“The rules of survival never change, whether you’re in a desert or in an arena.”

Unless you have shelter, fire is going to be very hard and if you have fire, but no water, you’re going to die. They’re all super important.

When you find yourself thinking about someone or something in the same old negative way, just stop yourself. Think. Check. Change. Refresh. Job done. Smile. Move on. Do this enough times and you will change. For the better; for the stronger.

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

I’ve fallen down crevasses, been bitten by snakes, been knocked unconscious, had various limbs broken and once, a heavy camera came plunging down which very nearly decapitated me.

I never wanted to do TV. I just did what I was trained to do through the Special Forces, and I’ve been doing that from a very young age.

Survival is not about being fearless. It’s about making a decision, getting on and doing it, because I want to see my kids again, or whatever the reason might be.

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.

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

Success almost always follows great attitude. The two attract each other!

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.

You can’t become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again, a good number of times. There’s life in a nutshell.

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.

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.

I always had a really natural faith as a kid. Where I knew God existed and it felt very free and pretty wild and natural, and it wasn’t religious.

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