S17, Ep5 Bear Grylls on turning fear into courage

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1:16Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Bear Grylls has so many achievements to his name that it's hard to list them all. But for starters, he's climbed Everest, circumnavigated the British Isles on a jet ski, rode naked in a bathtub along the Thames and set a world record for the highest open-air formal dinner party under a hot air balloon at 7 ,600 metres while wearing full mess dress and an oxygen mask.

2:11All of this might sound a bit exhausting to an average punter, but Grylls is a former soldier in the British Special Forces and, over the years, has become one of the most recognised faces of survival and outdoor adventure. He starred in seven seasons of the Discovery Channel's Emmy Award-nominated Man vs. Wild, reaching an estimated 1.2 billion viewers. The global hit TV show, Running Wild with Bear Grylls, featured celebrity guests such as Julia Roberts, Roger Federer, and President Barack Obama trying to survive extremes. Grylls' autobiography, Mud, Sweat and Tears, spent 15 weeks at number one in the Sunday Times bestseller list, and he has written over 90 books, selling in excess of 20 million copies worldwide.

2:57His latest, Never Give Up, was published in 2021. Grylls is an honorary colonel to the Royal Marines Commandos, the youngest ever UK chief scout, and an OBE. But despite, or perhaps because of, all this success, he's also someone who shares my attitude to failure. According to Grylls, Dealing with failure has been the key to any success in my life. Bear Grylls, welcome to How to Fail. Gosh, yeah. Your life in a nutshell. Sweet introduction. I mean, I sit there thinking the alternative one might be more like, Grylls is much less sure of himself than that other introduction might make out. He's been hiding in the loo downstairs for the last 10 minutes and clutches his cup of tea frantically as a nervous sort of, you know.

3:51And of his 96 books, he's written 15 of them are colouring in books for kids. So that might be a more honest one. But I appreciate your introduction. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Are you actually nervous? I spend so much of my life nervous. And I always kind of hope and think that as I get older and do more, see more, survive more, scrape through more things, the nerves would get better but actually I think I think they probably get worse but I've learned not to run from them and to be okay with them and to treat it like a friend and to treat it like you know what it means we're we're on the edge you know my edge might get less extreme but we're on the edge and we're doing stuff and we're and you've got to keep that muscle that inner muscle kind of going haven't you and trying to do the difficult stuff so I do struggle a lot with nerves but that's okay.

4:44When you say you think that they've got worse, is that because you're aware that you have more to lose the older you get? I think it's more that I think the public persona because of the TV shows where everything's always great and the music's thumping, we're swinging off everything and diving in and, you know, taking amazing people on great adventures and, you know, it feels ever more inflated, like the perfect, so the great stuff goes out there. That's what gets shown. and I suppose the nerves in me come from I feel the gulf between that and actually you know the real person gets bigger but I haven't changed it's just that balloons got more inflated and sort of bigger and suddenly you know I start off climbing with my dad as a kid and then that grew into something else and then before I knew it we'd start a little club at a school and then there you go and then you join the army and then you start going up in that one then you try some expeditions and the mountains get bigger and the balloon sort of gets bigger and before you know at the TV shows and then they get bigger.

5:42But over here on this hand, I'm still that same kid who wants to climb up the tree and hide away, scared of getting my GCSE envelope through the door. You know, nothing's really changed. So I think if I'm being really honest, the nerves come from aware of that probably not as great and strong and brave and brilliant as sometimes the TV shows make out. But I've also learned that that is okay. You know, we're all human. The more we're vulnerable with people, the more connection we create with people. And the real wealth in all of our lives always comes through connection, whether it's with our kids or with our spouse or with our friends or with an audience.

6:24So I'm not afraid to share that, but it is probably the truth. Apart from the SAS and the Daring Do and the Naked Bathtubs and the global TV success and the best-selling books, I feel like we're the same person. because everything you've just said there is exactly what I think. And I relate so deeply. And it's an incredibly beautiful thing for you to share at the top of this interview, because now there's already that profound connection. Yeah. I completely... Well, it's so important. You know, you've got to have that, haven't you? And I think I've learned it so much as well in the speaking world, which was such a big part of my world before the TV stuff.

7:01And I still do a lot of it. The adventure world is full of very butch, alpha, black jackets, muscles, you know. And it's never interested me, you know, from early days, really, even from the military stuff. Actually, ironically, even though I was in a, you know, a regiment, you know, in 21 SAS, which was on the surface of it all quite gung-ho. The irony is the guys were the most grounded, real, honest, often vulnerable people and not the gung-ho ones. So I always kind of found a home from early years in that ethos. But I've learned with speaking, you know, I do the motivational stuff and some, you know, explorer will come before and speak and stand up.

7:42And nobody cares how much it's that thing. And nobody, what is it? Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And it's that same sort of thing. If nobody cares how many things you've conquered or flags or summits you've planted, it has no meaning unless there's honesty and fragility with it. And I've just learned through experience that the more you share the struggles, the other stuff has meaning anyway. You talk a lot about the danger of ego and you write a lot about that in a way that I find really fascinating. And I suppose the irony is that TV and a TV career in many ways can fuel an ego and speak to it and make it bigger.

8:21So is that something that you struggle with? Do you watch yourself back on TV ever? I used it in the very early days I did and then wince and go, oh, this is terrible. If I had started my career now, I wouldn't have had a career because it would have got canned so early. I think I was lucky that 15 years ago when I started TV, it was less ruthless, I think, TV. And people would give me another chance. You know, our ratings have never been brilliant. We've always just been good enough. And it's just the irony is it's seen us through for year upon year upon year and season upon season because we've just made it, you know.

8:55but I think people backed me in the early years in TV and it gave me enough time took me like four or five years of seasons of shows to begin to learn how to do it so I could get a little better at it but I certainly don't watch any of the shows now I find it too uncomfortable but yeah I just really don't enjoy it and I kind of think you know what I prefer to hang out with up with the boys with the family I've got really other things that would be higher up my motivation of how to spend the time is the honest answer but it's interesting because you know you say tv sort of can fuel the ego stuff and it's interesting i wonder whether just success generally does that you know it doesn't matter what failure i think if you feel you're winning in life that can always be dangerous because it fuels anyone's ego and i think like big mountains it can bring out the best and the worst in people and i think success is like that it can bring out monsters it can create monsters inflate the monsters or it can give you a chance for something beautiful to come out and it's that thing of if you want to see what someone's like give them a hard time but if you want to see what they're really like give them everything I think so much of life is like that and therefore if you are lucky enough to win at a few things whether it's your career or other things be humble because it's kind of there by the grace of God go all of us it's kind of what I feel your new book never give up but you have this line in it about how if you sit on the summit too long you die tell us about that because it's it's true and it's a great metaphor but you climbed everest for one of the youngest people ever to do so and i want to know what that experience was life but it's actually true isn't it that the summit is the most dangerous point so what do you want do you want the physical or do you want the metaphor well start with the physical Okay, I'll tell you what the physical is.

10:42Let's segue into metaphor. The truth is, you stay on the summit's too long, you die. That is a true mantra in terms of high altitude mountaineering. And the most dangerous time is always on the way down because all the focus and the adrenaline is for the top, the dream, the effort. And then you kind of want to be able to click your fingers and be safe and home. But the truth is you're at your furthest point from safety and home. And once that adrenaline and focus goes, it gets replaced fast by fatigue and exhaustion. and look at the story of Spencer's brother on Everest, it's the same thing. It's always on the way down, that descent.

11:19So Spencer and Matthews' brother, and you've just produced this phenomenal documentary about finding... Yeah, called Finding Michael, about Spencer trying to recover his brother's body up there. But so many of the fatalities on the High Mountains happen on that descent for that reason. That adrenaline gets replaced by that deep fatigue. And therefore, in a way, it's easy to be focused. when you're aiming for our summits in life? Everyone has that. The character comes through. Can you be focused not only for your own descent back to real life, but also maybe when you've got to suddenly now help somebody else?

11:52You know, now when things are going wrong, it's that mantra of adventure only happens when things begin to go wrong. You know, it's easy to be gung-ho and great and adrenaline-filled and focused when you know what's happening and you're aiming for that summit, but you really learn about people. It's that same thing. You learn when the things go wrong. when you're fatigued and when the triumph is over. I write about that in the book in the sense that I'm very nervous ever of kind of standing going, look at me, aren't I great? Because the truth is none of us are that great. Most of us, if we get to the top of something in our life, whatever that triumph is, the truth is we tend to stand on the shoulders of many beautiful people and giants who have helped us and been kind to us and encouraged us and supported us and elevated us over themselves.

12:35and therefore to stand on a summit on your own is a lonely place. To stand alongside close friends is beautiful, but above all know that what it's taken to get you there is often the love and the support and the energy of many other people who never get to stand there. Don't sit on the laurels too long is what I'm saying. Don't pat yourself on the back. Get back into the valleys because the valleys is where the character is made really. Summits are the glory moments. They're the easy moments. Once the sun dips and you're back in the valley, then we learn about people. And when you're climbing at that altitude, I'm interested in the physicality of that.

13:11I've experienced altitude sickness when I've gone skiing as a child. So that's the closest thing I had, which was unpleasant and nauseating. But do you feel like your lungs, what's the actual physical experience of trying to breathe and move? Yeah, it's actually very hard to describe the real high altitude effects of being in that death zone above 25, 26 ,000 feet. It's very hard to describe. but I think you say what do you say nauseating and just I just felt sick basically you just turn the dial up turn the dial up and you can turn it right up but you even saw in the finding Michael premiere that you came to the other day my team that have lived with me for many years helped me with my work world and heard my Everest story many times you know a lot of them came out of that premiere going god I actually had no idea just how debilitating it is at altitude and you see that even with some of the great Sherpa climbers and those guys, how hard it was even for them up there trying to do that body recovery and search.

14:07So it is hard. I always say it's a bit like trying to climb in waist-deep treacle whilst giving somebody a piggyback and then they're trying to stuff a pair of football socks down your throat at the same time. You know, you're sucking, you're wheezing, you're not moving, you're sliding backwards, but it's minus 40 and you feel up against it. And many times I think back to that time on Everest and I watched that film that we were together and it brings a lot of those memories back. But those loud voice in the back of my head going, you're never going to make this, you know, especially, I mean, we were there 93 days or whatever.

14:39And I remember that summit attempt from that last camp, that last push, you know, you've given your everything. We'd taken a year out for the army to train for this. We were like super focused. We've been there these 90 odd days, but the weather's turning, it's minus whatever, it's dark. You've got this ice face of 2000 feet to just chest deep, power the snow in front of you. And I'm sliding back with every step. And I just had that voice going, what are you doing? You are never, ever going to make it. And it's like, we have that voice. The dial isn't always turned up to 10 like that in everyday life, but it has moments, all of us.

15:13And we all face our Everest every day in different ways, in relationships and in battles and health stuff. But it's like knowing the good voice and knowing the bad voice So try and try and just go, I know that's how I feel, but we've got this. And they're trying to tune in the voice on the other shoulder that says, keep going. Quietly focus, just one foot in front of the other, day by day, breath by breath. Hold the hands of those around you. Keep moving. Love, you know, there's power to that. It's why the book was always going to be called Never Give Up. You know, it's not rocket science. And who are those voices for you?

15:48because some people give the inner critic the voice of a harsh teacher or a critical parent. Part of my issue is that my inner critic is just me. It doesn't have an outside voice. Well, we could be our harshest critic, as you know. Do you know who they are? I mean, I know Rand Fiennes always says it was his father who died when he was very young. He'd always imagine his dad standing beside him. But it's quite a harsh dad of like, do not, don't you dare give up. You know, mine wasn't some adventure figure willing me on. I don't know. Mine's just that inner voice. It can be a darker voice on one side of like criticism.

16:24But I've just learned through experience over the years to try and discern the voices. And generally, I think we've got a subconscious and a heart and a soul or a spirit or whatever you call it that is for us. It is for us. It wants to heal. It wants to strengthen. It wants to help. I mean, it does. It's just your subconscious wants to help you. And I think it's discerning that voice. And I think for me, my faith plays a part of that. Having a sort of Christian faith definitely is that inner voice of love, of acceptance, of kind of forgiveness and strength. And for me, it's always been that inner backbone, that secret backbone inside.

17:00And trying to hear that voice that is full of love and encouragement. shortly before you summited Everest you broke your back in a parachuting accident and had 10 hours a day rehab for the best part of a year what did that rehab teach you again I'm not as strong as I sometimes hope I am I was at a stage of life age 21 22 where I felt invincible. I was doing a job that I loved, you know, in the military and I felt strong. I felt strong. But as you know, it doesn't take much in life to change that. And suddenly being in that hospital, strapped up in braces and struggling to reach a bathroom without pain and not a chance of being able to reach a bathroom on the floor above me in any capacity.

17:48Life has a way of humbling us all. The dial on that can turn up in different ways, but that definitely was a real kind of shock and I think for me not my confidence above everything at that stage where I'd gone from like lots of confidence I can do this I'm doing a job that I love with the people I love I'm in that zone to actually how quickly it can go to feel like a disaster and our legs have been taken out from under us and I was going to have that as one of my failures with you but it felt maybe an obvious one so I wasn't going to have that it was a really tough time of kind of like trying to figure out what the hell am I going to do now?

18:25Now I can't do this job that I was loving. And the chances of ever climbing anything again is ridiculous. What am I actually going to do? But I do look back at the same time. And I think if I hadn't have gone through that, would I have ever actually, as I started to recover, would I have had the strength of like will to go, no, I'm going to get better. I'm going to reach that bathroom on the floor upstairs. And I'm going to go further and again and harder. And I'm going to get strong enough to eventually climb the biggest mountain in the world that became the whole focus of my recovery. And I just felt like life has given me a precious second chance.

18:59We don't always get that. I should have been paralyzed. You know, that accident, I mean, it broke my back in three places, but it should have paralyzed me. And I've been given a second chance. Don't waste it. You're going to live every day for the rest of your life with smile and gratitude. How many bad stuff happens? Like everything's a gift. Everything is a gift. Let's get on to your first failure. Your less obvious failures. Not that that was your failure. Your first one is losing your dad when you were young. I'm so sorry. You're so sweet. You're so sweet. I appreciate you saying that. No, it's like, listen, everyone goes to your loss and mine is no worse than anyone's.

19:38But I was thinking, is that a failure? You know, but failure comes in many forms, doesn't it? And, you know, it's that thing of sometimes just a disaster. Yes. can be the hardest ones. Yes. Because they're outside of our control. You know, somehow when we fail of our own, there's a way out and through. Get stronger, get better, get smarter, get, you know, go again. But I think sometimes when things are outside of our control and just life, those can be hard and personal. And I look back on that time and I feel I was ill-equipped to deal with trauma. At a young age, in my sort of mid-twenties, I just got married to Shara and we got married young.

20:17and we were starting out on life together and it was an adventure. But we always had that backstop. You know, she had her mum and dad. I had my mum and dad. We could live life boldly and go for things as we were and we'll live on a houseboat and we'll do a whack it. I'll try and follow this career path of like doing the path less trodden and try and do adventures and we could do all this because there's always a backstop. and in year one of marriage Shara's father died of MS and literally 10 weeks later my dad died totally out of the blue and so first of all we were dealing with the trauma of Shara who'd grown up and all through her teenage years her dad slowly dying which was beyond traumatic for her and still a sort of wound for her for sure and she's just been an amazing lady and daughter and wonderful but that was a very hard time for her and then suddenly my dad out of the blue died and you know policemen came around to our houseboat knocked on the door and we were like what just literally felt like those sort of legs taken out underneath me when my legs had always been strong you know I'd always had good foundation I'd always I was strong and it literally just cut them out from under me and I felt ill-equipped I think at that age to deal with it and I was already on the back foot with poor Shara and everything she was going through and now I wasn't on any feet and then we had our two mothers you know we had the wailing mothers and suddenly it was like now the dynamic in a heartbeat has changed from having a backstop to now like we're now responsible for our mothers and we've got to look after them and that 50 pounds that my dad always still gave me this allowance ever since I was 17 and it never stopped it until I was like 23 and it was always the unspoken thing all the little the silly things like that you know suddenly the dynamics reverse and now we've got to get on we've got to make something of our lives no more messing around now you've got to look at your risk profile of how are you really going to live your life you're going to spend your time like this is it worth it can you do it can you pull off a career like this you also look after each other and the mother so So it was definitely, I look back, I struggled a lot.

22:30And I don't think I expressed that very well, apart from just in quiet sort of panic and leaning on each other. It brought us very close. Year one of marriage. I look back now and I think, wow, actually that was a hurricane. But it really made us cling to each other and actually created a lot of the foundation for our life. You know, like you don't have the luxury of like just arguing stupidly about things. Like don't waste your time in it. Just be humble with each other. Love each other. be committed to each other make things work you can't afford the luxury of screwing up we need our family good we need each other's back we're starting off on a difficult path we've got to have each other's back on this do you mind my asking how he died he wasn't ill you know so he died out of the blue he was having a pacemaker fitted because he said to me oh my heart rate apparently is low they said i should get a pacemaker fitted and he was down in dorset and i said oh come down I'll come down and hold your hand and we'll take you in so I did that took him into the hospital and they weirded him into his routine quick operation and I remember saying to the doctor said will you let me stay into the operation they said we can't do that and it's about one of the only times I pulled out my SAS ID card I said will you let me in I'm a qualified patrol medic you know I sort of slightly blustering it but they went okay they got me gowned up and I I was there with the doctors who's doing it.

23:52It was amazing watching it. And I was thinking, this looks good. And, you know, I held my dad's hand and he came out and he was okay. And he said, you've got to go. You've got to go back to shop, go back to London. I said, you sure? And he was so grateful that I'd been with him throughout, held his hand through in and out. And I got my bike and I biked the train station back to London. And then literally the next morning, my mum, well, she didn't even ring me. It was just a policeman turning up. and he'd just sat up in bed in the morning and my mum said literally the light just went out and he was 66 and it's so crazy and and felt unnecessary as well you know somehow so you know we all know life is hard and like somehow with Shara's dad it was just this relentless process of attrition of fighting and fighting and fighting but you're fighting against nature and disease and you don't always win you know but I think with my dad because it was so unexpected it felt like wow could we not surely we could have done something about they why hold on hold on stop that's what it felt like and I felt like I'd missed a beat what have I missed here why and I think those answers don't go away and I actually really if I miss my dad every day still in a way ever more so with our three boys you know we've got three wonderful I mean they're teenagers now isn't one of them in their 20s no no jesse's 19 now 16 okay and 13 and i just think gosh my dad would love them you know the wild part of my dad that that kind of rule-breaking adventure practical joking messing around laughing itself side of my dad that was always rich and bright is rich and bright in our three boys and he would love them and they would love him so that's the sadness, but that's also life.

25:44I think you've spoken about that so profoundly, and I know lots of people will hugely relate and feel very comforted by your words. To go back to what you were saying about failure, I think that you're right, there are two different types. There's the failure when life doesn't go according to plan, when you fail your driving test, or you fail SAS selection, which we're coming on to. And there's the cataclysmic failure, which happens to you and is like your father dying totally out of the blue or a global pandemic and those failures in and of themselves have no meaning within them but my belief is that living alongside them and the grief and the pain that they might cause teaches us something yeah there's no question there I just wanted to say that I'm aware that it's a different kind of life teaches us you know it's like I say life is humbling at every step of the way yeah and if you don't feel that life it doesn't care it's just going to keep doing it I wanted to ask you I do think life brings us together though yes I do if you allow it with good people you know that we meet continue day to day and if you let it that's a wonderful thing to be brought together to good people and that's why the vulnerability is so important because without that there's no connection exactly and it's something I lean on more and more in my life is just those friendships it's our only real wealth in our life you know we spend so much time pursuing other wealth but none of that's real you know it has no real value the only real wealth we have in our lives it's always going to be rooted in the quality of our relationships it's why you can say to you know is that billionaire whose kids don't speak to him is he really rich you know and we all know all of this stuff but sometimes I need reminding.

27:27It's like the real stuff is always in the relationships. I wanted to ask you because you mentioned there that you found it hard other than Shara to talk about what you were going through. And I'm aware that you were sent to boarding school at a young age. I was sent to boarding school too, at a slightly older age. And I'm sure you're also aware that this condition has now been invented or credited, which is boarding school syndrome, which is a sort of dislocation. I haven't heard that yet. Oh, it's really interesting. It's sort of all the stuff that we probably would take for granted, which is like you feel very detached from your parents, not emotionally, but you feel like you still feel that loss, that you had this distance, this wrench from your parents at a young age, and that can lead to emotional repression, and it can, especially for men, lead to problems later in life.

28:15That's my roundabout way of asking what boarding school was like for you, but also whether you feel that you were doubly cheated of time with your father because you had those years away from him too. I think that was my overriding sense of loss was like, we should be just sudden to spend our time together. Yes, yes. So that was hard. I think the thing with boarding school, there's no doubt what you say is true. And I definitely felt that because I was so close to my parents as a kid growing up, especially wonderful, cosy times all the time. so going away was hard but at the same time I'm always mindful of not sort of blaming you know I went to amazing schools with lovely people and made great friends but it doesn't take away from the fact that I felt ill-equipped at a young age to be going away and definitely felt a sadness there and it made me probably quite shy at a young age a little bit kind of insular yeah I had a much more extrovert older sister who loved the limelight and I was always hiding away but I was always like the younger brother come and dance like a seal for my friends and eat some raw bacon and just do as you're told okay you know so I was always hiding and I think school felt scary and the solution was to hide so I was always hiding which is why there's always still that natural tension for me in my job now of like having a job that's always filmed you're always on camera for stuff and I really struggle with it still to this day our crew on our tv shows know it they try to not let me know that they're filming and it's just like i'll go let's go let's just go so then there's never an action there's never oh could you do that again or what did you know it's like just go yeah and there's an energy and a pace in the early days nobody would think it would work and they'd probably be right but somehow it did and that energy stayed and we over the years just thought if it ain't broke don't fix it let bear go keep the cameras rolling and i sort of i suppose i'm continually running away from the cameras is essentially what the show is that was so interesting yeah it really is and and it's and i struggle with it but it's become a necessary part of my job you know i'm always like their joke is always you'd just love to do it without the cameras like i'd love to do it without it would transform everything be a suddenly a pleasant experience rather than like a a mission to get through

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32:04And then she said this. Can I tell you a true story? In COVID, in the darkness of COVID, I had a cat eye every single day where nobody saw me, not one soul. And when I had COVID, not even my ex-husband saw me or my children. And you know what I did? I went in to my bathroom. I did a black liquid liner, put on lashes, black liner in the waterline, a full lip, did my hair, and sat in my bed. And that is what I did. And I looked at myself and I said, you are not a well person. I said, are you fucking okay? You have 104 fever. You are like, you are like contagion right now. if you love fashion beauty or bravo this rachel zo episode is a must it's out now

33:06when was the first time you thought to yourself i love adventure and that's what i want to do for a living did you love biggles as a well i don't think it was as articulate as i love adventure i want it was more like i don't think i could do anything this is the only thing i've ever been okay at and even though i'm not particularly brilliant at it but i really love it and it was always what I did with my dad and it brought us close and I kind of that became an identity for me and what I loved you gravitate I think when you're nervous in life to what you feel naturally good at and what you like and that's all I've ever done is just gravitate naturally to what I've liked and felt I'm okay at having said that over the years I've also learned that I'm actually not particularly brilliant at any of this stuff and I find the more I learn about my world of the adventure stuff the more I do it the more I realize gosh there's so many other people be so much better at my job than me really really do i really it's a genuine feeling two genuines one is like any odd idiot could do my job it's true you know you can argue however you like but i really believe that and secondly i'm surrounded by people who are better skydivers better climbers better adventurers better survivalists better tv hosts and again it's okay it's okay that is that is life you don't have to be the best it's that scout thing of do your best rather than be the best.

34:21Yes. And I don't mind that. You're right that it's okay. I respectfully disagree with you because I think what you bring together is physical prowess, but also the ability to connect and communicate in almost like a priest-like capacity. When you are running through extremes with celebrities, you have to connect very quickly and they have to trust you very quickly. That's true. And there's not very many people who could do that. Yeah, but it's still not rocket science. And I've done so much of it it's a guiding job and I love that it's like if you go and climb a mountain with an alpine guide it's a guiding job that's filmed and you're chatting a bit along the way and you have to have a sort of vague weather eye out for the cameras to make sure they're vaguely getting some things that vaguely works whilst keeping that energy of keeping moving and have a plan for a route you know you need a little bit of a sensitivity about how to adapt routes and and adjust it and be sensitive to people's fear levels and how they're struggling with stuff or coping or can you stretch it even further because they're doing great you know but these learned skills that have just come from over the years I really do feel that anyone with a bit of training could do my job do you feel that the bravest people are the ones with the most fear I've learned the fear is always there in brave people I mean in fact it's the other way around me you can't be a brave person without the fear I mean just not having fear and doing it mindlessly is that's just stupidity that's not courage you know courage is always quiet and there's stumbling and there's a struggle and there's summoning it up from inside to keep moving forward towards the difficult stuff rather than running like most of us do in life whenever it gets hard scary or difficult we turn on our tail you know whatever it is public speaking hospitals whatever we're scared of we go the other way from it but I have learned and the wild has taught me you've got to keep moving towards the difficult stuff it's a muscle you've got to train it and if you don't train it you don't do it enough and you suddenly confronted with it you're going to get an adrenal overload of panic you're not going to be able to speak your name you'll probably pee in your trousers and the fear will be overwhelming but if you're used to it and the little things whether it's having a 20 second cold shower every day whatever the little stuff is that's how we get strong and therefore in the big moments when it's all going wrong and that log is collapsing under your feet across a ravine and it's all happening in a heartbeat and time slowing and you're trying to save someone else at the same time and the snake's about it, then you're on it because the muscle's strong.

36:45And I feel proud that that muscle has been trained over the years. But beyond that, I don't think I have particularly, I don't think those are skills. I mean, my family say to me, they go, Papa, your head is full of an awful lot of useless information. And they're right. But I always go, but until your life is on the line. exactly and I love it I mean listen I don't mind the fact that our boys are ruthless with me we were discussing saying the other day arguing about something as a family Jesse goes Papa what do you do all you do is build wooden teepees in the in the forest you can't even end this discussion and um and thank God for families to keep remind us all of a few home truths I want to get on to your second failure but I first want to ask you a question about your name, which I know your older sister who you mentioned who made you eat raw bacon, she gave you the nickname Bear.