Failure Throwback: Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls has achieved worldwide fame as one of the most recognised faces of survival and outdoor adventure. A former SAS soldier, he has climbed Everest, circumnavigated the British Isles on a jet ski, rowed naked in a bathtub along the Thames and once broke his back in a parachuting accident. But he's most famous for his TV career. He starred in seven seasons of the Discovery Channel’s Emmy Award-nominated Man vs. Wild TV series and hosted Running Wild, which has featured Bear taking President Obama, Julia Roberts, Roger Federer, Will Ferrell, Channing Tatum, and Kate Winslet on extreme adventures. Bear is thoughtful, open and surprisingly gentle. This conversation will make you reflect on resilience, bravery and what it really means to keep moving forward when things fall apart. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Introduction 03:00 Living with nerves and self-doubt 07:12 Public success versus private fear 13:45 Losing his father and learning to live with grief 18:10 Breaking his back and rebuilding confidence 23:40 Faith, inner voices and self-belief 29:05 Courage, fear and moving towards the difficult things 35:20 Failing SAS selection and earning confidence 41:00 TV failure, risk and starting again 46:40 Why giving up is the only real failure 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: The only real failure is when we give up. You can't be a brave person without the fear... just not having fear and doing it mindlessly is- that's just stupidity. That's not courage. Those failures are the stepping stones. They’re the scars I’m proud of. The truth is we tend to stand on the shoulders of many. Beautiful people and giants who've helped us and been kind to us and encouraged us, and supported us and elevated us over themselves. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Never Give Up by Bear Grylls Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join Elizabeth Day for a special How to Fail live show at Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield! Tickets on sale now: https://crossedwires.live/podcast/how-to-fail 📚 WANT MORE? Mo Gawdat - on grief, resilience and rebuilding life after loss https://link.chtbl.com/fnA5IzTi Tom Daley - the Olympic diver talks about pressure, fear and public failure, alongside the discipline and mental strength it takes to keep showing up at the highest level. https://play.megaphone.fm/deiztbmwsrw-vz5by9ajtw Matt Haig - the bestselling author on mental health, survival and learning to keep going through periods of despair, anxiety and self-doubt https://link.chtbl.com/u2XVtjE7 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Elizabeth Day?

  You lovely listeners, Happy New Year's Eve to all of you, wherever and however you are celebrating. And to add to the celebration, I thought I'd give you a little throwback episode. This one was first recorded in May 2023, and it's with the wonderful Bear Grylls, who obviously many of you will know as one of the most recognised faces of survival and outdoor adventure. I hope you enjoy.

• 0:38Elizabeth Day?

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• 1:22Elizabeth Day?

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• 1:40Speaker 01

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• 1:42Speaker 02

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• 1:54Speaker 01

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• 2:04Speaker 01

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• 2:13Elizabeth Day?

  Bear Grylls has so many achievements to his name that it's hard to list them all. But for starters, he's climbed Everest, circumnavigated the British Isles on a jet ski, rode naked in a bathtub along the Thames and set a world record for the highest open air formal dinner party under a hot air balloon at 7,600 metres while wearing full mess dress and an oxygen mask. All of this might sound a bit exhausting to an average punter, but Grylls is a former soldier in the British Special Forces and, over the years, has become one of the most recognised faces of survival and outdoor adventure. He starred in seven seasons of the Discovery Channel's Emmy award nominated Man vs.

• 2:57Elizabeth Day?

  Wild, reaching an estimated 1.2 billion viewers. The global hit TV show Running Wild with Bear Grylls featured celebrity guests such as Julia Roberts, Roger Federer and President Barack Obama trying to survive extremes. Grylls autobiography, Mud, Sweat and Tears, spent 15 weeks at number one in the Sunday Times Bestseller list and he has written over 90 books, selling in excess of 20 million copies worldwide. His latest, Never Give Up, was published in 2021. Grylls is an honorary Colonel to the Royal Marines Commandos, the youngest ever UK Chief Scout and an OBE.

• 3:37Elizabeth Day?

  But despite, or perhaps because of, all this success, he's also someone who shares my attitude to failure. According to Grylls, dealing with failure has been the key to any success in my life. Bear Grylls, welcome to How to Fail.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Gosh, yeah.

• 3:56Elizabeth Day?

  Your life in a nutshell.

• 3:57Speaker 03

  It's a sweet introduction. I mean, I sit there thinking the alternative one might be more like Grylls is much less sure of himself than that other introduction.

• 4:08Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Might make out. He's been hiding in the loo downstairs for the last 10 minutes and clutches his cup of tea frantically as a nervous sort of, you know. And of his 96 books, he's written 15 of them are colouring in books for kids.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  So that might be a more honest one, but I appreciate your introduction. Thank you.

• 4:29Elizabeth Day?

  It's a pleasure. Are you actually nervous?

• 4:32Speaker 03

  I spent so much of my life nervous and I always kind of hope and think that as I get older and do more, see more, survive more, scrape through more things, that the nerves would get better. But actually, I think, I think they probably get worse, but I've learnt not to run from them and to be okay with them and to treat it like a friend and to treat it like, you know what it means we're we're on the edge, you know, my edge might get less extreme, but we're on the edge and we're doing stuff and we're and you've got to keep that muscle, that inner muscle kind of going, haven't you, and trying to do the difficult stuff. So I do struggle a lot with nerves, but that's okay.

• 5:11Elizabeth Day?

  When you say you think that they've got worse, is that because you're aware that you have more to lose the older you get?

• 5:17Speaker 03

  I think it's more that I think the public persona because of the TV shows where everything's always great and the music's thumping, we're swinging off everything and diving in and, you know, taking amazing people on great adventures and, you know, it feels ever more inflated, like the perfect, so the great stuff goes out there. That's what gets shown. And I suppose the nerves in me come from, I feel the gulf between that and actually, you know, the real person gets bigger, but I haven't changed. It's just that balloon's got more inflated and sort of bigger. And suddenly, you know, I started off climbing with my dad as a kid and then that grew into something else. And then before when you we'd start a little club at a school and then they go and then you join the army and then you start going up in that one.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Then you try some expeditions and the mountains get bigger and the balloon sort of gets bigger. And and before you know it, the TV shows and then they get bigger. But over here on this hand, I'm still that same kid who wants to climb up the tree and hide away, scared of getting my GCSE envelope through the door, you know, it's nothing's really changed. So I think if I'm being really honest, the nerves come from the wear of that probably not as great and strong and brave and brilliant to sometimes the TV shows make out, but I've also learnt that. That is okay, you know, we're all human. The more we're vulnerable with people, the more connection we create with people. And the real wealth in all of our lives always comes through connection, whether it's with our kids

• 6:47Speaker 03

  or with our spouse, or with our friends, or with an audience. So I'm not afraid to share that, but it is probably the truth.

• 6:54Elizabeth Day?

  Apart from the SAS and the Daring Do and the naked bathtubs and the global TV success and the bestselling books, I feel like we're the same person. Because everything you've just said there is exactly what I think and I relate so deeply. And it's an incredibly beautiful thing for you to share at the top of this interview. Because now there's already that profound connection.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:17Elizabeth Day?

  I completely.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Well, it's so important, you know, you've got to have that, haven't you? And I think I've learnt it so much as well in in the speaking world, which was such a big part of my world before the TV stuff, and I still do a lot of it. The adventure world is full of very butch, rrr, alpha, rrr, black jackets, muscles, you know. And it's never interested me, you know, so from early days, really, even from the military staff, actually ironically, even though I was in a, you know, a regiment, you know, in twenty one SAS, which was on the surface of it, all quite gung ho. The irony is the guys were the most grounded, real, honest, often vulnerable people and not the gung ho ones. So I always kind of found a a home from early years in that ethos.

• 8:01Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  But I've learnt with speaking, you know, I do the motivational stuff and some, you know, explorer will come before and speak and stand up and and nobody cares how much. It's that thing, nobody, what is it? Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And it's that same sort of thing, if nobody cares how many things you've conquered or flags or summits you've planned, it has no meaning unless there's honesty and fragility with it. And I've just learnt through experiences, it's the more you share the struggles. The other stuff has meaning anyway.

• 8:32Elizabeth Day?

  You talk a lot about the danger of ego and you write a lot about that in a way that I find really fascinating. And I suppose the irony is that TV and a TV career in many ways can fuel an ego and speak to it and make it bigger. So is that something that you struggle with? Do you watch yourself back on TV ever?

• 8:53Speaker 03

  I used it in the very early days I did and then wince and go, oh, this is terrible. If I had started my career now, I wouldn't have had a career because it would have got canned so early. I think I was lucky that fifteen years ago when I started TV, it was less ruthless, I think, TV. And people would give me another chance. They, you know, our ratings have never been brilliant. We've always just been good enough. And it's just, the irony is it's seen us through for year upon year upon year and season upon season because we've just made it, you know. But I think people backed me in the early years in TV and it gave me enough time. Took me like four or five years of seasons of shows to begin to learn how to do it. So I could get a little better at it, but I certainly don't watch any of the shows now. I find it too uncomfortable.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  But yeah, I just really don't enjoy it. And I kind of think, do you know what, I prefer to hang out with the boys, with the family. I've got really other things that would be higher up my motivation of how to spend the time is the honest answer. But it's interesting because, you know, you say TV sort of can fuel the ego stuff. And it's interesting, I wonder whether just success generally does that, you know, it doesn't matter what field you are. I think if you feel you're winning in life, that can always be dangerous because it fuels anyone's ego. And I think like big mountains, it can bring out the best and the worst in people. And I think success is like that. It can bring out monsters, it can create monsters, inflate the monsters. Or it can give you a chance for something beautiful to come out.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  And it's that thing of if you want to see what someone's like, give them a hard time. But if you want to see what they're really like, give them everything. I think so much of life is like that. And therefore, if you are lucky enough to win at a few things, whether it's your career or other things, be humble. Because it's kind of there by the grace of God, go all of us, is kind of what I feel.

• 10:42Elizabeth Day?

  Your new book, Never Give Up, you have this line in it about how if you sit on the summit too long, you die. Tell us about that, because it's it's true and it's a great metaphor. But you climbed Everest, one of the youngest people ever to do so. And I want to know what that experience was like, but it's actually true, isn't it? That the summit is the most dangerous point.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  So what do you want? Do you want the physical or do you want the metaphor?

• 11:06Elizabeth Day?

  I sort of want both.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Well.

• 11:08Elizabeth Day?

  Start with the physical and then segue into metaphor.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  The the the truth is, is stay on the summit, it's too long, you die. It is, that is a true mantra in terms of high altitude mountaineering. And the most dangerous time is always on the way down, because all the focus and the adrenaline is for the top, the dream, the effort. And then you kind of want to be able to click your fingers and be safe and home. But the truth is, you're at your furthest point from safety and home. And once that adrenaline and focus goes, it gets replaced fast by fatigue and exhaustion. And look at the story of, you know, Spencer's brother on Everest, it's the same thing, you know, once come, it's always on the way down, that descent.

• 11:45Elizabeth Day?

  Spencer Matthews's brother, and you've just exactly produced this phenomenal documentary about finding.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Called Finding Michael, about Spencer trying to recover his brother's body up there. But so many of the fatalities on the high mountains happen on that descent for that reason. You know, that adrenaline gets replaced by that deep fatigue. And therefore, in a way, it's easy to be focused when you're aiming for our summits in life. Everyone has that. The character comes through. Can you be focused not only for your own descent back to real life? But also maybe when you've got to suddenly now help somebody else, you know, now when things are going wrong, it's that mantra of adventure. Only happens when things begin to go wrong. You know, it's easy to be gung ho and great and adrenaline filled and focused when you know what's happening and you're aiming for that summit. But you really learn about people, it's that same thing, you learn when the things go wrong.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  When you're fatigued and when the triumph is over. I write about it in the book in the sense that I'm very nervous ever of kind of standing going, look at me, aren't I great? Because the truth is, none of us are that great. Most of us, if we get to the top of something in our life, whatever that triumph is. The truth is, we tend to stand on the shoulders of many beautiful people and giants who've helped us and been kind to us and encouraged us and supported us and elevated. Us over themselves and therefore to stand on a summit on your own is a lonely place. To stand alongside close friends is beautiful. But above all, know that what it's taken to get you there is is often the love and the support and the energy of many other people who'd never get to stand there. Don't sit on the laurels too long, is what I'm saying. Don't pat yourself on the back.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Get back into the valleys because the valleys is where the character is made, really. Summits are the glory moments, they're the easy moments. Once the sun dips and you're back in the valley, then we learn about people.

• 13:32Elizabeth Day?

  And when you're climbing at that altitude, I'm interested in the physicality of that. I've experienced altitude sickness when I've gone skiing as a child. Okay, so that's the closest thing I had, which was unpleasant and nauseating. But do you feel like your lungs, what's the actual physical experience of trying to breathe and move?

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's actually very hard to describe the real high altitude effects of being in that that death zone above twenty five, twenty six centimeters. It's very hard to describe. But I think you say, what do you say, nauseating and.

• 14:04Elizabeth Day?

  Just, I just felt sick.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Basically, you just turn the dial up, turn the dial up and you can turn it right up. But you even saw in in the Finding Michael premiere that you came to the other day. My team that have lived with me for many years, helped me with my work world and heard my Everest story many times. You know, a lot of them came out of that premiere going, God, I actually had no idea just how debilitating it is at altitude. And you see that even with some of the great Sherpa climbers and those guys, how hard it was even for them up there. Trying to do that body recovery and search. So it is hard. I always say it's a bit like trying to climb in waist deep treacle whilst giving somebody a piggyback and then they're trying to stuff a pair of football socks down your throat at the same time. You know, you're sucking, you're wheezing, you're not moving, you're sliding backwards. But it's minus forty and and you feel up against it and

• 14:51Speaker 03

  many times I think back to that time on Everest and I I watched that film that we were together and it brings a lot of those memories back. But those loud voice in the back of my head going, you're never going to make this. You know, especially, I mean, we were there ninety three days or whatever. And I remember that summit attempt from that last camp, that last push, you know, you've given your everything with. I've taken a year out for the army to train for this. We were like super focused. We've been there these ninety odd days. But the weather's turning. It's minus whatever. It's dark. You've got this ice face of two thousand feet of just chest deep powder snow in front of you and I'm sliding back with every step and I just had that voice going, what are you doing? You are never ever gonna make it. And it's like, we have that voice. The dial isn't always turned up to

• 15:36Speaker 03

  ten like that in everyday life, but it has moments, all of us. And we all face our Everest every day in different ways, in relationships and in battles and health stuff. And but it's like knowing the good voice and knowing the bad voice and try and try and just go, I, I, I know that's I might feel, but we've got this. And then trying to tune in the voice on the other shoulder that says, keep going. Quietly, focus, just one foot in front of the other, day by day, breath by breath. Hold the hands of those around you. Keep moving. Love's, you know, there's power to that. It's why the book was always gonna be called Never Give Up. You know, it's not rocket science.

• 16:12Elizabeth Day?

  And who are those voices for you? Because some people give the inner critic the voice of a harsh teacher or a critical parent. Part of my issue is that my inner critic is just me. It doesn't have an outside voice.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Well, we can be our harshest critic, as we know.

• 16:28Elizabeth Day?

  Do you know who they are?

• 16:29Speaker 03

  I mean, I know Rand Fiennes always says it was his father who died when he was very young. He'd always imagine his dad standing beside him. But it's quite a harsh dad of like, do not, don't you dare give up. You know, mine wasn't some adventure figure willing me on. I don't know. Mine's just that inner voice. It can be a darker voice on one shoulder of like criticism. But I've just learned through experience over the years to try and discern the voices. And generally, I think we've got a subconscious and a heart and a soul or a spirit or whatever you call it that is for us. It is for us. It wants to heal. It wants to strengthen. It wants to help. I mean, it does. It's just your subconscious wants to help you.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  And I think it's discerning that voice. And I think for me, my faith plays a part of that. Having a sort of Christian faith definitely is that inner voice of love, of acceptance, of kind of forgiveness and strength. And for me, it's always been that like inner backbone, that secret backbone inside and trying to hear that voice. It is full of love and encouragement.

• 17:32Elizabeth Day?

  Shortly before you summited Everest, you broke your back in a parachuting accident and had ten hours a day rehab for the best part of a year. What did that rehab teach you?

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Again, I'm not as strong as I sometimes hope I am. I was at a stage of life, aged twenty one, twenty two, where I felt invincible. I was doing a job that I loved, you know, in the military and I felt strong, I felt strong. But as you know, it doesn't take much in life to change that. And suddenly being in that hospital, strapped up in braces and struggling to reach a bathroom without pain and not a chance of me to reach the bathroom on the floor above me in any capacity. Life has a way of humbling us all. The dial on that can turn up in different ways, but that definitely was a real kind of shock. And I think for me, not my confidence above everything at that stage, where I'd gone from like lots of confidence, I can do this, I'm doing a job that I love with the people

• 18:31Speaker 03

  I love, I'm in that zone, to actually how quickly it can go to feel like a disaster and and our legs have been taken out from under us. And I was gonna have that as one of my failures with you, but it felt maybe an obvious one. So I wasn't gonna have that. It was a really tough time of kind of like trying to figure out what the hell am I gonna do now? Now I can't do this job that I was loving and the chances of ever climbing anything again is ridiculous. What am I actually gonna do? But I do look back at the same time and I think if I hadn't have gone through that, would I have ever actually, as I started to recover, would I have had the strength of like will to go, no, I'm gonna get better, I'm gonna reach that bathroom on the floor

• 19:12Speaker 03

  upstairs and I'm gonna go further and again and harder and I'm gonna get strong enough to eventually climb the biggest mountain in the world that became the whole focus of my recovery. And I just felt like life has given me a precious second chance. We don't always get that. I should have been paralyzed. You know, that accident, I mean, it broke through my back and three places, but it should have paralyzed me and I've been given a second chance and don't waste it. You're gonna live every day for the rest of your life with smile and gratitude, how many bad stuff happens, like everything's a gift. Everything is a gift.

• 19:46Elizabeth Day?

  Let's get on to your first failure. Your less obvious failures, not that that was your failure. Your first one is losing your dad when you were young. I'm so sorry.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  You're so sweet, you're so sweet, I appreciate you saying that. No, it's like, listen, everyone goes through loss and mine is no worse than anyone's. But I was thinking, is that a failure, you know, but failure comes in many forms, doesn't it? And, you know, it's that thing of sometimes just a disaster.

• 20:13Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Can be the hardest ones.

• 20:16Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Because they're outside of our control, you know, somehow when we fail of our own, there's a way out and through, get stronger, get better, get smarter, get, you know, go again. But I think sometimes when things are outside of our control and just life, those can be hard and personal. And I look back on that time and I feel I was ill-equipped to deal with trauma. At a young age, in my sort of mid twenties, I just got married to Shara and we got married young. And we were starting out on life together and it was an adventure. But we always had that backstop. You know, she had her mum and dad, I had my mum and dad. We could live life boldly and go for things as we were and let's, we'll live on a houseboat and we'll do a whack.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  I'd try and follow this career path of like doing the path less trodden and try and do adventures. And we could do all this because there's always a backstop. And in year one of marriage, Shara's father died of MS. And literally 10 weeks later, my dad died totally out of the blue. And so first of all, we were dealing with the trauma of Shara, who'd grown up and had all through her teenage years, her dad slowly dying, which was beyond traumatic for her. And still a sort of wound for her for sure. And she's just been an amazing lady and daughter and wonderful. But that was a very hard time for her. And then suddenly my dad out of the blues died and, you know, policemen came around to our houseboat,

• 21:44Speaker 03

  knocked on the door and we were like, what? Just literally felt like those sort of legs taken out underneath me. When my legs had always been strong, you know, I'd always had good foundation, I'd always, I was strong and it literally just cut them out from under me. And I felt ill-equipped, I think at that age to deal with it. And I was already on the back foot with poor Shara and and everything she was going through. And now I wasn't on any feet. And then we had our two mothers, you know, we had the wailing mothers.

• 22:12Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  And suddenly it was like now the dynamic in a heartbeat has changed from having a backstop to now like we're now responsible for our mothers and we've got to look after them. And that fifty pounds that my dad always still gave me as allowance ever since I was seventeen and he never stopped it until I was like twenty-three and it was always the unspoken thing, all the little, the silly things like that. You know, suddenly the dynamics reversed and now we've got to get on, we've got to make something of our lives, no more messing around. Now you've got to look at your risk profile of how are you really going to live your life? You're going to spend your time like this, is it worth it? Can you do it? Can you pull off a career like this? You also got to look after each other and the mothers. So it was definitely, I look back, I struggled a lot and I don't think I expressed that very

• 22:59Speaker 03

  well, apart from just in quiet sort of panic. And leaning on each other. It brought us very close, year one of marriage. I look back now and I think, wow, actually that was a hurricane, but it really made us cling to each other and actually created a lot of the foundation for our life. You know, like you don't have the luxury of like just arguing stupidly about things. Like, don't waste your time in it, just be humble with each other, love each other, be committed to each other, make things work. You can't afford the luxury of screwing up. We need our family good, we need each other's back. We're starting off on a difficult path, we've got to have each other's back on this.

• 23:34Elizabeth Day?

  Do you mind my asking how he died?

• 23:37Speaker 03

  He wasn't ill, you know, so he died out of the blue. He was having a pacemaker fitted because he had said to me, oh, my heart rate apparently is low, they said I should get a pacemaker fitted. And he was down in Dorset and I said, oh, come down, I'll come down and hold your hand and we'll take you in. So I did that, took him into the hospital and they weirded him into his routine, quick operation. And I remember saying to the doctor, I said, will you let me stay in for the operation? They said, we can't do that. And it's about one of the only times I pulled out my SASID card and said, will you let me in? I'm a qualified patrol medic, you know, I sort of slightly blustering it. But they went, okay. And they got me gowned up and I was there with the doctors who's doing it. And it was amazing

• 24:20Speaker 03

  watching it. And I was thinking, this looks good. And, and, you know, I held my dad's hand and he came out and he was okay. And, and he said, you've got to go, you've got to go back to shock, go back to London. I said, are you sure? And he was so grateful that I'd been with him throughout, held his hand through in and out. And I got on my bike and I biked the train, said, you're back to London. And then literally the next morning, my mum, well, she didn't even ring me, it was just the policeman turning up. And he'd just sat up in bed in the morning and my mum said, literally the light just went out. And he was sixty six and it's so crazy and, and felt unnecessary as well, you know. Somehow, so, you know, you, we all know life is hard and like somehow with Shara's dad, it was just this relentless process of attrition of fighting and fighting

• 25:04Speaker 03

  and fighting, but you're fighting against nature and disease and you don't always win, you know. But I think with my dad, because it was so unexpected, it felt like, wow, could we not, surely we, we could have done something about that. Why? Hold on, hold on, stop. That's what it felt like.

• 25:21Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 25:22Speaker 03

  And I felt like I'd missed a beat. What have I missed here? Why? What? And I think those answers don't go away. And I actually really, I miss my dad every day still. In a way, ever more so with our three boys, you know, we've got three wonderful, I mean, they're all teenagers now.

• 25:39Elizabeth Day?

  Isn't one of them in their twenties?

• 25:41Speaker 03

  No, one's, no, Jessie's nineteen now, sixteen.

• 25:44Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  And thirteen. And I just think, gosh, my dad would love them. You know, the wild part of my dad, that, that kind of rule breaking, adventure, practical joking, messing around, laughing itself side of my dad, that was always rich and bright, is rich and bright in our three boys. And he would love them and they would love him. So that's the sadness. But that's also life.

• 26:11Elizabeth Day?

  I think you've spoken about that so profoundly and I know lots of people will hugely relate and feel very comforted by your words. To go back to what you were saying about failure, I think that you're right, there are two different types. There's the failure when life doesn't go according to plan, when you fail your driving test or you fail SAS selection, which we're coming on to. And there's the cataclysmic failure which happens to you and is like your father dying totally out of the blue or a global pandemic. And those failures in and of themselves have no meaning within them. But my belief is that living alongside them and the grief and the pain that they might cause teaches us something.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:52Elizabeth Day?

  There's no question there. I just wanted to say that I'm aware that it's a different kind of failure.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Teaches us, you know, it's like I say, life is humbling at every step of the way.

• 27:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  And if you don't feel that, life, it doesn't care, it's just gonna keep doing it.

• 27:08Elizabeth Day?

  I wanted to ask you.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  I do think life brings us together though.

• 27:10Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, I do too, if you allow it, yeah.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  With good people, you know, that we meet, continue day to day. And if you let it, that's a wonderful thing.

• 27:18Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  To be brought together to good people. And that's why the vulnerability is so important, because without that, there's no connection.

• 27:24Elizabeth Day?

  Exactly.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  And it's something I lean on more and more in my life is just those friendships. It's our only real wealth in our life. You know, we spend so much time pursuing other wealth, but none of that's real. You know, it has no real value. The only real wealth we have in our lives, it's always gonna be rooted in the quality of our relationships. It's why you can say to, you know, is that billionaire whose kids don't speak to him, is he really rich?

• 27:49Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  You know, and we all know all of this stuff, but sometimes I need reminding, it's like the real stuff is always in the relationships.

• 27:58Elizabeth Day?

  I wanted to ask you because you you mentioned there that you found it hard, other than Shara, to talk about what you were going through. And I'm aware that you were sent to boarding school at a young age. I was sent to boarding school too, at a slightly older age. And I'm sure you're also aware that this condition has now been invented or credited, which is boarding school syndrome, which is a sort of. Oh, it's really interesting. It's sort of all the stuff that we probably would take for granted, which is like, you feel very detached from your parents, not emotionally, but you feel like you still feel that loss. That you had this distance, this wrench from your parents at a young age, and that can lead to emotional repression and it can, especially for men, lead to problems later in life.

• 28:42Elizabeth Day?

  That's my roundabout way of asking what boarding school was like for you, but also whether you feel that you were doubly cheated of time with your father. Because you had those years away from him too.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  I think that was my overriding sense of loss was like, we should be just starting to spend our time together.

• 29:01Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, yes.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  So that was hard. I think the thing with boarding school, there's no doubt what you say is true. And I definitely felt that because I was so close to my parents as a kid growing up, especially wonderful, cosy times all the time. So going away was hard, but at the same time, I'm always mindful of not sort of blaming, you know, I went to amazing schools with lovely people and made great friends. But it doesn't take away from the fact that I felt ill-equipped at a young age to be going away and definitely felt a sadness there. And it made me probably quite shy at a young age, a little bit kind of insular.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I had a much more extrovert older sister who loved the limelight. And I was always hiding away, but I was always like the younger brother, come and dance like a seal for my friends and eat some raw bacon. And just do as you're told. Okay, you know, so I was always hiding. And I think school felt scary and the solution was to hide. So I was always hiding. Which is why there's always still that natural tension for me in my job now of like having a job that's always filmed, you're always on camera for stuff and I really struggle with it. Still to this day, our crew on our TV shows know it. They try to not let me know that they're filming and it's just like, I'll go, let's go, let's just go. So then there's never an action, there's never a, oh, could you do that again? Or what did, you know, it's like, just go.

• 30:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  And there's an energy and a pace. In the early days, nobody would think it would work and then. Probably be right, but somehow it did and that energy stayed. And we, over the years, just thought if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Let bear go, keep the cameras rolling. And I sort of, I suppose I continue running away from the cameras is essentially what the show is.

• 30:43Elizabeth Day?

  That was so interesting.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, it really is. And, and it's, and I struggle with it, but it's become a necessary part of my job. You know, I'm always like, their joke is always, you'd just love to do it without the cameras. Like, I'd love to do it without it, it would transform everything. Be a sudden a pleasant experience rather than like a, a mission to get through.

• 31:08Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable so you can live more of the life you want to live.

• 31:53Elizabeth Day?

  If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Autumn's here, soup season is back and my kitchen is suddenly working overtime. Quick dinners after a manic day recording and I'm enjoying spending a bit more time at home as the days are getting shorter. The thing that's made all of that easier is Hexclad. I am genuinely obsessed with these pans. They heat evenly, nothing sticks and the cleanup doesn't turn into just another job at the end of the night. Hexclad combines the searing power of stainless steel with the convenience of non-stick. So you get proper performance without the usual faff.

• 32:38Elizabeth Day?

  They're dishwasher safe, love that. Oven safe up to 480 degrees Celsius and the stay cool handles mean you're not grabbing a scorching pan mid-cook. Hexclad is an at-home lifesaver. Start the new season with cookware that actually works as hard as you do. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off with our exclusive link, hexclad.co.uk/fail. That's hexclad.co.uk/fail. Offer excludes bundles and items already on sale.

• 33:14Elizabeth Day?

  When was the first time you thought to yourself, I love adventure and that's what I want to do for a living? Did you love Biggles as a child?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Well, I don't think it was as articulate as I love adventure. It was more like, I don't think I could do anything. This is the only thing I've ever been okay at, and even though I'm not particularly brilliant at it, but I really love it. And it was always what I did with my dad and it brought us close and I kind of, that became an identity for me and what I loved. You gravitate, I think, when you're nervous in life to what you feel naturally good at and what you like. And that's all I've ever done is just gravitate naturally to what I've liked and felt I'm okay at. Having said that, over the years, I've also learned that I'm actually not particularly brilliant at any of this stuff. And I find the more I learn about my world of the adventure stuff, the more I do of it, the more I realise, gosh, there's so many other people would be so much better at my job than me.

• 34:01Elizabeth Day?

  Really?

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Really do. I really, it's a genuine feeling. Two genuines. One is like, any old idiot could do my job. That's two. You can argue, I'd be like, but I really believe that. Secondly, I'm surrounded by people who are better skydivers, better climbers, better adventurers, better survivalists, better TV hosts. And again, it's okay. It's okay. That is, that is life. You don't have to be the best. It's that scout thing of do your best rather than be the best.

• 34:29Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  And I don't mind that.

• 34:31Elizabeth Day?

  You're right that it's okay. I respectfully disagree with you because I think what you bring together is physical prowess, but also the ability to connect and communicate in almost like a priest-like capacity. When you are running through extremes with celebrities, you have to connect very quickly and they have to trust you. Very quickly.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 34:52Elizabeth Day?

  There's not very many people who could do that.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  And I. Yeah, but it's still not rocket science. And I've done so much of it. It's a guiding job and I love that. It's like if you go and climb a mountain with an Alpine guide. It's a guiding job that's filmed and you're chatting a bit along the way. And you have to have a sort of vague weather eye out for the cameras. So make sure they're vaguely getting some things vaguely worked whilst keeping that energy of keeping moving. And have a plan for a route. You know, you need a little bit of a sensitivity about how to adapt routes and adjusted and be sensitive to people's fear levels. And how they're struggling with stuff or coping, or can you stretch it even further because they're doing great? You know, but these learned skills that have just come from over the years. I really do feel that anyone with a bit of training could do my job.

• 35:36Elizabeth Day?

  Do you feel that the bravest people are the ones with the most fear?

• 35:41Speaker 03

  I've learnt that fear is always there in brave people. I mean, in fact, it's the other way around. You can't be a brave person without the fear. I mean, just not having fear and doing it, modestly is, that's just stupidity. That's not courage. You know, courage is always quiet and there's stumbling and there's a struggle and there's summoning it up from inside to keep moving forward towards the difficult stuff rather than running like most of us do in life. Whenever it gets hard, scary or difficult, we turn on our tail, you know, whatever it is. Public speaking, hospitals, whatever we're scared of, we go the other way from it. But I have learnt and the wild has taught me, you've got to keep moving towards the difficult stuff. It's a muscle, you've got to train it. And if you don't train it and you don't do it enough and you're suddenly confronted with it, you're going to get an adrenal overload of panic.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  You're not going to be able to speak your name. You'll probably pee in your trousers and the fear will be overwhelming. But if you're used to it and the little things, whether it's having a 20 second cold shower every day, whatever the little stuff is, that's how we get strong. And therefore in the big moments when it's all going wrong and that log is collapsing under your feet across a ravine. And it's all happening in a heartbeat and time's slowing and you're trying to save someone else at the same time. The snake's about to, you know, then you're on it because the muscle's strong. And I feel proud that that muscle has been trained over the years. But beyond that, I don't think I have particularly, I don't think those are skills. I mean, my family say to me, they go, Papa, your head is full of an awful lot of useless information.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  And, and, and they're right, but I always go, but until your life is on the line.

• 37:13Elizabeth Day?

  Exactly.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  And I love it. I mean, listen, I don't mind the fact that our boys are ruthless with me. We were discussing something the other day, arguing about something as a family. Jessie goes, Papa, what are you, all you do is build wooden teepees in the, in the forest. You can't even enter this discussion.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  And, and thank God for families to keep, remind us all of a few home truths.

• 37:36Elizabeth Day?

  I want to get on to your second failure, but I first want to ask you a question about your name, which I know your older sister, who you mentioned, who made you eat raw bacon, she gave you the nickname bear. Do you like bears?

• 37:47Speaker 03

  I love bears, but I wouldn't say, I'm not like obsessed by, but I'm probably more obsessed by rhinos. I love rhinos. I mean, our house is full of rhino, rhino lamps and pictures of rhinos. So I love rhinos.

• 37:58Elizabeth Day?

  Why do you love rhinos?

• 37:59Speaker 03

  I think it's you kind of put the horn down to get focus, you know, charge through that jungle. Have a thick skin when you need to, but also be super tender with your family and gentle. When the sun dips, loving with the kids and, you know, rhinos have a great dynamic like that of being very, very tender, very family orientated, very protective, then very focused and unstoppable when charging.

• 38:23Elizabeth Day?

  They've got a great work-life balance.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  And also they love mud, you know, they love a mud hole. I love a mud hole. You know, I don't know. I've always just related to, I like a rhino. Yeah, it's a family joke, really.

• 38:34Elizabeth Day?

  I, I love giant pandas because they just roll around eating bamboo.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:38Elizabeth Day?

  And they're just chilled and they have thumbs. That's why.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  It's a great reason, why not?

• 38:43Elizabeth Day?

  They get a lot of credit just for having sex. Like that's literally.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 38:47Elizabeth Day?

  Everyone applauds. Okay. Your second failure is failing SAS selection first time around.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 38:54Elizabeth Day?

  So you go to school, you don't go to university or drop out of university. What happens? How did you?

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Well, I'd done pre-selection to join the Royal Marines as a commando, as an officer, set to go, started university, conventional path. In some ways, in the sense I'd gone to university, was ready then to join as an officer, which a lot of my kind of friends and peers were doing. You know, the Marines was slightly less usual route, but it was still a conventional kind of route and I was set to do that. And I started at university and I, first of all, I made the friend for life in the first week, who's still my greatest brother to this day.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  And both of us read a book called The Quiet Soldier, which is such a great, such a great but old book about a guy who went to try and join 21 SAS as a soldier and what he went through. And it was the first kind of book of its type of actually describing really what it was like. Now there's so many books on the SAS and stuff. And I remember just being captivated by that. And together with Trucker, who is this great brother to this day, we both kind of had a moment where we looked at each other and I thought, what do you think? Do we throw it all in and go for this and try and join as a soldier, not as an officer? It was a sort of a route in we could do straight from Civil Street to try and apply as a trooper, as a private, at the bottom of the pile, but a long route

• 40:14Speaker 03

  to try and go and do SAS selection. And for me, it would involve leaving university, throwing that down. I'd be passing over the Royal Marine Staff that I was all lined up to do and had worked really hard to get. And it was like, I love that who dares win spirit, you know, that is the regimental motto. I love that. It's like, you know, if you risk nothing, you gain nothing. I loved all of that, that path less trodden. Come on, I know these phrases. Are you actually going to put your money where your mouth is and actually have the balls to do it? So we decided to do it. And I dropped out of uni and we applied and this journey began. And I remember on day one, we were lined up, 120 of us recruits. We were already the odd ones out. So all like Welsh and tough

• 40:58Speaker 03

  and, you know, sheep farmers and great brilliant people, you know, and we were like the two oddballs. And I remember early on, day one, they said, they could see we were together and everything, we did everything together, like Pinky and Perky, they used to call us Rankin Xerox, Brackett and Hinge, you know, it was all, but they said, don't be friends. Because four of you will be here at the end of this process. And the likelihood of you being you and your buddy is kind of zero. And therefore get focused, do what you need to do, but don't expect both of you to be here at the end. The odds are against you. Which kind of made sense, but we couldn't really adhere to it because we were great buddies. So we sort of stuck together like glue.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  And we started this process and after about, probably about halfway through, you know, having many months down the line. It was one particular march over the Breckins, you know, it was progressively heavier weights, longer distances, day and night, relentless, thrashing, you know. And just one of them, I wasn't fast enough, I wasn't, which just wasn't good enough, full stop. And when that clock comes down, it's like, you know, we'd watched it every step of the way, you know, you're either that side, through, that side, gone. And that number gets smaller and smaller and, and I just was the wrong side of it and I was devastated and trucker was devastated because he was through. And I went home and I was like, God, I literally, I felt I've given everything. I've sacrificed university now, I've sacrificed the Royal Marine Staff, sacrificed my pride.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  Everyone knew, everyone, my family knew and I've dropped and given it everything for this, I'm not going as enough. So I was trying to do it unconventionally as a soldier and it's all backfired, gone. And then about five days later, phone call goes, it's trucker on the other end of the phone, again, tears going. And he'd failed as well. It was like, wow, we're really, we should have listened to them at the beginning, that we're unlikely both to be there. And definitely unlikely to both be there together. And about a week after that, we got a letter saying, sometimes we think people have potential and we ask them to come back, not often, but sometimes. And we'd like you both to come apply again. And it was like, right, now we've got to get serious. We are not screwing this up again.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  We are doubling down on everything. We're going to train harder with more intensity. We're gonna, it was a hundred percent of our effort and focus before. But it was like, we just turned that dial right up and like.

• 43:15Elizabeth Day?

  Went rhino.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Went rhino. That horn was sharp. And we went back with much more confidence and the mystique had gone a bit for us now, so we can sort for what it was, rather than being overwhelmed and intimidated. Which is probably what I felt, if I'm honest, at the beginning. And now it's like, here to do a job, I'm going to be at the front of everything, I'm going to be unstoppable. Hundred and twenty of us lined up, two of us, we stuck together and trucker and myself were two of the four who were there. Right at the end, still best buddy to this day, strongest man I know he is. He was always a much better soldier than I ever was. It's a great pride in our life that we came through that together. And so many of our great relationships and friends are from those days. You know, still Sergeant Bob, Bob Williams, he's a bit older now, Bob, lives in Merthyr Tydfil.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  He was our directing staff, running selection, one of the corporals. Still to this day, we go and see him regularly. He goes, fellas, you earned your place there. You did it. I knew you could do it. And, and those friendships and that sort of belief in somebody has carried me through so much since. Cause I didn't really have that confidence at the beginning. But sometimes you've got to earn the confidence. And I think I came out of that going, no, you know what? We can do this and we're okay and we've got this. I know the recipe, I know the ingredients to success now. You know, you've got to go through the pain. You've got to be committed, you've got to give your all. You've got to know it's going to hurt. You've got to hold the hand of those close to you. You've got to work together, you've got to try and be a good guy.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  That's a big part of selection is also your face has got to fit. You know, and all these factors have been so instrumental, I think, in life since.

• 44:54Elizabeth Day?

  Fascinating.

• 45:00Elizabeth Day?

  There are so many things I wish I'd known when I started this podcast and my production company, Daylight. Like, why am I spending hours trying to make a website look good? Why am I designing everything from scratch? And why am I spending all my time just doing admin? What I really needed was one place that could do all of this for me. Enter Shopify. Shopify has beautiful ready-made templates that make your website look polished without needing to become a graphic designer overnight. Its AI tools can help you get your site up and running quickly. And Shopify Checkout makes it really easy for customers to actually go from, ooh, I like that, to, yes, I'll have one. If Shopify had existed when I started out, I could have saved myself a lot of time, stress,

• 45:45Elizabeth Day?

  and some rogue design choices. If you're ready to hear the. Of your first sale today, head over to shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at shopify.co.uk/fail. Autumn's here, soup season is back, and my kitchen is suddenly working overtime. Quick dinners after a manic day recording, and I'm enjoying spending a bit more time at home as the days are getting shorter. The thing that's made all of that easier is Hexclad. I am genuinely obsessed with these pans. They heat evenly, nothing sticks, and the cleanup doesn't turn into just another job at the end of the night. Hexclad combines

• 46:29Elizabeth Day?

  the searing power of stainless steel with the convenience of non-stick, so you get proper performance without the usual faff. They're dishwasher safe, love that, oven safe up to 480 degrees Celsius, and the stay cool handles mean you're not grabbing a scorching pan mid-cook. Hexclad is an at-home lifesaver. Start the new season with cookware that actually works as hard as you do. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off with our exclusive link, hexclad.co.uk/fail. That's hexclad.co.uk/fail. Offer excludes bundles and items already on sale.

• 47:08Speaker 01

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• 47:14Speaker 02

  Where each week we dive into all things strange, spooky, and supernatural, and share stories of paranormal encounters from our community of listeners.

• 47:22Speaker 01

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• 47:27Speaker 02

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• 47:31Speaker 01

  But be warned, side effects might include a haunting or two. Listen at your own risk.

• 47:40Elizabeth Day?

  When you fail now, or when you experience a loss...

• 47:46Elizabeth Day?

  And you feel sadness. Is that where you go to your relationships, your friendships, your wife? Are you able to talk about it with them?

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm always okay to share struggles, but more importantly than that, I now know that failure isn't failure. You know, failures, I haven't quite got it there. I haven't figured out quite the combination. You know, the only one real failure is when we give up, then it's the end. Failure is a stepping stone. I I see it now. I know it. I've I know it from experience. I mean, I've failed so many times in so many things. I mean, I had to list out to our boys the other day, they see the good stuff. They see the fruits of a few successes in our life that have been amazing blessings and brilliant and so lucky. But they don't always see the many multiple failures behind it. And I had to list out for them the other day, all the projects and expeditions and and and businesses we've done and so many things. And the list

• 48:39Speaker 03

  was like this, you know.

• 48:41Elizabeth Day?

  Did you actually physically do it?

• 48:42Speaker 03

  I li- I listed it all out. And I'll talk about the TV Sunday a bit, but it's interesting that it wasn't close. You know, there were like five or six wins, fifty or sixty disasters. And I'm really proud of those. It's not faux pride. It's like real pride. It's like, those were the doorways, the stepping stones. They're the stripes, the scars, the wrinkles that I'm not going to hide from. I love it. You know, I look at it's like, it is like wrinkles or scars, you know. These are the stories, the adventures, they're what make us, they're cement, they're the cells, they're the blood, they're the building blocks, you know. So I'm not afraid of those. And I know that when I fail, it's okay. It's like, we've got to go again. We've got to get smarter. We've got to innovate. We've got to think differently.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  And it's a symbol and a sign and a flag now to me that we're doing something right.

• 49:29Elizabeth Day?

  My final question on this failure before we move on to your third one. You don't have to answer this if you don't want to. Those TV programmes about SAS selection, where they get members of the public to do it or celebrities, is that what it's like?

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's accelerated because they're there for two weeks or whatever. But I think the sort of spirit of self-reliance is right. I think the spirit of you've got to have a never give up spirit is right. I think the spirit of you've got to be a team player is correct. So I'm not an armchair critic of those going, oh, it's rubbish. I think the guys do a great job on that show. But it is obviously different. But I do think that they have a lot of it, a lot of it right. I mean, it's interesting. I went with Trucker the other day down to an old regimental reunion dinner. And some of the current S E S guys, one of the guys stood up to give a presentation during the dinner to tell us what how selection has evolved over the years and how it's changed and what it's like now.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  And it's funny because Truck and me looked at each other just with a look and I knew exactly what he was thinking and he knew exactly what I was thinking, which was we'd never make it today, we'd never get through, you know. I think it's become ever harder, ever more intense. There was always room for kind of the mavericks and, you know, you've got to pass certain criteria, you've got to, you know, I don't want to sort of, it was hard and it took our all, but I did was listening, thinking, God, I don't think I'm not sure I passed there. But yeah, there we go, there, but the grace of God go we in all these things.

• 51:03Elizabeth Day?

  Did you have the psychological breakdown?

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, we had all of that. I mean, actually, I mean, listen, the other side of that coin is in some ways, very little has changed at the same time because of the ethos and the values and it's the same and the type of testing, that mix of physical, mental, emotional, team spirit, solo spirit, being able to operate under pressure on your own for long periods of time when you're sleep deprived and hungry and cold and all of that stuff is still in there. But it just feels, I don't know whether it's we're getting older, whether it feels like humans have got ever more capable and they've had to turn the dial up even more. I don't know. I mean, it is a bit like in our day, you know, a few people could do a handstand.

• 51:45Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Now all you've got to do is YouTube and you can figure out how to do triple backflips and you look at Instagram and everyone's doing and I'm like, wow, oh look, shit, wow, there's a progression Instagram on how I can do a double backflip, I'm going to learn that, you know, and I love that, that's human nature and brilliant.

• 52:00Elizabeth Day?

  Your third failure is that your first TV show was cancelled.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  First network U S T V show.

• 52:06Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  But it was a big step for us because we'd done, we were in the sort of groove of Man vs Wild and Discovery in season seven. I thought, oh no, I can do this bigger, rather than just doing the same stuff. It was always like, I wanna leave things five minutes too early than too late. And I thought, I wonder if we just go big in the sense that we finish this job early, finish your show early before, you know, don't let it get canned in three seasons' time when it's dying. Go at the top, go strong, use that energy and that heat. Go to a bigger network, go to a mainstream US NBC type network and try and do something that we own. Cause we didn't own Man vs Wild, we were, I was a hired gun essentially. Paid a fee, told to go and do a job. And it was getting ever more dangerous, we're having ever more narrow scrapes through my life.

• 52:53Speaker 03

  It was ever more time away from a young family and I thought, hold on, we're not running this smart. If we're smart, we own the show, we own the content, we own the IP, we dictate when and where we film, with who, with the teams I like, with the crews I like. We don't, I don't, I haven't got some director pushing me to do further. It's like, I should be running this. But it's a risk, cause we've got to finish your show and then we've got to leap and hope we grab hold of a bigger fish and then get that. So it was a lot of risk, but we took it, had a massive fallout with Discovery over it, cause they didn't want us to quit, cause it was running and working and winning. But I did quit, we put our own team together, we got rid of all the agents. We pitched this big show to the US networks. And I remember all my old agencies going, you're crazy.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  If you go for network TV, if there's a dip in the ratings for a second, it's off and gone. And then you'll never get hired and you won't, you won't be able to go back to Discovery and you won't be. And it was all fear and you can't operate with fear. And it's like, I'm not gonna start living on the back foot. Everything good in my life has come from being on the front foot. That who does wins, that risk-taking spirit. Might not work this time, might take four goes, five goes, but I know how to live, I know the ingredients. So we went for it and eventually we got a commission with NBC for a show called Get Out Alive. Big show and they, they put a ton of effort and time and money behind it. We went and shot it. You know, we felt a risk, but we did it and it was great. Went out and just wasn't good enough, wasn't strong, ratings weren't good enough and it got canned.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  And it was like, wow, this felt like S A selection over again, first time. You know, it's like I've risked everything.

• 54:27Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 54:28Speaker 03

  Severed everything, put it all on that.

• 54:31Elizabeth Day?

  And it's been public.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  It's been public, but more than that, it's not just pride now. Now it's about one's career. It's like, hold on, I've got no future. If I haven't got this, I haven't got anything else. You know, I haven't got a degree, I haven't got anything else. But we kept going, you know, and we said, let's innovate, let's, hold on, let's figure out another way. And we put out all the ratings of other things. Well, how can we make this smarter? And out of that crisis, we got them to back the idea of running wild. And they gave us a chance just by the skin of our teeth, through the grace. And so when I say we stand on the shoulders of giants, I could talk about people all day long and people who've helped me. It's another one, the person after me at NBC who said, we give you one more shot, don't screw it up. And we started running wild and it flew and it went and, you know, we're now about to start season nine of that show.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  And that opened the door to all the Netflix, U-verse awars and the Amazon shows and all the. And then we went back to Discovery, did a whole raft of other shows for them, but we owned it, we controlled it, we did it on our terms and we won. But on that list of failures that I did for our boys, I also wrote out the number of shows we've had, like Get Out Alive, that have been one season disasters. And it was something like thirty or thirty-two, it's separate shows that have bombed and been canned before they've even hardly started airing.

• 55:48Elizabeth Day?

  Wow.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  And the wins have been like four or five. So I said to our boys, technically on paper, you could say I'm the greatest TV flop in history. Nobody in the history of TV has had more individual adventure shows that they own that have been canned and cancelled than me. And they were laughing at this point, they go, so you're the greatest flop in history. I go, well, on paper.

• 56:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 56:15Speaker 03

  You know, but nobody really cares about those. No, I didn't get asked, you're not even asked, you didn't even know about Get Out Alive. I mean, and there are the thirty one other ones because life then focuses on the wins. But to get to the wins, you've got to go through.

• 56:28Elizabeth Day?

  It's one of my life ambitions to become famous enough to go on Running Wild. So.

• 56:33Speaker 03

  You'd be, you'd be great. You would be great.

• 56:35Elizabeth Day?

  Well, one of the.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  Unstoppable.

• 56:37Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you. One of the things that I wanted to ask you is, doing that programme, you've met some extraordinary people. I mean, I named some of them, Barack Obama, Channing Tatum, the lot. And I'm sure that, because you're the kind of person who treats people as you find them, that I can't imagine you're that impressed by the gloss of celebrity. But has there been a moment where you've thought, wow, is that really you, Julie Roberts?

• 57:00Speaker 03

  All the time.

• 57:01Elizabeth Day?

  All the time.

• 57:02Speaker 03

  All the time. And it's certainly not like, it's certainly not like sort of, oh, I'm too cool to be impressed by the gloss of celebrity. It's not like that. It's no offence. It's the opposite. At the end of the day, I'm so nervous meeting these people. Breathe, bear, breathe, you know, and it's got better over the years because that happens, doesn't it? But it's still there. I'm always nervous. I'm nervous not just because of who they are, I'm nervous because of the job and we're taking. They're trusting me with their life, their brand, their, you know, all of that. I've said, come on your own, leave the entourage. People are super trusting and it's a responsible job with a person's life on the end of a rope in a dynamic environment where you're winging it a lot of the time on a route. So I'm nervous of that part of it, but I'm definitely nervous because I'm thinking, this person is my hero.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  And it's happened multiple times. I mean, Roger Federer, love Roger, always loved Roger, you know. I mean, so many, I was so nervous with the Obama one. I mean, we just filmed one with President Zelensky, not a Running Wild, but a separate show with him. You know, the nerves never go. I started the podcast saying this, they never go. But they are a quiet indicator that we're doing something right. And I remember Running Wild, the early days, we'd go and meet them the day before, we'd meet at a hotel in, where, Denver or something. And I'd go and give them some kit and give them a vague briefing about what they're doing. And I used to stand outside the hotel room, you know, whether it's sort of Channing Tatum or whoever it was, you know.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Will Ferrell, all these, all these great people I kind of loved from Hollywood films and stuff. I'd almost not be able to speak once I tapped on the door and I learned through experience, don't run up the stairs and be all pumped up and ready to go and then knocking the door and they open it and I can't breathe, which was kept happening. So then I learned, breathe, calm down, it's okay, knock on the door, we're good. And you know, and by season two, I was getting a little bit more familiar and you learn things to help you, don't you? But the nerves never leave, they're just an indicator we're in the right space.

• 59:03Elizabeth Day?

  Final question, Bear, if you could have any figure from history on running wild, who would it be?

• 59:10Speaker 03

  John the Baptist. I think for me, one of the greats. Wild, lived off locusts and honey, precursor to the almighty. I think in the Bible, Jesus goes, there's never been a prophet like this guy, the greatest of them all, not Moses or Elijah or any of that. And I like that because he was the underdog, he was the under, he was a really wild one, totally wild. And then after we lost his life, but was a man of principle, I think we would have got on. I don't know, I think he was just a brilliant wild one. I mean, I think he would have thought I was really soft. He was properly hard, amazing. I don't know, he's been a hero of mine. You know, there's so many, there's so many people through history, I know amazing people, I know it's tempting to say, you know, so and so, but.

• 59:52Elizabeth Day?

  That's a great answer.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Probably the one.

• 59:55Elizabeth Day?

  Good for fire too, all those burning bushes.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  Share, share the load.

• 59:58Elizabeth Day?

  Bagwells, I've wanted you on this podcast since it started. I am so grateful to you and to your wife, Shara, who I know was integral in persuading you because it's just so wonderful to hear you speak about things that I feel really passionately about. And for you to be so open, so honest, so vulnerable, so full of integrity has just made my day. I can't thank you enough for coming on my podcast.

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  Oh, you're so sweet. Like I said at the beginning off camera, you do an amazing job. You know, you're championing a message that failure is not the end, failure is the beginning. And it's wonderful. And like with Shara loving you, everybody loves you.

• 1:00:38Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you, Bear.