What I’ve learned over the years is that the path less traveled always makes for a more interesting journey. If you simply do what everyone else is doing, how can you ever expect to excel and create something wonderful and unique in your life?
Above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look at myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough. Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS. Some things don’t have a price tag.
People ask me, “How do I succeed?” Whatever it is they do, I say, “Go and find 20 ways of messing it up. By 21, you’ll be getting there.” Life is an adventure, go back with cuts, scars and bruises.
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.
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.
I was super skeptical about doing TV. I said no three times, part of which was confidence because I didn’t really understand that world. I know how to climb mountains and do all that, but I wasn’t a TV person.
There is little faith involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery, trust, is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return.
