Bear Grylls Quotes

I have always loved the quote from John F. Kennedy: "When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."
Looking back on my life, I can see that I have never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger. And here was all that I loved before me: great risk, but also great opportunity.
I had never felt so excited.
Neil was already preparing to come back up. Mick, so fortunate to be alive, was staying firmly, and wisely, at base camp.
But for me, my time had come.
That evening, camp two was again full of friends. Neil and Geoffrey were there along with Michael and Graham, Karla and Alan. But the weariness of coming back up to camp two again oozed painfully from Karla's gaunt face.
She was utterly exhausted, and you could see it.
Who wouldn't be after three months on Everest, and having got within four hundred feet of the summit only days earlier?
Tomorrow the biggest battle of our lives would begin.

In addition to these international climbers, we were supported by a climbing team of Nepalese Sherpas, led by their Sirdar boss, Kami.
Raised in the lower Himalayan foothills, these Sherpas know Everest better than anyone. Many had climbed on the mountain for years, assisting expeditions by carrying food, oxygen, extra tents, and supplies to stock the higher camps.
As climbers, we would each carry substantial-sized packs every day on Everest, laden with food, water, cooker, gas canisters, sleeping bag, roll mat, head torch, batteries, mittens, gloves, hat, down jacket, crampons, multitool, rope, and ice axes.
The Sherpas would then add an extra sack of rice or two oxygen tanks to that standard load.
Their strength was extraordinary, and their pride was in their ability to help transport those life-giving necessities that normal climbers could not carry for themselves.
It is why the Sherpas are, without doubt, the real heroes on Everest.
Born and brought up at around twelve thousand feet, altitude is literally in their blood. Yet up high, above twenty-five thousand feet, even the Sherpas start to slow, the way everyone, gradually and inevitably, does.
Reduced to a slow, agonizing, lung-splitting crawl. Two paces, then a rest. Two paces, then a rest.
It is known as the "Everest shuffle.

The lesson is, the rewards in life don't always go to the biggest, or the bravest, or the smartest. The rewards go to the dogged; and when your going though hell, to the person who just keeps going.

The truth is, I need 10 lifetimes to scratch the surface of the things I'd love to do.

But the winners are those who know that when things get really hard and others start to fall away, that is the time to dig deep and give that little bit extra.

Any blisters on your shoulder blades would weep painfully, as the weight of the pack went back on. Then somehow your mind would shut out the pain, for a while. Until, by the end of the march, your shoulders would start to wilt and cramp up as if they were on fire.

Life is an adventure that is best lived boldly

The special forces gave me the self-confidence to do some extraordinary things in my life. Climbing Everest then cemented my belief in myself.

When I'm in 'Man vs. Wild' mode, it's not pleasure. Every sensor is firing and I'm on reserve power all the time and I'm digging deep - and that's the magic of it as well, and that's raw and it's great.

I was always brought up to have a cup of tea at halfway up a rock face.

Textbook survival tells you to stay put. Stop. Wait for rescue. Don't take any risks. But there'd been a whole host of survival shows like that and I didn't really want to do that.

Once a job it has begun, do not stop until it's done. Whether it is big or small, do it well or not all.

Survival requires us to leave our prejudices at home. It's about doing whatever it takes - and ultimately those with the biggest heart will win.

This general lack of sleep really got to me. And little can prepare people for how they will react when deprived of it--over multiple days. Everything suffers: concentration, motivation, and performance. All key elements for what we were doing. But it is designed that way. Break you down and find out what you are really made of. Underneath the fluff.
I remember during one particular lecture (on the excruciatingly boring topic of the different penetration abilities of different bullets or rounds), looking over to my left and noticing Trucker jabbing his arm with a safety pin every few minutes in an attempt to keep himself awake.
The sight cheered me up no end.

The appeal of the wild for me is its unpredictability. You have to develop an awareness, react fast, be resourceful and come up with a plan and act on it.

We then reached a fork in the valley. Should we go left or right? Dad called it left. I had a very powerful intuition that right was the choice we should make. Dad insisted left. I insisted right.
It was a fifty-fifty call and he relented.
Within two hundred yards we stumbled across a snowy track through the woods and followed it excitedly. Within a mile it came out on a mountain road, and within ten minutes we had flagged down a lift from a car heading up the hill in the darkness.
We had found salvation, and I was beat.
The car dropped us off at the gates of the garrison thirty minutes later. It was, by then, late into the night, but I was suddenly buzzing with energy and excitement.
The fatigue had gone. Dad knew that I had made the right call up there--if we had chosen left we would still be trudging into the unknown.
I felt so proud.
In truth it was probably luck, but I learned another valuable lesson that night: Listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind.
As we tromped back through the barracks, though, we noticed there was an unusual amount of activity for the early hours of a weekday morning. It soon became very clear why.
First a sergeant appeared, followed by another soldier, and then we were ushered into the senior officers' block.
There was my uncle, standing in uniform looking both tired and serious. I started to break out into a big smile. So did Dad. Well, I was excited. We had cheated a

Since we were on Everest, many other climbers have succeeded on the "big one" as well. She has now been scaled by a blind man, a guy with prosthetic legs, and even by a young Nepalese teenager.
Don't be fooled, though. I never belittle the mountain. She is still just as high and just as dangerous. Instead, I admire those mountaineers--however they have climbed her. I know what it is really like up there.
Humans learn how to dominate and conquer. It is what we do. But the mountain remains the same--and sometimes she turns and bites so damn hard that we all recoil in terror.
For a while.
Then we return. Like vultures. But we are never in charge.
It is why, within Nepal, Everest is known as the mother goddess of the sky--lest we forget.
This name reflects the respect the Nepalese have for the mountain, and this respect is the greatest lesson you can learn as a climber. You climb only because the mountain allows it.
If the peak hints at you to wait, then you must wait; and when she begins to beckon you to go then you must struggle and strain in the thin air with all your might.
The weather can change in minutes, as storm clouds envelop the peak--and the summit itself stubbornly pokes into the fierce band of jet-stream winds that circle the earth above twenty-five thousand feet. These 150+ mph winds cause the majestic plume of snow that pours off Everest's peak.
A constant reminder that you have got to respect the mountain.
Or you

I find skydiving really hard. I broke my back while skydiving when I was in the military, and for 18 months all my nightmares were about falling.

Without risk, there can be no growth.

Weather can kill you so fast. The first priority of survival is getting protection from the extreme weather.

Seven P.M. Half an hour to go until we started the laborious task of getting kitted up again.
It would take us at least an hour.
By the end no part of our bodies or faces would be visible. We would be transformed into cocooned figures, huddled, awaiting our fate.
I reached into the top pouch of my backpack and pulled out a few crumpled pages wrapped in plastic. I had brought them just for this moment.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31.

I felt that this was all I really had up here. There's no one else with enough extra strength to keep you safe. It really is just you and your Maker. No pretense, no fluff--no plan B.
Over the next twenty-four hours, there would be a one in six chance of dying. That focuses the mind. And the bigger picture becomes important.
It was time to look death in the eye. Time to acknowledge that fear, hold the hand of the Almighty, and climb on.
And those simple Bible verses would ring round my head for the next night and day, as we pushed on ever higher.

At this stage though, with the greatest will in the world, I wasn't going to be climbing anything, not unless I could raise the sponsorship.
And little did I know quite how hard that could be.
I had no idea how to put a proposal for sponsorship together; I had no idea how to turn my dream into one company's opportunity; and I certainly didn't know how to open the doors of a big corporation just to get heard.
On top of that, I had no suit, no track record, and certainly no promise of any media coverage.
I was, in effect, taking on Goliath with a plastic fork. And I was about to get a crash course in dealing with rejection.
This is summed up so well by that great Churchill quote: "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
It was time to get out there with all of my enthusiasm, and commit to fail…until I succeeded.

I look back and understand the world a bit better and know how competitive it is .

My faith is an important part of my life and over the years I've learnt that it takes a proud man to say he doesn't need anything. It has been a quiet strength and a backbone through a lot of difficult times.

The infamous South Col awaited me over the top.
I longed to see this place I had heard and read so much about. The highest camp in the world at twenty-six thousand feet--deep in Everest's Death Zone.
I had always winced at the term Death Zone. Mountaineers are renowned for playing things down, yet mountaineers had coined the phrase--I didn't like that.
I put the thought aside, pulled the last few steps over the spur, and the gradient eased. I turned around and swore that I could see halfway around the world.
A think blanket of cloud was moving in beneath me, obscuring the lower faces of the mountain. But above these, I could see a vast horizon of dark blue panned out before me.
Adrenaline filled my tired limbs, and I started to move once more.
I knew I was entering another world.

It's unresolved conflict in my life that I have a lovely family and a risky job.

Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire.

But I also knew if I could somehow replace my doubt with hope, my fear with courage, and my self-pity with a sense of pride, then I just might be able to do this.

That same day we drove to Seville to celebrate. I asked someone for the name of the smartest hotel in Seville. Alfonso XIII, came the reply. It is where the King of Spain always stays.
We found the hotel and wandered in. It was amazing. Shara was a little embarrassed as I was dressed in shorts and an old holey jersey, but I sought out a friendly-looking receptionist and told her our story.
"Could you help us out? I have hardly any money."
She looked us up and down, paused--then smiled.
"Just don't tell my manager," she whispered.
So we stayed in a $1,000-a-night room for $100 and celebrated--like the King of Spain.
The next morning we went on a hunt for a ring.
I asked the concierge in my best university Spanish where I would find a good (aka well-priced) jeweler.
He looked a little surprised.
I tried speaking slower. Eventually I realized that I had actually been asking him where I might find a good mustache shop.
I apologized that my Spanish was a little rusty. Shara rolled her eyes again, smiling.
When we eventually found a small local jeweler, I had to do some nifty subcounter mathematics, swiftly converting Spanish pesetas into British pounds, to work out whether or not I could afford each ring Shara tried on.
We eventually settled on one that was simple, beautiful--and affordable. Just.
Love doesn't require expensive jewelry. And Shara has always been able to make the simple look exquisite.
Luckily.

Just under the South Summit I could make out the shape where Rob Hall lay. He had died up here some twenty-four months earlier.
His body, half covered in drift-snow, remained unchanged. Frozen in time. A stark reminder that those who survive the mountain do so because she allows you to.
But when she turns, she really turns.
And the further into her grasp you are, the greater the danger.
Right now, we were about as far into her grasp as it was possible to venture.
And I knew it.
Rob's last words to his wife, Jan, had been: "Please don't worry too much."
They are desperate words from a mountaineer who bravely understood he was going to die.
I tried to shake his memory from my oxygen-starved brain. But I couldn't.
Just get going, Bear. Get this done, then get down.

In the end I concluded, nothing ventured, nothing gained. (A vital ethos to follow if life is to have flavor, I have since learned.)
I knew I should at least attempt Selection.
If I failed, well at least I would fail while trying. Facedown in the dirt. Knowing that I had given it my all. (Oh, and what's more, I knew that the SAS required secrecy from anyone attempting Selection, which was perfect. If I failed, I concluded, at least no one would know!)
So that was the plan; but in truth, if I could have had any idea of the pain and battering that my body would go through on Selection, I would have realized it was insane to continue with this mad dream.
But luckily, we never really know what the future holds.

I remember once, on a family skiing trip to the Alps, Dad's practical joking got all of us into a particularly tight spot.
I must have been about age ten at the time, and was quietly excited when Dad spotted a gag that was begging to be played out on the very serious-looking Swiss-German family in the room next door to us.
Each morning their whole family would come downstairs, the mother dressed head to toe in furs, the father in a tight-fitting ski suit and white neck scarf, and their slightly overweight, rather snooty-looking thirteen-year-old son behind, often pulling faces at me.
The hotel had the customary practice of having a breakfast form that you could hang on your door handle the night before if you wanted to eat in your room. Dad thought it would be fun to fill out our form, order 35 boiled eggs, 65 German sausages, and 17 kippers, then hang it on the Swiss-German family's door.
It was too good a gag to pass up.
We didn't tell Mum, who would have gone mad, but instead filled out the form with great hilarity, and sneaked out last thing before bed and hung it on their door handle.
At 7:00 A.M. we heard the father angrily sending the order back. So we repeated the gag the next day.
And the next.
Each morning the father got more and more irate, until eventually Mum got wind of what we had been doing and made me go around to apologize. (I don't know why I had to do the apologizing when the whole thing had been Dad's idea, but I gu

I reassessed the map and my timing. I had to come up with a plan to get myself out of this mess, and fast.
I turned 90 degrees and started to climb back up onto the high ground that I had just come off. This was way off-route, I should be heading down, but I just knew that the high ground would be better than fighting a losing battle in the bog. I had done that before--and lost.
The wind was blowing hard now, down from the plateau, as if trying to deter me. I put my head down, ignored the shoulder straps that pulled and heaved against my lower neck muscles, and went for it. I had to take control.
I was refusing to fail Selection again in this godforsaken armpit of a place.
Once on the ridge, I started to run. And running anywhere in that moon grass, with the weight of a small person on your back, was a task. But I was on fire. I kept running. And I kept clawing back the time and miles.
I ran all the way into the last checkpoint and then collapsed. The DS looked at me strangely and chuckled to himself.
"Good effort," he commented, having watched me cover the last mile or so of rough ground. I had made it within time.
Demons dead. Adrenaline firing.

You are wonderfully and powerfully made. In other words: it is no accident you are good at certain things!

All my life the only thing I've been good at has been climbing and throwing myself off big things.

If you want it bad enough, you'll pass.

How you speak about others speaks loudest about yourself.

I come from a line of self-motivated, determined folk - not grand, not high society, but no-nonsense, family-minded go-getters.

That afternoon, I went to Henry with a suggestion.
Michael and Graham were still ill. But I was feeling almost fit again.
"Why not let Geoffrey and me head up to camp two, so we can be in position just in case the typhoon heads away?"
It was a long shot--a very long shot--but as the golfer Jack Nicklaus once said: "Never up, never in."
Sure as hell, I wasn't going to stand any chance of the summit, sitting here at base camp twiddling my thumbs, waiting.
In addition, at camp two, I could be a radio go-between from base camp (where Henry was) and the team higher up.
That was the clincher.
Henry knew that Michael and Graham weren't likely to recover any time soon. He understood my hunger, and he recognized the same fire that he had possessed in his own younger days.
His own mountaineering maxim was: "Ninety-nine percent cautiousness; one percent recklessness."
But knowing when to use that 1 percent is the mountaineer's real skill.
I stifled a cough and left his tent grinning.
I was going up.

In a matter of sixty short minutes, that thing could whisk Neil away to civilization, I thought. Hmm.
My goodness, that was a beautiful prospect.
Somehow I had to get on that chopper with him.
I packed in thirty seconds flat, everything from the past three months. I taped a white cross onto my sleeve, and raced out to where Neil was sat waiting.
One chance.
What the heck.
Neil shook his head at me, smiling.
"God, you push it, Bear, don't you?" he shouted over the noise of the rotors.
"You're going to need a decent medic on the flight," I replied, with a smile. "And I'm your man." (There was at least some element of truth in this: I was a medic and I was his buddy--and yes, he did need help. But essentially I was trying to pull a bit of a fast one.)
The pilot shouted that two people would be too heavy.
"I have to accompany him at all times," I shouted back over the engine noise. "His feet might fall off at any moment," I added quietly.
The pilot looked back at me, then at the white cross on my sleeve.
He agreed to drop Neil somewhere down at a lower altitude, and then come back for me.
"Perfect. Go. I'll be here." I shook his hand firmly.
Let's just get this done before anyone thinks too much about it, I mumbled to myself.
And with that the pilot took off and disappeared from view.
Mick and Henry were laughing.
"If you pull this one off, Bear, I will eat my socks. You just love to push it, do

This is your life. Be bold with it. Live it with energy and purpose in the direction that excites you. Listen to your heart, look for your dreams: they are God-inspired.

Mr. Sturgess ran the classes with iron, ex-military discipline. We each had spots on the floor, denoting where we should stand rigidly to attention, awaiting our next task. And he pushed us hard. It felt like Mr. Sturgess had forgotten that we were only age six--but as kids, we loved it.
It made us feel special.
We would line up in rows beneath a metal bar, some seven feet off the ground, then one by one we would say: "Up, please, Mr. Sturgess," and he would lift us up and leave us hanging, as he continued down the line.
The rules were simple: you were not allowed to ask permission to drop off until the whole row was up and hanging, like dead pheasants in a game larder. And even then you had to request: "Down, please, Mr. Sturgess." If you buckled and dropped off prematurely, you were sent back in shame to your spot.
I found I loved these sessions and took great pride in determining to be the last man hanging. Mum would say that she couldn't bear to watch as my little skinny body hung there, my face purple and contorted in blind determination to stick it out until the bitter end.
One by one the other boys would drop off the bar, and I would be left hanging there, battling to endure until the point where even Mr. Sturgess would decide it was time to call it.
I would then scuttle back to my mark, grinning from ear to ear.
"Down, please, Mr. Sturgess," became a family phrase for us, as an example of hard physical exercise, strict discipline, an

You don't need to go to the ends of the earth, you don't need to climb Everest to have a great adventure, it's invariably on our doorstep.

I mean, in the last few months alone, I've been pinned in a big set of white-water rapids, been bitten by an angry snake in a jungle, had a close escapewith a big mountain rockfall, narrowly avoided being eaten by a huge croc in the Australian swamps, and had to cut away from my main parachute and come down on my reserve, some five thousand feet above the Arctic plateau.
When did all this craziness become my world?
It's as if - almost accidentally - this madness had become my life. And don't get me wrong - I love it all.
The game, though, now, is to hang on to that life.
Every day is the most wonderful of blessings, and a gift that I never, ever take for granted.
Oh, and as for the scars, broken bones, aching limbs and sore back?
I consider them just gentle reminders that life is precious - and that maybe, just maybe, I am more fragile than I dare to admit.

Life rewards the dogged, not the qualified.

One killer exercise that's really great is pull-ups with your legs out level. That's my favourite. It's such functional core strength, and that's why I can climb up trees and down vines.

The next night was New Year's Eve, and I made a secret plan with Shara to meet her outside the back door on the stroke of midnight.
"Let's take a walk," I suggested.
"Sure. It's midnight, minus five degrees, and pitch black, but hey, let's walk." She paused. "But not up Loyal," she added, smiling.
And so we walked together along a moonlit track.
Twenty yards and then I will make the move to kiss her, I told myself.
But plucking up the courage with a girl this special was harder than I had thought.
Twenty yards became two hundred yards. Then two thousand.
Forty-five minutes later, she suggested that maybe we should turn around and head back to the house.
"Yes. Good idea." I replied.
Do it, Bear, you old woman. Do it now!
And so I did.
A quick kiss on the lips, then a longer lingering one, and then I had to stop. It was sensory overload.
Wow. That was worth the walk, I thought, smiling from ear to ear.
"Let's head back," I confirmed, still smiling.
I am not sure Shara was quite as impressed by the effort-to-reward ratio--long cold walk to short, hot kiss--but as far as I was concerned the sky and clouds had parted, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Sometimes it's hard for us to believe, really believe, that God cares and wants good things for us and doesn't just want us to go off and give everything up and become missionaries in Burundi.

We soon reached a dam and had to make a decision.
We knew it was forbidden to cross a dam, in the same way that it was forbidden ever to use a footpath or forestry track. (Unless it was part of the dreaded morning battle PT.)
This was a simple rule on Selection to make sure that you got used to navigating properly and that the going underfoot was always hard, which it inevitably always was. (In fact I, still to this day, feel a bit guilty if I go hiking on a footpath--old habits die hard.)

I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it.

Accidents on big mountains happen when people's ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.

As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad's face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a good idea. My instinct certainly didn't; but what did I know? I was only eight.
So I embarked on this mission called boarding school. And how do you prepare for that one?
In truth, I found it really hard; there were some great moments like building dens in the snow in winter, or getting chosen for the tennis team, or earning a naval button, but on the whole it was a survival exercise in learning to cope.
Coping with fear was the big one. The fear of being left and the fear of being bullied--both of which were very real.
What I learned was that I couldn't manage either of those things very well on my own.
It wasn't anything to do with the school itself, in fact the headmaster and teachers were almost invariably kind, well-meaning and good people, but that sadly didn't make surviving it much easier.
I was learning very young that if I were to survive this place then I had to find some coping mechanisms.
My way was to behave badly, and learn to scrap, as a way to avoid bullies wanting to target me. It was also a way to avoid thinking about home. But not thinking about home is hard when all you want is to be at home.
I missed my mum and dad terribly, and on the occasional night where I felt this worst, I remember trying to muffle my tears in my pillow while the rest of the dormitory slept.

I joined the Army at 19 as a soldier and spent about four and a half years with them. Then I broke my back in a freefall parachuting accident and spent a year in rehabilitation back in the U.K.

VW Valley is one of the final mountains one climbs on Selection--but it's among the worst.
VW stands for Voluntary Withdrawal, and when you see the mountain you can understand why people have often quit here.
Steep, windswept, and boggy--and at mile thirty it is the point where many recruits quit and remove themselves from the course--broken by the sheer distance, weight, and speed.
But not me. Not now.
On my backside, I slid down the first steep reentrant leading into the bowl of the valley. I was using the butt of my weapon to steer me as I glissaded down the snow, and I finally slowed at the bottom, near an iced-over stream.
I crossed it and started straight up the face with Trucker behind me.
On and on and on--until finally at the crest I collapsed and waited for him.
Trux's feet were both badly swollen. Later on he discovered that he'd broken both of his big toes somewhere around this point. It was purely from the incessant pounding his feet were taking. He was in agony.
I heard him muttering under his breath. He was mumbling Bible verses to himself.
We had often both quietly prayed together before the big marches. Now we needed that help more than ever.
"I am holding you by your right hand…Do not be afraid. I am here to help you." Isaiah, 41:13.
If ever I needed to hear such words it was now.
It is easy to be cynical and to think you do not need help when all is going your way; but if Selection taught me anyth

Samuel Smiles ends his book with the following moving story of the "gentleman" general:

The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences of life…we may cite the anecdote of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercromby, of whom it is related, that, when mortally wounded in the battle of Aboukir, and, to ease his pain, a soldier's blanket was placed under his head, from which he experienced considerable relief.
He asked what it was.
"It's only a soldier's blanket," was the reply.
"Whose blanket is it?" said he, half lifting himself up.
"Only one of the men's."
"I wish to know the name of the man whose blanket this is."
"It is Duncan Roy's, of the 42nd, Sir Ralph."
"Then see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night."

Even to ease his dying agony the general would not deprive the private soldier of his blanket for one night.
As Samuel wrote: "True courage and gentleness go hand in hand."
It was in this family, belief system, and heritage that Walter, my great-grandfather, grew up and dared to dream.

That night, the tent that I had been alone in for so long was suddenly heaving with bodies, and piles of rope and kit--with Neil, Geoffrey, and Graham squeezed in beside me.
I tried to drink as much boiled water as I could get down. I knew that I would need to be as hydrated as I could possibly be to tackle what lay ahead. So I drank and I peed. But still my pee was dark brown.
It was almost impossible to hydrate at this altitude.
The ritual of peeing into a water bottle had become second nature to us all, even in the dark, and even with someone's head inches away from the bottle. We each had two bottles: one for pee, one for water. It was worth having a good system to remember which was which.
At 10:00 P.M. I needed to pee--again. I grabbed my bottle, crouched over and filled it. I screwed it shut--or so I thought--then settled back into my bag to try and find some elusive sleep.
Soon I felt the dampness creeping through my clothes.
You have got to be joking. I swore to myself as I scrambled to the crouch position again.
I looked down. The cap was hanging loosely off the pee bottle.
Dark, stinking brown pee had soaked through all my clothes and sleeping bag. I obviously hadn't done it up properly. Brute of a mistake. Maybe an omen for what lay ahead.
On that note I fell asleep.

When my parents were away, I would often be sent to spend the night in the house of an older lady who I didn't know, and who didn't seem to know me, either. (I assume it was a friendly neighbor or acquaintance, or at least hope it was.)
I hated it.
I remember the smell of the old leather photo frame containing a picture of my mum and dad that I would cling to in the strange bed. I was too young to understand that my parents would be coming back soon.
But it taught me another big lesson: Don't leave your children if they don't want you to.
Life, and their childhood, is so short and fragile.

(If we were caught pointing at a map with a finger, instead of a blade of grass or something sharp, we had been threatened, by the unforgettable Sgt Taff, that he would 'Rip that finger off and beat you to death with the soggy end!' It's a threat that I enjoy passing on to my boys when we are reading a map together nowadays.)

Alpha was the best thing I ever did. It helped answer some huge questions and to find a simple empowering faith in my life.

As a society, we've become terrified of failure, but you can't grow without risking it.

Never depend on those luck moments – they are gifts – but instead always build your own back-up plan.

Americans are cool; if you show just a chink of vulnerability, they respond so much. They'll pat you on the arm and say, 'Hey kid, you're all right.' Brits will respond but they are much more cynical.

Eventually, two Swedish climbers and a Sherpa called Babu Chiri found Mick. By chance--by God's grace--Babu was carrying a spare canister of oxygen.
Neil and Pasang had also now descended, and met up with Mick and the others. Neil then located an emergency cache of oxygen half-buried in the snow nearby. He gave one to Alan and forced both him and Mick to their feet.
Slow and tired, his mind wandering in and out of consciousness, Mick remembers little about the next few hours. It was just a haze of delirium, fatigue, and cold.
Descending blue sheet ice can be lethal. Much more so than ascending it. Mick staggered on down, the debilitating effects of thin air threatening to overwhelm him.
Somewhere beneath the Balcony Mick suddenly felt the ground surge beneath him. There was a rush of acceleration as the loose topping of snow--covering the blue ice--slid away under him.
He began to hurtle down the sheer face on his back, and then made the all-too-easy error of trying to dig in his crampons to slow the fall. The force catapulted him into a somersault, hurtling him ever faster down the steep ice and snow face.
He resigned himself to the fact that he would die.
He bounced and twisted, over and over, and then slid to a halt on a small ledge. Then he heard voices. They were muffled and strange.
Mick tried to shout to them but nothing came out. The climbers who were now at the col then surrounded him, clipped him in, and held him. He was sha

I didn't want to do eight seasons of How To Build A Fire. The intention was to make something fun and dynamic and about self rescue, not about whittling.

Christianity is not about religion. It's about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It's about finding joy and finding home.

I exercise about 40 minutes a day, and I'll run one day and do circuit training the next day. I live in an area where there are brilliant hills and mountains, so I get a good hill run with my dog. At home, I'll do the circuit training with old weights, along with pull-ups in the trees and that sort of stuff.

I've never really had a TV career. I've been a soldier and a climber.

Change the way you use your time, and you change your life.

In every potential sponsor's eyes, I was a nobody. And soon I had notched up more rejection letters than is healthy for any one man to receive.

I think fire is so critical in the wild. You can cook with it, you can make tools, you can deter a predator, you can dry your clothes and you get that element of morale that matters so much when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Look at the stories of people who have changed the world - they have so often started with little, but they distinguished themselves by how they approached life, opportunity, relationships and struggle. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi. You name them. The list is huge but the common qualities are small.

Resourcefulness and a determination to survive the 'lemons' are invariably at the heart of these successes.

The secret to a life well lived is taking the resources around us - the people we know, the possessions we own, the skills we've acquired - and combining them in such a way that they add up to something greater than their constituent parts.

That's the lemonade bit.

So often in the wild I have felt totally beaten, but I have kept going, kept trying to think smart, be resourceful, positive, energetic - despite the fatigue - and it has always made a critical difference.

We can't always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny.

A life in the wild has taught me not to fear the unexpected, but to embrace it. In fact, I have learnt that those curve balls from left-field are very often the making of us.

Finally, finally, I was thrown into this tiny, dark cell. It all went quiet. But I instantly noticed the warmth. And I could just make out the shape of the room under the crack in my blindfold.
I waited.
I was half-naked with my camouflage jacket pulled back halfway down my back, and I was huddled over shivering. I must have looked a mess.
I could taste the snot smeared down my face.
A hand pulled my blindfold off and a light went on.
"Recognize this, Bear?" a voice said softly.
I squinted. The DS was pointing at a white cross on his arm. I didn't react. I needed to double-check in my mind.
"This means the end of the exercise--Endex. Remember?"
I did, but still I didn't react yet. I needed to check once more in my mind. Then, finally, I nodded weakly at him. And he smiled back.
It was the end.
"Well done, buddy. Now take a seat, take five, and get this brew down you. The quack will be in to see you in a few minutes."
The DS put a blanket around my shoulders. A smile spread across my face and I felt a tear of relief trickle down my cheek.
For an hour a psychiatrist then debriefed me. He told me that I had done well and had resisted effectively. I felt just so relieved. I loved that psychiatrist.
The real lesson of this was twofold: Control your mind; and Don't get caught.
As the DS said, "Remember, at the end of the day, these guys are on your side. They are British, they aren't a real enemy. If they were,

My work is all about adventure and teamwork in some of the most inhospitable jungles, mountains and deserts on the planet. If you aren't able to look after yourself and each other, then people die.

And the greater the fear, the greater the bravery.

Whether it is the wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family or friends, so often those closest to us are the ones who get the worst of us. It is as if we feel that they are the only ones we can be grumpy with, and we save our best for our guests or for work. But this is a recipe for struggle. The smart man and woman save the best for those they love. If we show our loved ones the most gratitude every day, then life will smile on us in return. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: three words to help you thrive. Trust me.

The extremes of jungles, mountains, and deserts are inherently dangerous places.

I train five days a week hard - but it is short and sharp - 30 to 40 minutes of functional and pretty dynamic body-strength circuits, then I do a good yoga session on the sixth day, then I rest.

Yes, the Boy Scouts of America should definitely allow gay adult leaders and I think it's really going to hold them back if they don't.

It was a feeling that I could be a little different from everyone else of my age, and that, if pushed, I could battle against the forces of nature and prevail. Adventure felt the most natural thing in the world, and it was where I came alive. It is what made me feel, for the first time, really myself.
As I got older and the rest of my world got more complicated and unnatural, I sought more and more the identity and wholeness that adventure gave me.
In short, when I was wet, muddy, and cold, I felt like a million dollars, and when I was with the lads, with everyone desperately trying to be "cool," I felt more awkward and unsure of myself. I could do mud, but trying to be cool was never a success.
So I learned to love the former and shy away from the latter.
(Although I gave "cool" a brief, good go as a young teenager, buying winklepicker boots and listening to heavy metal records all through one long winter, both of which were wholly unsatisfying, and subsequently dropped as "boring.")
Instead, I would often dress up in my "worst" (aka my best) and dirtiest clothes, stand under the hosepipe in the garden, get soaking wet--in December--and then go off for a run on my own in the hills.
The locals thought me a bit bonkers, but my dog loved it, and I loved it. It felt wild, and it was a feeling that captured me more and more.
Once, I returned from one such run caked in mud and ran past a girl I quite fancied. I wondered if she might like the mudd

Make a little time to be quiet by yourself every day and just be.

Textbook survival says stay still, don't take any chances, wait for rescue. That's a boring TV show. My thing was always, "Listen, shoelace, dead squirrel and no other way down this rock face. You can do this!"

Are you the sort of person who can turn around when you have nothing left, and find that little bit extra inside you to keep going, or do you sag and wilt with exhaustion? It is a mental game, and it is hard to tell how people will react until they are squeezed.

Life's full of lots of dream-stealers always telling you you need to do something more sensible. I think it doesn't matter what your dream is, just fight the dream-stealers and hold onto it.

We were on a family holiday to Cyprus to visit my aunt and uncle. My uncle Andrew was then the brigadier to all the British forces on the island, and as such a senior military figure I am sure he must have dreaded us coming to town.
After a few days holed up in the garrison my uncle innocently suggested that maybe we would enjoy a trip to the mountains. He already knew the answer that my father and I would give. We were in.
The Troodos Mountains are a small range of snowy peaks in the center of the island, and the soldiers posted to Cyprus use them to ski and train in. There are a couple of ski runs, but the majority of the peaks in winter are wild and unspoiled.
In other words, they are ripe for an adventure.
Dad and I borrowed two sets of army skis and boots from the garrison up in the hills and spent a great afternoon together skiing down the couple of designated runs. But designated runs can also be quite boring. We both looked at each other and suggested a quick off-piste detour.
It was all game…age eleven.
It wasn't very far into this between-the-trees deep-powder detour that the weather, dramatically, and very suddenly, took a turn for the worse.
A mountain mist rolled in, reducing visibility to almost zero. We stopped to try and get, or guess, our directions back to the piste, but our guess was wrong, and very soon we both realized we were lost. (Or temporarily geographically challenged, as I have learned to call it.)
Dad and I

I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, "I watch your show, I'm not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it's about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times." That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn't about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it's about inspiring people. That makes me really happy.

I try and eat really healthy when I'm home, but I certainly don't eat worms and snakes.

Juice Plus+ is great stuff that I have used through all of my expeditions. What I like about it is that the research behind it is so strong. It is 100% natural, is whole food based, and I love the fact that it provides raw, anti-oxidant fruit and veg in a capsule form. For me it fulfills a key part of my nutrition, training and recovery needs.

Why is it that the finish line always tends to appear just after the point at which we most want to give up? is it the universe's way of reserving the best for those who can give the most? What I do know, from nature, is that the dawn only appears after the darkest hour.

Sometimes it takes a knock in life to make us sit up and grab life. And I had just undergone the mother of all knocks.
But out of that despair, fear, and struggle came a silver lining--and I didn't even know it yet.
What I did know was that I needed something to give me back my hope. My sparkle. My life. I found that something in my Christian faith, in my family, and also in my dreams of adventure.
My Christian faith says that I have nothing ever to fear or worry about. All is well.
At that time, in and out of hospital, it reminded me that, despite the pain and despair, I was held and loved and blessed--my life was secure through Jesus Christ.
That gift of grace has been so powerful to me ever since.
My family said something very similar: "Bear, you are an idiot, but we love you anyway, forever and always."
That meant the world to me and gave me back some of the confidence that I was struggling to find again.
Finally, I had my not insubstantial dreams of adventure. And those dreams were beginning to burn bright once more.
You see, I figure that life is a gift. I was learning that more than anyone.
My mum always taught me to be grateful for gifts. And as I slowly began to recover my strength and confidence, I realized that what mattered was doing something bold with that present.
A gift buried under a tree is wasted.
Alone one night in bed, I made a verbal, out-loud, conscious decision, that if I recovered well enough

Being brave isn't the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it.

I've had so many injuries in my life that it's ridiculous.

I have held healthy respects of bears along with assorted crocodiles, snakes and lots of other animals. You know, bears are dangerous, you have to be super careful.

I had many opportunities to get behind products in the past, and I was always careful to evaluate all of them. I will not put my name to shoddy items.

There's no magic to running far or climbing Everest. Endurance is mental strength. It's all about heart.

Meals were often eaten standing up, and I wasn't quite sure why they had bothered to issue us with beds, we got to see them so little.

Both faith and fear may sail into your harbor, but allow only faith to drop anchor.

There is no feeling like coming home after danger.

Some of the greatest survivors have been women. Look at the courage so many women have shown after surviving earthquakes in the rubble for days on end.

Later that week, I was bicycling down a pavement in the City of London when I passed a company called DLE, which stands for Davis Langdon & Everest.
Hmm, I thought, as I skidded to a halt.
I took a deep breath and then confidently walked into their ultraclean, ultrasmart reception, and asked to be put through to the CEO's office, saying it was both urgent and confidential.
Once I had the CEO's secretary on the line, I pleaded with her to help me get just two minutes of her boss's time.
Eventually after three attempts, due to a combination of pity and intrigue, she agreed to ask the CEO to see me for "literally two minutes."
Bingo.
I was escorted into a lift and then ushered into the calm of the CEO's top-floor office. I was very nervous.
The two head guys, Paul Morrell and Alastair Collins, came in, looking suspiciously at this scruffy youngster holding a pamphlet. (They later described it as one of the worst-laid-out proposals they had ever seen.)
But they both had the grace to listen.
By some miracle, they caught the dream and my enthusiasm, and for the sake of £10,000 (which to me was the world, but to them was a marketing punt), they agreed to back my attempt to put the DLE flag on top of the world.
I promised an awesome photograph for their boardroom.
We stood up, shook hands, and we have remained great friends ever since.
I love deals like that.

It was like climbing a mountain of waist-deep molasses while giving someone a fireman's carry, who, for good measure, was also trying to force a pair of frozen socks into your mouth. Nice.