by Jason Fox
Our training prepared me and my teammates for the worst of scenarios. We learned skills that would enable us to survive in the most hostile of environments. This wouldn’t just be a jungle full of Bastard Trees; there would be mock enemy forces searching for us too. The experience was stressful and unnerving, but with each scenario and training session I was given a broader picture of what I could expect when I was really in the shit in a hostile environment. Every test told me I could handle a horrible reality. If I was captured, I could stay calm. If I became pinned down by enemy fire while my teammates died around me, I would find a way out. Knowledge had dispelled fear. Experience had given me the mental tools to grow and become more resilient.
By my first tour of duty, I was approaching my work without worry or insecurity. I had mental flexibility. My Comfort Zone was so much bigger than it had been a year or two previously. Thanks to the operations I’d completed in the Learning Zone, I knew that if an op went south it wouldn’t be completely disastrous because I’d been given an idea of how to manage the worst-case scenarios. Sure, the work was almost overly comprehensive, but it meant that every individual was prepared. I later learned that the military wasn’t alone in operating in this way. A lot of companies and institutions like to give background training for events that might happen in the future, even if they seem unlikely at the time. Some businesses have pushed their staff through media training should they be asked to face TV cameras or a press conference. Others have armed their workers with emergency-situation training, legal courses or first aid experience. Certain camera crews are even taught how to survive kidnap in a dangerous environment.
The likelihood of workers having to lean upon those skills might seem slim at the time, but the fact that they are trained up means an individual can feel more confident should trouble arise. They are emboldened. And when being pushed into a tricky situation, any past experiences – even if they’re abstract – can help a person pull through with confidence.
OPERATIONAL DEBRIEF
❱❱ Recognize when you’re stuck in the Comfort Zone. If you’re feeling bored, uninspired or lethargic, it might be time to change things up. Moving forward doesn’t require a person to learn in extremes: we don’t all have to live in a jungle for several weeks on end. To become tested again, sometimes it’s enough to learn a new skill, apply for a challenging job or push yourself that little bit further in something you’re already doing.
❱❱ We pick up new skills in the Fear Zone, no matter what work or challenge we’re doing. Those techniques are translated into experience and can prove to us that we’re able to escape our familiar routines and grow in different ways. By successfully operating in the jungle, I learned to function at an elite level in unfamiliar and highly uncomfortable surroundings. That gave me the confidence to progress, even though some of the skills I’d picked up under the trees were never used again – not directly, anyway (I don’t recall having to endure another scorpion sting to the bollocks).
❱❱ When working through an unfamiliar challenge in the Fear Zone, try to drown out self-doubt and insecurity with positive thoughts. Pessimism isn’t widely regarded as a useful tool during a crisis. Instead, give yourself a pat on the back for trying something new, focus on the minutes ahead and the immediate challenge in play, and act positively.
❱❱ Once safely removed from the Fear Zone, an individual can expect to pick up new skills in the Learning Zone while becoming increasingly comfortable in uncomfortable situations. If circumstances change in your work or personal life, it’s likely you’ll be required to master new processes and integrate into a very different system from the one you were previously familiar with. It’s OK to feel a little unsettled. Tell yourself that you’ll soon learn the required skills and benefit from the rewards later on.
❱❱ The Growth Zone is a phase of exciting results. You’ll smash through your preconceived limitations and become more resilient as a result. Depending on your personality type, you might find yourself setting new goals too. Try not to become stale: you might want to escape the new, bigger and bolder Comfort Zone more quickly than expected.
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
BECOME THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE
As an elite soldier, I was well trained in combat operations, but it was also my job to learn all manner of extra skills that would assist me in the theatre of battle – some of them directly, others indirectly. Once I’d reached the top level in the Royal Marines, it became clear I was being turned into a Swiss Army knife, a multifunctional operator capable of working effectively in all sorts of situations.
I was placed on a wide variety of specialist courses and I became so skilled in one particular field that I was asked to present a talk on my work to the former prime minister David Cameron during one VIP visit.
Once in the thick of the action, no matter where I was or what I was doing, I drew on all manner of experience to get myself out of sticky situations. The knowledge I’d been provided with gave me the confidence to push on even when my work was becoming incredibly complicated. The same attitude towards learning can be used to build resilience.
It’s all too easy to stay in one particular lane, to follow the path we’ve always travelled. However, when unexpected problems come our way, we’re sometimes required to think and act differently. That’s when the extra skills we’ve picked up elsewhere in life can come into play. The gruelling training we might have endured during a sport or physical activity – rock climbing or boxing, for example – teaches us about the emotional endurance required to handle a personal tragedy. The boxer already knows how to breathe through pain and stress, while the mountain climber understands how to make considered decisions under serious pressure.
Meanwhile, the dedication needed to learn a language, or stick to a nutrition plan, gives us an insight into the processes required to succeed in another project or challenge. Most importantly, any successes we might have achieved in our extracurricular work bring belief. Some of the recruits who have appeared on SAS: Who Dares Wins over the years went on to overcome personal challenges of their own. Their attitudes towards life changed as a direct result of some of the tasks they were asked to perform for the TV series. The achievement of working through the toughest tests devised by the show made them more resistant to the psychological problems dragging them down in their real lives, and their confidence soared as a result.
The same can happen for you. Take up a new challenge. Master a new activity. Travel somewhere unusual or unexpected. Learn a new skill, one that’s very different from your regular line of work. You’ll soon escape the Comfort Zone and develop enough added qualifications to become a human Swiss Army knife.
PHASE FOUR
Finding Your Tribe
With the Commando Spirit’s encouragement of ‘oppo first, team second, self last’, I was taught about the importance of teamwork and alliance. It got me through some pretty rough times. However, once I was entered into combat with the Special Forces, that philosophy became turbocharged and I was indoctrinated into a brotherhood where I had the back of every operator around me, and they had mine.
As the fighting intensified, I was required to operate behind enemy lines, where my work became increasingly dangerous. But I was calmed by the knowledge that everybody within my group was highly skilled, motivated and willing to take a bullet for me if necessary – as I was for them. The operators around me were my tribe. Their assistance helped me to stay resilient in terrifying gun battles; their support encouraged me during missions where I might have struggled had I been facing the same challenges alone.
Unity made me stronger as an operator. The Brotherhood gave me confidence and a belief that I would always succeed in battle, and among the group there was an empathy and understanding regarding the chaotic lives we were leading. A healthy competition between the lads involved also made everybody that much tougher. As a result, I was able to push myself harder, move further away from my comfort zone and grow.
I don�
��t think I was even that close to some of the lads fighting alongside me, but that never mattered. Simply knowing I was backed up by my teammates provided me with an extra layer of reassurance, like a security blanket. We were a team, we had shared purpose and that drove us forward. But nowhere was that unity required more than in one of the most dangerous aspects of Special Forces life, a role where everybody’s mental resilience was pushed to the absolute limit …
They called us Door Kickers. Elite operators tasked with booting our way into the homes of militia leaders, wanted killers and all-round bad people, our weapons poised, the adrenaline spiking. The job was officially known as a ‘hard arrest’ and we were often tasked with securing a prized asset, such as an individual or a store of weapons. In terms of risky jobs, being a Door Kicker had to be up there with the worst of them because nobody really knew what to expect on the other side of the entrance. Still, it wasn’t uncommon to receive a shock or two. Sometimes those surprises were pleasant, amusing even. On other occasions, they resulted in extreme violence.
The best operations happened when we’d burst into a compound to find our target tucked up in bed, sleeping soundly. On other missions a building was stormed aggressively, my team primed to receive some pretty fierce resistance upon arrival; having entered the building, we were greeted with a room full of chickens. During one infamous hard arrest I heard about, a unit crept up on the desert-town home where a highly prized target was hiding. They steadied themselves for the always-stressful bundle into a darkened building; the fear that a waiting gunman might have heard them as they gathered outside was high. And then the point man leaned forward, accidentally pressing an unseen button set back in the wall. Everybody froze as a doorbell tinkled inside.
‘Bloody hell, mate – what have you done?’ whispered one of the lads.
There was a split second’s pause. The door opened and the target naively shouted out a friendly ‘Hello?’ God knows what he’d been expecting, but the bloke seemed totally bemused when armed operators piled on top of him. He was quickly restrained. The point man – who was visibly thankful for not getting everybody killed with his epic blunder – was immediately nicknamed ‘Ding Dong’. His rinsing lasted the whole tour. Within the SBS Brotherhood it was important to make light of the chaos going on around us, just as it had been during my time with the Royal Marines.
Those were the happy endings. The awful hard-arrest jobs lived even longer in the memory. During one assault, a friend of mine was shot as we burst through the door. The injury looked horrific, but there was no time to check on his well-being because, as a highly trained operator, I had to focus on the job in hand. The unit stepped over his body, engaging our attacker before calling in medical assistance. Luckily he survived. During other raids, I’ve burst through doors and taken down targets only to encounter the family of a terrorist leader, or bystanders, caught up in the chaos. The relief in holding fire during those situations was always huge.
In situations of that kind it was vital that I acted calmly and in a calculated manner because all sorts of things could go wrong, especially when people were waving weapons around. The potential for rash decisions was high, but I was used to overcoming panic, as was everyone within the Brotherhood. Throughout my career I’d been embroiled in gunfights in confined spaces where civilians were nearby; we’d hunted high-value targets and rescued kids from burning buildings at the same time. It was terrifying work. But my role would have felt even scarier had I been surrounded by emotionally driven or sloppy individuals. (We’ll discuss the process of controlling negative emotions in Phase Eight.)
Sometimes I’ve worked with sketchy recruits in SAS: Who Dares Wins, individuals with anger management issues or problems with authority and instruction. Impulsive people might last for an episode or two because they make for good telly, but when assessing their progress afterwards, Ollie, Billy, Ant and I have generally arrived at the same conclusion: that person wouldn’t have made it past the first two weeks had they been on Selection. Staying calm and maintaining focus on missions was vital.
Having the Brotherhood around me was a huge factor in rationalizing various flashpoints of hardcore violence. Nobody in the military elite enjoyed killing enemy fighters or traumatizing civilians in the fallout, but it was a part of our job in the same way that police officers are sometimes called upon to use weapons when taking down a terrorist or an armed assailant. Unfortunately, their actions often impact any innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos, as did ours. For individuals involved in work of that kind – whether in the military or armed-police response units – the support and respect of their colleagues is vital. In the SBS it helped in processing what was a stressful part of the job, and there was a constant gallows humour that eased the emotional pressure. It also helped that there was a shared sense of empathy for the danger and incredibly brutal situations we were all enduring.
When protected by the understanding and support of my military brotherhood, hard-arrest raids became manageable procedures, if still stressful. It was only once I’d been forced to deal with my demons alone that those same experiences caused me to crumble. Later, when everything had slowed down at home and I was ensconced within the safety net of civilian life, the faces of innocent witnesses soon came back to haunt me. In a team I was emotionally strong. Alone, I’d become vulnerable. I lived with the awful memories for years afterwards.
There was more to the Brotherhood than psychological support, though. It was integral to the very process of Door-Kicking because without it an individual, or team, might die. As a result, every part of the entry process became rooted in unity. When preparing to storm a building, nobody spoke; there was complete silence. To communicate we squeezed the shoulder of the person ahead, instructing them to move forward or to hold. (You’ll have seen the process in a load of war movies and TV shows.)
Then we’d commit.
When the group entered, we alerted each other to what was ahead. Often, buildings felt like mazes, strange concertinas of corridors and rooms with very little in the way of planning. The concept of ‘flow’, as made popular by TV shows such as Grand Designs, hadn’t been introduced to the regions we’d worked in. The pressure was high, the risks were huge, and the only way to successfully execute a hard-arrest operation was to function as a team.
The process was emotionally charged too. Anyone who said they didn’t feel anything during a Door-Kicking job was probably lying. Was I scared, or worried about getting hurt, in those moments? A little bit, but my thinking was usually more positively tuned. I felt empowered because I was an elite operator. I brimmed with confidence because I was part of a brotherhood that was respected and world-renowned. I felt strong because I was surrounded by equally committed and highly skilled people. I’d stand at a door, waiting to burst in with other operators who I knew well. Even though what I was about to do was considered incredibly dangerous, I’d suddenly experience a weird love for the job and for the camaraderie bound up within it.
Among the Brotherhood I’d found resilience. And it enabled me to be even braver and more switched on during moments of chaos.
When highlighting the value of a brotherhood (or sisterhood, or a mixed group, it’s all the same, but for the purpose of this book I’ll refer to it as ‘brotherhood’), it’s important to remember that many professions lean in to the concept of resilience through alliance. In jobs where danger is an occupational hazard, such as the emergency services or the military, solidarity is key. But during any team effort, cohesion must be a given if success is to follow on afterwards. Even within situations where individualism is encouraged, there’s often a group of people working behind the scenes to ensure that everything functions effectively. It’s unlikely Lewis Hamilton could drive so fearlessly without Mercedes’ impressive team of mechanics, technicians and designers. Could a world-famous actor such as Leonardo DiCaprio perform so effectively without a collective of agents, managers, scriptwriters and directors around him? Not a chance.
> Any emotional issues are also usually dealt with more effectively with a supportive counsel. For support in grief, we often turn to the people moved by the same tragedy, or those who have experienced similar losses in the past. During pregnancies, families-to-be bond with those friends who have already gone through childbirth, and they find new communities and groups to grow with. All of these scenarios encourage the development of a brotherhood in some shape or form. The individuals willing to embrace their new group will often thrive. Those who turn away from it and press on alone can suffer as a consequence.
To the big question, then: How can we create a sense of brotherhood in what we do and then amplify our resilience as a result? In my own line of work, the Royal Marines training at Lympstone forced me first to embrace the idea of becoming a team player. (Oppo first, team second, self last, as discussed in Phase One.) In the military elite, however, the connections between everybody were intensified because the work was so risky. Nothing brought people together quite like a near-death experience. Luckily, everybody who made it through Selection was already well versed in teamwork because selflessness was a trait the assessors looked for in potential operators.
The basics of building resilience through teamwork are absolutely universal, however. After ten years of working at the sharp end of war, I had learned about the power of a brotherhood and the value of building positive solidarity with others. To successfully forge these bonds an individual needs to develop several assets: trust, friendship (or lack of), professionalism and humility – the cornerstones of any team setting.
#1 TRUST
