The Identity Trick Elite Soldiers Use Under Pressure, with Jason Fox

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1:53Anyone can get to a certain point where they feel that they're superhuman to whatever it is that they're dealing with. Welcome to the Essential Habits of High Performance, your playbook for thinking sharper, leading better, and living life with intention. I'm Damien Hughes. I've worked as a visiting professor of organizational behavior, and I've been lucky enough to work with elite coaches from a wide range of different industries and sports, helping them understand how they can create high-performance cultures. I love understanding the science and the psychology behind high performance and how we can all use it to our own advantage Have you ever had one of those days where you get up, you look in the mirror and you think I'm just ordinary, I'm just a normal person, what could I possibly have to offer?

2:45Maybe it was after you've had a tough week at work or maybe it was when you'd stayed silent in that meeting or maybe it was when you'd been doom scrolling through somebody else's highlights reel and felt your life was just a blooper reel in comparison. Well, if you've ever felt that way, and I know I have, then today's conversation is for you. Because Jason Fox, the former Special Forces soldier, best-selling author and TV presenter, is living proof that being ordinary and becoming extraordinary are not opposites. They're actually part of the same journey. Now Jason doesn't introduce himself as a superhero.

3:26He calls himself a normal bloke. A lad from Chatham, Kent, who made mistakes, had doubts and struggled with his mental health. And yet, over time, he's built a reputation for performing in the most high-pressure environments on the planet. When we spoke to him, he said something that really stuck with me. anyone can get to a certain point where they feel that they're superhuman to whatever it is that they're dealing with. Not because they were born different, but because they learned to respond differently. This episode isn't about chest-thumping slogans or motivational memes. It's about real habits, real decisions, and real strength.

4:09So if you've ever told yourself the story, Greatness is all for other people. And Jason is about to help you rewrite that story. And he's doing it with one very powerful question. In the show notes, you'll find links to the studies and research which I reference. Jason Fox grew up as an ordinary kid in Chatham, Kent. His mum was a teacher and his dad worked in the military. I grew up as a normal kid, extremely uninspiring person, I believe. And yet, despite growing up with no particular sense of destiny, no early inclination to be anything more than ordinary, Jason Fox would go on to achieve something extraordinary.

4:54He'd served for over two decades in the British military, a career that had taken from the gruelling world of the Royal Marines to the ultra-competitive selection process of the UK Special Forces, one of the toughest military training systems in the world. The selection process for the Special Forces is, as you'd expect, brutal. It's designed to test candidates not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. It's a series of punishing challenges, long marches, endurance tests, sleep deprivation and complex problem-solving under intense pressure. and it's all designed to break you. The goal is to weed out anyone who isn't mentally tough enough to operate at the very highest levels.

5:39Yet Jason passed with flying colours. It wasn't just about his physical fitness, it was about his ability to stay calm under pressure, to make clear decisions in chaos and to embrace discomfort when everything inside him was screaming to quit. This progression from an ordinary kid to one of the most highly trained soldiers in the world is a testament to the idea that greatness isn't about where you start. It's about how you respond to challenges, how you choose to embrace growth and how you keep moving forward even when the odds might seem impossible. His journey shows that it's not about being born with a special gift, it's about having the resilience to step up when others would back down and having the determination to push yourself beyond your own limits over and over and over again.

6:29so how does this normal lad become capable of operating under the most intense pressure you can imagine well he put it simply i was able to go out and i learned an awful lot and i experienced an awful lot primarily in the military and i've and everything that i learned and experienced in the military has helped me with other things the harder things that we all go through like what what we have in common is we're all we're all human regardless of you know how we come into this world and what we go on to do. And because of that, we are susceptible to emotion, we're susceptible to outside influence, which creates the emotion within us.

7:07And the superhuman bit was just me understanding that I could control how I operated and responded to things, not necessarily, I don't like the word react, react's not great, but responded to things that I was trained to do. Now that's an important distinction he makes. Respond and not react. In that small but powerful shift lies a clue to finding your own superpower. In fact, Jason offers a great example from the battlefield of how he was trained to respond and not react. I have never seen anyone angry in a combat situation because it doesn't serve any purpose. You might feel it initially when the first few...

7:55In fact, the only emotion I can remember feeling when you come under fire is excitement, weirdly. I don't know why. There is no anger. It gets drummed into you from the beginning. There is no place for anger on the battlefield. It does not serve you a purpose. I can't remember feeling angry when I know people are being shot, friends of mine. I just feel excited and I need to now think about what we're going to do next to get us out of this. You might assume that when someone joins the elite ranks of the Royal Marines, the first thing they learn is how to shoot, how to strip a weapon in the dark, or how to navigate by stars in hostile territory.

8:32Now, of course, those skills are taught, but interestingly, that's not where the training begins. When Jason Fox signed up as a young Marine, what surprised him most was this. Before we learned how to fight, he was taught how to think. And not just in the intellectual sense, not facts, figures or tactics. He was taught how to be, how to carry himself when everything around him was falling apart. The first thing that they pretty much teach you is to embrace a culture to live by. All military units do it and they all have their own version of it. It just so happens that I joined the Marines, so that's the one that sticks in my head.

9:12there's the ethos but there's also this something that they call the spirit the commando spirit it's only four it's made up of four parts and they basically drum it into you got courage determination unselfishness and cheerfulness in the face of adversity it was that that taught me how to deal with the more difficult things in my life four simple principles not rules not slogans but a way of life, courage, determination, unselfishness and cheerfulness in the face of adversity. Jason explains this last one really well. Everyone thinks it's about having a laugh, which I am up for. In fact, I try to apply it to most things I do.

9:54But it's more about finding the silver lining to every dark cloud. What's fascinating is where that spirit came from. It wasn't created in a classroom or a boardroom but it came from the battlefield, forged in the darkest days of World War II. In 1940, Winston Churchill wanted a new kind of fighting force, small agile teams that could strike quickly behind enemy lines. But these commandos couldn't just be strong or skilled, they had to be mentally unbreakable. And to make tough decisions in total isolation, to stay calm in chaos, and crucially, to hold on to their humanity, even when they were faced with the brutality of war.

10:35It wasn't about being perfect. It was about being principled. A mindset you could fall back on when the situation demanded everything you had. For Jason, it became something like a mantra. It comes down to the whole courage thing. You've got to have courage to deal with uncomfortable situations and being fearful is an uncomfortable situation. We don't like it. It feels unnatural. In fact, we try to avoid it. we naturally try and avoid fear as in subconsciously but it is an emotion and it needs to be managed when things got tough and they often did he'd stop and ask himself what would a commando do here that question was like a way of anchoring himself I like to think of it like a compass rather than a map a mindset that helps him choose courage over fear determination over doubt and even a bit of humour when things were less than funny.

11:33It's a powerful question because what's interesting is Jason didn't build this mindset in the dramatic action-packed moments you see on screen. No, it was forged in the small quiet decisions, the thousands of micro-choices that he made day after day. That, he says, became his superpower. His version of a high-performance habit isn't just about skills, it's about asking the right question to enhance your spirit. It's about the mindset you bring when no one's watching, the choices that you make when everything is on the line. At first, Jason thought the ability to stay calm under pressure, to remain clear-headed in moments of extreme danger, made him superhuman.

12:15And it's easy to see why. Now hopefully most of us will never know what it's like to be in the situations that he's been in. Leading teams through war zones, making life or death decisions in split seconds. Keeping his cool when chaos is swarming all around. But from the outside, it looks something extraordinary. Impossible even. But over time, Jason came to a far more powerful and far more human realisation. It's not about being bulletproof. And it's not about being fearless or flawless or some kind of action hero. It's about recognising that in every moment, even the hardest ones, We all have a choice.

12:55A choice to stay grounded, a choice to keep moving forward, a choice to respond with, resilience instead of being ruled by fear. In a military setting, we were always taught, there was this saying, don't rush into your own death, which basically means before you make a call on something, before you react, don't do that, respond, think about something, make sure that you've risk mitigated. And then when you respond, do it quickly. And Jason believes deeply that this ability isn't reserved for soldiers or elite performers. It's not about your job title or your background or even your training. He's seen that strength not just in special forces operators, but somewhere much closer to home.

13:42Anyone can get to a certain point where they feel that they're superhuman to whatever it is that they're dealing with. For example, my daughter has managed to get to the age of 19 now under extremely difficult circumstances. And I believe that she, in her world, in her environment, is superhuman. She's worked out how to do that. And she has overcome probably way more than I'll ever have to or hope to experience. So if you were to boil it down, what are the same characteristics that you achieved in the military that your daughter's achieved in facing her challenges? Finding the resilience to bounce back from difficult situations and work out what your superhuman is, I suppose.

14:33She, as an individual, has worked out how to deal with constantly being in and out of hospital, nearly dying on numerous occasions, and also how to deal with not really understanding the people around her because we communicate in different ways and she sees the world through different lenses. But she's managed to get herself to a point where she's extremely happy and she knows what she needs to do to keep herself in that state, regardless of what gets thrown at her. This isn't a story about war zones or medals or heroism in the traditional sense. This is a story about resilience, about the everyday courage it takes to keep going with joy, with grace, with grit, even when the odds feel like they're stacked against you.

15:17So if you're listening to this thinking, I'm not like Jason, I've never been to war, I've never done anything that extreme, know this, you don't have to be in a battlefield to face battles, and you don't need to wear a uniform to show courage. Superhuman isn't out there, it's already within you. It shows up in the way you choose to respond today, tomorrow, and every other difficult moment that life's going to throw your way. Now interestingly, psychology backs this up. The idea that we can tap into a better, braver version of ourselves, simply by changing how we think, isn't just inspiring, it's evidence-based.

15:54One of my favourite studies on this is a fascinating piece of research from the University of Michigan. It was led by a developmental psychologist called Dr Rachel White, who explored this topic. In her research, she looked at how young children could boost their own resilience and focus by shifting their perspective, even just a little bit. Let me explain how the study works. The researchers gave four to six-year-old kids a deliberately dull task. It was a repetitive computer game, but it was something designed to test their ability to stay focused even when they got bored or frustrated. Now as any parent or teacher knows trying to keep a young kid engaged in a boring task is no small challenge.

16:38Some of the kids were told to ask themselves simple questions during the task like am I working hard? Another group were coached to add a layer of emotional distance so instead of saying I they referred to themselves in the third person. So little Emma would say, is Emma working hard? But then came the twist. A third group of children were invited to step into a character. They were given a prop, maybe a superhero cape or a toy helmet, and they were encouraged to imagine that they were someone else entirely. Someone they looked up to. Might be Batman, Dora the Explorer, Bob the Builder. and instead of asking, am I working hard?

17:19They asked, is Batman working hard? The results? Well, the kids who used their own names did better than those who used I but the ones who performed the best, the ones who stayed focused the longest and pushed through the boring tasks with the most perseverance were the kids who imagined they were someone else entirely. By taking on the identity of a role model, they unlocked a new mindset and that is the power of psychological distancing, creating a bit of space between your immediate emotions and your deeper goals. It's like standing on a balcony looking down at your life from a different perspective.

17:57You're still you but you're no longer caught in the middle of the struggle and in that space is where something incredible has a chance of happening. You get access to different resources whether it's patience, great clarity and you don't have to be six years old to use it. Let's look at three practical but essential habits we can adopt. The first one is why not create a character cue? Just like Jason used the commando mindset, find your own cue. Who do you want to channel when things get tough? Your bravest self? Your most focused? Your kindest? The second one is ask yourself an identity-based question.

18:36It might be, what would I do if I wasn't afraid of failing? What would the bravest version of me do right now? If I trusted myself completely, what would I do? And then the third one is respond but don't react. Build the habit of pausing, whether it's feedback, conflict or stress. Just give yourself a beat, then you can act with intention and not impulse. These aren't tricks, they're tools and they can help you build a deeper, stronger version of yourself one decision at a time. You might just be surprised by the strength it brings out in you because sometimes your superpower doesn't have to come from being you.

19:18It comes from remembering that you have the power to become. We're all capable of being more, more courageous, more determined, more resilient, more alive even. But here's the thing, it doesn't just happen. We don't wake up one day and suddenly find ourselves full of grit, grace and power. It's a choice. It's a practice. It's a decision made again and again and again to live by something greater than the moment, to hold ourselves to a higher standard, not for perfection but for possibility. So maybe that's the real invitation of this episode. Step in into your best self through identity-based reflection.

19:58This habit is about deliberately shifting your mindset. by asking yourself empowering, identity-driven questions, especially in high-pressured or emotionally charged situations. Because your superpower, the strength that you're looking for, it's not out there. It's already in there. It's in you. And it just needs permission, a bit of direction, and a little bit of bravery, and a whole lot of belief. So start by asking yourself today, what would the best version of me do here? And then, go and do that. Even if it's a small act. Because it's those small acts that build habits, and it's those habits that build character.

20:41And that is how you unlock the kind of life you were built to live. Because ordinary people, people just like me and you, are the ones who can do extraordinary things. And you, you might just be one brave decision away from discovering your own superpower. Now, I'm going to be joined by Will. He's our producer that's been with us on the podcast since the very beginning.

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22:23term contracts. Just the right expert, right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Grainger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible. So when a conveyor motor falters, Grainger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem. With Grainger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly.

23:00Call 1-800-GRAINGER, clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

23:13Guests like Jason have always done well on this podcast. We're fascinated by people who operate in these extreme environments and that were under extreme pressure that's, you know, beyond sport. What was it like when he arrived? I wasn't in there for this one. I think why the theme of today's episode of where anyone can find their own superpower, his introduction when he came in was he was literally Clark Kent before he became Superman. You know, he was quite nervous. He admitted that he was feeling a little bit anxious. He said, what have I got to talk to high performance about you know he just brought a book out around mental health and I'd read it and was talking to him about that and he was sort of like quite eager for feedback of what did he think about it what could be better so in a word he was just really humble you know I mean self effacing relatively self-deprecating yeah and we've had that's happened a few times we've had a few guests who seem to be I don't know whether it's the the title of the podcast or this idea that I haven't achieved enough to warrant being on here to talk about that.

24:22This has happened with some of the most famous sports people in this country. This idea that I can't quantify being on here until I have like my trophy cabinets bigger, which almost is not what we're saying. It's not the point of the podcast. Yeah. And it sounds like he fell into that like imposter syndrome category as a guest. Well, I think that actually captures something really powerful that any of us can understand around these people, their ordinariness, their humility, their willingness to be as curious about their craft as what we are as outsiders looking in. And I think there's something really powerful about that, not getting high on your own supply and all those other traits that we often associate as negative elements.

25:06These are people going to the polar opposite of it. And that's where I thought the first clip we could get into is one where Jason tells us around the leader that had the biggest impact on him when he was in the military. A lot of people feel like leadership's about, especially in the military, is about dictating, shouting, screaming, making sure that people respect you. And yes, there is an element of that that is useful, but I find he showed me that I could trust him, that he was showing me some form of loyalty. We were going out. We had a laugh. he was going out he was looking after me making sure that i was all right making sure i was good to go when we were going into the field and he showed me empathy he's like telling me yeah this is difficult it's hard work i've been in these situations it's horrible and i'm like wow that's awesome and i think they're the three key things for a leader above and beyond anything else it's the softer skills you know you're asking people to do difficult things in whatever walk of life you're in you should remember that yeah i think i think you'll get a lot more out of people that's interesting that because he wouldn't my uh opinion on what it would be like in that environment would be very much dictators shouting and it sounds like there's an element of that but that isn't what shone through with him do you find that uh he has a certain vulnerability about him when he came on the podcast and you know he obviously had his struggles uh since he left but how do you feel like he transitioned between the military and coming out i think it was brutal i I think his experience of, he described to us sat behind a wall of a firefight in Afghanistan where he felt like bursting into tears.

26:48And it was only later was he diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder for it. And then he really struggled to get to grips with that for a number of years. He tried to get civilian work. You know, he described working as a sales manager at one company. He described sort of going, helping other friends out. and all the time sort of battling with feelings of suicide and self-worth issues and things like that. So I think he's a really good example of somebody that didn't do this easy. And I think those levels of empathy that he talks about were in short supply from a lot of people that I think he expected would have had his back.

27:27Early on in the podcast, we were invited to go to Hereford. Yeah, it was with... The commanding officer said that we're a military unit that goes further than the rest. Yeah, so that gives you like an idea of who they are and what they do. And it was really exciting because we flew in this helicopter that was like flying below the legal limit you're allowed to be at because it was like foggy. Felt proper cool to get there. But once we were there and they introduced us to the team members, we had lunch with them, you saw where they were, the kind of amazing memorabilia and like almost trophies on the wall but hearing how none of them wanted to leave that environment was the thing that stuck with me, was the thing that you guys did have just talked to them, but they were like, how do I stay in this?

28:19I can't get out of it. Well, interestingly, it was one of his colleagues from the military, part of the Brotherhood, that actually did lean out and help him when he was going through these struggles. Let's listen to how his relationship with Aldo Cain set him up for the TV career that we're all familiar with? At the time, it might be different now, but I had a brand stamped onto me. I had PTSD, so I couldn't get decent jobs away working for security companies that would mean I was armed because ultimately everyone's like, yeah, mate, I'm sorry. So I was scratching around for work and it wasn't great.

28:56I picked up a little bit of work here and there. What happened was a good friend of mine who I served with called Aldo Kane. He had got himself into the TV world working as a safety supervisor. Took me on a job for the BBC. He knew I was in a pickle because I was living on my mate's sofa. He took me on a job working for the BBC where we stunt rigged someone into the wind tunnel down in Southampton Uni. They've got a big sort of aerodynamic wind tunnel. Did that. We had a laugh. He couldn't afford to pay me. A few weeks later, he was like, mate, I've got another job out in Madagascar. Can you cover it for me?

29:33So I went out there and I was the medic and the underwater cameraman's dive buddy. Did an all right job. It was great. I then came back from that job not knowing what was next. I'd been paid. I was like, wow, this is awesome. I've been paid. Going back to live on my mate's sofa, landed. Got a phone call because of someone that I was with in Madagascar who told someone else in the TV world about me. Now, he had been privy to a meeting about the show that would become SASU Day, his wins, and he's like, mate, I heard you're a former Special Forces soldier. Can we talk to you? And I was like, yeah, okay.

30:10Well, it shows you a power of having a good mate. Ardo Cain, another friend of the podcast. Yep. He told us that lovely story where we'll discuss it on a future Habits episode of doing selfless acts, doing acts for other people that you don't expect to be paid back for. and that's a really good example of somebody that just reached out when there was nothing else in it for him. Yeah, and obviously showed a tough transition of how do you come out of something so intense, such high stakes, with so much trauma, and adapt into the real normal world of corporate life. Yeah. Would you fancy being the person to tell Jason Fox off for underperformance?

30:51I know but there's so many skills they obviously do have unfortunately yeah how we all know him is you know as a what would you say drill sergeant in SAS Who Dares Wins yeah yeah actually let's look at some of those skills that you talk about like one of his superpowers if you like is when he describes the power of responding and not reacting and in particular the 10 second rule before you react take 10 seconds It might be less than that. It might be more than that. You might have the luxury of having more time. But take the proverbial 10 seconds to just calm yourself down, breathe, and re-evaluate what's happening and how you can respond to it.

31:38Initially, you've got to force yourself to do it, to learn to embrace it and take it on board as part of your way of doing things. But after a while, if you keep repeating a habit, that habit will become second nature or the habit will become a habit what a beautiful place to end this episode a habit that becomes second nature or a habit that becomes a habit if you know somebody that wants to get into the habit of being able to tap into their own superpower someone that would benefit from that ability to find resources that are already within them why not pass on this episode to them

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