The Hard Road Will Take You Home E-Book

Anthony Stazicker

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 344

Beschreibung

'Read this book, it will only serve you well' Ant Middleton 'Incredible ... Staz is an inspiration' Nims Purja 'A must read for anyone who wants to succeed and thrive under pressure' Dylan Hartley 'Stacked with insights ... The book you need when the going gets tough' Aldo Kane Elite Discipline meets Creative Effort Anthony 'Staz' Stazicker served an impressive 13 years of distinguished and decorated military service, ten within the Special Forces, before founding the multi-million pound technical clothing company ThruDark. Throughout his career in the Special Forces - featuring gunfights, door-kicking operations, and against-the-odds escapes - he learned hard lessons that would later provide crucial intelligence equally applicable to business, innovation and enterprise. The Hard Road Will Take You Home provides a mission plan that distils the processes and tactics Staz gathered throughout his career and translates them into tools that can be used in any number of settings, and by individuals with a wide range of experience and backgrounds. It instils the psychological cues required to bring next level success to any mission. And it lays bare the levels of discipline required to maintain that next level success. Introducing four concepts that make up the life of an elite operator - battle prep; techniques, tactics and procedures; teamwork and the lessons we should all consider when learning how to innovate, persevere and succeed - this book comes stacked with insight, easily applicable techniques and psychological processes gathered from Staz's time serving with the most resilient fighting force in the world. As a creative resource, it's a weapon.

Leseprobe

THE HARD ROAD WILL TAKE YOU HOME

With an impressive 13 years of distinguished and decorated military service, Anthony ‘Staz’ Stazicker was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for combat actions in 2013. Staz left the UK Special Forces in 2018 and launched the technical clothing company, ThruDark. ThruDark is now known as one of the best high-performance outerwear brands in the UK.

Published in hardback in Great Britain in 2023 by Allen & Unwin,an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Anthony Stazicker, 2023

The moral right of Anthony Stazicker to be identified as the authorof this work has been asserted by him in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,without the prior permission of both the copyright owner andthe above publisher of this book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders.The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectifyany mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 83895 733 9E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 734 6

Typeset by Avon DataSet Ltd, Alcester, Warwickshire

Printed in Great Britain

Allen & UnwinAn imprint of Atlantic Books LtdOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

Contents

Foreword by Jason Fox

Introduction: Endeavour Through Adversity

Part One:Battle Prep

  1 Into the Dark (The Leap of Faith)

  2 Redefine Your Disasters

  3 Darts at the Dartboard

  4 Red Cell Analysis

  5 How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything

Part Two:Techniques, Tactics & Procedures

  6 Kaizen

  7 The Underdog Advantage

  8 Contact

  9 The Controllables

10 The Armour of Daily Habits

Part Three:In Union There’s Strength

11 Never Above You. Never Below You. Always Beside You.

12 Create Community, Not Work

13 Pick People Over Talent

14 Hire Smart, Fire Fast

15 You Catch More Flies with Honey than Vinegar

Part Four:The Hard Lessons

16 The White Belt Mentality

17 Ego is the Enemy

18 Kinetic Intelligence is a Weapon

19 Medals are for Mothers: The Success Conundrum

The Final Word: The Hard Road Will Take You Home

Endpapers: Photography Credits

Acknowledgements

FOREWORD

by Jason Fox

I first met Staz while serving abroad with the military. He’d been posted on a long deployment and I was part of the incoming group that were set to take over. During the handover period we trained a few times and worked on a couple of jobs together. As I got to see what he was all about I remember thinking, ‘What a hoofing bloke,’ and we became good mates. Staz was a beast. He’d put everything into his gym sessions as he would his work – in and out of the military – and it really didn’t surprise me when he was later awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for Combat Actions conducted while scrapping with the UK Armed Forces.

During his military career, Staz proved how innovative thought could bring success, especially when twinned with hardcore endeavour. When he left the military to launch the massively successful technical clothing company ThruDark with our mutual friend Louis Tinsley, those skills and processes were then transferred into business. Success inevitably followed. Now all of that intel has been stuffed into the book you’re about to read. If you only put 50 per cent of what you learn here into practice, I reckon you’ll be on to a winner.

That’s because Staz’s processes have been battle-tested – literally. When he first launched ThruDark, I knew he was on to something because, like many former military types, he was disciplined and able to exploit both success and failure, willing to push through discomfort, and constantly in search of excellence. ThruDark was a cracking idea too.

Why? Well, I’ve often moaned about the type of technical gear I’ve been forced to use in the most hostile environments on earth, whether I was serving or during an expedition. What I didn’t know was just how bloody good ThruDark would be at revolutionising the concept of outdoor kit, though that all changed when I trekked to the North Pole wearing the first official ThruDark expedition parka. It was amazing. The coat didn’t fail me at any point, and if it hadn’t been auctioned off for charity upon my return, I’d still be using it now.

But even though the kit was a success, ThruDark wasn’t content to rest on its laurels, which is a trait of both the UK military and a top-level business. Staz and Louis wanted to make improvements. They also needed to understand what tweaks could be made to the design in a process known as the After Action Report (AAR), which was initiated by something called a hot debrief. This was just one of the many battle tactics that could be applied to all sorts of real-life scenarios – business, learning, entrepreneurship, innovation and even relationships. Don’t worry, you’ll read about them all here.

It’s inspiring that Staz has written about the personal techniques and strategies that have elevated him to the next level, because the biggest compliment I can pay ThruDark is that they make me wish for winter. Having seen the way their business works I want to push myself harder in how I think about expeditions, new challenges and different projects. My guess is that after putting down The Hard Road Will Take You Home, you’ll feel the same way too.

Introduction

ENDEAVOUR THROUGH ADVERSITY

Here we go. I’m in The Badlands now…

I was part of an elite military group operating in the desert under the cover of darkness, preparing to engage a group of militia leaders. My heart was pounding. This would be my first gunfight as a tier one operator having worked through Selection, the gruelling ‘job interview’ required to thrive within the UK’s specialized fighting forces – a squadron of expert operators that served in the world’s most hostile environments – where I’d shown that I was in possession of the physical and psychological grit needed to excel under pressure. While training had provided a taster for the intense, against-all-odds operations I’d be expected to complete, the action when it arrived was an eye-opener.

The battle had been planned to the nth degree; no detail had been spared and my role in the mission was to operate as a sniper. Moving purposefully but quietly somewhere near the front of the group, my adrenaline spiked. I was fired up, I knew exactly where I had to be when the shooting kicked off and what I had to do, as did everyone else in the team. Meanwhile, the enemy was none the wiser. This was it: Everything you’ve trained for, Staz… Just focus. I listened to the radio chatter through my comms and every now and then an eerie whoomph trembled in the darkness around us – the dull echo of an explosion rippling somewhere else in the valley.

When the scrapping broke out for real, the group around me seemed to move as a fluid unit, taking up their pre-arranged positions and picking off the enemy one-by-one. I saw hostile gunmen crumpling to the floor in the chaos. Shocked awake in the darkness, they had taken up defensive positions and were fighting back aggressively, but their bullets seemed to whistle away into the shadows. Close, but not close enough. When an explosion ripped through the air near my position, I watched as a mud and stone wall collapsed and every sense seemed to malfunction at once – I couldn’t see, hear, speak, or even smell. I’d gone numb too. My mouth had been open at the time of the blast. Had I been clenching my jaw, there’s every chance both eardrums would have been ruptured by the intense overpressure. Later, when the operation was concluded, we returned to base to discuss what had happened in a ‘hot debrief’. By the sounds of it, the mission had been a massive success.

‘Fucking hell, that was amazing,’ I thought. ‘That’s the Call of Duty shit I’d had in mind when I signed up for this.’

Interestingly, nobody else seemed to care about the excitement and pride I was experiencing in the aftermath; nobody knew that in the controlled chaos, I’d experienced a powerful increase in confidence at being able to stick to the battle plan that had been laid out. Or, as the battle rocked and convulsed around me, how I’d successfully leant upon several key techniques, tactics and procedures picked up from combat training. I’d also felt a huge sense of purpose by fighting alongside a group of expert operators, and our bond, established through teamwork and camaraderie, had kept everyone in the group alive. Finally, I’d recalled several hard lessons from my military career – phrases, ideas and reminders picked up from senior operators, or the Directing Staff (DS) overseeing the brutal Selection process. In the scrap, these cues had boosted my confidence. They’d told me I could survive in a situation where the odds were most definitely stacked against me.

Ego is the enemy.

How we do anything is how we do everything.

Endeavour through adversity.

These realizations were pivotal. I now knew from first-hand experience that:

1. When an operator was exposed to a full-on operation, the values of battle prep would deliver success.

2. The techniques, tactics and procedures learned in training would keep me going, especially when the physical and emotional suffering felt overwhelming, or when self-discipline became a life-or-death requirement.

3. When the rockets and rounds tore through the air, and my brothers scrapped around me, the power of teamwork was brought to bear.

4. The theories and concepts that had been screamed at me during training drills could be sharpened into something more tangible.

When brought together, these lessons and skills allowed me to thrive under pressure, innovate in terrifying situations and achieve during chaotic events where many other men and women would have crumbled and died.

But this was only just the beginning.

Fast-forward to 2018. I was leaving the military and launching the technical clothing start-up, ThruDark, with my friend and fellow elite operator, Louis Tinsley. This was a field in which I possessed zero experience and yet the same principles I’d used in elite service would weirdly help me to develop and grow until ThruDark was regarded a massive success. Skills and know-how that had once steadied me during gunfights and extreme survival events proved equally applicable to business, innovation and enterprise when the pressure was on. I used them as motivational ideas and practical jumping-off points in an environment that, at times, felt as daunting and unsettling as my early days in the war business.

Let me explain how I got there in the first place. In 2005, I joined the Royal Marines Commandos where I later went on to pass the Royal Marines Sniper Course. Nobody in my family had served in the military before, so this was something I felt particularly proud of. Then in 2008, I signed up for Selection with the military elite and for the next ten years I served at the sharpest end of combat as a sergeant, sniper and demolitions expert, and later a multi-skilled sniper instructor. Due to my involvement in a number of risky operations in battle, I was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for combat. However, once my time with the squadron was done, I decided to explore my options beyond the military. Getting a job in personal security – a logical vocation for many former operators – seemed too safe, too boring. (By the way, I’m not knocking those individuals that have gone into that line of work. It’s a solid gig.) But testing myself in an area where the creative risks and emotional rewards felt potentially bigger, next level, seemed like a step in line with my military career. I wanted to push myself beyond what might have been reasonably expected of me and was ready to turn the page.

This was the first time I’d ever been required to consider my life beyond active service and it felt like a minefield. Up until that moment, my work-life balance had been intense, but rewarding, though the effort required to survive had taken its toll. I’d lost friends to IED blasts. I’d even seen the gruesome result of an explosion when a dog picked through the gore-splattered aftermath and emerged with a victim’s dick in its mouth. Still, none of these incidents compared to the time I’d slipped on a clump of slimy goo during a night operation. In the dark, it was impossible to discern exactly what I’d walked into. Then, once the building had been cleared, I went back to check on the mess with a torch and discovered to my horror that I’d stepped through what was left of an enemy gunman’s brain.

As I looked to the future, I knew a change was needed. At the time I was thirty-three years old. My first marriage had failed and I was two years into a new relationship. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes twice.

‘Mate, you’ve still got plenty of gas in the tank,’ I thought. ‘What do you want to do?’

Around the same time, Louis was standing at the very same crossroads. After scrapping as an operator for eight years, his back wasn’t great and he’d been forced to retire through injury. I’d first met Louis having joined the Royal Marines with 40 Commando, Bravo Company, and the pair of us became close friends, though we never actually fought alongside one another. Like me, Louis was ready for a new challenge and we had plenty in common. Both of us had taken a great deal of pride in our appearance and personal admin as operators – looking ‘the part’ was a big deal. Both of us appreciated the value of functional kit, tech and safety, which was vital when operating in extreme environments, such as the desert, where temperatures could reach 50 degrees Celsius, or the mountains, where a ripped glove, damaged boot or inappropriate clothing could lead to frostbite and death.

Meanwhile, I’d heard from a number of former operators working in the extreme adventure business that a lot of the kit being used wasn’t exactly bombproof. That’s when Louis and I stumbled across an idea. Could we deliver something different to the market – the type of clothing suitable for both elite adventurers and casual explorers? We undoubtedly had the credibility to front such a project. But did we have the business acumen? We also had the expertise to appreciate the value of functional clothing because in war our lives and the survival of everybody around us had depended upon it. Was it possible to translate those high standards into fully developed and marketable products?

The answer was very much yes, and together we established ThruDark – a clothing company that enmeshed the military elite’s ethos into a line of technically innovative kit, the type required for incredibly challenging environments. We’re talking remote mountains, deserts and frozen, end-of-the-earth outposts where only the brave would dare to tread. The clothing we had in mind had to be highly advanced and functional, as our kit had been during our time in the military elite. It also had to look badass.

At times, the work felt daunting – we were breaking new ground after all – but it was in those moments that I came to rely upon the processes used in combat. ThruDark was a clothing start-up, but it operated very much like an elite military unit. And during our early days, we applied the philosophies usually associated with battle prep, by working through business plans, projections, designs and tests, where everything was assessed through a military-style viewfinder. In the process, Louis and I worked with meticulous detail, conducting ‘pre-mortems’ on potential pitfalls and the cost of failure, and using recon skills to locate the right materials, suppliers and distributors. Meanwhile, debriefs, plus the lessons learned within them, were conducted under a harsh spotlight – mistakes were examined and evaluated with a view that screw-ups would happen from time to time, but if we failed we would fail forward.

Techniques, tactics and procedure also played a part, and as we learned new skills in a new industry, I began to take inspiration from battle-borne practices, such as how to control the controllables, or the importance of building an armoury of daily habits that would help me to locate stability in flashpoints or moments of stress. As a result, the age-old struggle with production disputes and creative differences, looming deadlines and financial migraines were negotiated in much the same way I’d processed a gun battle, a fast-rope descent on to a moving vessel, or the injury to a teammate. By putting one foot in front of the other and acting with purpose and rational thought we were able to sidestep most of the emotional pitfalls and financial IEDs.

As the company grew and our workforce expanded, ThruDark embraced the power of teamwork and unity; we accepted our inexperience in certain areas; we realized that left-field thinking should be encouraged at all times. At the same time it was decided that our successes had to be observed, but not overly celebrated, because that wasn’t how we did things in the military. Finally, ThruDark relied upon the hard lessons and sayings delivered by military life, such as ‘That’ll do will never do’ and ‘Medals are for mothers’. These cues had kept us alive in service, as evidenced by my intense first battle, but they also served to remind us of the spirit that had led us to success in the past and would therefore do so again. Three years on, those values have established ThruDark as a leading force in a specialist market. The company now stands as an example of what can happen when elite discipline meets creative effort.

All of this brings us to The Hard Road Will Take You Home – What the Military Elite Teaches Us About Innovation, Endeavour and Next Level Success. You’ll soon realize that this is not a straightforward memoir. Instead it’s a book that distils the processes and tactics I’ve gathered throughout my career and translates them into tools (‘Action Ons’) that can be used in any number of settings, and by individuals with a wide range of experience and backgrounds. Really anyone looking to innovate, show creativity or handle adversity will find value here, whether that be in business, family, sport, personal relationships or when embarking on a gruelling life challenge, such as overcoming a serious injury or working towards a physical or psychological milestone.

For example, the concept of never above you, never below you, always beside you was a phrase used to underscore the value of team unity. It suggested that everyone working within a group was of equal value, there for one another in shit times. Elsewhere, one of the most impactful lessons I picked up in service would come to inspire the title of this book. When I first heard the phrase ‘The hard road will take you home’, I was around twenty-five weeks into the Royal Marines basic training course and my group was breaking up for a summer leave period. We had been ordered to the Bottom Field, which, as any seasoned commando will tell you, plays home to the infamous assault course and is where most of the physical punishments are dished out. This day was no different, and as a parting gift we were subjected to a competitive session between the troops, which involved a series of dead lifts, car pulls and excruciating body weight exercises.

After a mauling from the PTIs that seemed to last the whole day, the group was gathered together for a briefing. These were to be the motivational words that we were supposed to take with us through leave and beyond, and they were designed to make an impact as we stood out at the bottom of a grassy knoll. At the top, a bunch of hierarchy types had gathered together and were looking down on us from their perch. In those days, I was still getting used to the military ranking system, so the authority of some of the senior figures in attendance was lost on me, though the stars, pips and crowns on their clothing told me enough. They were pretty important.

Suddenly the whistles blew and everyone stood to attention. We were being addressed.

‘The Colonel’s going to say some words,’ shouted a voice. Though really, the colonel in question needed little in the way of introduction. He was a man who carried a serious reputation. He was also the type of character that demanded respect on appearance alone: a man mountain, albeit a little wiry, he swaggered with authority and his face looked weathered, as if he’d lived and thrived in a career built on adversity.

‘He’s nails,’ I thought. ‘I wouldn’t want to get in a tear-up with him.’

This powerful impression was cemented further once he had opened his mouth to address us.

‘Men!’ His voice boomed across the Bottom Field like an old-school cannon going off. The entire troop seemed to inhale at once. You could have heard a pin drop.

‘Let me tell you that the endeavour you’re currently enduring in Royal Marines’ training is the best thing that you can be doing in order to strive towards your goals for a greater purpose. You are joining an important brotherhood, one that will define your life in battle and beyond.

‘You will suffer hardship,’ he continued. ‘There’s little doubt about that. The most important thing is that you should never take the easy option. Don’t ever look to cut corners in anything you do. Finally, remember this: The hard road will take you home.’

‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘that is brilliant.’

Exactly why it resonated so deeply will remain a mystery. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that for much of my life I’d felt as if I was walking the hard road. I’d certainly been working tirelessly to move forward. I also took a lot of pride in the fact that I was able to push through moments of physical pain and emotional suffering in order to grow as an individual. As you’ll soon discover, I’d figured out at an early age that discomfort would define me in one way or another and it was all about endeavour through adversity as far as I was concerned. That speech ensured that the idea of taking the path of most resistance would stay with me for life.

It followed me into service, where I’d be ordered to perform painful training exercises or to clean my kit. Rather than going through the motions, I’d think, ‘Right, don’t opt for the easy option, let’s knuckle down here.’ There were times on drills or during time trials on Selection when I would have been forgiven for taking my foot off the gas, having already done enough to qualify, but I pushed myself even harder. I would come to learn quite quickly that this was an essential trait of the elite operator: I needed to go the extra yard at all times, I had to focus on the finer details, and when war became ugly it was my time to pull the straps on my backpack a little tighter and think, ‘Fuck it, I’m cracking on.’ I later brought this attitude into my career beyond the military by refusing to clock out until my work was done.

Throughout The Hard Road Will Take You Home I’ll walk you through four concepts that make up the life of an elite operator. These are: battle prep; techniques, tactics and procedures; teamwork; and the lessons we should all consider when learning how to innovate, persevere and succeed. When I left the military elite to start a new life with ThruDark, a lot of my friends thought I was making a bad move. They couldn’t believe I’d left active service for a start-up company with next to no experience in business. They expected me to struggle. They reckoned on me screwing up. They wondered if I’d come out of the experience feeling just as psychologically battered and bruised as I would a military tour. They weren’t alone though. I was feeling exactly the same way. The difference was that I’d wanted to embrace the unknown because throughout my career I’d constantly been told that nothing would come easily and pain was an expected companion to victory. I was ready for that pain due to the fact I had the tools to overcome it – and to succeed.

As a book, The Hard Road Will Take You Home encapsulates that spirit and arrives stacked with insight, easily applicable techniques and psychological processes gathered from my time serving with the most resilient fighting force in the world.

As a creative resource, it’s a weapon.

PART ONE

BATTLE PREP

BRIEFING

Preparation was everything in war. Rarely did an elite military operation happen without a plan, and in advance of any attack, a specialized fighting force was readied tactically, mentally and militarily. Nothing was left to chance in my line of work because everything was fast-moving, highly unpredictable and, without overegging the narrative, fucking dangerous. To run into an occupied village, all guns blazing, without thought or purpose, was the fastest track to an unpleasant end.

For that reason the whats, whys and wherefores of every mission were detailed in advance – and often with an excruciatingly high level of detail. On a short-term level this was particularly important: I had to run around in the dark during most battles, as explosions and screams went off left, right and centre. The work could be daunting and ultra-violent. It exposed me to some pretty harrowing sights and without a clear plan in place I might have failed. However, in the grander scheme of things, a readied mind and an overarching mission structure was vital. It kept me motivated and focused; it prevented me from experiencing confusion or shock.

How the UK’s military elite runs through its battle prep is one of the reasons why it stands apart from so many other expert fighting forces across the world. Selection had readied my body and brain for service, though I certainly remember being taken aback by the orders process for my first-ever operation. During a lengthy meeting, the team’s roles were clearly defined, there was no doubting exactly what had to be done and by whom, and anyone who felt unsure of even the slightest detail was given the space and freedom to put up their hands and say so. Nobody was mocked for asking a question that might help to keep one or all of us alive.

Battle prep wasn’t just about tactics and maps, though, and I later learned that a lot of combat readiness was existential. For example, many high-profile missions required a leap of faith at some point, a moment where my team would commit to the mission, or some incredibly dangerous attack. But those decisions were never taken blindly. They were always backed by gathered intelligence, analysis and a confidence born of experience and training. Psychologically, as elite operators we also understood that our future results weren’t defined by any past screw-ups. Instead, we were encouraged to regard our mistakes as building blocks for success – lessons that could help us to improve, or reminders that we’d failed in the past and risen up stronger. Acceptance meant we would do so again during moments of adversity.

On a more practical level, the military elite employed several idea-generating techniques that were used in order to a) locate an enemy’s weakness, and b) turn the spotlight internally so that any flaws in our own practices could be revealed. When it came to the strategies required for dealing with both, everything we did was then executed with willingness, diligence and a commitment to excellence. Overall, these techniques helped me to prepare for war, but I later realized that many of them could be translated into the concepts of business, teamwork and leadership, and without too much fuss. It was an important discovery: in everyday work or missions, important details and events are often left unplanned, and by too many people. It’s for this very reason that you should consider battle prep as a game-changing resource…

1

INTO THE DARK (THE LEAP OF FAITH)

All of us are required to take a leap of faith from time to time, whether that’s in our business or personal lives. It might be that we’ve come up with an actionable idea that requires a risky financial investment, or we’ve pushed for a new kind of career altogether. Or maybe we’ve decided to start a new life abroad or retrain in an entirely unfamiliar field. None of these decisions come easily; the work required to succeed can be painful and throughout there will be dark nights of the soul, moments of self-doubt and a hell of a lot of fear.

I know these feelings all too well because I experienced them, both literally – having thrown myself from a plane on a number of night operations – and figuratively, when starting ThruDark. Luckily, I’d been schooled for challenging events throughout my military career in what felt like a never-ending succession of tests – leaps of faith that prepared me for elite service. The mindset instilled by my progress became the glue that would help bring ThruDark into existence, but this same glue can be applied to many forms of civilian endeavour, as I’ll explain…

Parachute failure!

I plummeted to the deck, my half-opened canopy flapping and flailing like a plastic shopping bag tumbling along a city road. G-forces yanked my body to and fro; my oxygen mask was wrenched to one side and my left arm seemed pinned to my ribs by gravity. Everywhere was chaos. I watched the black of sky and the tangled, twisted lines that connected my harness to a now collapsed ’chute as the world tumbled over and over, round and round. It was as if I’d been dropped into the capsule of a fairground waltzer as it pitched and yawed, only this ride was turbocharged and potentially fatal. Rational thought and methodical action, I realized, was suddenly everything. If I couldn’t cut away the flapping bag of linen above me with the pull of a cord, I’d be seen off in a very messy, though blessedly swift ending.

‘Don’t flap, mate,’ I told myself. ‘Don’t fucking flap…’

Really, I should have had it in me to wriggle out of what seemed to be a fairly routine parachute failure. Compared to some of the many scrapes I’d experienced in war, in which I’d come close to being shot dead, or detonated into pieces by an IED, this was a situation that granted me a certain amount of control. I knew my canopy would open fully if I could untangle the twisted lines above; a reserve ’chute also gave me a fairly solid fallback position. Struggling against gravity, I freed both hands and grabbed at the risers, kicking out my legs in opposite directions like a frog. I’d been told during countless drills that by generating enough violent force it was possible to correct the twisted lines – unless, of course, I was really unlucky. As I kicked around, the situation didn’t seem to be improving. My lines were still tangled and a worrying realization dawned upon me.

By the looks of things, I’d been really unlucky.

How had it come to this? My jump that night had been a training effort, not a serious operation: a full mission profile, in which the operators involved were expected to land on a designated landing zone (LZ) with the type of kit normally required for a real-time job. A large bag had been slung between my legs. I was set with a weapon, my sniper rifle and helmet; my body had been weighed down by ammo, ballistic plates, radios and night vision goggles. As the plane moved above our target, the unit had stacked up in the back, ready to swoop into the darkness before opening our ’chutes and, at that moment, everything seemed to be in order. I’d run an equipment check and double-check beforehand. Then I’d checked and double-checked everything again. I was good. The light at the back of the plane glowed green. It was go time. I’d then watched as my teammates plunged forwards until it was my turn… And I stepped off the tail ramp and dropped into the sky, scooping at the air around me with my hands in order to maintain a firm body position as I fell. For a second, everything was silent and still. Then the air began buffeting around me as I gathered velocity. Before long the wind resistance had built into a roaring hurricane as I plummeted down, down, down, while a methodical countdown ticked over in my head…

One thousand.

Two thousand.

Three thousand…

The type of parachutes I’d been trained to use were pretty big and normally took around eight seconds to fully open, but in those first few moments I became locked in a violent struggle. G-forces twisted my body and there was no way to lift my head or to check on what was happening with the ’chute above me.

Four thousand.

Five thousand.

Six thousand…

Something was off. I was falling quicker than I should have been, though there was some reassurance in the fact that I wasn’t yet free-falling – there was a little drag in the air around me, which meant that my canopy had partially opened, but then I caught a glimpse of the fabric above. I’d experienced a seriously unfortunate break, a kit malfunction, and given that untwisting the lines by kicking and thrashing wasn’t going to work, I had no other choice but to attempt a cut-away of the main canopy before releasing the reserve. This was easier said than done, however. Firstly, I’d have to pull the release cord to cut away from the main ’chute. Secondly, I’d have to yank at another to release the backup. Then, in a moment of almost comical timing, my jacket zip failed, ripped open and billowed about my face. I was suddenly blinded.

‘Fucking hell, this isn’t good,’ I thought. ‘I’m losing altitude. I need to make a move on my reserve ’chute and fast…’

The calm I’d enjoyed moments earlier was fast evaporating. But we all knew the risks that accompanied a role in the military elite and nobody was in any doubt that your time could be up at any moment – in training or conflict. Was this mine? I wrestled with my ’chute, but the velocity and wind resistance pummelling my body were becoming increasingly powerful, which meant the chances of my wriggling free were shortening considerably. I felt nauseous and close to blacking out – everything seemed out of control. My left hand clasped around the yellow handle connected to my upper left chest, which I knew would jettison my main canopy, but I also needed to pull at the red handle to release the reserve. When I looked down, it was only a foot away from my face but reaching for it was a serious effort – the pressures being exerted upon me were too strong. Essentially, I was arm-wrestling with gravity. Meanwhile, the other lads in the unit had seen me falling through the sky as their canopies opened up. I later learned that they’d been trying to raise me on the comms, but my antennae had been ripped away as I’d spiralled through the air. Like me, they guessed my time was slipping away. I only had a second or two to take positive action.

I tensed and flexed, pulling at the yellow cord and hoping for the best. Instantly, my main parachute ripped away and I was free-falling, accelerating towards the ground. One, two, three seconds passed as I arched my spine, set the legs and head back and reached forward in order to maintain a strong body shape in the air. I then punched my right hand forward aggressively, freeing my arm from the clutches of gravity and yanked at the red cord. There was a heavy tug. The reserve canopy blossomed open and I lurched upwards, feeling the reassuring drag of wind resistance. I experienced a huge sense of relief.

The adrenaline burning through me seemed to cool a little as I reassessed my situation. I had to reboot. First things first: was everything still working? I took control of the parachute risers and ran through a series of checks. The positives: I could move to the left and to the right; I was able to break and flare; everything was still operational.

‘Well, I won’t be landing in a ball of hurt,’ I thought.

The negatives: I had to work out where I was. Given the darkness it was impossible to guess at my position, or to pick out any recognizable features, or teammates, on the ground below. By the looks of things I was going to be well short of the LZ. The only question was: by how much?

I quickly located the correct bearing and pulled my knees into a tuck position in order to reduce the wind resistance around me. I then altered the canopy’s drive and surged towards the LZ. My aim was to shave away as many running metres between my teammates and me as possible, and I picked a spot between two rural outbuildings and swooped between them gracefully, sprinting into an area of cover. I spun my canopy around, performed a quick search of the area for any mock hostiles and fixed the radio. It was probably my most impressive landing on the job, ever. Oh, the irony.

Then I slumped down on my bag, sparked up a smoke and thanked Lady Luck. I’d held my nerve, my training had worked, though there was little doubt I’d experienced a fortunate escape.

The leaps of faith I experienced in the military tended to be very literal – I jumped from planes, abseiled away from cliff tops and buildings, and tombstoned into freezing, churning seas. But all of us have to take equally daunting tests from time to time and yours could be something entirely different. Maybe your business is making a transition into the digital financial age? Or perhaps you’ve chosen to accept a project or challenge that’s almost guaranteed to stretch you and your team to their absolute limits? The emotions associated with those experiences are really no different to the ones I felt when wrestling with a half-opened parachute, or having stepped into a gunfight. (Though they are undoubtedly amplified in war.) Exposure to trepidation, fear, stress and a level of anxiety regarding the ‘what if…?s’ is common. How you control those feelings is usually the decisive factor between success and failure.

Of course, nobody steps into events of this kind knowing exactly what to do or how to succeed. By their very nature leaps of faith are unknowns. However, the military taught me that they can be approached in a step-by-step basis and I later applied that attitude to the development of ThruDark. For example, as a wet-behind-the-ears Royal Marines recruit entering into basic training, I was a know nothing, but so was everybody else around me, and any recruit claiming otherwise (and there were one or two) was a bullshitter. The truth was that nobody stepping into the gymnasium for their first ever bleep test – dressed in white shorts, vest and plimsolls – understood what it really took to crawl across a muddy battlefield as grenades and bullets exploded around them. War seemed a million miles away. But by following instructions and displaying discipline and determination throughout what was one of the toughest military training programmes in the world, most recruits would get there because the work was designed to build warriors in a series of progressive tests. And each one pushed a potential Marine past what they’d initially considered possible. Eventually we were transformed into fully functional military assets, capable of scrapping it out in some of the most brutal hellholes on earth.

Parachute training was a case in point. When I started with the Marines, the very thought of throwing myself out of a plane was exciting but overwhelming. How the hell would it all work? I really had no idea. Handily, the system forced every recruit to accept the psychological pressures and physical rigours of taking on such an action. There were briefings, courses and training sessions on land until, eventually, we were taken up in a military plane with an instructor, who then jumped into the sky while demonstrating the various drills, body positions and manoeuvres required to operate the ’chute. At that point, everything was new. My mind went into a spin.

You’re jumping out of a plane at night – are you nuts?

What the fuck are you doing?

What’s going to happen when I do this for real?