Moment 29 - How To Fearlessly Pursue Your Dreams: Ben Williams

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. We’ve all got dreams, yet not everyone is willing to pursue them. So what does it actually take in order to achieve the life of our dreams? I put this question to Ben Williams, former Royal Marine, to find out how he found his purpose and turned his life around. Episode 68 - https://g2ul0.app.link/jhWxHvDnHkb Ben: https://www.instagram.com/ben_williams_cm/ Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/StevenBartlettYT?sub_confirmation=1 The Diary Of A CEO live - Sign up here - https://g2ul0.app.link/diaryofaceolive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:04Steven Bartlett?

  I've got a very good friend of mine who I know won't mind me saying this because we talk about it openly, who is going through tough times at the moment. He sounds very, very similar to the guy that you described, who was having those negative thoughts and was looking for purpose in life. And I'm almost searching for the advice to give him. I think that's why I'm asking you the question, because he is that guy that sat in his car looking up at the sky, wondering what's the point in living. What is it that takes you from that place to putting the shorts on and saying, do you know what, I'm going to do something for me for once. I'm going to help myself. No one else is going to get me out of this situation but me. That bit there feels like the hardest mountain to climb.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 0:42Steven Bartlett?

  I guess for you it was that sense of purpose and prestige and that was, you know, this had been your childhood dream or like, there's also this quote I sometimes ponder on, which is, "Change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change." Like when life becomes, sucks so much that it would be, it would suck less to go and be beastied.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. You've got to want something. That's what I, looking back, having learned everything along the way, it was the desire to want something. What is it I want? And it wasn't the validation of being a tough guy at all. It was to be part of my dream, you know, and you think back to that nine-year-old, he'd almost made his mind up on the spot there that he's going to join the Marines and that kind of got taken away and then I took it away from myself anyway. And I think almost further away it gets, it becomes less tangible.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  So when the incident at the nightclub happens and you find yourself becoming wrapped around the wrong axle completely, I think it's getting further away. I'm losing control. I haven't got it. I'm losing that thing I want to that, that finally that day of something that reminds you to go, remember what you want, to go, fuck it, I'm going to go and do it. And do you know what I've found? I know a lot of people like this. I still have a few of them in my close friendship group and I've worked with a lot of people like this as well. Where it's actually the courage to go and do it. Somewhere in your friend's head, he'll be thinking something that I wanna, he may look at you. Yeah, but you're successful. It's easy for you to say it. Look how well you're living the dream.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Fuck you. You can't give me advice. And you're like, oh dude, come on, switch on. In there somewhere is something he wants. In there somewhere is a desire. In there is a child who had an ambition for doing something. And the older we get, what I've found with my experience, it feels like it gets slightly further away. And that gap gets bigger and all of a sudden you've got to take a bigger step or a bigger leap. If you have that ability to go, no, I do have the courage with it, that that gap closes.

• 2:57Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  And it takes steps, it takes baby steps. And people think it's overnight, you know, you may have found this, oh, you're an overnight success. That's like 10 years worth of hard work. Lionel Messi says it, to 15 years to become an overnight success.

• 3:10Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  That's because deep down in the shadows, those people which are fighting every day, the addiction, the difficulty, the desire to go out on the piss with our friends in the normal world, to do the drugs, to eat unhealthy food, whatever it is, is is that fight right there to go yes or no. Shall I follow the easy option or should I follow the hard option? And sometimes the hard option isn't the challenge. Sometimes the hard option is the courage you have to build within yourself to take the steps. You know that.

• 3:38Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. Um. Is there anything that I could have said to you when you were in that point in your life? When you were doing the drugs and having suicidal ideation? If I was your friend, is there anything that I could have said to you that would have helped you get out of it? Because as friends and family members, we're always trying to change, you know, help, right? And I sometimes doubt the power of a mate turning to you and being like, pull your shit together, you know?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  It strangely happened to me. So, uh, I won't mention his name because he's doing sneaky beaky things these days. But there's a close friend of mine.

• 4:13Steven Bartlett?

  Sorry, what sneaky beaky?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  You know, peering from curtains, working for special forces and doing things like that.

• 4:18Steven Bartlett?

  Right, not pervert.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, can't do that one again. No, he's not pervert. Um, that's why I won't mention his name. A friend of mine was within this lifestyle I was within and um he decided to join the Marines and he got out of what we were embroiled in and I remember ringing him like, what's it like? What's it like? You know, sort of inquisitive about it. And he just said, come and do it. And for me, that was like this guiding light. It was someone within my life who actually had come away from what we'd all been doing and plucked up the courage to go and do it. And it wasn't some millionaire entrepreneur. It wasn't my mum. It wasn't my dad.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  It wasn't a really senior marine. It was a friend who was probably about 15 weeks ahead of me on the process, who's not even made it himself and is still going through the hardest parts of training to say, come and do it. Come and give it a go. You've got this. And that was almost that, not validation, but that boost to be like, yeah, all right.

• 5:26Steven Bartlett?

  Cause that's a relatable role model. He's just like you.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's someone I know it, but it's so real. It's so, hang on, he was with us 15 weeks ago. I know him. I ring him and I'm like, wow, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna follow in your wake and which in turn becomes quite intimidating because you're sort of social groups looking at it going, well, the Marines is really hard to get in. Now two of them are there. One of them's guaranteed to fail, aren't they? Surely. And I'm looking at him going, oh, he's stronger and tougher than I am. Is it me? And that sort of creeps in every now and then. But it was that role model to have.

• 5:59Steven Bartlett?

  As you were saying that, I was thinking that people will now look at you after being in the Marines for, you know, almost 10, 10 years, wasn't it? 10 years. They'll see that, that marine a decade in, they'll see Ben and they'll think, oh God, I can't, I can't do that. He's, you know, like he's a big, strong man. He's disciplined. He's got this mindset. Like there'll be a kid sat in his bedroom, glancing at that YouTube video of the, you know, the Marines advert thing and then looking over at Ben and thinking, oh no, I'm not, I'm not Ben. He's all polished. And it's funny that it sometimes takes. A relatable role model to be the bridge where you go, do you know what? There's a guy that's halfway through the journey who I know and I'm like him and he's not special or smart or whatever or rich. And that can, that's the, the bridge that I'm going to use to get in there myself.

• 6:41Steven Bartlett?

  It's one of the things when I do the podcast and when I talk about my story, I always want to let people know that the guy you see now that can talk and that can do this business stuff and no social media was like an idiot who like, got kicked out of school, can't spell still, can't do maths. Well, it's just like you, but as you say, maybe the defining thing was courage. And that courage came from just a delusional belief that I could.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  This is what I talk, this is why I wanted to write my book, Commando Mindset, because I wanted to,

• 7:16Speaker 01

  get people thinking that a commando mindset is a particular way of thinking within our world, you know, to have a hundred percent of the commando mindset, you have to become a commander. You have to go through a process and join up.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  But everyone has to get themselves to the gate and I've become quite interested in the getting to the gate part to start. And who doesn't get to the gate, you know, the biggest critics never stand on the start line with you. They're always the ones in the stand giving it the big one, aren't they? It's those on the start line who get to the gate. Now I got to the gate and I was really proud of getting to the gate, you know, how cringe worthy, but potential Royal Marines Commando. Yes, at least I'm a potential Royal Marines Commando instead of a potential civilian, which I don't want to be for now. I want to go and live and, and enjoy the world in different parts of it. Some you wouldn't go to holiday on, but I wanted to go and see it.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  And that, that for me was a really interesting point and you know, fast forward many years later, I managed to get the prestigious job of going back to the Commander Trainer Center as an instructor, and get to see those people get to the start line and see them go on their journey and listen to their stories, you know, you're a bit of a tough guy over at times, but listen to their stories and, hear them say that they had drug problems and this happened within their family and, or this person lived on the street for this long. But now you're in my world and I'm going to try and take you from. What you were and turn you into something that we need you to be, but you have the ability

• 8:48Speaker 01

  to be as well. And that process, seeing them go from civilian to commando. And that's really empowering because I get to stand there on the last day of training when they finally do it and you can finally call them mate. When, you know, it's a bit hard up to that point. It's like, good effort, mate. And you have a beer with them and you tell them a little bit about your story. They go, whoa, I thought you were like this sort of thing. Yeah, untouchable dickhead. Just, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. But instead they realise you're a human.