.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So there's a lot of origins that come.
Speaker 2: From the youth exactly.
Speaker 3: But the green Beret for us in the UK, it's
Speaker 3: the only coveted beret in the hold of the UK
Speaker 3: Special Forces. So if you're attached to the s E
Speaker 3: S you can get Sandy Berry. If you're attached to
Speaker 3: the Parachute Regiment, you'll get attached to the Free Commander Brigade.
Speaker 3: You only get the green Beret if you've done the Commander.
Speaker 2: So the green Beret does have that significance.
Speaker 3: It has that significance you can only it's the only
Speaker 3: coveted green beret. We have the intelligence cores who have
Speaker 3: a green beret, but it's more of like a snotty
Speaker 3: green than Yeah, and so what is in the SBS
Speaker 3: and the SBS is that coveted greens. So I, although
Speaker 3: I wasn't a raw Mariene, i'd done. The commander.
Speaker 2: Love that, you know, I love that. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be just totally you know greenbery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why that's why we say, and that's why
Speaker 3: the Marines and the commandos are so proud of the
Speaker 3: buried back in the UK.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. I'm in your corner, Bro,
Speaker 2: I think you're fabulous and I'm brad we've had this
Speaker 2: opportunity to talk and just really, you know, the listener
Speaker 2: just wants to hear you talk like this, you know,
Speaker 2: and say, what's up?
Speaker 4: Bro?
Speaker 2: Now, what's your shirt? Say? It says Staccato.
Speaker 3: Staccato is American pistol brand. They do a lot of
Speaker 3: law enforcement based in Texas. Basically the Ferrari of.
Speaker 2: The I'm gonna get totally wrung out for saying their
Speaker 2: name wrong, probably being an American.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your listeners will know staccato. So yeah, I'm a
Speaker 3: I'm a brand ambassador for staccato Leopold.
Speaker 2: And okay, well yeah, let's get them put it into
Speaker 2: your you should say that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Are you going to be going to Vegas in January.
Speaker 3: The Shot Show? Yeah, I've been the last two years
Speaker 3: as a guest. I did my I did my book
Speaker 3: signing at the Shot Show last year.
Speaker 2: With you there on Range Day. I'll be there on
Speaker 2: range Day. We'll have to at least and get a
Speaker 2: proper photo.
Speaker 3: Definitely, I'll be I'll be there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll be there with Soft Rapp. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: here we go. No, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3: I'd love to and.
Speaker 2: Say and say I have a spot of tea if
Speaker 2: you still do that, right of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't mind the tea now.
Speaker 2: And yeah I got to. I got to.
Speaker 3: Yeah you guys, you guys threw all the tea in
Speaker 3: the bay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But when I go over there, for some reason,
Speaker 2: everything still when I go over to England, I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm at home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really really really.
Speaker 2: Because I mean I have that in my DNA. I
Speaker 2: have a lot of British in me that I didn't
Speaker 2: realize till I did this DNA stuff and then uh
Speaker 2: yeah scant and now Norwegian, so Norway, so I'm very wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah. Well we you know, we we live
Speaker 3: in California now and so we you know, we went
Speaker 3: back to UK. It was nice to go back. You know.
Speaker 3: We do love the American American dream. And we we
Speaker 3: actually moved over right in the middle of COVID October
Speaker 3: twenty me and my wife like that, right, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: the world was paused. We just came in.
Speaker 2: And because it's crazy right now with the housing markets
Speaker 2: and everything all, you know, you're over here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's everything's unstable, but you know, you sort
Speaker 3: of he sees opportunity, you know, you know, yes, the
Speaker 3: world was a crisis going on, but we just saw
Speaker 3: that importunity and took a back.
Speaker 2: I just I stayed alive. My shops stayed open. We didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, I was waiting for someone to say you
Speaker 2: should close. I'm like, when do I get to go
Speaker 2: home for thirty days? When do I get off? No,
Speaker 2: They're like, no, your your store is stay open because
Speaker 2: they're gun store, air software, war game stores. So it's
Speaker 2: like essential. Wow, only in America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, in America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, listen, do you want to plug your book
Speaker 2: for me? You have a book, right, yeah, I have.
Speaker 3: I have a book called Relentless. We I had it.
Speaker 3: It was launched in the UK originally, and when I
Speaker 3: came over to America, I went on I went on
Speaker 3: Jocko Willings podcast. People magazine were doing interviews with me,
Speaker 3: and it's like, you know, the starts of arrived sort
Speaker 3: of thing. And my publishers were like, I'd sort of
Speaker 3: told him about these these marketing opportunities and they weren't
Speaker 3: really interesting because it had been eighteen months since the
Speaker 3: book had come out. So my wife be the entrepreneur
Speaker 3: and the philanthropists. You know, the book hadn't been launched
Speaker 3: in the US, so we bought the rights from our
Speaker 3: publisher for USA and Canada, and then we redesigned the
Speaker 3: book cover. You know, five to eleven did the book
Speaker 3: cover for US. But then we got influences that the
Speaker 3: American audience would recognize. So Jocko Admiral mccraven bear grills
Speaker 3: because the ones that we had in UK people weren't
Speaker 3: aware of. So we sort of gave it a liquor paint,
Speaker 3: as we would say, a new cover because the cover
Speaker 3: you have there with me holding the minime with all
Speaker 3: the I mean surround my neck. You know, you won't
Speaker 3: get away with that in the UK.
Speaker 2: You have to have a little bit of approach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a bit more different. And I mean also people
Speaker 3: weren't buying the book. People weren't buying the book in
Speaker 3: the UK from the side. Community look like a Special
Speaker 3: Forces book. So we you know, so we had we
Speaker 3: watermarked the bike on the on the front cover of
Speaker 3: this one as well. Because there's a huge community there
Speaker 3: of cycles, it makes.
Speaker 2: Sense you can almost have like a reflecting cover where
Speaker 2: it's like one of them is you as a cycle,
Speaker 2: and when the sun hits it, it's like you with
Speaker 2: your gear and you're just like you can like depose
Speaker 2: it in the middle and get half of you on
Speaker 2: a bike with you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the but Relentless is almost like three. There's three
Speaker 3: main phases as my childhood in the military. I do
Speaker 3: stop on selection, you know, I don't go into the
Speaker 3: Special Forces stuff just purely because trying to protect my
Speaker 3: brethren there. And then the private security stuff. You know,
Speaker 3: actually it was more I did more sensitive jobs as
Speaker 3: a private security guy than I did in the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: You know, we touched on someone on here, you know,
Speaker 3: single handedly evacuating embassies. But you know there's other stories
Speaker 3: in there which are great. And then the final third
Speaker 3: is the bike ride. Everything I'd learned from the first
Speaker 3: to into the bight.
Speaker 2: Rides, Well, Dean, I think that you're awesome and I
Speaker 2: think you're you're fabulous and all of those wonderful words
Speaker 2: that I could say. I'm happy that you guys wanted
Speaker 2: to come on the show and and talk about life
Speaker 2: and you know, in your book and just pushing forward
Speaker 2: and persevering. Uh. You know, we all have lived through
Speaker 2: COVID and we've all seen the world shut down, and
Speaker 2: it's time to just restart our engines and get going. Dad.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, exactly. And I look forward to seeing you
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a plan. And so I'm gonna let
Speaker 2: you go back to your busy day today. And I
Speaker 2: appreciate you for this last hour. And I just want
Speaker 2: to give a shout out again to Brandon Webb for
Speaker 2: having me as the ambassador for soft Rep and letting
Speaker 2: me do these podcasts. I really appreciated the opportunity to
Speaker 2: talk to guys like Dean and I really appreciate the
Speaker 2: sps and the sas and all the UK brotherre and
Speaker 2: over there that have that are our allies and all
Speaker 2: allies around the world. We thank you so from me
Speaker 2: and I'll be haalf of Dean. I'm saying peace and
Speaker 2: SOFTWAREP radio.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to self red Radio