The Duratus Mind - Garry Banford - Founder and lead coach at Duratus

In a twist to 'normal jogging' at The Duratus Mind Podcast, Gaz was interviewed by Ben Ryan for Ben's podcast.  But due to Ben's new role at Brentford FC he won't be able to release podcasts for the foreseable future.  But Ben has shared the audio with Gaz and we hope that you enjoy Gaz being on the other side of the microphone and very much in the hot seat! 

Gaz is a former Special Missions Unit Sergeant Major who now coaches senior executives to lead betetr and be more resilient themselves.  Gaz has a deep interest in psychology and alwasy viewed his career through that lens so he has some fairly unique insights that have developed some hard won wisdom.  

Enjoy! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

So, in a slight twist to how we normally do it on the Duratus Mime podcast, uh, I was recently interviewed by Ben Ryan um for his own podcast. But due to Ben's recent appointment with Brentford Football Club as the director of Elite Performance, he's not going to be able to release the podcast himself. So he's encouraged me to use the audio. Um, he's encouraged me to share it, and I'm pleased to be able to put it out there for ourselves. This is a a bit more uh uncomfortable for me, I guess, with regards to me being questioned on some of these topics. But I'm grateful to be able to share it. I'm grateful to Ben for passing me the audio to be able to help hopefully some of you out there to understand some of my thinking on these topics that I genuinely like to kick around myself. So, as I mentioned, enjoy. Uh welcome any feedback as always, but here it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

So, Gary, what or Gaz, welcome. Uh where are we exactly?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

We're in the we're in the Darley Abbey area of Derby. Um beautiful part of Derby, um, as is all of Derby, but no, we're uh it's an old mill, so yeah, lovely part.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

And and we were just before this, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by you for the Deratus podcast, which for all our listeners, um get on to it because uh it's one that that's been reasonably new to me and I I'm I'm I'm I'm eating it up. Um so thank you for that. It's really, really good.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

No, thank you very much. Uh the the ratus mine podcast. It's a strange one. I spoke to you about it earlier about how it fell out of my genuine interest in understanding and getting a chance to speak to people like you that have got your experiences, that I can you know interrogate that a little bit. And I just I just I'm fascinated why people what do what they do and how some people get the success. So no, thanks. Um I very much enjoy yours too, and I'm glad to be here. So thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

We've got mutual love here. So uh look, we're gonna look back over your career and the lessons learnt, and also talk about your what you're doing now. But as we're seeing all sorts of images of people emerging from lockdown and uh war around the world, let's just start with what I've just referred to resilience. Resilience is a key word. In fact, even the company name Doratus means to endure or to harden in Latin. So why is resilience such a key word for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So for me, so if I'm honest, when I first so I I'm a military man, I've I've I I spent 20 plus years, 22 years in the military. Um just uh just under six years in the Marines, and then the the remainder of my time is in in special forces, specifically the SPS. Um my life before I joined the military was pretty easy, relatively easy compared to most people. I got a massive shock to my system when I joined the Marines. It was way harder than I expected it to be. My um resilience, my motivation, uh, my reason why I would join the military got tested every single day, literally every single day. And and I I didn't I I can say this succinctly now, I didn't realise this at the time. Um so I was tested. My military career in the Marines tested me regularly, but then my um experiences in special forces, um one of uh the strengths of the teams and the people that I worked in and with was our ability to our ability to be resilient was absolutely fundamental to our success. It was fundamental to our existence because the world's a nasty place, the world's a horrible place sometimes, and it will just keep punching you in the face. And then if you've not got an ability to to deal with that, then it can break you, it can crush you. And that all sounds very severe. I was choosing to live in an environment where we were choosing to run towards the problem. So I was a volunteer, I'm not I'm I'm no victim here, um, but we also knew that we didn't always have the answers to the problems, and so you need a certain amount of resilience to and humility to face the problem, to fail sometimes, and to be able to understand what went wrong, what you can do about it, and how you can adapt. And the speed with which we adapt in special forces was my experience, one of the key differences to ourselves and the rest of the most military organizations, that speed of adaptation and resilience is a big part of that. And because you you are going to fail, you are going to stumble, you are going to make mistakes, and you need to be able to deal with that, you need to be able to reason on that, and uh resilience is a big part of that. So it's been a massive part of my career. Even in fact, leaving the military, I left the military three years ago to do what I do now. That was a massive challenge, and and the the resilience that I'd learned through that career. Um, we we read a lot about um or hear a lot about the the struggles that people have leaving the military. I never faced any struggles when I left the military that were over and above normal life. Um I lent on my ability to navigate uncertainty, I lent on my my my being really clear in what I was trying to achieve, um, and I understood that there was a few times I was going to fail in what I did and I was gonna get punched in the face and I was gonna mess up, but I knew that I could adapt, and it's that again that adaption that we need to make to problems rather than keep tripping over them, and in that is in part what resilience is to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

So yeah, that's fascinating. The the a lot of research will say that your environment can shape a lot of your behaviours. Yep. So do you think when you were you firstly you got into the Marines and then into the SBS that your ability to be resilient and got accelerated by the by the by where you were?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Uh 100%. Like put me into a experienced accelerator, I would say. That's that's exactly what it is. Um just to go back a little bit, I was the I was the uh the youngest of I had an older sister, four years older than me, which is I've come to realise now, taught me an awful lot when I was growing up of how to lose because naturally everything we did because she was so much older than me, um, she used to beat me at everything at to a certain point. And I became quite comfortable at learning but losing at the same time. And I think that taught me a certain that's not tough. That's not um, you know, people live really hard lives. I was really fortunate with my parents and the home that we lived in, it was really comfortable. Um, and then we had a great, great relationship with our parents. It wasn't tough, but I do realise that those formative years when I was growing up, being that younger child and constantly getting beat and knocked back was was a real good lesson for me growing up to the point where I joined the military, joined the Marines, and again, what's interesting, or I've come to realise on pick this, that I could have easily selected any other military organization to go into. I really wanted to join the military from reading a book when I was in my teenage years. It's Bravo 20 book, the uh Andy McNabb. And um that sowed a seed for me. But I knew to join the military if I'd wanted to realise that dream that I had to choose something quite quite crunchy and more difficult, I could have chosen easier option. And there's a golden thread I've come to realise with what I've chosen to do of not taking that easy option and choosing what you can see as the hardest option. You learn so much more. So, yes, the Marines, and one of the things the Marines do with civilians when they young men when they come off the street, um, and women now, um, is give them thousands and thousands of new experiences, and how you respond to those experiences shape how well you do uh in your career in basic training in the military, and then subsequently in the Marines in general. And I'm a firm believer that I think we've we spoke about it before, that that experiences times a thousand makes experienced, and there's no shortcut to experience to be a Royal Marines commander. You need thousands of experiences to be able to wear that bere authentically and say, I am that. Otherwise, if you've shortcutted that, you don't feel authentic. There's stress within that facade that you've got to wear because you're not living your ideal self, you're not presenting your ideal self, and there's a whole manner of issues that come, I think, from that. And we I talk about that with leadership with people that I work with, but um, but yeah, so experiences are the thing we always need to seek. I'm I'm passionate about getting new experience.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Yeah, uh I'm with you on that, and it's I'm gonna I'm gonna be nicking your that that saying that you use as well because I think it's so valuable, and uh for the listeners, they're they're they're quite used to me bouncing around from one subject to another, and we are gonna jump in a bit to selection and a bit of operation and a bit of what you do now, and I think that's a good signpost, maybe just to because we met at Manchester City and we both were speaking at a leadership conference there that the Academy had organised, and um I think it would be useful to maybe frame because we'll reference the usefulness of what you you learnt in the military to corporate and to sport on what you're doing now.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

So as a as a as a one-liner, we help um leaders be more authentic and resilient. That's what we do. We help um mostly senior executives um improve themselves to be better leaders. Um and and I I absolutely love it. And that's what I do now. I left the military three years ago, it's not what I've all it's not what I've done since I've left the military. I've I've found a sweet spot in this. Um I didn't leave to become a leadership consultant, far from it. But I've actually found real fulfillment in working with people that just like me, just like the people the coaches that I use and the people we work with are there's lots of common ground. And so nowadays we um we we coach and mentor senior leaders in in all manner of things, but ultimately how to be better themselves and to work on themselves and to be the role model leader, the the authentic leader that they want to be. So in a nutshell, that's what we do. What that looks like looks like very different things depending on who we're working with and what their needs are. Again, servant leader very much, and servant to the pe the the clients that we work with. So what their needs are that might come as one-to-one, which predominantly is, but we also we we run workshops, etc., with uh high performing teams and different groups to to really unpick this stuff and what it takes to have have their success.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Do you what's the ratio between the clients that come to you knowing that they need to be a bit more authentic and a bit more resilient and want to be on that self-improvement path to going into um organisations or teams where someone's asked to go in because they think someone else needs the help and you're you're having to be approached from someone that might be a bit closed about that. Do you you know how do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

So we we often work with the senior leaders, and that's an interest it's an interesting concept that they bring people in, they bring us in sometimes because we've they've got problem teams. And my first gut feeling is well, their role as the leader is to resolve that, right? But but you know, like any great sportsman will know, to have a coach to help them do that is a really useful asset. And I think in the corporate world it's something that is becoming more accepted, but I it certainly is my experience that it's still met with a little bit of, well, there's not a problem, why would I need a coach? Well, it's not about having a problem, it's about just optimising what you do and always seeing things from a maybe a different but relevant angle and helping you and your teams to to develop as as as they can, as best they can, because you know, we we should never stand still. We like I said earlier, we the strength of any high-performing team is their ability to keep adapting to the the new problems that they're going to face. The world doesn't stand still. So um I think having coaches really helps that, and you know, we're grateful to be able to work with some key groups, um both sports teams. You mentioned the Batman City. Lucky enough to work with a number of uh elite sports teams, and and and now we've got our um we work alongside a number of um elite organizations in the corporate sector as well, and um the relationship though so the proportion of people with I guess in answer to your question there are always reasons why certain behaviours are manifested in teams, and sometimes that is the leadership, sometimes that is the people that the leadership have selected. We always aim the leaders at looking inwardly, and also any any problem child that you've got in your team has normally been recruited in, been selected in, and you know, there's some accountability there that you need to take hold of. Well, is this someone that is coachable or is this someone that is not coachable? And again, these are the conversations that we help our leaders with. I don't know if there's a simple answer to your question with regards to the sort of percentages, but we uh it's that's always evolving.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

And that selection and recruitment stuff is a bit of a common thread for you over your career because you've both been well, you've been both sides of the fence, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Absolutely, yeah. Do you want me to explain?

SPEAKER_02 14:09

So yeah, but if you if you could.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, so I um my 22 years in the military. The last three years of that, uh the the last two roles that I filled. I was asked to be the lead recruiter for my old organization, the SPS. Um, a job I didn't want to do, um, because I'd been very operationally focused up to that point, and I thought that's where I got my fulfillment from with my teams, my guys, my squadron. Um fulfilling that role of the lead recruiter meant I had to understand the kind of people that we were trying to attract to the unit to improve our inflow. Um and success on the course was typically quite low. So there was a it was a complex problem. I do enjoy getting my teeth into a complex problem. Nothing more, nothing's more complex than people, right? So I uh I took hold of that job and I quickly realized it was a coaching and mentoring role. I would get the best success by building relationships with the people that we thought had the greatest potential, and anyone that put their hand up to perfectly honest, but then to build trust with those and and explain to them as clearly as possible what they needed to do to have their success, and that was often very different to what they thought. They thought it was almost unachievable because of the horror stories of the selection process that they'd heard of. And so being very honest, build relationships through trust of your own experiences and what they need to do pragmatically, um, really helped people. And we got we got good success. Um for context, our main competitor was um the SAS, which is a tough competitor. Um, but we like a challenge, like I said, I've always enjoyed you know the crunchiest challenge I can find. And you know, when for as far as the the talented people that we were trying to recruit, the number one brand in the world was for them the SAS. And so, you know, it was a it was a nice challenge to have. Um, and we got good success, I think, by um well I know so by building relationship and trust with the people that were volunteering and and actually saying, look, we may be very different, and this is how we're different to the to the SAS. We're very similar, 95% similar, but this is how we're different, and if this difference is appealing to you, then we will invest in you because we you know we want quality people in this organization. Uh, so we got we got great success through building relationship and trust to the point where the last job I was asked to do in the military was the lead recruiter for the whole of UKSF, so the whole of the special forces group. Um, sort of the last the end of my career, I knew I was ending my contract, and it was a real privileged job to do that and really uh understand again the organizations, the SAS, surveillance reconnaissance regiment, 18 SIGs and the SBS that all make up UK Special Forces. I think all thought we were looking for different people. And I think when we're all pulling in the same direction to try and recruit the best talent out there and the right people go to the right organisations, then that for me that's a definition of a high-performing team, people working to their strengths. And so uh it was a real privileged job towards the end of my career. Uh, but it certainly gave me the insights into coaching and mentoring roles that I uh managed to enjoy and and now subsequently do with the various different groups that we work with. So it gave me the not only was it a thoroughly enjoyable period of time and towards the end of my career, it also opened up a doorway to what it is I do now and actually my own self-belief that this can be translate into business sport or whatever sector you look at, really.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

And on the other, on the other side, just if you can hear me here in the background any revving engines, just next door is a uh mechanic and a garage, and there's some beautiful MGs actually, which we can't give you the unfortunately that won't translate on uh on just by this the spoken word, but um that's that's what's going on behind. I'm not I'm not in the car with gas, and we're not revving the engine and going somewhere. Um but on that on the selection bit, if at the start you were the other side of the fence and and you had to go through the selection process um for SF, and you know, we we can see some of the the television programmes where there's some stuff going on, and um there's always an interest on both um what happens and maybe an overview on that. But for me, I'm also really interested around the intensity stuff, the waking up in the morning having not knowing what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, for sure. So um just on that, so again, I'm I'm good friends with the people that do the TV show, um, especially Jason Fox, um Oli Horton, etc. Um that isn't what I understand certainly I see as as special forces selection. You know, that is it's a it's a TV show, it's it's uh it's a great watch for those people that want to watch it, um, but for me it's not something I recognise. It doesn't represent the organization that uh I was a part of and helped that I stepped through the door of but also kind of recruited people into. Um and I don't say that to bash it at all, it it's just it's just not representative of the reality. Um, so what what is representative? So selection process is firstly it's it's this it's defined as an arduous course. So people, um, you have to be a serving soldier to volunteer for it. Um, and the key word there is volunteer. The biggest challenge to most people is sticking their hand up and admitting openly that they want to try and attempt that and to go and test themselves for what they can see is going to be a really difficult challenge. The job that they think they'll be doing if they're successful, for most people is what they join the military for, if they're honest with themselves. But putting your hand up and saying that you're willing to try and maybe fail 95% plus failure rate on the course, um, that's a big problem for most people, and most people won't face that challenge and actually go through their career quite happily for most that never having faced it, and that's fine. But for a lot of people, they do want to do it. And our biggest challenge, firstly, was sticking, getting people that wanted to put their hand up and say that is and committing to that challenge. Um, so that's the first challenge. Then you go into um what was a four-week, it's now three-week longer, I understand. Um, Hill's process, which some of the TV show tries to represent with some tests like the fan dance with endurance, with these quite long, arduous marches every single day with heavyweights on your back over the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains of uh South Wales. Um, more than happy to go into some detail around that. It's not rocket science, you've got a big weight on your back, they pick the biggest mountains. You start, um, you go to a checkpoint that you know you've got to go to, you've got to navigate there. Weather is very rarely like it is today on the Brecon Beacons. It's at best horizontal rain. Some you know, I I did a January uh selection, a winter course, and it was it was a lot of snow. Um, and visibility is typically poor. So you have to be proficient in navigating again. So you'll go to a checkpoint, from that checkpoint, you'll be given another checkpoint, and you don't know how far you've got to go that day. There's always somebody on the course that knows how far they've got to go. They're not the people to listen to. So you the the whole point of the test is that you don't know when that test is going to end, and we we call that now navigating uncertainty. And it's a great skill to learn because the world's really very unknown, and being sure that you can rely on yourself with any scenario is is uh is a good skill to have that you will do your best, and that that's the test in a nutshell. I I thought it was a physical test, there's a lot of physical um fitness needed, but the test really is a mindset test of again, we can dig a bit deeper on this of just starting every single day um and going again. Um, after the four-week um or three-week now Hills process, you then go to the jungle. You go to the jungle for six weeks uh in Southeast Asia, and the real test of the jungle is one to go live and exist in a place that really doesn't want you there, um as in the environment, but then also to learn new things to be able to demonstrate that you can learn quickly, um, take on those learnings and demonstrate that you've um learnt those skills that you need. Um again I I thought that was a a test of it living and existing in the jungle, but really it's that it's that relying on your character, it's understanding your character, dealing with that negative self-talk that you'll be uh having with yourself most days, the feedback you get every single day whilst you're in the jungle by the directing staff, by the instructors that run it, they will be very frank and open on it's more open and frank than you've probably experienced before in your life. Um they do ultimately want every single person to be successful if they're good enough. And if you can take that feedback, make the changes that you need to do and develop and grow as the day goes on, as the days go on, then you will be successful on that course. Again, much larger margin of error that people than people suspect when they start. The vast majority of people give up that process and volunteer what we call voluntary withdrawal and take themselves off that that process. So that's the jungle. Post-jungle, there's various different courses you do, like parachuting, resistance, interrogation, combat survival, a lot of uh close combat and uh room-to-room uh movement. That's a large part of the rest of the course. But if you're getting through the jungle, the vast majority of people will see success um on the course. Not everybody, but the vast majority, sort of, it's a much higher success rate from that point. But we're talking about 90% less um success rate for for the hills and the jungle process. Um my course we started with 150 people and I think we finished badging about 14 people for both Hereford and Pool. It's a joint selection for those that don't know. So you go through both SAS and SBS together. So it's uh uh more than happy to scratch around any of those things as you see fit.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Well, the the one that that sticks out immediately because I know, well, I can't imagine there's anybody listening that will not have had this pop up on numerous occasions, probably and numerous times every day of their life is their inner voice. Yep. And you know, people can call it all sorts of different things. So it might be, you know, when you wake up and you're supposed to go to the gym and you've got a million and one excuses that your inner voice is giving you not to go or or not to not what to eat or what to train or when to give up or when to do something. Now, having gone through that process and had the inner voice shouting at you, I'm sure, yeah. Um, and then being on the other side and seeing it being shouted at from other people, explaining how you have managed to deal with that, and um because on the opposite, and I can't remember which, I think it might have been Jim Lair, actually, who was in one of the other podcasts, and he talked about that. How if you get it right, that inner voice can become your best coach.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Um, and I'd love you just to talk about your thoughts and feelings around the inner voice.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Yeah, so absolutely massive. I'm I'm quite pleased you've brought it up because it's one of those things that is I I it's one of the things we help people with the most, I think, as leaders. Again, thinking you have all you should have all the answers as a leader is such uncommon ground for most people because when we're dealing with complex problems, you very rarely will have all the right answers, but you you're taking your organization, you're taking your team on a journey, you want to present that, and so understanding that your mind will play games with you, your mind will try and protect you by uh warning you of any every sort of possible problem it can think of before you even get there, is is the first step is that self-awareness that that's normal. That normal thing that none of us talk about, that inner inner voice or the inner critic, as I as I define it, um uh is is a really important step for people to understand. Every single morning I walk wake up, the first thing I normally do is take a few steps to the bathroom. Um, I walk to the bathroom, my knees, my hips are stiff, and I walk, I say to myself in my head, Gaz, you are getting old. That is the first thing that I say most days. Um, but then it's that self-awareness of that's normal. Gaz, you are getting old. Your knees and legs and hips have got some miles on them. It's understandable that they're not in uh the same shape they were when they were 20 years old. That is understandable considering that so you're almost unpicking why that would be happening personally, and then it just dissipates. But then all through the day, I think psychologists would say um that we have around somewhere between 10 and 30,000 thoughts a day. We're about 80% negatively wired. That's an awful lot of negative thinking every single day that most of us will face, and most of us don't talk about it, and most of us don't acknowledge it even in the first place. But we'll we will think it and we will judge ourselves by the things, and we will turn us away from problems that we're thinking of trying to resolve, but it's probably best that we don't this morning. Let's do it tomorrow. That voice is something that we all have to face. Now, I'm a firm believer that we should acknowledge it. I'm a firm believer that we should learn to regulate it, and and that that noise, that chatter, that that inner critic, like I mentioned, that is the person, the chimney cricket that's on your shoulder that is telling you not to do something, if that is in line with your goal that you're trying to achieve, then you need to find a way to reason on that that inner voice and that inner critic. Because if it's preventing you from achieving what you want to do, hey, if it's keeping you safe, that's that's not a bad thing. There's there's definitely some of us that should be listening, especially young men out there that should be listen should should be listening to their inner voice. But when it's when we're clear in what we're trying to achieve and that inner critic is holding us back from achieving our goals, then we should be pushing against that and and and coming up with ways to um regulate our emotions around that. And again, we um that we we talk in in Duratus around the self-skills. The first self-skill is self-awareness, and and having that with regards to the inner critic, that awareness that this is go this is normal, that there's going to be a voice inside your head trying to encourage you not to do something that's really difficult is very normal. So, self-awareness, then you've got self-regulation. You've got to try and understand that that isn't always in your best interest, actually, um, and it's it's a safety blanket to try and protect you and not be socially embarrassed or to fail on something that you know um that maybe will cause you a bit of short-term pain. Um, so self-regulation is key, and then self-reflection, the final self-skill that we talk about is that ability to create this feedback loop of well, how actually did it go? So your brain was telling you not to try something because it might be too difficult. You tried it, you actually did much better than you thought. Let's public speaking is always the one that most people maybe they work in a corporate sector, they're about to do a big presentation. Before you go in, your brain will be telling you, if there's any way of you avoiding this, then please let me avoid this because this is going to be embarrassing. Speaking in front of people, I'm probably going to say the wrong thing. Um, but if it's a subject matter you're well versed in, and if it's a subject matter that you are, you look around, you are the right person that should be speaking about this topic because you are the expert in the room, then if you can manage that emotion, and again, there's various strategies we use to help our clients with that. Well, then if you can be the person that delivered, if you've got the self-reflection piece on the end, well, how did it go? If you can feedback to yourself and get feedback from others as to how it went, 99% of the time it actually goes really well if you are the expert in the room on your particular topic, and and you have helped people to understand a greater breadth to the problem than they first saw before. And if you can create that feedback loop and we talk about adaptation and change, then you realize maybe the inner critic isn't what I should be trusted, I I shouldn't be trusting, and maybe I need to find ways to suppress that or to think about other things while when I recognize the self-awareness that that the inner critic is starting to become more chatter and noise in my mind, and that's just holding me back. So again, this is something we we I I love talking about it. And again, if there's anything on that that you want to dive a bit deeper on, then Ben then goes.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Well it's it's for the for well for me and for everybody else listening, it's it's how you can consistently reduce that inner voice so that it doesn't get in the way of the stuff that can really accelerate you know where you want to get to. Because there'll be times where your inner voice might win the battles of small things, you know, and an extra slice of cake or beer. But the bigger things that it will it will also be present for that could actually be the re the things that can really advance careers, relationships, life.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, so you know, one of the um tenets that I was taught within my career that I still lean on massively is the military does a great job of making you disciplined, they they discipline you, and that's and and that teaches you various different habits and behaviours that you need to have. What they're seeking is for you to be self-disciplined, and that's the real skill that we should all be trying to develop. So you talk about the small challenges that we know, the the the cheap meals, all that kind of stuff. Well, again, I would argue that if if you're clear in what you're trying to achieve, then if you can't win in the small challenges, then you've got no chance when the big problems present themselves. So just habitually doing the right thing, habitually doing what you say you will do, habitually um role modelling the right behaviours, both to yourself when you look yourself in the mirror, but also to those people around you. They are the they are the wins and they become the big things. Um, so how do we do that? Well, we I was again, uh we spoke about this earlier. I was quite lucky in the sense that we were able to do an awful lot of training around these problems. And again, if you can't be, if you can't control the inner critic in a training environment, then you've got much less chance of being able to manage it in an operating environment or a real environment. Um so we would ensure that our training was very real so that we were giving ourselves these experiences where we were afforded the chance to try and manage this stress, manage this inner critic, and and um more times than not win win that win that um wrestle with with it. Uh an example I've got is um so when I when I first joined um Special Forces, again, I passed the course and again wrongly thought I was an absolute legend. You know, that is something I'd strive for for many, many years. Thought I was you know top of my game, thought brilliant. Uh the first tour that I went on, we went to uh went to uh in Iraq, and that was within the first six months of of being in the unit. And again, within that tour ticked every single box that I could have ever dreamed for. Everything I'd read about within special forces, I'd got to do really some really tough, crunchy challenges, um, working with the very best people, really um dangerous environment, but equally we had a really successful tour. And um I I was on I was on a high, I was riding the crest of a wave. This is exactly that I wanted to do, kind of sitting on the edges of helicopters, flying low level over Baghdad at night, thinking this is this is the stuff my boyhood dreams were made of at the time. Then Afghanistan was was growing up and it was growing into a bit of a bit of a monster and becoming more problematic than it had been the the years before. Um and friends that I was that I knew that were working over there started to become taking casualties, and then there's a few fatalities, and I was like, wow, these people are really good, and they they've been shot, killed, um, unfortunately, um uh injured in IEDs, things like that. And I was like, wow, how if they can be hurt, then then how can I? Why why why won't I be able to? And and how will I be able to manage over there? That started to sow this seed inside my mind. Um then a very good friend of mine just running off the back of a helicopter, um, a guy called Mike Jones was was was shot and killed instantly. And Mike was one of the best guys that I'd ever had the pleasure of working with, and he was like, Well, if that can happen to Mike, then it can certainly happen to me. Um and I was due to deploy, um, and again, um good friend of mine, Foxy, off of the telly, um, a few weeks before I flew, rang me, and uh, he'd been out there and he was, you know, telling me some stories, but equally sharing the most juicy stories as we like to do, and naturally there's a bit of storyteller's license or a bit of um um extra spice put into these stories, and um that started to impress on me that this was a really tasty place that I probably wasn't as well prepared as I thought I was, to the point where when we did a handover operation, so we uh we went out there, I went over there with a kind of advanced group, a small group as one of the junior leaders, but leadership nonetheless, went over there early. Um, and the team that were out there the night before we landed, another good friend of mine, um Billy, had been shot very badly a number of times in the in the hips and legs. And uh at that point we didn't know if he was going to survive, but we didn't know if he was gonna lose the ability to walk and all sorts, and Billy again was a top-top guy, top operator. And I was like, wow, they've been out there for six months, and they're still the night before we got there, they had an operation like this where um it all went wrong on the face of it, and they were telling me absolute horror stories of what happened, and I was literally petrified as to what I was letting myself into. Uh, we needed to do a handover operation, we needed to do a mission where they we we we hand over, they they share their experiences, they take us through the process, we go out and do an operation. They naturally were going home the next few days, they didn't want to take as much risk as they had been taking because they were going home to rightly so the friends and family. And so they put the advanced party, the the kind of newer people in in country out first. Um, and the whole flight, and we had a two and a half, three hour flight to where we were going in Afghanistan that night. The whole flight there, all I could think about in my mind, the inner critic took over was was what happened to Mike or what happened to Billy. The operation with regards to what happened with Billy looked very similar from what I could see in my mind in this picture that I had painted. Um, and I was the front man, and I was thinking, well, if it can happen to Billy, it can happen to me. So when I ran off the back of the helicopter, if I'm honest with myself, I was absolutely petrified. Didn't want to present that to anybody else. I was just wearing all this stress inside, and my performance, because of the inner critic and the voice that was in my head, I it was shockingly bad. Like, like fortunately, nothing catastrophic happened. Fortunately, um, there was a great team around me and a few others that I'm sure were uh crap in their pants too. Um, but it all what also happened is a very good friend of mine that had been out there for six months gave me some feedback. And it wasn't the feedback I wanted, it was guys, you were pretty crap last night. What happened? What happened? And uh and it was this reality of wow, if I want to do this job, if I want to really perform at the highest level, like I'd lined myself up to do, like I'd passed this really hard course, I thought that was the entry exam that I needed. Yes, but we're on this fast-moving train that is always improving, this unrelenting pursuit of excellence. If you want to get on the train of unrelenting pursuit of excellence, you never stop learning, you never stop growing, you never stop developing, and why should you? Um, and so I had to look at myself in the mirror and go, if you want to be here, and and what I'll say also is if I'd have left the organiser, put my hand up at that point and said, Look, this isn't for me, no one would have shamed me because it isn't a job that everybody would want to, should want to do. Um, it was what I'd lined myself up for, and my ideal self was serving in this organization. And so I had to do some self-reflection and I had to start working on the things that I could control, and that's the thing that we're talking about here with the inner critic. Like when you uh you're aware that the inner critic or the inner commentator, the inner voice is talking to you, okay, self-awareness, this is happening. What is it that I can control in this situation? Am I worrying about things that are well out of my control? For example, my old world, fly into a very dangerous area. The reason that we're that we used to be sent there is because it was a very complex, dangerous area. Um, and that was why we'd put ourselves at the front, that's why we'd volunteered. Now, nobody else was going to try and solve that problem. Let's say there's a hostage somewhere, nobody else, there's no local police that can go and rescue that person in these parts of the world. So we had to come up with a best plan we could. What could we control in that moment? Well, our planning we could control. On the flight there, we would always talk about within the orders process a number of things, but what it always sticks out in my mind very clearly, one of the things we talk about is the mission. What is it we're trying to achieve? Well, in this event, we're trying to achieve the um rescue the hostage, let's say. So that's the goal, that's the mission. Um, it's an important one, and we've attached a lot of importance to it. That person's life becomes very important to as we deeply care about trying to save that person's life. Um, that that gives us the ability to walk towards the problem because it's you know there's a lot of risk there. Um, we'd also talk about two other things that always stood out in my mind. The enemy's most likely course of action. So the thing that we thought that the enemy was most likely to do in each single event. So when I say enemy might be competitor in your old world, Ben. Um and when I was flying in a helicopter to a dangerous area and we were going by a helicopter, and because of various different reasons we wanted to land exactly where we thought the hostage was, the most likely thing that the enemy would likely do was to shoot at the helicopter often. Now that's really risky, actually, and the inner critic could play games with you there and go, Well, actually, what if you get shot through the helicopter? What if you run off the back and get shot? Well, are those things in your control in that moment? Well, actually, no, they're not. Or if there are, are there contingencies that you can do to try and help that situation? But there becomes a point where realistically there's nothing you can do to control that. What the opposition do, what that your lead competitors do, is often outside of your control. What's in control is what you can do. And when you start to focus on the controllables, control the controllables is what people talk about, then you start to develop processes and ways to focus on these controllables. And ultimately that's what we're talking about here with the inner critic, is drawing it back to am I catastrophizing about things outside of my control? And there's various different strategies we have to talk about this and to help people with this, or am I can I focus on the things that are within my control? Because when we focus on the things in our control, we have agency in it, and we can really help ourselves and we become more self-disciplined, and and and the rest really follows from that. So I guess that's quite a long-winded answer.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

No, it's a great it's great, and I've got a few follow-ups there. Firstly, the feedback that you got, how how did you take that initially straight away?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Oh, really first first, it it hurt me so bad. Like, this is someone I deeply cared about. We'd gone through the selection process together. He'd gone out to Afghanistan six months before me, just because of the nature of the squadron that he'd been selected to go to and had picked up some incredible experiences and was some way ahead of me because of that, those rich experiences that he'd had for six months in Afghanistan. Like, if you'd have put us on, as far as our metrics, measured our metrics in that game, the ability to manage stress, manage pressure, um, shooting accuracy, all these kind of random metrics, he would have been far out ahead of me because of those experiences that he'd been afforded of that operational tour, that very busy operational tour. And I could recognise that change in him when I saw him. And so for him to give me that feedback, oh, what's going on? That hurt me so bad. But I wanted to face that problem. And I think this is when we talk about being self-disciplined. Receiving feedback is hard, it's really hard, and it hurts sometimes. It hurts if you care, but the fact that you care is a good thing because when you deflect feedback and you try and pretend you don't care, then you're never going to improve. And so that feedback really, really hurt me. Um, and it took a lot of humility, which again is some a tenant that had been impressed on me. Uh, part of the Royal Marine ethos is is uh humility to really be humble and to constantly that unrelenting pursuit of excellence means you are going to be tested, and that means you're going to fail sometimes. And that that evening I failed, but that didn't mean that that was the end of the show for me. It far from it, it meant that I just needed to improve, and that's what I set out to do.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

And that um so once you uh you you knew that well you after that that that moment where you knew you hadn't performed as you wanted to, so ultimately in your head, that's a fail for you. And we talked we we talked previously of going through fail, learn, adapt, innovate, but fail, learn, adapt. How long did it take you once did that failed to actually learn from it?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Oh, I learned almost instantly. The pain of someone telling me that I needed to learn was was the lesson that I needed, and I cared what he thought of me. Um, my professionalism, um, my self-discipline that I wanted deeply to be a part of and accepted by this team. Um, and I knew that I had to step up my game, and so I learnt immediately. Now the changes didn't happen overnight. Now I had to apply myself for many hours on some of the skills that I had to learn so that I made them more automated, so I had more capacity in my thinking, I had more situational awareness to actually be able to think better, think more calmly, to learn to self-regulate myself better so that I could be because calm is contagious, right? If you can if you can be calm in a situation, then the people around you are calm. If you're on edge, if you're edgy, if you're overexcited and you're not performing your best because of that, then the team around you won't. And so I knew I had to learn to develop the skills that just control myself better, you know. And that the the butterflies in my stomach is a that performance anxiety is common across everyone. Everybody in any background, um, I knew I I had to learn to work with that rather than fight against it and try and get to a place where it's not happening because it that just isn't how the body works, right? If you're doing something really important to you, you care, and that means that you have these feelings about how well you do. Well, there's you've got to learn to regulate that and be quite uh prepared in what you do. And I it took me many, many weeks to improve some of the skills. I'm uh I'm an unfinished business now, you know. I I'm I'm an unfinished product where I'm still constantly learning and I get things wrong all the time now, and and I still try and seek feedback to ensure that I'm not just keep tripping over the same things time and time again. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Yeah, it's uh this is a million miles away from the stories you've just told. But one of the thoughts I just had in my head is that in the sporting context, often kind of the the fringe staff members that are volunteers in the the you know, they they could be volunteers in you know seriously big football clubs, it might be a kit man or assistant kit man or um the guy that gives out the gives the tea to the referees at half time. I remember we had a masseur once and they I felt you know you can feel quite chilled going going to the change rooms for a game and then he'd stress you out because he was so he was so up for it, as often all the volunteers they were more invested perhaps sometimes than the full-time managers. Um how would you would you have any any in that context perhaps and or in yeah, as you're about to go into performance and you need to feel an element of relaxed, you know, get the and and it was a question I had for you later really around um and I've heard you talk about arousal levels, and get that right personally between the right level of arousal for what you're about to do, but also for the people around you to recognize when somebody's under or over aroused. That's an art, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:29

It's it's an art that's born out of experiences, right? And so practice is the answer. We we have to practice this, we have to pressure test our training so that it's bringing out these character characteristics within ourselves of maybe a new, fresh, novel experience might be a um, you know, psychologists would say over-arousal, wouldn't they? So over-arous, and we get over excited, and we're not um we're not performing to our best when we're um we're too excited. Um so practicing in uh situations where you're able to pressure test that is is key. And but you have to do you have to learn the skills first, and and the basic fundamentals have to be born first, and then we have to layer on different layers of difficulty to the training to ensure that it becomes pressure tested when the time's right. Putting people under too much pressure too soon, they're not going to learn. And the key thing really is to keep learning and developing, uh, and that's born out of really good, solid instruction and coaching, and then layering on the difficulty levels to the point where you know, my experiences on operations, you know, that's still a learning environment, right? And and every single operation, we would create the ability to feedback and to learn from that, and and that's that's absolutely critical. With regard, I'm smiling to myself because when you when you asked about um recognizing it other in others, so uh I've got this one scenario where um, again, and a key lesson for me, and again, even further down my career, where as a more experienced leader um I got called out and I had some learning to do. And I again can't go into too much of the details, but we were in a a various um um operating arena and uh we'd been caught in an ambush. Uh we had hook line and sink sinker been drawn into uh something we shouldn't by day, which was again so different to where we should have been working. Um we should have been moving at night, keeping all the um chips, chips with us, but we uh we didn't, we got we got drawn into uh a situation to try and rescue somebody um by day, and we just stretched ourselves too far. And we got caught in an ambush, long story short. Um, easiest way for me to describe it is like I was absolutely certain I was probably about to die. And this the I was lay on my belly and we were on a billiard table, flat bit of desert. Um, I felt like the proverbial sort of turd on a snooker table. I I stood out like that, and there was this big mountain in front of us with a defended position, bunkers built into the mountain, and they were just firing at us. We were in a really, really bad spot, and uh it was yeah, that you know, we would talk about the inner critic and self-talk at that point. You know, that's the a time when you know I was thinking pretty bad things. Positive psychology in that moment wasn't going to work, and we can maybe unpick that a bit in a minute. Um, we had various different well-versed practices that in that situation are the only things you can do, and so an anti-ambush drill, we enacted the anti-ambush, it was called this play was called. We we made the play and we started to take uh control of what we could control. Fortunately, my team, there were six of us, got out of that problem and we met up with uh other members of our teams. The experienced person, the most experienced person on the ground actually, recognised in me in that moment I was amped. I thought I just about to. I mean, it was reasonable that I was amped. I was I was absolutely amped. I was uh firing way too, I was being too loud, I was too edgy, I was all I wasn't in control. I I you know I I felt like I'd just escaped death. And uh this this this guy this guy's uh people listening if they they know of anyone in special forces, they know this guy. This guy's called Yoda. Um and uh Yoda said to me, Gaz, chill out. Now I didn't appreciate that comment in the moment because he hadn't been faced with what I'd just been faced, and I felt we'd been out on the limb for far too long. I thought I had reason to be angry, I had reason to be frustrated with my situation, but he also needed he also knew in that moment that I was possibly, if I stayed at that level, wouldn't perform to the level that I needed to because the game wasn't over, we just escaped the ambush situation, we had to resolve the problem, which was well what now? So he knew he needed me thinking better, so he gave me some pretty harsh feedback that again critical of how I was being in the moment, and if I wanted to take um offense at that, I could have easily because it was like, Who are you to tell me in this moment to chill out? I've just nearly been killed, right? He was in this situation with me, but I deeply cared about Yoda, what he care what he thought about me in this situation, and in the moment I realized I had to do something with my level of arousal. Now that wasn't easy, and I had to control it and I had to calm down. And fortunately, that situation we all got out of there alive, and the the mission as a whole was uh seen to be an incredible success. Um, and it was experienced people like that in the heat of the moment that can recognize the key individuals, I guess, looking back that the people that they need to intervene with have that quiet word in the shoulder, that courageous conversation of sort yourself out, chill out, you need to you need to have a think about what you're doing right now, whatever that might be. Um, and if you again, if you're all aligned with your purpose of what you're trying to achieve, then the best people will be able to make those corrective changes, and I think that's key. Um, so wisdom, experience, and that cool head in a very heated moment, they are the people that you should be able to rely on. It's the the best people come out in those situations where they're they're being pressure tested, but they can still remain calm and can actually um think better, and and that's ultimately what what we were trying to achieve.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

Have you yeah, thanks for sharing that. Um have you had that situation before where not everyone's aligned, where that, for example, the the um the play that you just you just talked about somebody's thinking differently.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Um yes, now I have, and you have a very short window to try and correct that was my next whole thinking. So again, this is where training and practice comes in because the more you trained and practiced, you've got more experiences to lean on, and the brain loves patterns, and when you recognize that something is starting to go wrong, the sooner you can catch that the better. Now, in an emergency situation, people like abnormal behavior in an abnormal situation is perfectly normal, so you've got to expect that people act abnormally if they're if they're in an abnormal situation, if you're the wise person, if you're the experienced person, then you have to recognise these problems early and try and nip it in the bud. And so, yes, many, many times, and I'd like to think that we never let I I certainly never let things progress to a point where things were catastrophically going wrong. We couldn't afford to allow that to happen. We would train these things so that we would build these patterns so that we could catch them early enough so that when we were doing it for real in operations, you know, where there was no support to come and help us to come fish us out of that problem, that we could catch these problems early enough, or just switch what we were doing and uh be agile enough to to to make the make the changes that were needed to to change the result.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

There's there's a lot a lot bouncing around my head now because I've got some stuff that we talked about over lunch around uh perhaps some common um agreement around uh hot reviews in sport and why they aren't done a bit more and and how you would do a hot review after after anything that you've done. Yep. Um and also I'm keen to go back into this the positive psychology as as well. So let's start with that actually. Um when you're on the floor and you were thinking your life was at risk, your head's not suddenly gonna think, right, gaz, just be positive psychology, gaz, you're the best, you're number one. Um that there is obviously use for positive psychology in certain ways. What's your view on on what what's your view on that? Because you also talk about the negative, neutral, and positive.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Yeah, so uh I'm quite a practical person. I love psychology. I've I I studied it at college and I've always looked through my career through the lens of it. And I work now with a performance psychologist, Dr. Martin Jones, and I love picking his brain and his thinking on some of this stuff because I'm I'm passionate about it. Um and I 100% buy in to positive psychology being research-proven fact. I'm happy with that. However, I'm a very practical person, and there's some scenarios where I can't buy in to the positivity needed to think that every situation is a good one because that that just isn't real to me. Um let's be pragmatic about it. There's sometimes bad things are gonna happen and there's gonna be the world isn't fair, so let's not let's not just always think like that because we're on a hide into nothing if that is the case. So um, in the situation that I spoke about earlier, let's say we're in an ambush, um when you genuinely think that there's no end to a problem or that your life is on the line, trying to throw into some positive psychology in that moment isn't believable. You you won't your body your mind won't believe it. So just saying to yourself, Gaz, who dares wins? That isn't going to work in that scenario. But what I also accept is the negative catastrophizing about what the so what's could happen from that, they're also not real. They're then they're as unreal as the positive outcomes that you could imagine. Um, none of it actually is real. So let's accept that the negative thinking, the catastrophizing about a particular problem, we accept that that isn't useful. Let's accept that right now I can't um be super positive about this situation because it feels really dark and bad. But what can I do? And this is where I talk about neutral thinking. So dragging ourselves from the negative up to the neutral at least and saying, Well, what are the things that I can, what are the steps that I can make to change this situation? Just the smallest of ways, if if that's all I can do to change the circumstance, just that small bit. And then when you take that first step, you're then able to take a second step. And once you get to a certain point, you're able to see a way out of a problem, but you won't, you won't get to that state if you're just wallowing in self-pity. You won't necessarily get to that state if you're just being um unrealistic with a load of uh positive woo, right? Because it's just not practical. And sometimes I'm convinced we just have to be as practical as possible and just take the steps and create the process that will that will move us towards the resolution rather than um just wishing it'll happen.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

You you I I'm a big fan in um podcasts of providing some practical tools, and I think you've already given a c a couple. I'm now thinking of that situation. Again, you won't be able to see this because it we it that we're on audio only, but when Gaz was talking about the ambush, he looked up into a mountain. We're not in a mountain, so but I can imagine he's immediately visualized. We talked about actually the power of visualization. Um but you'd also have been doing something with your breathing at that point, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Yep, so um the the for sure, the quickest way to change the body's state is through the breath. Again, if I I love podcasts, much like yourself, Ben. Um, and there's a podcast by Andrew Huberman, the Huberman Podcast. I don't know if you're familiar. Like his uh professor uh neuroscience out of Stanford University. Um he was gonna come on my podcast and then he made it onto the Joe Rogan podcast, and I've not heard from him since. So his profile's blown up a little, but I love I love Andrew Huberman's work. And um again, his research lab has proven the fastest way to change your state is through breathwork. Um, that works both ways. Most people think that the brain informs the body. Well, what research so shows us is that the majority of signals heading into the brain are informing the brain, and then we interpret that message. And so, in a anxious, in a scared, in a fearful state, naturally, because of the adrenaline, the cortisol that's been released, pumped into our body, automatically, with which we're completely out of control, our breathing rate will shallow and speed up, shallow will um become more shallow and quicker. So that is an automatic reaction. Now, we're really lucky with the diaphragm, we can take conscious control over it. And so when we recognize that we're feeling edgy, when we recognize that we're feeling a bit nervous or about a situation or we're scared, we can take conscious control over our breathing. And if you can get your ultimately to distill it down, if you can get your breath down to six breaths a minute or less, those messages that the body sends, uh, the positive effects of the right amount of oxygen going around your body, etc., as well. But the the positive messages that your body receives from um uh hundreds of thousands of bits of information into your brain tells the brain that everything's okay. So calm breath, slower breath breathing, when you can will reduce all of that pressure. Now, this is for me, this is where yoga, this is where meditation has its effects. I I don't practice uh yoga myself, but I do and have been coached in and have coached others in uh breath work, and for me that's where we can have the the best wins with it comes to um a positive performance output on our on our bodies with with changing our breath and slowing our breathing down normally. So bringing that arousal level down to a more calm state where we can think straighter because our breathing is at a much slower controlled rate. Um I've got uh another story if you don't mind around that. So we had a um so I mentioned earlier about the selection process. If you pass the jungle, you're pretty much there's a lot anywhere on the directing staff team now will be going, no, that's a load of rubbish. You're not you're not determined to pass. But if you pass the jungle, you chances are that you uh you're going to pass selection. Part of one of the phases that you've got to still complete is the parachuting phase. Um, very, very few people fail that because ultimately the you're doing static line parachuting, and if you can bring yourself to jump out of the aircraft, the the parachute will open itself. Um again on a square controllable parachute, but it's uh it's gonna be it's gonna open 99.99% of the time. Well, we had a guy that um um kept failing, kept failing his his his parachute course, and the instructors said I got a phone call from the uh it's the RAF that managed that part of the process, and they got a call, I got a call from the gas, one of your guys, um, mention his name. He keeps failing. And we he's a liability. We can't pass him on this stage. And I was like, okay, can can I have a chat with him? So we got him down, and I was like, Um, you know, this is the situation. And I was like, just explain to me what's what's happening when you're jumping out of the plane, and it ultimately wasn't doing the right drills, you want the correct drills. And he was like, Oh Gaz, he says, you know what it's like when you jump out, and for the next five or six seconds, you've just got no idea what's going on, and then you're just out of the washing machine. And I was like, No, when I jump out of the plane, that's the bit that I'm concentrating on what's happening precisely, so that if something bad happens, that you know I can do what I need to do. And he's like, All right, and ultimately he was he was um he was overly aroused, he was stressing, he was wasn't controlling himself and he was panicking, fight flight mode had kicked him. Um so what we got him to do is in that moment, and we got him to describe, and he, yeah, he had loads of fear about the parachute not opening and doing the wrong thing and hitting the ground and dying. It's a perfectly reasonable fear, but actually, how realistic is it? Well, it's actually very unlikely, and so we we built a process around his breath work and we we we coach box breathing. Um, I know some of the listeners will be familiar with that, I'm more than happy to uh explain in more detail if required, but just create giving him a process to focus on his breath work, which gets his breathing to less than six breaths a minute, six breaths a minute or less, and uh but also to take his mind off the catastrophes that might happen, and so it gives him something to think about in the moment because normally our breath work is unconsciously controlled. Well, making ourselves conscious of it and forcing ourselves to manage this really strange paced breathing cycle um forces us to think, and the brain can't think about two things at once, and so once we get people thinking about their breath work in this in this box, um, they're not catastrophizing about all the things that are very unlikely anyway, and so it's about controlling the controllables again. So um that's one of the one of the tools that we help people.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:02

You did would you have done the bottle test as well in the the pool in the back, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

Oh, yeah, yeah, the back the the sort of uh did anyone have any problems with that? So it's quite a funny story actually. So the stuff that they do on the the um the test on the TV show that where they fall off the diving board and lean back. That was born out of our briefing course. So that that whole test was born out of the SBS briefing course, where if I'm honest, for and I remember going through it as a student, the the the instructors would get us on top of that diving board, and the test was to just lean back and fall backward into off quite a high diving board into the into the switch. All in the dark, um or not, sometimes, sometimes yeah. Um we would later train that in the dark on the briefing course, it was done by day, and I'd explain in light, sorry, and explain why. Because I'm convinced that 90 nine 95% of that test is purely for the instructor's amusement, and because every single time someone would fail the bottle test, every single time someone in a group of 20 or 30 people would bottle it, they would fold themselves in half, they would make an incredibly tough landing into the pool, they would whimper as they're coming down, and we just got mildly amused by that. And so, in fact, some instructors would come and members of the camp would come to come and watch that exercise because it was entertainment and it was no one could seriously get hurt, it was into a summing pool, but uh uh it was quite amusing, and yeah, every single time that we ran that test out, some people would would bottle it, and that isn't to say that that's a bad thing necessarily, it's it just shows that they need to work on a particular area. We wouldn't, we'd very rarely for that test in particular, we would very rarely uh fail somebody for that. They would maybe have to run it again, maybe one or two times or later in the week. But um, that's just says to us that they need to work on this self-regulation that I spoke about earlier because they are catastrophizing about what happens. That's the reality. They're fear in face planting, they're fearing the pain that's about to come their way. Even if you've got incredibly bad land, uh, an incredibly bad landing and you've got clothes on, which we typically get guys to do it in uniform, um, camouflage uniform, then it wouldn't hurt, even if you got it wrong. But they were fearing that it would. It's like the uh uh sparring analogy of you know, you the fear of when you step into the ring, um, actually, when you get punched in the face, it's not as bad as you as you think. And so then the kind of um your anxiety lowers from that point onwards. But uh it's exactly the same. It's it's just sometimes we have to that's the that's the self reflection. Was it as bad as I expected that it was going to be? No, it wasn't. So let's try and work on this fear that I've got when I'm in this moment next time.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

Yeah. I mean, I use I use the box breathing um myself and try to use it with some of my athletes, but it's become a bit of a trend now. I was watching the World Sevens uh in London a few weeks ago, and at half time every team would do some deep breathing. They'd be the and and I'm I'm all for that, but I'm also thinking, well, there's some critical moments in game. I remember talking to a striker that plays at a high level in um in the Premier League, and ask them, you know, what they do with their breathing. And they they there's totally unaware of yeah, so when they've missed a chance or you know whatever it is, and and often there's moments where they're having to having ups and downs of anxiety, adrenaline, good and bad, and they've got an opportunity there to do some decent breathing, and it's neither coaches or um or athletes generally pick up on those things in order they when they're executing a task. So I imagine there's some certain tasks that you would execute where there's some breathing involved for the exactly. Well, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

So again, quite a good example, I think, of what you're talking about. So we would again, we were heavy on training, very, very heavy, and training was progressive, and uh we would take it to the nth degree with how challenging it could be, so that when it happened for real, we were as as many patterns and practiced as we could be. A lot of what we did with room combat, let's say, room-to-room combat's really challenging. It's it's for real, it it spikes a lot of um pressure in that moment and performance anxiety potentially. Um, and when we're training that, even training it when you know you've got what we describe as live enemy inside the rooms, just paint on paint, maybe imagine paintball, but just with proper equipment. Um when you've got a real person inside a room that if you don't do the drill right is going to shoot you, and that creates an awful lot of anxiety in the people doing it. And we could we used to have these training areas where we had like a gantry over the the top of like maybe five or six interconnected rooms like this, and over the top of that we would have a walkway where the instructors could watch people going around the rooms and observe and ultimately coach. That's what we're looking for. I mean again, I'd I'd love to consult back in now to my old organisations and and try and help with some of this stuff because it's not always, it wasn't always as ran as well as it could be, but the experienced amongst us could always see the people that were there's just a different way of moving when someone is is uh over aroused, they're they're breathing too fast, they're shallow breathing, they're nervous. And the people that have got it, they move around, they move around the uh the rooms like leopards. There's a there's a different pace to them and there's a different level of control to them, and you see it. It's it's you know, it's hard to measure that. You you can with heart rate variability, and we we we did put people on uh heart rate monitors and heart rate variabilities and all kinds of assessments like that. And we could see that you know, in a stack of people before they go into a building, if we're all wearing heart rate monitors and we can see that one person is 20 to 30 beats a minute above everybody else, then hey, just watch his results on the tests and you almost guarantee that he's not going to perform as highly as the rest. Um, because he's oh that's when someone can get some intervention and get some coaching, get stepped out. And we would do that. And again, I always like the analogy of the movement. It's a bit more like a leopard, it's more controlled. You're stalking around the rooms rather than headless chicken, kind of just everything's high energy and just moving too fast because that's not smooth, that's not accurate, that's all these problems. And it's normally the quickest way to coach that out is through breathing and slowing the breathing down in a or or being more controlled in the breathing, making people aware that they're probably shallow breathing. Like you say, most people are unaware of the things that they're doing that are having an effect on their body, their anatomy, that isn't helpful to their output, whatever you're trying to measure, the metric of success. But if you can coach that and say, Well, do you want to be more accurate with your passing? In my case, it was shooting. If you want to be more accurate, then we need to work on your breath work. That's one aspect of it. And there's lots of others, but making people aware and coaching them through that is key.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:52

Yeah, I wonder if because I I'm thinking of that in professional sports terms, and if I'm sticking to football analogies, it's a it's a striker that might have a couple of chances in a game, and if they're been shallow breathing, and then an opportunity comes their way and they you know they don't hit the where they're supposed to hit it. That's a controllable, that's something that we could have fixed.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

It's a close skill, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:13

You know, it's something. I'm wondering if you could be on the touchline almost like a a football whisperer that you could see them running around and see that actually that guy he does he is a bit awkward there, and maybe he needs to sort his breathing out.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:26

Yeah, the the the the old penalty shoot and the free uh goal kicking um analogy with rugby, but the penalty shoot out is the classic, isn't it? Where that's a closed skill that that is manageable. There is always going to be times when people miss for sure, but that is a closed skill where it should be almost identical every single time, and that is that can be practiced. And hey, that's uh there's a there's an awful lot of uh legacy involved with the England football team with regards to that. But yeah, that that kind of that movement, that energy that is recognisable by people that are more experienced, the coaches, etc. And that that is the sort of thing I firmly believe that should be coached and there should be interventions made when people are you know not helping themselves and they're possibly completely unaware.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

Yeah, they'd be totally unaware from from the com conversations I've had, and I think there's a trend um at the top end of sport around this more personalization, individualization, and with that will come all of this awareness, and we've kind of already got some data that's measuring various things, but I think some of these more subtler um performance enhancements I think will be around the corner. And one thing that we both agreed on uh over lunch was why why do we not have more hot reviews in sport? Because it's it's a common thing for you, and a common thing where the stakes have been at a much higher level than you know a match.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

Yeah, yeah, no, um a subject close to my heart, um, and and a subject that I work with a lot of teams with actually because the the feedback loop, whether that's a hot debrief, an after action review, the feedback loop was part of our process. So in training, in operations, every single mission we would have a hot debrief as part of the uh a part of the process. Everybody expected it. There was no one that could shirk it. It was coordinated by people that were both involved and separate to the the mission on the ground. Uh, and the critical reason why it was part of our process is because of this adaptation that we needed to make. We might be getting called out again the next day, or we we kind of hope that we were going again the next day. And so it was important that we learn the lessons. Now, that isn't the lessons of when things have gone wrong solely, that is also the lessons of when things have gone right, and this is what we work with most, a lot of corporate teams with is if something has gone really well, a particular deal or a particular uh negotiation, best we review as to why that went really well because they're the real key lessons that you want to learn and creating a framework to that debrief as to why you think it went well create some structure and affords you the chance to learn the lessons out the back end of that. There's a tendency to really lean into that when things have gone wrong, and so people can point a finger, but again, this again that's not particularly helpful. A feedback after action review session shouldn't be about finding someone to blame, it's about the learning and development. What's the purpose of this? The purpose of the feedback or the after-action review session is everyone's development and getting better at what we do, and if that's the sole purpose, then it's not a finger-poking session and it takes quite a lot of coordinating. In fact, one of the comebacks that I get from sport uh after the game is oh guys, you don't understand in the dressing room, it can be really quite heated when things haven't gone well. And you know, yeah, I understand that. You know, on the battlefield when one of your colleagues has been killed, it gets really heated. That emotion that you feel is present and it takes self-discipline, it takes an awareness as what you this is what we do. This feedback is all about trying to learn, develop, and adapt. And the reason why I think we need to do it sooner rather than later is because as soon as you finish, your mind, as we spoke about visualization, is creating scenarios, is replaying various different events in their minds time and time again. And we need to ensure that we're making that as accurate as possible because people, even though they've lived the same event, and I've got lots of experiences where we've been in missions and 20 people have lived exactly the same event, we'll have 20 different versions of that one event. And what's the point of the hot debrief, the point of the feedback session is to ensure that we've built a picture collectively of what actually happened for real and making it real, and so so then people can go away from that moment with the right information in their head, so that when they're hearing other people talk, or you know, I'm thinking in your world where with sport, whether it's on match of the day, whether it's across Twitter, other people, sometimes role models or experts in their field, are commenting, they haven't got the full picture, and you can deal with that a lot more than the people in the room that were in the arena that fully understand what really went on and why people made certain decisions and why you reacted a certain way because of a decision somebody else made. And hey, it's really hard, it takes effort, it takes people to want to try and go through that process, um, and it won't go well every single time. And there's a lot of coordination that needs from experienced people to ensure that tempers don't fray, to ensure that the right things are said and that that there is learnings at the back end of it. That's vitally important because ultimately it is about what you learn and then being able to adapt to that. But no, this is something we work on with new numerous teams actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:57

And the rewards are way outweigh any sort of risk to disrupting a few things.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

100%. The problems any business team is going to face is going to be completely always evolving. So you've got to evolve, you've got to adapt, and that is going to come from what it is you're learning out of the successes and failures that you have, your team have. You know, personally, I've got you know, I keep a bit of a journal. Most days I'm I'm my wins at the end of the day, I'm I'm noting what went on, what didn't go so well, and what I can do about it as part of my process, so that I've got the same kind of small intervention that I can keep making. So I'm not tripping over the same problems when it comes to my own personal life. And then with the teams that I work with, I can authentically say to them, hey, I still practice this myself. This is still part of my process. Um, so that when we're getting them to think about their actions and when we're getting them to think about their team's actions, that it's uh they've got some um yeah, that it's it's real, it's exactly as it, you know, as as we talked about talking about now.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:57

Look, I've I've already taken up a lot of your very valuable time and I've got um a ton of other questions, but um I think we'll just finish with I know on on your website you've got a list of your of books that you recommend, but again, off you asked me this question earlier and I'll fire it back to you. You know, is there is there one book if you know someone's about to jump on a plane and go on a holiday and go, right, get this from Amazon before you leave?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:25

Yeah, so I mean I I love books, I I I read a lot of books, it drives my wife crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:31

Um just sorry, I I just want to interrupt you. Um you also had a really good tip for that for for listeners that have got kids around around books.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:42

Yeah, no, absolutely. No, in our house, um again, for any parents out there, um I've got I've got four children um from nearly 13 down to nine, and um they are fixated on their phones and iPads, and we do our absolute best to drag them off them. And so in our house, we've got a policy that if there is an unlimited budget for books. So if they want any book, if they want it is a a reading book, not not comic books, etc. But if they um an unlimited budget for any books that they they want when we we just buy it, and Amazon's amazing with children, modern children, instant gratification, it can be there later that day, which again is a real reward for them for saying to us that they want a book. But no, I I love to digest books and um I do so regularly. Um, it's definitely one of the things that puts me in my green zone, my recovery zone, and I just love to learn. So, with with the topics that we've spoken about today, I think a good one would be um, if you're familiar, Chatter by Ethan Kroos. I don't know if you're familiar. So, Ethan Kroos, K-R-O-S-S, uh chatter, and it's all about the inner critic, it's all about the voice inside our head. Uh, is an American psychologist that's done an awful lot of work in sport, elite American sport around this too. It's fascinating. And it also within it has got a number of tools and strategies for yourself and for your team around self-talk. So, uh, yeah, I think it'd be quite useful.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:05

Yeah, it's about to get ordered in about two minutes. Um last question really is a recommendation for podcasts outside your one, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

Yep. Um, I've mentioned Andrew Human. I genuinely like that. It might be a bit science and techie for a lot of people. Um, and I think a lot of your listeners will be familiar with um the high performance podcast. Um, I'm sure. Um and I and I and I love that podcast by the way. Um have you been on that? Um, I haven't been on it. No, I haven't been on it. Um, but um the one that I also have got real into of late is the diary of a CEO. Yes, Stephen Bartlett. He's brilliant, isn't it? Brilliant. And I think he's recently been and toured in America, and uh the American tour that he's done, he's opened up some amazing conversations, like some of the best podcasts I've ever heard in in recent months that that Step Bartlett's put out there. It's just absolutely brilliant. So, yeah, I love that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:57

And and if I if I was to chuck, I said it was the last question, but have you got any quotes that you you like to roll out?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:04

Um, I love a good quote. I think I think I think what I said earlier about um I I love a good quote, but sort of an abnormal situation, an abnormal behaviour in an abnormal situation is is completely normal. Be easier on people when they're in new, fresh environments, be more understanding of why people make really strange decisions when they're under pressure, um, and just be kinder in that way and understand that every opportunity, whether it's a success or a failure, is an opportunity to learn. Um, and the the learning is the key element in all of that, and people will learn by their mistakes if it's if it's done in a caring-loving way. Um, so yeah, I I guess I guess that one helps.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:45

Cracking, yeah. Look, I'm sure the listeners, it will shine through what a brilliant man Gaz is. But but thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:52

My absolute pleasure, Ben. Been a pleasure. Top man. So if you've made it to this point in the conversation uh and the podcast, thank you. Uh I'm always grateful for people's time and uh some of their attention, not in a needy way, but uh certainly in a way of uh that that it's clearly connected and you've enjoyed the content, I hope, up to this point. So um I don't often do this, but it's I often get prodded and reminded that this is an essential part of the podcast growth. Um, it is definitely a sideline project for me, but the the podcast continues to grow and uh I value uh that and the benefit it has for some people and the little and the learnings that we get out of it ultimately. So if you have the time, feedback on the whatever subscriber that you're using, whether that's Apple or Spotify or any of the others that it's out there on, if you could take a moment to uh like feedback, make a positive comment, uh any comment is is is useful. So really uh grateful for any of that that you could if you if you've got the time. So it really does help it, helps other people to find it and ultimately um spread the message that we're trying to spread. So again, thank you for your time and uh until next time.