My life in war - Special forces Ollie Ollerton tells his story

you can now follow me and all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications button so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live i could see my life flashing in front of me i was only 10. it didn't take long um and it was in that moment that i knew i had to do something other otherwise i was going to die it's peace and war now people like special forces soldiers are trained to be at peace in war and that's the natural environment they fit into but i think i adopted that before i even got in there through the traumatic events in my life the thing is we're so driven by money and everything agreed i tell you what forget kobe forget anything you know the biggest virus on this planet is greed you know i mean it's it's the cause of every war it's cause of everything and really we're so money-driven we're so materialistic that we've lost the benefit of helping other people we even in a close-knit team people can't help each other they're competing against everyone the whole place was a mess and the sergeant got out and he's like he'd been to falklands he's probably done a few tours in northern ireland and he like there was just crap everywhere you just like as a kid you're like [ __ ] eyes and massive looking around and then he kicked something on the floor and it was like he said we've got to see if we can find any more of these [ __ ] he looked down it was a head in the helmet and he's like [ __ ] hell and that was like that was that was almost like i'm not saying that's the most traumatic event in the world but for me at that time that was like a boy to a man in a [ __ ] heartbeat there was flashes in the in the rear view mirror of a car coming up from the back anyway that turned into a full-on attack by the militia onto us and i could smell as as we're shooting at these guys at 130 k's an hour we had three cars in front of us with all our people in you know that we're protecting and we're doing a [ __ ] attack we're being attacked by them let's shoot 130 cases now i've got like a car down to my left i'm driving the vehicle i've got a machine gun on my [ __ ] arm blasting through my clothes window at this car i can and as i'm in this attack i can smell the cordite from the bullets everything the whole thing happens we [ __ ] um their car like crashes into the central reservation we get out of there and i'm sitting there like the [ __ ] wind's coming in the car because we've got no windows left ringing in our ears because they're all the [ __ ] loud bangs and i'm just sitting there thinking what the [ __ ] just happened today's guest we've got ollie allerton how are you brother i'm good mate thanks for coming down yeah thanks for coming on the show brothers good to meet you pleasure yeah offer special forces who dares wins man of many talents i've watched a few of your interviews as well very deep very personal a lot of trauma and pain yeah but the things that you're doing now to work through it and push through it as next level stuff that's the stuff i crave in life and i think a lot of people will get a lot out of this interview again first of all congratulations just get married as well i did mate yeah we beat the odds yeah maybe the odds came up to your homeland got married and it was awesome it was the best thing you know it's like the the cliche but is it you know the analogy that great things are created under pressure i believe so i think that's where your growth is yeah when you have it is the best thing yeah when there's no pressure on you know i mean you've got no there's no sort of there's no pressure to create but when there's a bit of pressure on you come up with the best stuff so happy then married life yeah no it's great it's great um but i mean it it makes no massive difference not mean it's like me and laura in no rush to get married july was last year was supposed to be when we were supposed to get married and it didn't happen but the thing is the way i am in life these days if things don't happen i know it's for a reason you know what i mean i don't sit there beating myself up going oh you know i don't if things don't happen it's like the channel 4 tv show you know i'm no longer part of the uk one when that when i got that phone call i just it was like yeah well this is that's that's my journey yeah it's just absolutely just absolutely happening yeah it's actually it's not your time for whatever or it's taking you to something else yeah and that for us not getting married in july we're starting to get pressured of you know like who's going to come to the wedding and it was starting to turn into this massive beast and um you know that then ended up being what we wanted and that was a small affair where it was just me laura and the dog yeah it's on our boat yeah yeah [ __ ] everybody else yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean you end up let's face it you end up in a wedding don't you yeah like people invite people because they're in the family it doesn't mean they like them a lot of politics and votes when it comes to videos that's why there's so many faiths up here yeah yeah yeah it's a play but i always go back to the start of my guest brother where you grew up and how it all began yeah well i grew up in a place called burton on trent which was a uh it's a brewery town you know pretty much all my family worked in the breweries apart from one my dad didn't but everyone in my family has has worked in the brewery so um you know i was born there but really i don't have a because a traumatic event at 10. i don't have any memory prior to 10. so we kinda blocked it all out yeah i think it's because it was so traumatic it's like the rest is a blur beyond 10 it's almost like my life started at 10 years old yeah and that trauma at 10 was you get you nearly get killed by a champ yeah how did that how's that yeah it's a good question burning on trent it's not in a jungle somewhere it's like it was um the circus had turned up into coming to town that day we were going out for we just actually were going out for a swim i was 10 years old brother and his best mate and then you know the the circus had turned up just between sort of our house and the swimming bus circus had pulled up in town so um we were drawn to that you know i mean kids for god's sake and uh straight away we asked you know i can have a look around they were like yeah yeah you know help yourselves there was no health and safety in 1980 and um before i knew it was in the big top and um i kind of lost my brother and his best mate and i was drawn to this gap in the side of the the other side of this tent i went over to it opened it the sun hit me in the eyes blurred blurred my vision for a couple of minutes and as it cleared i saw something in front of me that was just out of this world and that was a baby chimp and i was in love with tarzan you know i mean i was brought up with tarzan i think i've been watching it that day anyway you know i've watched it every day some holidays and in front of me that was like that was like a woman seeing george clooney naked it was my little piece of hollywood you know it was cheetah cheetah was there and i was like drawn to this creature and i went over and and before i know i stood over it looked down and this little creature then looked up at me beautiful brown eyes and uh sounds weird but it was reconnected and um and then it started picking food off the floor so it's passing this food up to me and i thought [ __ ] i'm not i mean that's disgusting so i was like chucking over my shoulder and then uh it seemed like a lifetime that was going on and then all of a sudden that serenity at that moment was was was broken like a fighter jet coming through the skies i heard this raw and i looked in the background we were in this thing sort of open area but it was enclosed with trucks and stuff like that and there was movement in the shadows and the shadows very quickly turned from shadows into what was clearly mummy or daddy it was about 50 50 60 kilogram i didn't get [ __ ] chance to weigh it [Laughter] man this thing's coming at me max 10 and i'm thinking [ __ ] i'm like a deer in the headlights you know what i mean i'm like you know i was brought up with cats and dogs this is a roaring [ __ ] grown chimp coming at me mac 10. it's going mental and then this thing i've just at the point i'm thinking i need to get out the way make a run for it this thing pounces through the air and it was almost like the blue sky turned to black as this thing landed on my chest pin me to the floor and just go [ __ ] mental the first fist came down knocked all the wind out on me second fist third fist and then next thing his teeth started coming into me like biting away and i can remember looking up at this chimps on my chest there was blood you know in its teeth it wasn't wasn't um the chimps blood it was my blood and uh i thought i could see my life flashing in front of me i was only ten it didn't take long um and it was in that moment that i knew i had to do something other otherwise i was going to die and it was it was in that moment that fight or flight and um or freeze and i managed to dislodge the chimp slightly and i got a knee up to my chest and managed to kick the thing off me and then that gave me a few seconds and i managed to scurry out there and then the chimp got to his feet and it came at me mac 10 for the final attack and honestly it was like you know like you see in the films it was like that far away from me and the chain caught it and uh in that moment the whole place erupted but for me and that's why i talk about that moment so much because there's a few things from that you know first of all childhood trauma is the worst you know one of the worst traumas you can have um secondly that was my first break point and that's the reason you sat here this is the breakpoint academy you've got the chimps to thank and that's where the first books are the the the first book is about breakpoints about the theory and breakpoint theory of breakpoint is the that to achieve anything in life you have to take short-term short-term discomfort for long-term gain for me on that day short-term discomfort was taking a fight to a chimp and the long-term gain was me living and that's the thing when i use that as an analogy for life we're wired to take short-term comfort whether it's drink drugs relationships work everything rewired to take the shortcut but that leads to long-term pain the more shortcuts we take and the more certain you know easy comforts we take it leads to a life of pretty much next to nothing and you have to know that to change anything to in life to to achieve anything then you must cross that bridge of short-term discomfort and you have to have that link to a goal and there's a whole process but that was my first break point and also the fact it taught me at a young age that regardless of your situation you have choices before that experience until then after that this is what shaped you your whole life did you become more insecure paranoid angry or did you become more into your shell no matter the change you because you know i was angry i was i was a troubled little kid after that you know it set me on a path of destruction it's like hindsight's a wonderful thing but it never won any wars you know i mean we can sit back and reflect now but then you know and you don't know at the time because when you have intimate when you have trauma like that you lock away that intimate trauma it's like a survival technique in a survival technique to get you through the short term so you lock away the intimate trauma but that that intimate trauma needs to be dealt with at some point if you don't deal with it it sticks with you for the rest of your life and for me looking back i then understand that that that um that really did change the path of my life and i was i was an angry little kid got into a lot of trouble with the police ended up on remand at one point and that was a turning point for me that was like you know and i thought everyone was like he's going to end up in prison for the rest of his life people well kingdom labeling knew then that yeah exactly and this was the first it wouldn't be you know i'd end up inside for the rest of my life and that was the point as well when my mum bless her she her life was falling apart my dad had left financial she was in financial ruin because of that and she had three kids to bring up and at that moment she knew how much i needed and she bought you know she she focused all her attention on me and she concentrated all that energy and pushed me into like on my um you know my cross-country running normal you know exercise everything and and then at that point as well 14 years old my passion to join the military so you made a decision at such a young age that you wanted to kind of do you think joining the military at such young age would you be 18 were you doing it because you were getting fat or stronger you wanted to learn are you doing it to kind of run away from the place you were i think it's a mixture of things there and i know a lot of people join in the military they they are joining the military because they're running from something you know they want that brotherhood they want that family there's a lot of kids that come from broken homes but really for me i didn't realize at the time again looking back but at that time i was i just wanted to be i wanted to be at war every day at that time looking back now i understand but the war wasn't external the war was internal i mean the war was inside me so regardless of where i looked i would not resolve it until i started looking within but for me at that age that took me on that path of self-destruction again you know any and for me at 14 it was like that going to war was like the be all and end all that would be the answer to all my dreams it would be everything is that because you had chaos in your mind you fought being involved in chaos externally you would find your answers you know what being in the special forces and being in the military as well but also in the special forces the fact that you don't actually start working until chaos starts raining and that's when you that's when you fall into your comp into into comfort you know the worse it gets who gets the more comfortable you're trained to be you know what i mean so when it's not chaos that's when you feel like a fish out of war you know what i mean it's like you i i call it i've mentioned it in my books it's peace and war now people like special forces soldiers are trained to be at peace in war and that's the natural environment they fit into but i think i adopted that before i even got in there through the traumatic events in my life i mean it wasn't just a monkey you know after after the monkey you know i got run over twice like i was always i was just in this [ __ ] all the time you know whether it's me getting myself into dangerous situations police everything it was just pushing and pushing and pushing was that about self-harming as well just maybe i scream out for attention yeah stream out for help that yeah you were obviously you don't know back then nice to deal with trauma and pain and then our child we don't know there's so much now that people are searching you can search yeah and find some certain answers but you know your self consistency is key yoga man to change the neural pathways to change the way your friend can change the way you feel it's still a [ __ ] struggle yeah ain't easy and you know i mean no matter how far you've done in life and everybody you've got three successful books successful show amazing career but every day i bet you still have to push yourself to get up and survive yeah i do you know people people think it's easy first of all though the last seven years have been the best seven years of my life and everything before that was a [ __ ] major struggle you know what i mean it was a brave face putting on a brave face and you know yeah from the outside looking in i mean i'll tell you what it is my mum read my first book breakpoint and she's like i had no idea it's like they're the closest people to you they have no idea and you you think you know you you've kept a brave face all the way through but it was a fight but even still you know it's like still having a business it's like everyone thinks that oh ex-special forces soldier they love them find this [ __ ] easy you know whether whether it's getting getting up early in the morning at five o'clock in the morning to go out for i don't i don't find it easier and another thing is people think that oh well you're like special forces you cut from a different cloth that's the load of bollocks we bleed and breathe just like everyone else you know what i mean we're no different to anyone else it's just that we've found ourselves in ourselves in extraordinary extra extraordinary situations so really it's not a case of that i struggle every morning and that's why my second book was called battle ready because every day is a battle it's not about being in a war zone it's about every day is a battle to be the best version of yourself yeah we'll plug your books just now so we've got breakpoint we've got battle ready and this is the latest one scar tissue yeah scar tissue so so this is the biography that's a that really laid the foundation of who i am the journey and everything started 10. um this was when i came back 2011 is when my pressure cooker exploded so i [ __ ] my life started to fall apart big time and that is really the the process that i put in play that's that's the process processes the disciplines everything i put into place to change and get to where i am today and then the third book scar tissue is my first first step into the the fiction waters but the thing is i was i was when they said you know when we talked or i talked to the publisher and my publisher about doing fiction i was like i don't want to do fiction i want to do everything is self-development i want everyone you know my journey i want to help other people and they said they said well what about doing the same thing but in fiction i was like what do you mean he said well the best platform for trying to inspire people and motivate people is storytelling you know it's ages it's an age-old method of of getting that message across so i realized although it's fiction it cut it follows the story of my life and it follows you know the emotional trauma that i was going through while having to deal with a very real situation and you know that book is is very much the dna and the blueprint of who i am anyway writing your books and putting everything on the line do you think that therapy for you yeah i do but the thing is for me as well you know when i said to the before about cutting you you guys are cut from a different cloth if you don't make people if you don't allow people to relate to you their content can't be absorbed you know i mean unless they can relate to you it's very important for me for my own sort of therapy and also to know that that is really helping other people is to to be an open book you know what i mean and actually explain and show people that you're just the same as them i mean until you do that your audience can't relate and it you're just some you know someone that they could never be or you know you're a very different kind of person so it's important for me that you know i have been more than honest in these books 100 honest 100 honest with the fact that i didn't particularly enjoy being a special forces soldier everyone sees oh he's the next special forces soldier he's been on tv they don't understand that there's a massive gap between those two points you know what i mean and and really the fact that i didn't find my purpose until a long time after until about 2011 i didn't find my purpose in life yeah and that that's you know when i look back now it's like i couldn't understand when i was in the military when everything i did when from an early age i was never happy never happy that's why i was bouncing all over the place trying to find this external fix that was going to make me happy made me fulfilled and it wasn't out there it wasn't until i started looking inwards but that was only when i stumbled across something when i went to southeast asia and rescued kids from prostitution and slavery that was the one thing that changed my life yeah no it's just it was the fact that i'd for once in my life found something that i felt so humble to be a part of and that was the absolute wealth you get and benefit you get from helping other people yeah that's powerful yeah that's the gift in life because it's free yeah that's free exactly and people the thing is we're so driven by money and everything agreed i'll tell you what forget kobe do you forget anything you know the biggest virus on this planet is greed you know i mean it's it's the cause of every war it's cause of everything and really we're so money-driven we're so materialistic that we've lost the benefit of helping other people we even in a close-knit team people can't help each other they're competing against everyone you know and that's why we do we do a lot of corporate work and they say to us how can we do this you know they're always looking outwards and we're like i look inwards once you get your synergy the synergy of your people working together and you drop that ego and you stop working towards a a joint focused goal that will change your external productivity but the thing is the point i'm trying to make that that really made me understand the power of helping other people especially when they're less fortunate and we weren't being paid for that you know i funded that for my work in iraq all the money you know we i funded the whole operation so it wasn't because of money it was but that what it gave to me was the wealth it gave me was just like an unbelievable yeah they feel good factor when you help other people not only you're helping them but you're also helping yourself you're feeding your soul which is yeah the key life but it is difficult because we're still all selfish [ __ ] yeah so i mean we can preach all this stuff and we still think we always want more i always want more you always want more to keep we've kind of know the tools and techniques what we're talking about yeah so we kind of know the frequencies and the vibrations that we think will attract and it's powerful stuff and yeah you're living proof that it happens the same as myself that just constantly believe i do affirmations every morning yeah just keep repeating to myself and if i believe it then i will attract it and it's and it's working yeah but it's still a battle when you joined the marines at 18 why did you choose the marines i chose the marines because someone said it was the hardest you know i mean it was like that's the hardest training i wanted the hardest training i also didn't want to trade i wanted to be a soldier i wanted to be in combat i didn't want to learn how to [ __ ] mend a vehicle in the military i thought being in the military for me was being on the front line of fighting you know i mean so that it was either i don't know why it was never the paris because that was a similar kind of thing but it was for me it was the marines so and my my grandfather was in the uh army but you know i was he was just wanted to be at the marines i think it was the people around me that influenced that at the time how hard was it training at 18 i always say that that training for me to go from civilian as a young lad into the royal marines was harder than doing special forces selection because you go from special forces i'm already a soldier so that transition from soldiers to special forces soldier was easier for me than going from a civilian young boy to a to a um royal marine commander do you think a lot of kids at 18 should be there or do you think if they're running away and a lot of mental health a lot maybe all right they're struggling because we know a lot of soldiers and a lot of homeless work back home the majority of people on the street are ex-military yeah ptsd that are struggling but a lot of people are struggling now do you think there should be more mental health checks before you join yes 100 you know what i mean i've said this before and it's like this is always the problem they're looking at you can never you need to go to source whenever there's a real problem you need to go to the source of the problem it's like when we rescued those kids in thailand we were going to the brothels in thailand and doing these undercover investigations with hidden cameras and all that trying to find these kids that were working in in brothels as underage you know prostitution etc we realized it wasn't working because they were already ingrained into that kind of lifestyle you know i mean they're already you know they hadn't all of a sudden had money they had mobile phone and all this kind of stuff and also it was so corrupt so what we ended up then going to the source of the problem and that's the only way you can tackle anything yeah yeah absolutely we had to go to the foothills in thailand and find the camps where they were being kept before they were brought into that world and it's exactly the same as this situation if you want to resolve the situation it's not the back end you need to deal with it's the checks on the front end you know it's when they stop i've said this time and time again you know they need to have some kind of um a lot more checks when they're when they actually join up and you know even if it's not the fact they can't join they should then be given a lot more support at the front end because it helps out the back end yeah but the thing is that i mean the student's got to be ready ready though you know a lot of people say to me it's is was the military you know cause of your ptsd or and i say i can't pinpoint that you know you know it's not not one particular event i know i had this traumatic experience i joined with a load of issues anyway so i don't blame them but the thing is even if there were counter measures there when i left i'd have gone like that [ __ ] off i'm not doing that because i wasn't ready i wasn't ready to admit that i had a problem it didn't come out come out until years later you know it was only like a year ago and at 49 years old that dealt with the chimp yeah that's a long time but again at least you're dealing with it and you know yourself ptsd mental health people are struggling with mental health now and i lock down and as difficult as human beings me personally we shouldn't be seen deaf we shouldn't be seeing pain misery but again that's what we're conditioned for such a young age to get into that life and like these kids in asia they're used to that they're used to that at such young ages you'd have been used to seeing dead bodies and and you're thinking but there's something deep inside with friend that you know that tells you that's a sicky feeling even though myself even i'm doing good things they'll start sick of feeling that something ain't [ __ ] right man something's not right on this earth and i don't i can't pinpoint it yeah i don't know where it is i don't know if i'll ever find that but there's just something telling me that's something right that when you went because i know you went it's northern ireland for your first the thing is i i joined and you joined from this brochure what age were you then i was eighteen i was eighteen so straight under the firing line that's a warzone basically i was 19 when i actually went to northern ireland but basically that was for me it was like that was reality you know i mean up until that point i joined because of this i saw people in uniform i thought it was so cool you know all the chicks i love you know all that stuff you know and that wasn't that was the draw card you know i mean i opened this brochure and there's a bloke on a [ __ ] winston you know he's got his missus blonde she's [ __ ] essence sat on the beach waving at him and you know what i mean the the reality of it was you know the first day out of training when i went to my unit which was four five commando in our growth in scotland and i'm sat there on christmas eve with a weapon like what this is [ __ ] and then shortly after that i then go to northern ireland my first tour you know what i mean and then you people call it a conflict but when people are trying to kill you i call it a war therefore what it is um and you know we were called in um i think it was the second the first night we got there because we were taken over from the coal stream guards and there's there's a bigger price on for raw marines anyone with a green beret or a red beret there's a big price out there for you from you know as a hit so the more you know they obviously got the ante to try and and get as many kills as they could they got the dates mixed up of doing the changeover so when they attacked this checkpoint they expected us to be there and we weren't there so the cold stream guards were still there we hadn't fully taken over with just in country and we were qrf so it was quick reaction four straight on the helicopters when something major happens in that area south armor and um it was that night the first night we got there straight to the chopper straight to um straight to the checkpoint and um the whole place was a mess and the sergeant got out and he's like he'd been to falklands he's probably done a few tours in northern ireland and he like there was just crap everywhere you just like as a kid you're like [ __ ] eyes are massive looking around and then he kicked something on the floor and it was like he said we've got to see if we can find any more of these [ __ ] he looked down it was a head in the helmet and he's like [ __ ] hell and that was like that was that was almost like i'm not saying that's the most traumatic event in the world but for me at that time i was like a boy to a man in a [ __ ] heartbeat you know i mean that was the reality of [ __ ] me there's no beach there's no wind surfing there you know this is that's the reality do you have to adapt to that situation straight away is like do you think constantly everything's a mindset though i've always said the mind absorbs everything do you feel as if you get brainwashed for a young age to think that that is a normal way of living i think i think at the end of the day it's not like you you adapt what happens to you straight away whether you know it's a subconscious thing you've seen something like that you've experienced it it changes you in a heartbeat um and it's not like a conscious effort you know all of a sudden that does change you it's like you know that and that for me was like i had to grow up in a it was like you need to grow up wasn't someone saying to me you need to grow you know you were just a boy it was something that happened survival mode basically you could have been that [ __ ] hairdresser it's almost like this [ __ ] serious now it's not it's no longer a game you know it's no longer going out with the lads every friday night getting pissed your mindset though going through the trauma for 10 to 18 being knocked down was that not a ton on but did that excite you that you were involved with conflict did that feel normal to you no i did it did feel normal to it did because that's where i'd always wanted to be so for me being there was just like although it was like it was a life-changing situation in a heartbeat it was like i am now where i want to be you know it's like there was that element of excitement while this [ __ ] is real yeah it feels that's what that's what i've been yeah it felt more at home than it had been for the last [ __ ] eight years yeah that's nuts though how the mind the mind is such a powerful tool we still don't know what it's about how it functions or a very small percentage i'll watch a few youtube videos and read a few books and i think i'm a [ __ ] genius but yeah there's so much more technology too there is and there's so much [ __ ] information out there as well but you know i think there's i mean this i i look into that so much i do a lot of corporate talks and you know i've looked when i came back in 2011 you know and that was the um 2014 sorry it's 2011 i came back from thailand that whole operation had fallen apart and so did i pressure cooker exploded and that was when i started having suicidal thoughts and i i always say look i don't know if i'd have done anything about that but the fact you're having suicidal thoughts is you you've already gone too far you know and that in itself is the fact you've you you're [ __ ] suffering from depression you know at the very least so that for me was the turnaround point of [ __ ] doing something about it 2011 i started to get myself on a slow um to clean incline you know i started getting myself out of that bottomless pit and the only way i could do that is by creating a goal it was also it was about cutting away drugs it was about cutting away alcohol i never i never stopped doing it but it was like limiting my exposure to it you know at one point that was dominating my life i came back from thailand and it was like drinking anything anything i could do to not face myself reality yeah you know what i mean it was it was numbing out everything through drinking drugs um and it was it was that turnaround point and then 2014 i came back and put myself into self i was like isolation in cornwall had a spare house i didn't have a spare house my family did and it was three months of i changed the [ __ ] person i was from day one to leaving there three months later and i didn't even recognize myself and that was through mind body nutrition i i had control of what was consuming this so i didn't know mainstream media in any form radio tv no newspapers and that's something i still don't do to this day particularly it's all negative [ __ ] well it's negative [ __ ] i didn't need that i didn't need that distraction you know the one thing i needed to do at that point was focus on me and i wanted to start a company called breakpoint which was really helping other people but i couldn't do that unless i came from a place of solid foundation you know there's so many people out there trying to help other people and they're [ __ ] yeah they're the ones you know what i mean you know i mean you'd like and there's a reason i know it's like a cliche but it's like there's a reason when you get on an airplane let's say in an emergency make sure that you put your own gas mask on before you help anyone else and that is how you should deal with stuff you've got to make sure you're fixed you come from somewhere so i had to focus on me for that three months and that for me you know i had no money no nothing i want to start this company it's all great and that goal really scared the [ __ ] out of me and every goal should do you know what i mean but i knew i could break it down and the first thing i had to do was get control of myself and that's what i did and that i didn't even know about the tv show then when he says i read something i watched something that he says you were bait in ireland back then yeah i mean that was like a realisation no one else had this it was just like excuse me i can remember i got up one morning we've been sleeping out in in the rough you know sleeping out overnight doing operations and then that next morning i can remember we the ecm equipment one of the guys used to have ecm and that used to basically pick up if there was like an explosive device anywhere used to jam the signal yeah or at least one of the signal and i can remember looking across i don't know why it was at that moment but i looked across and and i won't name him just in case he's listening but i looked up the hill at him and his earpiece you know we relied on him to tell us you know to go to ground and not go any further his earpiece was just swinging around so he's just walking along his ear pieces hanging off his ear so he's not even got it last night what i mean what the [ __ ] and then at that point i don't know why i was at that point but i sat there thinking this it was just like an epiphany it was like this is [ __ ] i just realized at that point all these operations all these things they were asking us to do they weren't we weren't the focus of the mission we were the bait they were sending us into all these areas to get attacked because that's how they can do their intelligence and build the intelligence picture and when people don't get attacked like the squad is then they can't build that intelligence you know they need to go off after the last incident so i just i just felt at that point i thought i can't we are just debate for something to happen they want something they're putting us into this area go and check this out go and check that out but what they really want to happen is that we get attacked yeah so we just we're just getting crazy on that yeah did you what was your mindset like then did you want to steve i want to leave and that was it for me it was like because i i joined i remember when i first went to the careers office in derby and again brochure and one of the things in the brochure was like the trades you can do in the royal marines it's like not many you know i just want to be a soldier so the center with the book as it opened up was this of blue and there was a mini sub and there was a combat frogman swimming to the mini sub and i was like she said what do you want to do if you ever actually get in and make it as a royal marine and i want that she just laughed at me and you know she just looked at me and left she everyone wants to do that and that was the special forces the sbs but it's it was that thing that you know so i joined not having a conscious decision saying i'm going to join the royal region now i'm going for the special forces but that laid a seed of something at that point and i always thought i wanted to go for you know special forces but at that point after getting to northern ireland coming up with this epiphany that this is all a waste of time then we came back from there went on leave and then we got called up for operation desert storm it's when i came back from there i just lost all confidence this dream that i've had since i was 14 years old and said i'm going to join the royal marines it's going to be the best thing ever for me and then getting there and then being so disillusioned and not my confidence like you wouldn't believe so at that point i came back from desert storm and i was like i started to lose all faith in it you know i started partying hard and everything and i really had no motivation for the military and it wasn't until i put my notice into leaving everything and um i ended up bumping into my old um uh officer from from northern ireland down iraq and he says are you doing i said i'm leaving it's not for me and he's like what he says i knew you he says he says i know you had wanted yeah he said i know you have what it takes to join the special forces if you don't do it you'll regret it for the rest of your life and although i doubted myself massively him saying that to me [ __ ] gave me all i needed that little bit of confidence to to give it a go and those words you'll regret it for the rest of your life stuck with you massively but that's the thing about leadership you know he was like an amazing leader someone i looked up to and someone at that time i was feeling very lack of confidence a massive lack of confidence and that's how influential people can be to other people but you know again you know what it's like in life there's a lot of people out there they just you know and a lot a lot of time when a lot of the time when people doubt you it's because they doubt themselves yeah definitely out there you know i mean but for him it was like if it wasn't for those words i would you know and every time i found it tough on selection and special selection it was those words how do you think you'd have coming back from iraq and ireland to go back straight into civilization do you think you'd have really struggled possibly prison possibly dead overdose maybe if you never went to special forces i don't know it's a really hard question i mean there's a lot of questions around you know i could look back on it's like a lot i've asked been asked the question before do you think if you got attacked by the chimp would you have made it in the special forces if i'd have been attacked by the ship while they joined the forces yeah i mean there's a lot and there's a lot of questions like that but you know i'd like to say that i think you know when i was a kid and i was getting into a lot of trouble with the police i don't think that was me that wasn't me it's not like i almost that was a weird time in my life it was i had no consequence at that age i didn't even know what i was doing was wrong to be quite honest um but so i don't think i'd have been searching to yeah i don't think i'd have i'd have got in trouble again i think i'd have found my way i think it would have taken a lot of time are you partying drinking drugs in iraq what as a in the not in the military but did you know what was the story you took saddam hussein's old mercedes and yeah well that was when i was a contractor yeah yeah yeah i went back there years later this is [ __ ] hilarious i was like there was a kid you know what i mean i like [ __ ] absolutely you think you [ __ ] you think you were growing up don't you when you're 18 you're like yeah i'm a man now you know what i mean and then i'm there years later after after doing special forces and all of a sudden i'm in saddam hussein's villas you know what i mean we had his cars for [ __ ] sake we used to hire them out so we bought all those cars we used to hire them out into baghdad it was like hertz car rental but an army mercedes that used to be saddams and it was a spin-out story it's like and then going to those parties which was just mental you know i mean you think you're going to like a country like that you think god it's going to be so strict and all right and like every thursday night was party night you know there's these parties kicking off all over baghdad all these contractors and everything and that first night was in that villa [ __ ] it blew my mind you know i'm there and the lads have been there for a couple i just got into country body armor on you know weapons and everything and they said i'll take your weapons put them down there you know take your body off chill out look after the clients we've got the clients there and that's when we're we're like oh the door flies open wait it doesn't fly open the door opens and all of a sudden [ __ ] women in burkish you know they are with their you can just see their eyes and they're coming i'm like [ __ ] where's my weapons and i don't know chill out chill out 13 i was counting him coming through the door 13 come in into this like sunken area you know this sort of um lounge area we were around the outside and they took off these burgers and they're just a little european porn gear on it was like and it was just alcohol drugs everything it was just absolutely 18 year old kid you know what i mean and now i'm there as a contractor and it was it was one it was the wild west mate yeah he was mental there was money flying everywhere [ __ ] million dollar pallets coming in every day by the americans the place was flooded with cash everyone's fighting for what they can get hold of it was it's just mental days how hard was that because i know because obviously watching your videos and reading your books you've done the test for the the special forces twice yeah this is all about the mindset this is the stuff that i love so you were so close to passing and then the second time you had an injury but grateful from the start of it the first time you've done it how intense was it is it six months yeah six months um six months and i always say it's the hardest thing [Music] i've ever chosen to do and that's um it's not the hardest thing i've done but i chose to do this you know i mean it was like but really what happened is because i joined the sbs the first selection i did i'm one of three people in the world to have done the old special boat service selection and the new sas one because they they sort of amalgamated and it's all one selection now so the first one was an sbs one and um i have to say i'm sorry to anyone that's that's offended but the [ __ ] and that was the hardest thing ever ever i've ever done didn't know what was going on one day to the next didn't sleep for days and it was just absolutely meant just thrashed thrashed and thrashed you know in in canoes carrying canoes digging canoes in the ground it was just mental you know it's just under pressure all day long and then then we went off to the jungle that's when you did used to join uh the sas and do that joint selection process in the jungle so six weeks in there then used to come out do some skills training the last thing you do is escape invasion and it was um in the escaping invasion that we're escaping across wales and um we had an altercation with a welsh farmer and it's funny because i always wondered whether that bloke is listening but we ended up going into a barn and you're not supposed to have any civilian contact whatsoever everyone cheats and it's just the name of the game but don't get caught and then we gotta lift off the guy um and then now you know we're trying to get out of his car we couldn't get out the back and he's pissed out his face he had his his handyman was driving the car and um we managed we're like glenn let us out let us out i'll let you out lads and we could hear him get out the car then we heard this thud and um and then one of the lads managed to smack the doors open we ran off and then two days later we pulled in and given a field interrogation and they knew exactly what what had been happening and what happened the guy had fallen out the car smashed his head on the floor gone to hospital and said that he'd been beaten up by the sas and then we're off the course [ __ ] two days two days after six months and how did that affect you then were you thinking game over home time yeah i mean that for me when i started selection it was like i'm going to go outside i'm going to be a civilian it was that officer that changed my you know there's a lot of training obviously there was like a couple of couple three months of training to actually start so it's a nine month process to get to the end then and then be sent back i was sent back to four five commando up in scotland our growth and um going back there it was like i was losing all [ __ ] motivation whatsoever and because you know that sort of furnace that was burning for a passion to to be a special forces soldier and i've always been one of these people that focuses on the on the on the end result i don't look at the journey yeah you can't control the journey but i felt i can always fall in love it's something i've always been able to do i still do it to this day i actually experience it experience that like i've already achieved it you know and add emotions to that and and make it very real and that's the one thing that pulls me through and i had that dream you know that dream of being a special forces soldier how that would change my whole life how that would make me feel how you know all kinds of stuff and and that was the one thing you know that fire was was was just embers but then i got back to four five and it was going back there and it was actually hearing those words again in my head you'll regret it for the rest of your life and it was almost like there's unfinished business i need some you know i've got so far to the end that how could i just walk out so those embers that were still burning um i managed to recreate you know get them going again before notice it was a it's a [ __ ] a fire of of passion to achieve it again and and i was back on there and then the second time around was just fraught with [ __ ] absolutely was it hard at the same time because you know you were getting yourself into or was it easier easier what was that yeah it was easier because like they i was then i then did the joint selection now the joint selection is you know every day that's what's going to happen so i know what's going to happen tomorrow the day after when i did the sbs selection you don't know what's you don't yeah i've got a clue what's going on i mean so that knowing being able to know that tomorrow is like a 20k jump uh the day after that's gonna be 30k then it's for you know whatever it is we knew we knew the path in front of us when you don't know the path in front of us it creates all kinds of self-doubt anxiety and all that kind of stuff but for me you know that doing that selection and going to the brecon beacons and doing their selection it would have gone fine if it wasn't for the fact if i can near enough broke my leg or my ankle like my ankle did a 90 degree i could hear all the tendons going and um you know at that point they tried to take me off and said look you've you're not going to pass they said if if you fail a march because of that you'll never be able to come back again because i'd already done it once and they were like i just i just know in my head that there was no way i was coming back this was the last time i wouldn't be coming back again has anybody ever come back for the third time no you just can't you're not allowed oh you're not no so was it there wasn't no one ever so for me it was like i'm i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sort of say yeah i'm coming off with a medical withdrawal that means that wouldn't you know i could have had another go i just know my head that i didn't have it there to come back again how long was the match you had to do well i mean you do it days and days and days so the first one i think that was something like 20k yam that first one was with packs you know weight weapons everything and that's when i went over my ankle that that day i mean my ankle swelled up massively and uh but that night i just strapped it up took loads of broofing and um mate i was crying the next day through through the elan valley which is they call it babies heads because it's just like the ground is so uneven it's like it's horrendous and i can remember crying all the way through that but i made the times i made the times and then slowly over that time you know i managed to do that every day and then this my ankle started to get a bit stronger stronger stronger but it was [ __ ] horrendous how many people do these courses um well you're looking around about 260 and about five people pass every course with your feet [ __ ] as well so you going through that sort of intensity did that obviously you're battling with your mindset does that make your mind stronger or does it make it more kind of all over the place because of what you're putting yourself i was i was seeing people it it interested me i was watching people that people want to find an excuse so they don't have to blame that they don't have have to be seen that they haven't got the mental robustness to complete it because special forces selection right you have to be fit yeah but it's it's really about being able to maintain being in a uh state of discomfort for long long periods of time you know i mean you can get the fittest person in the world to come and do special forces selection but there's such a level of discomfort you chuck a pack on the back you make sure they're cold for an extended period of periods of times and they'll just fall apart so for me it's just and i could see so many people you know they come off with a little sprain oh that's me i'm done and i just saw these people thinking [ __ ] yeah that's just weak i just knew that my my leg was bust you know it was [ __ ] so painful and i was seeing people with little grays and a little limp and going oh no no it's not for me i mean you your feet you take your socks off and half your foot comes off with it every night you know the blisters and you your feet are just raw so each more every march you do your life you have to get through about two hours of pain just to get over the pain barrier you know every day it's just horrendous pain so but you have to be able to put up with that to keep on going but does that show you how far human beings can go when they actually put their mindset see the people who passed with you did you know they did you see something in them that they would pass or then people surprise you that no no i'm surprised there's so many people that i see so many strong people they become so weak and you're surprised that people go [ __ ] me you're really strong mentally yeah did you there was a surprise to you who passed with you no it's not i mean it wasn't so much a surprise because it's it's an ongoing process where you can see people dropping by the wayside but you can't predict it from day one you can't say well he looks fit so he's going to pass because you don't know what's going on up here you know what i mean it's like the ones that shine through at the end you know you couldn't predict that you can obviously fitness is one thing you if someone turns up and they're not fit then it's clear that that fit their physical ability is going to hold them back and they're not going to pass but it's so hard to say that he's going to pass he's going to pass it's like watching the show on on tv you know csudez wins everyone goes i thought he passed because he was really fit and it's like that's got that's it plays a small part you know it's you've got to have so much mental strength to be able to carry on when and try and draw that extra 40 50 60 percent when times get [ __ ] you know you've got to understand that we're wide to avoid any kind of stress discomfort and our minds will steer us away from anything that's going to cause us that you know so our minds are always looking for the easy way out always and it's about being able to to be that it's about being able to be that that's i mean i talk a lot about the psychology of everything you know i understood that that you know we are always looking for that um we're always looking to avoid the stress and discomfort and any kind of shortcut we can take we will do so it's i think when you understand how we work as humans it's like i always say look how a mechanic can't fix a car i can't fix a motorbike any kind of machine until he understands how it works it's no different to us you know i mean no different to us humans as soon as we understand what's going on up here and and how to work with it we've learned to work with our weakness as well as our strengths that helps us get through everything yeah what happened then after you passed was it scs a second time sas pasta says selection what happened what what the heck what did you i went to my team after i finished that i went to my team and then to me that was like it was almost like i'd done that challenge and straight away i was like unfulfilled yeah and i just couldn't find that i couldn't find that sort of um everywhere i looked it wasn't there i couldn't find that i couldn't feel fulfilled i couldn't feel happy i couldn't find any balance anything and it wasn't until i went over there to thailand that i found that you know because after after spending six years in the special forces and then coming out the back end of that then going over to iraq as a contractor and again i'm bouncing all over the world [ __ ] trying to find this external fix that's not there you know and i'm getting i'm drinking too much and doing this i'm doing that and everything's external it wasn't until i did that operation with the kids helping rescuing the kids in thailand that everything started to change when i started to understand thing is i i look back now is we have to find purpose it's all about purpose but the thing is you know as a kid you can't find purpose you need to experience so everything i was doing i was bouncing around trying to find these and then i stumbled across something that then i stumbled across my purpose how did that come about with the kids in asia because i know i think there's over two million people or two million kids get traffic yeah and asia alone each year which is [ __ ] it's crazy numbers how did you end up getting into that path well i came out of i came out of um iraq and uh i was like i need to stay away from war zones you know i mean it's my mental health was absolutely i can go in downhill big time and um you know i was over in iraq and i was i was taking steroids at one point valium um drugs yeah and alcohol heavily and it was just like a cocktail of mayhem for my mental health came out of that and living in a war zone for six years you know six years was horrendous um i came out i was living in australia at that time and i was like got into some property development and stuff like that and everything was going fine but then i just started again i started getting bored and because i was getting bored and because i wasn't i couldn't find that sense of fulfillment you know i could could never find i thought i had to go back to a war zone or you know i thought that's where you know that's where you guys go kind of thing you know like special forces soldiers so anyway something i then got some information about an called the grey man that was rescuing kids from child prostitution slavery in southeast asia those numbers um which absolutely you know the thing that hit me the hardest was the fact these kids are sold into that lifestyle by their families now i [ __ ] moaned about in that book i think i moaned about not getting a hug from my dad you know i mean these kids are sold by their families and i couldn't get my head around that so i wanted to have some kind of help in changing the destiny of their lives so an ex-commando that started this organization called the grey man was running operations over overseas and i got um introduced to him and then um ended up in in southeast asia running operations over there and we had such a good success rate it was going brilliantly i f finally finally found what my purpose was feeling so happy i thought this is going to be this will be me for the rest of my life and then um the whole thing fell apart you know the where it was it was in the papers all over the world about these bus we were doing one particular bus 22 kids and then the u.s state department got into the entire government said what the [ __ ] is this we give you millions of dollars every year this four-man team that we've never seen or don't know where they're from have gone in and done more than you've ever done what what is going on so then the thai government claimed that there was no such issue nothing going on and that we were a bogus charity putting money in our own pockets which we weren't because i was paying for it anyway that operation from the money i earned in iraq so very quickly that thing turned on its ass and we had to escape out of thailand and um and that's when you know i ended up back in australia and my whole life fell apart at that point was that when you started drinking and taking drugs i was doing that anyway yeah [Laughter] i was doing that anyway but you know i was like a functioning i i wouldn't even call it an addict you know it was it was dependency not addiction regardless of what it was it was it was abuse you know i mean i was on this path yeah self-harming so every time i wasn't working i'd be either hitting the you know i i just called it partying but it was just simply you know i was on this path of [ __ ] distraction um and um and that but when i came back you know it was different it was different because everything had fallen apart my life was falling apart you know i was drinking to to to stop the noise in my head stopped there you know i couldn't i couldn't sit with myself sober you know the the reality of that was i hated it i couldn't stand it and at that point that's when my my you know my life fell apart part of that point i realized i had to [ __ ] do something about it how hard was it been in the war zones for six years at a time yeah that was hideous but the thing is you've been drawn in because of the money i mean i earned more more money there in one month than i did in a whole year in the military so for me i call it fool's gold now because you know it draws you there for the for that the dollar and we just drawn you know for me i was like everything was focused on cash cash cash cash cash it's all about money i wasn't paid much in the um in the military um and for me it was all about cash and that was the main focus everything was about cash um so at that point it was it was like when i actually managed to get over that um that was the turning point for me it was like trying to create something the way it wasn't the focus wasn't money you know the focus was we're starting a business yeah you've seen money i've had those you visualize popping champagne but you while you're doing that there was a truck trying to kill you yeah and how did you end up visualizing that no because what happened is we're in baghdad the opera basically we've not been there long we were in a fortune and because the threat level had come down the statue came down inferno square of saddam hussein and everyone's going oh the war's over and everyone knows now the war had just begun and um we knew that they were going to start because we're expensive like security we don't we don't make money for a company we allow it to survive when times are tough so as soon as they can they'll offload you know i mean the last thing i wanted was that to be the the manpower to be decreased i was a team leader of a six-man team so i ended up going out to i had i promise he said look we've got a job on for you i said what is it he says you need to go and pick up the new abc bureau chief from jordan we're in baghdad and um i knew that one of his top-line jobs coming in the new guy coming in um was to assess the need for security meaning our jobs would be gone i was like [ __ ] i've just started earning a decent money really good money you know i don't want this to end so all the way there it's a 14-hour trip i only have one i could only take one person with me a 14-hour trip to go and collect this this guy there was no travel uh no flights because of the surface to miss after it and all the way there i'm sitting there thinking i've always been a creative person i can i can dream big i've always been a big dreamer always i can create the image in my head and i fall in love with that and um all the way there i'm thinking of all the words i can say to him to change his mind you know what are the words and i thought there's no [ __ ] words there is no words and then i'll start thinking what what could happen that would that will change his mind and then i thought we need to get attacked so now i'm driving there for 12 hours and all i've got is visions in my head about this attack how it's going to happen where it's going to be how it's going to go down i could smell the cordite from the bullets in the air i was going into i'll go into that much detail about it so the cord the smell from the bullets i could smell that i was engaging all senses you know what i mean and then in my head i was like we had the attack the attack happened we got everyone out there we get back to baghdad we go into the compound and uh you know heroes welcome next thing i'm tasting champagne i can feel the bubbles going down the throat and then we go up and then anyway the contract contract gets extended so whenever we get there to the hotel that night i'm sat there with my number two and i sat there at the bar i thought i better give him a [ __ ] drink first i said i said you know what needs to happen tomorrow and he went what i said we need to get attacked and he just looked at me like there's a [ __ ] maniac like anyone would do i said no no no this is the only way that we're going to justify our value and he's like okay so anyway we we got creative we had another beer and got creative and said you know how it would benefit our lives and everything but i went into every detail with him and it was about you know we're going to be on the highway we're going to get attacked by the militia blah blah blah it's going to be between rimadi and fallujah you know and then we gotta get back to the compound the doors will swing open and i explain the whole thing to him and he's like we're laughing again yeah yeah imagine that so anyway the next day at that very point i'd forgotten about this because i was so [ __ ] tired i was driving at the time i was so tired so and and just thinking about staying awake i can remember seeing a sign saying rimadi i passed the sign saying room ali and as soon as i saw that sign there was flashes in the in the rear view mirror of a car coming up from the back anyway that turned into a full-on attack by the militia onto us and i could smell as as we're shooting at these guys at 130 k's an hour we had three cars in front of us with all our people in you know that we're protecting and we're doing a [ __ ] attack we're being attacked by them i'm going to shoot 130 cases now i've got like a car down to my left i'm driving the vehicle i've got a machine gun on my [ __ ] arm blasting through my closed window at this car and as i'm in this attack i can smell the cordite from the bullets everything the whole thing happens we [ __ ] um their car like crashes into the central reservation we get out of there and i'm sitting there like the [ __ ] winds coming in the car because we've got no windows left ringing in our ears because they're all the [ __ ] loud bangs and i'm just sitting there thinking what the [ __ ] just happened because it was exactly to the point of everything times everything that happened was exactly how i explained it the night before and then just to make it even worse as we got to the compound the doors open heroes welcome and i can remember pulling up the car opening the door and i can remember hearing it's almost like change out your pocket falling on the floor on a stone floor and i looked down it was all the glass falling out the car and the empty shell cases from the from the rounds from the from the shots and as i looked up glass of champagne and i'm like [ __ ] this is just bizarre i'm looking at my mate he's looking at me like i'm a witch and i'm just and this bubble's going down my throat and i'm thinking this is [ __ ] nuts you know it wasn't the attack that was more freaky it was the fact that i'd explained everything yeah and then we get called up to the office signed contract for another two years and then from that point i was like oh my and that change that that confirmed to me it was almost for me and people can laugh or you know say it's a load of bollocks or whatever i don't care they're just missing out if they don't see the value in this it was almost like the universe said to me we need to show this guy how this [ __ ] works and that set in stone for me how visualization how powerful it is and believe me i don't think about getting attacked anymore yeah if the power of visualization because whatever in your life at that point you had attracted yeah visualization war zones even if you're going to use the power of visualization you want it to be more safer yeah and more productive and more positive but you don't want yeah but they're getting harm but everything that you are involved in your life or surrounding you you have fought you have created that in your mind which is powerful and then that made me then look back in life and i just realized that i got in the special forces because i was in love with the dream at the end i created the visualization of passing how it felt how it felt to those around me and even when i came back in 2011 when i wrote all the contents about already when i was sat in that house every day i visualized her and it was i visualized because of that attack in iraq so basically in that house every day i visualize i started meditating visualize and i visualized about me and foxy being on the stage in front of a massive audience where we could talk about our experiences i thought about this company where we could have these corporate people coming in and we could put them through a mock style version of special forces selection i did that every day religiously religiously no tv no media and then all of a sudden when i think this [ __ ] doesn't work i've been asking for a sign give me some just give me something so i know i'm [ __ ] not wasting my time give me something and then it was getting to the point my phone was saying mate you're gonna need to find yourself a job i was like no no no this is going to work it's not a break point my company did it's all going to work but i've started to doubt myself you know i was getting to that point where i was running out of money everything and then foxy phones me up out of the blue and says um you know that idea we've got i'm going yeah would you do that on telly if you had the chance right of course i'm [ __ ] would he says well i'm here with the production company can you have a chat with them because they're interested that was the start of sasu there's those ones holy [ __ ] god that was the audience did you leave everything so when you're left with special forces seeing your elite level do you have the power to push your emergency buttons for to send [ __ ] airplanes and [ __ ] yeah yeah yeah absolutely you've got i mean you've got so many assets as a special forces soldier you got you know whenever you get attacked or anything like that you can call in an airstrike you can call in naval gunfire from a ship out see you've got people around you you've got so many uh weapon systems and everything that's why that attack for me in baghdad was it was in iraq was horrible because i was i was like a boy and i felt like a boy in a man's world it was a horrible experience they had no support elements no nothing and that's that really although that was a good thing that happened that day because you know what what it meant to me in the bigger picture i didn't think i'd come away from iraq every day was like these did you see over there oh no i wouldn't say loads but the thing is we were getting attacked a lot you know i mean we were living in the villa in the red zone and it's just that constant threat you knew when you were going out in the car you know we we actually had a policy within the team that if because the insurance was so [ __ ] you know we said that if if we got into an attack if there was an ied or something and we're blown up if it looked like we were pretty [ __ ] and we'd end up in a wheelchair that we'd we'd kill each other you know i mean and that was policy in the team and having that kind of you can just understand having that kind of policy and that kind of mentality for that while you're living you know constantly in that war zone that's not good for your mental health yeah it's a horrible place to be and like that attack although i talk about that i [ __ ] hated it i hated every second of it did you get scared or do you just get used to the high levels of what is it they call it you're bothering when you release yeah yeah i mean i talk about that a lot mate because it's like you know what in that moment you know i use that experience a lot because that really makes people understand the power of breathing you know i mean a lot of people just have forgotten how to breathe properly and a lot of this stuff when your cortisol love will start to increase and that happens when you get stressed that's because your breathing becomes erratic so what happens in that moment that's your fight or flight or freeze response and the the one way to be able to resolve that is box breathing you know they teach it a lot they've started teaching it in the us navy seals other countries people in yoga will know all about their own half stuff yeah and that just decrea that decreases cortisol it allows you to have a mindset of clarity not confusion our minds can only handle uh five to nine bits of information at any one time when we're stressed that goes down to one to two so really it's about in those moments it was almost like on that attack i was starting to spin out you know i could see the militia coming up weapons came out of every window the [ __ ] bullets have started to go over the car i started to take on the responsibility of all those people in front of me the guy behind me and then i started coming up with these scenarios of me being you know pulled over at the side of the [ __ ] motorway being being executed all those kind of things i had to get rid of and it was almost like in that moment i felt like i'd stopped breathing for the last minute you know what i mean it was only when i went when they when the bullets started firing it almost snapped me out of that and it was like you need to deal with this and i took a breath and it was like i'd not breathed for like i say about a minute i've just taken that breath and created that clarity so really talk about that that's that's just how and people the thing is because society at the moment people are living in a massive state of fear because they turn on the news in the morning straight away it's mainstream media fear fear fear fear people are walking around in that natural state on a on a on a constant basis when you're in a state of fear or when you immediately you're on a long term basis your pupils dilate and you end up being only focused on the thing that's troubling you so you don't see the outside world and people are walking around in that state of fear at the moment and really if they started to think about this stuff think about box breathing and start to lower that cortisol they'd have so much more clarity and get a bigger picture of what's going on yeah but even techniques is i believe the same believe in techniques we're talking about one half earlier yeah has been even technically even technique has been gone here for hundreds of thousands of years but not believing enough is not sending enough oxygen yeah you'll get anxiety that's why people tense up face goes red just breathe through the pain and you'll tend to see you can adapt to the situations that's why the cold water exposure is good as well when you get into the cold water yeah first thing you want to do is leave but if you actually breathe the body adapts yeah so much to everything this is all the stuff that's internal which is powerful do you get nightmares in that ollie no just kind of used to it no it's not i mean last six years have been amazing last seven years have been amazing again for me it's like one of the hardest things for me to do i think a lot of people have problems with this is the fact that they when it comes to having mental health issues ptsd whatever you want to call it i call when you when you're um your sort of bar for life is below constantly below par on a daily basis you've got issues all right and the thing we end up doing is the fact when it comes to ptsd or whatever it is though we're always looking for some kind of checklist have i been in a war zone i've done this the military don't own ptsd the military don't own depression you know what's mean so the the the only check you need to make is do you wake up constantly feeling depressed do you live most days constantly feeling depressed you know nine times out of ten do you feel that i mean that is you're having issues you need to deal with it so you're not looking for these stereotypical things you think everyone that's got ptsd must wake up in sweats every night reliving an incident that happened in the past it's not necessarily that it doesn't have to be that you know you don't need to be checking on the chat you don't need to be comparing with other people that have had it worse than you it's relative to the person and it's it's not based on any specific incident you know i i just think a lot of time people are living in such a repeat cycle yesterday which is human trait uh which is linked to our survival that that just in itself becomes depression you know that's that's depression in itself just living in that constant and depression for me is when the mind's saying you need to change your habit loop because this one's no longer serving you you need to change something but we don't like to embrace church people don't just wake up depressed it's been a long course over 5 10 20 30 years doing that psycho to brain yeah it will repeat 60 they say 60 000 thoughts plus a day so you've you've you've set your set in stone yeah subconscious mind to the way you think to the way you feel the only way to do that is to do something [ __ ] different daily and condition yourself and consistency is key to change of a better life of a better feeling but as difficult as yeah but it can be [ __ ] done when your career was coming to an end from the special forces were you did you want to stay on or was it game over that you wanted no no the thing is this is this is the thing it makes me laugh since the day i joined the military i wanted to leave so all the way through so all the way through my career i've had my noticing to leave leave leave leave like even before i went for special forces selection i was actually leaving i had six months left and i managed to reverse that decision and sign back on but then even when i got into the special forces i had no notice him to leave all the way through i wanted to leave so and again that was just me not not understanding you know i didn't understand why i couldn't be happy so how long or when were you there 11 years but that's the thing is when i look into the psychology because i was like why do we keep repeating these habit loops when they serve as no purpose whatsoever and the thing is it's linked to evolution we want to keep on doing what we did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that because as far as our minds concerned that's kept us alive until today it doesn't give a [ __ ] if you're happy or sad with whether it's a good situation or not it just knows by repeating what you did yesterday has kept you alive till today you know there's a massive sort of one there's one thing there's human evolution here and as far as evolution is concerned survival is the species you'd be happy if you sat in a corner and just [ __ ] procreated all day long some people might be happy with that but we were put on the earth to experience and to you know to do great things evolution doesn't want you to go out and [ __ ] go bungee jumping does it evolution doesn't want you to go skydiving go to war zones it wants you to [ __ ] stay safe and carry on the species but and that's where i see there's a massive sort of with with torn in the middle of that you know i mean that's why we find it easy to be lazy you know i find it easy to be lazy and i hate it sometimes i've not trained for two weeks and it's doing my head in at the moment because you know you should be doing it i know i should be doing it but the thing is and this is what made me realize when 2011 i came back how did i pass the hardest selection in the [ __ ] world and now i'm at the lowest point in my life how how you know and i couldn't and then i realized you know i started studying these things human evolution you know and it would be happy if we just sat in the corner and did nothing but you know there's that other side of us that wants to to experience wants to create wants to do great things and that is really sort of you know the reason i called that battle ready how did you get the courage then to leave after 11 years after being so conditioned into that life the way you think and the way you train the way you act what was that moment right enough's on offer i'm out of here it was just it was just the second you know it was difficult it just felt natural yeah i did a course it was great because the last course i did i went over to california spent four months with the us navy seals and i got to remember i told you when i went into the careers office with the brochure as a kid and there was a mini sub the last thing i did was that and i trained to pilot that mini sub and i did that over in california and i came back and then i came back and i was fully trained up as a subpar mini sub pilot combat swimmer mini sub pilot and i came back and then i never got the position that i wanted to get and i was like ah well [ __ ] you then and i thought that was it that was my sort of that was the point where it felt natural for me to go that's it i'm gone is that the hate you're drinking drugs nah no no no after that though no i mean when i was in it wasn't when i was in the military it wasn't a massive you know i was i was drinking quite a lot but the thing is when you're in the military that's just the lifestyle you know i mean it was it was drinking i was constantly working hard but then you'd i'd have a few day binges you know it was actually the most controlled i've ever been was in this was in the military the bits outside of that was the [ __ ] was the mayhem you know the bits leading up to joining the military that was mayhem and the bits afterwards it was only in you know 2011 onwards where i managed to actually stabilize myself so what was that point in 2011 what were you doing me for your life then well that's when i came back from thailand the whole operation had fallen apart did that affect you as well knowing what was going on with kids yeah it is massively because just before i went over to thailand to do the operation i went to see my son in the uk and i've not seen him for eight years and he was around about that age of the kids that we rescued you know it's scary because we speak we've had a lot of people on this podcast speaking about obviously kids and kids getting traffic yeah the thing is people don't believe you people don't believe it happens people think it's a big cover-up people think you're talking [ __ ] people think you're just trying to get numbers that shot happens everywhere not just thailand uk around the corner in glasgow people think that the government's the papers they covered all over us shut up and people think we you feel a [ __ ] then but that stuff goes on man yeah it gets a lot worse than people can even compensate yeah don't understand the depth in there is once you get into it it's a rabbit hole of yeah it's never going to be ending so when you come back for that then you know you are doing the greater good with trying to help people and then coming back is that when things declined well now for me 2011 it was i was in that repeat habit loop you know so i was drinking every day i was not achieving anything you know i was in that repeat habit loop and stuff and it was at that point where i started realizing a lot of the stuff we do is all about goals you've got to be goal driven it wasn't until i set a goal and drew a line in the sand i wanted i created a place where i wanted to be and not where i was you know a lot of the time people are stuck in that habit loop because they can't see outside of it you know what i mean people talk about mental health but they're focused on the problem as opposed to the solution so for me it was a realization that if i wanted to get away from this repeat habit loop i needed to create the place where i wanted to be where i saw myself being and it was only when i did that i managed to start pulling myself out of that that that that hole that sort of one rung at a time and then 2011 to 2014 my life started to improve extr slowly but it happened it was 2014 when i did that an intense three-month boot camp doing all the visualization doing everything i'd learned you know i came back i had no money i had no nothing and spent everything well yeah i spent everything and then i had to put money into my business and and stuff you know it was like i had no money whatsoever i was 43 years old and it was at that point i couldn't get a credit card because i had not been in the uk for 10 years um and it was at that point it was like well i may as well give this visualization a go i may as well give this you know point a planning process i drew a i drew a circle around a cd and i made it into a clock and i put the goal in the center which is breakpoint and then at each one of the clock hands i put i put a thing i needed to achieve to get to the to the goal in the center and that the first ones was like reduce my drinking you know start doing exercise they'll start making plans and it was it was i ticked every one of them and i finally got bro and got to break point and that's where we are today and now who dares ones which is that one of the biggest shows in tv yeah everybody loved it and you get a celebrity one how did that come about what were you thinking then been through hell basically involved in hell to then becoming on one of the biggest shows on that that was phenomenal it was just you know when i got that call from foxy like do you want to be on the show i just i thought foxy was down the pub i thought we were all the piercings um and i'll never forget that phone call you know as there's like it was just bizarre when i heard that and then um i mean that was the tool that was the one thing that was that's the tool i needed for exposure and very much the tv i'm very i'm very humble to be a part of that the uk i'm not in the uk version anymore very humble to have been a part of that we've done some amazing things but my focus has always been my business always will be i'm not here to be a celebrity as such i still um i find it difficult to embrace that word but one thing it has done is it's created exposure give me a voice and it's allowed that business to flourish and allowed me to do that yeah you know so it's been amazing it's been amazing it's been great to be a part of that i'm now part of the uh australian show which is phenomenal absolutely phenomenal we're back out there in march to film is it good to get away and stuff no yeah you know it's great it's great to be with the lads as well i love being with the lads because they all come from the same mindset and it's having that solution based mindset that is phenomenal when you've got a group of people like that it's hard to find that so you've got you and folks foxy and billy and billy yeah how these the news fought together these are very successful he's a kind everywhere everybody knows who he's at other people who you were in the forces way how's their mindset and do you ever speak to the boys from the past are they yeah no no no no we speak to a lot of people from the past one thing i'll say regardless of who your haters will always hate when i see that though you know when you see people like that you've just got to think i feel sorry for them because how do they treat you the majority of them love it their kids watch what yeah they say yeah but the ones that don't like it it's jealousy you know it's just jealousy but i then understand you know i don't let that [ __ ] bother me you know that's an internal problem for you mate that's fine you know at the end of the day you know the fact that we're getting people that are inspired by the books inspired by you know that's that's what i focus on you say i've had some kid yes so far the last few years is flourishing it's brilliant to see it's always good to see people doing well yeah but you'll tend to see other people who are doing well will thrive on that yeah but the people who aren't doing so well yeah [ __ ] hate it every time every time i live you know you level up there's a new way of a [ __ ] hate but the more yeah you do adapt to it yeah the pain and you go wait a minute yeah i understand it's a reflection of them yeah but the ego sometimes kicks in yeah yeah now of course it does yeah yeah i mean it's um yeah it's a beautiful thing so when you're going through your transition the first book break point you know what's your autobiography yeah when you started writing that that was a i know we spoke about ella but was that a feel-good fact that you know you were going to have a best seller as well no not really but i i was so focused i mean when i actually you know with your life experience you'll talk about a single entity won't you you say this happened to me on this day and you talk about single entities of your life but for me when i actually wrote that i actually sat back when you tell it all in one long story is it for me it was massively therapeutic i mean even before the tv show and everything i was writing chapters of a possible book a long time ago you know i was writing down the monkey incident and all that kind of stuff i'd already written them into chapters so there was almost like the undercurrents of a book started a long long time ago um but for me i mean you know for it to be a bestseller i mean that's that's been phenomenal it's been amazing mate you know it's like yeah yeah yeah i mean that's enough on its own yeah but it's a it's the battle and the struggle that you've been through to getting to where you are and understanding you're a very good speaker you've got a great energy and a great presence about you we spoke a lot about ayahuasca um how do you feel about trying that what would you what was your mindset and when was this happening you know what i mean i'm always i'm always intrigued about how much potential we've got as humans and i've been i i 100 believe that we have got a lot more than meets the eye you know potential wise i think there's a lot of um human potential that's been lost along uh along the way and i i think to a lot of degrees people don't want us to understand their true potential because they can't control that and for me like knowing that ayahuasca you know the history of ayahuasca and the fact that it's been used for centuries to expand the mind i mean it went off to machu picchu you know they talk about the fact that you know you think how the hell did they do that and apparently you know it all comes down to the fact that they'll be able to expand the mind to ayahuasca and and similar kinds of plant medicine so that intrigues me straight away anyway an ex-girlfriend of mine she was a psychologist she started to do a lot of work with dmt with with guys with ptsd and she's the one that put me onto it she went away and did it she went you need to do this so when you're when you're on the right vibration and you want and you know something comes into your mindset of something you want to do it comes to you doesn't it you know i mean like for me i started thinking about i was going to next thing and get a message on instagram from a organization this is my life honestly if i told some of the stories you know people are going now that's bollocks it's coincidence you know that's one thing when these things happen to me now i just know that the opportunities are already lined up out there you've got to line yourself up and once you line yourself up they just fall into your lap so i started thinking about ayahuasca a charity called heroic hearts project in the usa messaged me on instagram because i'd liked a couple of their posts and he was like i'm in london in a couple of weeks do you want to meet up i was like yeah yeah absolutely met up with him and he said you want to come to costa rica we've got some veterans and it was like that was it and uh off we went to to costa rica you know it's just like such a you could sit there go wow what a coincidence i don't do that anymore i'm like it's not a coincidence it's synchronicity yeah you're stealing your chappie yeah and um man i went out there and you know i i we had to chat with the shame and you know you take the plant medicine for i think four or five i think we do four or five ceremonies i can't remember but you know it's like we went out there and um you see the shame and it's like i want to you know you try and invent a reason why you wanted what anything you want to resolve i came from a good place anyway so i couldn't sit there going i'm sick of this i'm sick of that you know i could have done that six years before but i couldn't do that anymore i was coming from a good place but i just sort of said well you know the only thing that scares me is being the person i used to be that's that's the only thing that ever scares me no you don't and i want to make sure that that red button is well out of reach and that's the only thing i said to the shame and i said to him look i want to make sure that i don't you know i feel like if something happened i could easily cross that line again so i want to try and get rid of that forever and then i mentioned to you and i said i've got this thing with the chimp and that was just like just like a side comment he asked about it anyway anyway it was all about the gym as soon as i saw the plant medicine you know i was off off you know on my journey and before i knew i was there as a kid you know 10 years old you know with this chimp in front of me and i was like and then what happened is i i felt on that journey alright i'm going to go through this it's going to be horrendous and then all of a sudden you know when the when the chimp roared when i heard the raw straight away everything switched and then i started thinking about the chimp what it meant to the chimp you know and i very much expressed myself as a victim in that whole scenario so that's what we do don't we we like we always the victim i i moved into that chimps enclosure he didn't come looking for me that day you know i was in foreign foreign territory you know i was threatening it's young so i i then became the chimp i actually went into the chimp and i started looking at me looking at who was then stood over my child i so i was looking at myself through the chimp's eyes and i was standing over my baby and i was a threat massive threat and that i didn't i then went i could feel myself like turn into this chimp it sounds bizarre but it was it was it was a crazy experience but what that taught me took me out of being a victim it made me part of the scenario as a whole and it started making me believe or see uh feel so much compassion for the chimp as as opposed to me being a victim it was such a bizarre experience so um and then that was the first journey and then the second journey again it went back to the chimp but then i became the boy and it i actually that intimate trauma that we lock away as a you know that's just something we naturally do it helped me unravel everything and at moments it was hideous absolutely hideous because i went through the full attack and um but it helped me to really unravel that intimate trauma totally so yeah to release it and if i had done that i wouldn't you know it was almost i became at peace with with everything that happened that day forgiveness was really yeah forgiveness compassion um and also one thing that really stuck with me is the fact that i then looked at it and it was like at one point i was i was sat there i was when i was fighting the chimp and i was 10 and then in my head i went hold on what would have happened if you stopped fighting if you didn't fight if you just lay down and allow what happened to happen and um it was at that point this is another bit the story about a bit i then died i then went off to the spirit world and that was [ __ ] phenomenal absolutely phenomenal and then our spirit and not put it was just it was a crazy experience but when i came back i then realized that i've been fighting for all my life i've been fighting everything my relationships my work everything it was like stop fighting just stop fighting surrender yeah surrender surrender which is a hard thing for anybody to accept you know i mean surrender is that word that you never hear but you know you have to surrender to yourself to really to really help yourself how do you look now for your mindset today to when it was 10 years ago it's just worlds apart worlds apart 10 years ago it's just massive confusion repeating the same cycles as yesterday thinking you have got to look externally for this fix you know it's going to make you happy it's not out there it's it's internal but once you start investing in yourself starting taking care of your mental health and i call mental health is how much you're prepared to invest in mental wealth that's for me that's meditation and that's you know having a positive mindset making sure the things that you consume books whatever it is is positive you know once you start doing that the return on investment is phenomenal but i didn't know that ten years ago i was in this state of confusion not knowing what the [ __ ] was going on not knowing what my purpose was in life and um yeah very different yeah it's great that you're in a good place so just going forward for the future now wally what's the plans for you um much more of the same you know the last five years in business six years in business has been interesting you know we've bounced from left to right you know uh but we've always maintained on our track on our goal and that is to achieve um our company break point um we've got our battle ready 360 which i run with foxy um which is an app um a fitness app um and um the motivational speaking we do a lot for corporates for me mate i found my my method my fam i found the model that works and i just want to keep promoting that more and more the same more books yeah and just keep doing that you know you've got to get to a point where i'm like let's try this let's try that sometimes you just got to consolidate it and once you've found something that works stick to it and uh to add to it and that's what it's like it's like i came up this morning with a new idea and everyone's like that let's just [ __ ] deal with what we've got it's so easy once you've got that creative mind and you know you so much and before you know it you you spread yourself far too try and master whatever you're doing exactly a lot of viewers who watch i know battle with mental health and addictions what advice would you give for the molly for a man who's loved it and really changed his mindset i think for the first off you have got to be totally totally honest with yourself you know one thing you'll do when you're in a place of depression when you life's not great for you you do the worst thing you can do when you start comparing to other people people that are more fortunate then that starts to bring in a sense of jealousy and that is the wrong vibration to get anywhere you really need to be honest with yourself where you're at and once you can do that you then have the foundation to be able to understand how you've got how you're going to move forward one thing you've got to do is understand the path you're going to take you've got to choose a goal you've got to have a goal that basically overwhelms your circumstances otherwise you become a victim of them you know what i mean you will end up in that revolving cycle like repeat cycle if you've got nothing bigger pulling you through so decide where you want to be even if it is baby steps and start making a process towards that switch off this because it's not serving you when it's when you've negatively and we're all negatively wired you've really got to set draw a line in the sand and when the negative negativity flows one thing i'll always take from the special forces is that process works a to b to c gets you to d and don't listen too much to that yeah where can people buy your books early amazon all good bookstores they're on audio books everything so yeah you you find it out there and also ollie allerton dot co dot uk website yeah ollie listen for coming on a day brother honestly it's been an absolute pleasure great guy great story and i look forward to seeing the rest of your journey in life god bless check out more of my podcasts on the right and be sure to like share and comment your thoughts on this week's podcast thank you

Channel: Anything Goes With James English

Views: 159,267

Rating: 4.8606558 out of 5

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Id: XBOAtCs6epE

Length: 91min 28sec (5488 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 14 2021