Mud, Sweat, and Tears: The Autobiography

by Bear Grylls

Life is all about the living.

Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is still rich.

being a gentleman is something that has to be earned: “There is no free pass to greatness.”

The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences of life…we

It was on a ship sailing from India back to England that Walter met his wife-to-be, Margaret. Margaret was a very independent middle-aged woman: heavily into playing bridge and polo, beautiful, feisty, and intolerant of fools. The last thing she expected as she settled into her gin and tonic and a game of cards on the deck of the transport ship was to fall in love. But that was how she met Walter, and that’s how love often is. It comes unexpectedly, and it can change your life.

Preventable accidents—where man has foolishly challenged nature and lost—do that to people. Note to self: Take heed.

‘Look not every man to his own things, but every man, also, to the good of others.’”

Savor the moments of sheer happiness like a precious jewel—they come unexpectedly and with an intoxicating thrill.

Try always to think ahead and not backward, but don’t ever try to block out the past, because that is part of you and has made you what you are. But try, oh try, to learn a little from it.

“Never depend on those luck moments—they are gifts—but instead always build your own backup plan.”

Know your limits, don’t embark on any adventures without a solid backup plan, and don’t be egged on by others when your instincts tell you something is a bad idea.

Listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind.

Fear teaches great patience.)

the notion that it is best to be the sort of person who messes about and plays the fool but who, when it really matters, is tough to the core.

the Brunel soon developed somewhat of a legendary status among our circle of friends as an outpost, full of eccentric Old Etonians living in bohemian squalor.

(Taking yourself too seriously, in whatever field, was always dangerous

I also believe strongly in the powerful words: “I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.” They are good ones to live by.

the SAS attracted misfits and characters—but only those who could first prove themselves worthy.

If SAS Selection does one thing, it ensures that everyone, over the many months, reaches that stage where they are physically dead on their feet. Utterly spent. However fit you are.

What the SAS is looking for is spirit and fight: those soldiers who, when every bone in their body is screaming for rest, will dig deep, and start moving, again and again and again. That isn’t natural fitness, it is heart, and it is this that Selection demands of all who attempt it.

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.

Tentative holds no power. Sometimes you have just got to tackle these mountains head-on.

I knew that nothing good in life ever came from quitting; that there would be plenty of time for rest when the hard work was finished. But such thoughts are easier said than done when you are being broken.

Our achievements are generally limited only by the beliefs we impose on ourselves. If we tell ourselves often enough that we don’t have what it takes, then that will inevitably become our reality.

The worse that the conditions got, the more I had to learn to ride them out.

I wasn’t quite sure why they had bothered to issue us with beds, we got to see them so little.

One of those friends once asked me to sum up the qualities needed for life in the SAS. I would say that what matters is the following: to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim. To be unflappable, able to react fast, and to have an “improvise-adapt-and-overcome” mentality. Oh, and good tunnel vision when it comes to crunch time.

Fun, for me, meant skydiving with good friends, with cool drinks in the evening.

Sometimes it takes a knock in life to make us sit up and grab life.

Life has taught me to be very cautious of a man with a dream, especially a man who has teetered on the edge of life. It gives a fire and recklessness inside that is hard to quantify. It can also make them fun to be around.

Earning a living and following your heart can so often pull you in different directions,

The Himalayas stretch without interruption for one thousand seven hundred miles across the top of India. It’s hard to visualize the vast scale of this mountain range, but if you were to stretch it across Europe it would run the entire distance from London to Moscow.

The Himalayas boast ninety-one summits over twenty-four thousand feet, all of them higher than any other mountain on any other continent.

never tempt the wild, and know that money guarantees you nothing—least of all safety—when you climb a mountain as big as Everest.

Churchill quote: “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

So many people over the years have asked me how to get sponsorship, but there is only one magic ingredient. Action. You just have to keep going. Then keep going some more. 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.

I remember at one time being on a sheer rock face, with a good four thousand feet of vertical exposure under me. I was precariously balanced on the two small front points of my crampons, humming a Gypsy Kings tune to myself, trying to stretch across to a hold that was just beyond my comfortable reach. It took a small leap of faith to jump, grab, pray it held, and then carry on up—but it was a leap and an attitude that was typical of quite a few moments I had high up on Ama Dablam. A kind of nonchalant recklessness that isn’t always that healthy.

I just wanted whatever was going to unfold to begin. The waiting is always the hard part.

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.”

Falling is such a horrible, helpless feeling.

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

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.

John F. Kennedy: “When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”

When we hang with good people, some of their goodness rubs off.

It is about understanding that the moment to shine brightest is when all about you is dark.

mountain-weather rule. “If there is doubt, there is no doubt, you go down.”

Human nature hungers for adventure—and true adventure has its risks.

the key to public speaking to be this: “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”

Give your heart to the goal, and it will repay you.