Episode 33 - Nick Goldsmith

In this episode, David Overton sits down with Nick Goldsmith former Royal Marine, author of Rewild Your Mind, founder of the Woodland Warrior programme, and a man whose journey has taken him from military operations and trauma to helping others rebuild resilience and purpose.

Nick shares his path into the Royal Marines, his experiences in Afghanistan, the realities of living with PTSD, and how reconnecting with nature became a powerful tool for recovery and personal growth.

The conversation explores leadership, resilience, adventure, mental health, and Nick’s five key “Adventure Habits” that can help anyone bring more purpose and challenge into everyday life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello and welcome to another episode, this thirty-third episode of the Adventure Uh Habits podcast with me, David Overton and Splash Maps. And today I have with me a brilliant, I was gonna say an old friend of Splash Maps, and we realize it's it's only five years, but it seemed like a lot longer. We've got Nick say hi to everyone now.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Hi, how are we today? Um I'm sure they're all fine, Nick, but they're gonna be better after this podcast, that's for sure, because um I I've known Nick for a long time, uh well, long time, five years. Um when uh he first of all bought one of our maps and then appeared to be using it for uh you know quite an extreme uh an extreme use for it. And uh and uh having contacted him, I realised that there's a strong military background. Strong military background. And um and so Nick, I mean just just tell us tell us about um a little bit about your background, how you came to be in the military, and then uh what you're doing now.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Okay, so to try and kind of uh succinctly uh bring us up to speed now, I was very fortunate to grow up in the southeast of the UK, uh very rural upbringing, lots and lots of rugby, as my face can attest. Um and uh yeah, um, and then from there I think it was a natural sort of progression of things through circumstance, etc., into my teens that I would seek high performing uh teams and um yes, high performance and and teams leadership, like drawn to that whole model.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

So and that kind of starts with with the rugby, doesn't it? And then the the rugby that came to an end partly because of injury, partly because something else sparked up.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, I just didn't make it professionally, I didn't make the grade. You know, I I wanted to be a professional rugby player, didn't make the grade. Uh got as far as playing for county, captain county a couple of times, that was all going great. I thought the lineage would then be that Quinns would pick me up or somewhere like that, one of those kind of academies that were doing the rounds at the time, and they simply didn't. So I had to go on a different a different path. Uh I went my my mum saw that I was a little bit lost at this stage. I must have been circa 17, 18, somewhere around there, 18, I think. Uh, because if you haven't been picked up by then, it's it's getting harder. And I spoke to my cousin who had been uh a Royal Marine for a number of years uh and was just leaving service, and so I had the opportunity to go and speak to someone firsthand. He totally enamoured me with the idea and the concept of earning my Green Beret and becoming uh one of Britain's elite uh commandos. So then I went on and embarked that journey, um, which saw me uh funnily enough having to come up against the sticky subject of navigation uh and a whole host of other um uh physical and mental challenges as I went through the rigours of Limpstone Commando Training Centre. In the interim between getting in and recovering from a knee injury from rugby, I decided um to take up a couple of years because the Marines weren't going to touch me for a while uh until I'd had this knee op, you know, kind of sorted. Um I became a bricklayer and I went and worked on site, took part in all of about five houses, and really just reaffirmed to me that I I didn't want to continue in the sort of manual trades. I'd I'd been working in manual trades for most of my sophomore days through my teens, uh, right the way from the old paper round at age 12, which I'm pretty sure nobody does anymore. But um so I'd always worked in some capacity and it was always physical and hands-on. And uh I think I think my my grandfather was a bricklayer after the war, uh, and uh and my father was a mechanic, so it's all kind of working class uh type stuff, and um yeah, I just decided that uh the military was going to be the thing for me, in particular the Royal Marines, in particular that high performing leadership and um teams world.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

So yeah, it's it's very strong in this early part of your story, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

And so I just went I just went for it. I went for it, and um it was bloody hard. It was really hard.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

So you then got into the Marines and uh uh and it basically you ended up doing six tours. Um Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

I had a diverse and eclectic career. No, no, it started in Afghanistan. So I missed the last Iraq, I went to Afghan, um and I would revisit Afghan a further four times in various guises, and uh would subsequently then go on to do other work uh in other realms. Um, but it was as I say an eclectic and diverse career, so I didn't particularly climb the ranks. I wasn't a flyer, I wasn't somebody who uh went in a marine and came out a colour sergeant or a you know a sergeant major. It was it was packed in about 11 years, and most of the tour stuff happened in about eight. Okay, and then the subsequent last part, unfortunately, um after I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, I spent in a naval recovery service center where I was able to put myself back together um as best I could, and um really think about what it is I want to do in this world um beyond the realms of chasing after pots of money and all the rest of it. And I was very fortunate to be supported at that time by a number of people in my life who believed in me, uh, one of which was my darling wife, and so that has massively uh helped to to keep me on that on that forward momentum thereafter. So, yeah, so it was rough. It was rough. I'm not gonna lie. My first tour with was with 4.5 commando, and it saw all of the typical things you could expect of that period of time. We're now talking 2008 uh to 2009, 10. Yeah, that kind of really nasty window, I'd say 2006 to 2014 was particularly acute in Afghan, and I was smack in the middle of that. So um it wasn't uncommon if I unpack some of the experiences I had on my my first day on the ground. Um, you know, we we had multiple ambushes, so we were ambushed multiple times um in searing 50 degree heat, um, having to fix bayonets, danger close artillery coming in from the 105 light gun, from the two nine commando gunners who were six kilometres away, uh, all sorts of of pretty pretty hairy stuff that will stay with me. Uh, my section commander, uh the chap in charge of my small multiple of men, he was uh took a around through the straight through the shoulder, through one bit and came out the other on the outside of this shoulder. So very lucky. Um and and uh how we all walked away from from that particular ambush uh is still to this day astonishes me. And I think I take power from the new meaning, the new meaning I've made around it, which is that um you know life life is absolutely for living, and uh not everybody does walk away from these experiences. So um, for all the lads that aren't here, I try to do my very best to be the best version of myself now, uh, and and moving forward, and I think that that's quite important.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

So um, you know, there were some those times were were extraordinary times, and it was uh an incredibly hostile environment to be in. And and I mean, basically, there was the locals that didn't want you there were very happy making money out of growing heroin and uh uh yeah from poppies. Um, and uh you had an area I heard on another podcast uh the size of Yorkshire, and there were only a hundred of you to yeah, very small, so quite sort of smart and odds.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

So you had something the size of Yorkshire and pretty much 300, 350 men to hold that space constantly patrolling and and to and to push in every direction. And that was simply to allow things like schools to open uh and and for some sort of level of quote unquote what we were we were implementing normality and to train uh locals, uh security services, etc. So that was the mission uh at the time that we were that we were conducting, um, and of course that was very difficult to then uh come home and and people are recreationally using drugs and all the rest of it. And I found found myself very conflicted, you know, you've kind of been running around world police for a while and then and then not being able to do that, so that was hard. Um what else can I say? I mean, so those experiences will stay with me, but what I did also get to do was I got injured, um, and uh I had to have uh another knee operation, other one this time, and unfortunately, um subsequently I carried I carried coffins and attended a lot of funerals uh doing the firing party duties and other duties. Um that left a mark, and then I was involved in a freak accident in a pub in the early hours of the morning. Um was right place, wrong time, wrong time, right place. However you want to look at it, I was able to save the life of a young lady who who had severed from our artery on a on a shard of glass with a mirror, uh just total freak accident, as I say, got put pulling up a nicker's uh uh um uh having used the toilet, knocked into the wall length mirror, which was right next to her, uh, and and this this horrible freak accident took place. And so uh there was then a lot of visceral trauma as I I seek to stem that bleed. That took 19 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. She'd gone into hypovolemic shock, lost half the blood in her body. Um very, very hard stuff to see and deal with. Uh, and of course, blind drunk I was at the time. I I subsequently don't really drink that much anymore. But uh, but back then that was my coping mechanism. I was just gonna get trunk and trunk, forget everything I'd seen and be a part of. And then I, while I was rehabbing, decided to take a logistical role, which saw me move from that 4.5 commando down to get to work alongside a uh and in support of a tier one unit. So I I went and did that. I did the chef course, the only course that no Marine has ever passed in their life, um, which was a lot of good fun actually, eight months down at HMS Rally looking back, uh, as awful as I thought it was at the time. Um, it was a pretty cushy number. Uh, and then I got to go there and my feet didn't touch the ground because I got attached to every squadron going all over the place, whether it was on exercises or an ops. Uh, and then my job.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

This is interesting that you you've had you've you've had your your kind of what most people would have thought was their their career. You had an injury, uh, you had this awful situation, you taking uh you know, bringing back your comrades and taking them to their funerals, literally. Yeah, but then you have this precipitating event. There's the the the the lady who had the unfortunate accident that you were able to save a life. Um but then that almost that that did that spur you into going further deeper into the military, or you know I think I felt like I hadn't achieved what I came to do.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

There was a feeling of incompletion in me, having not finished that tour in its entirety, and having to be, you know, that really sucked. I did not want to leave the ground. Uh and I certainly felt like I'd let a lot of people down. I was going through the rigors of what I now know as survivor's guilt. Um, and so I had to find a way to keep moving forward with it. And um, and I thought, you know, maybe life down at uh at the Tier 1 unit would be somehow would give me an insight into maybe going into that world, and maybe that's what I wanted to do. Um, I realised quite quickly the level of commitment um being out of the country nine months of the year, etc., didn't actually interest me that much. And I think I think I knew in my heart of hearts that the knee or a knee was going to be an issue, so um I sort of just stayed in my lane, carried on doing what I was doing, was quite happy to to excel wherever I could within that remit, and there were lots of opportunities to do lots of exciting things like uh jump out of planes with with other units and and um tour, there would always be duties around the outside, so I may have to step in and look after the um you know the the the the top, the uh tactical officer command or whatever it is that of an evening, or I may need to jump in on a serial and help train the partner force at the time um uh and and get involved with taking them through the killing house and all the stuff that they do in the absence of the uh the unit if the lads were away doing whatever. So, yeah, you'd sort of back your spaces and and you'd you know you'd get lots of sort of first hand training alongside absolute tip of the spear, which is really really good. And it's a great great thing to rub off um because then you take on that that level of professionalism mentality and it starts to really sort of embody who you are, and I think that that's fantastic. Um just really raise raises the part.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

We've got a picture here of uh you know the the complexity of your your uh PTSD as it was eventually complex PTSD, as it builds into the layers, and I can almost see these as like almost sedimentary layers of exactly that, exactly that. It's very hard to have to cope with before it built into a mountain, you had to do something uh about it. And I think your your solution to it is is is inspirational. I mean it it's it's something that I've read in in your excellent book, uh Rewild Your Mind. And um I I was really grateful that you gave me this. I've got my signed copy here um I think when I came down the bar and went to one of your um launch events. And um yeah, it's it's uh it's great, and it kind of uh for me when I went traveling, I had Lofty Weissman's um uh the Bible. The Bible. But I mean you couldn't read that book cover to cover and uh and you know, and put those things into action. Whereas with this one, that's kind of the intention, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

That's what it's designed to do, exactly that. So designed to be a self-help book uh where you can actively uh apply all of the lessons and stuff in there, but it guides you through. I mean, the uh the the wording should be use nature as your guide to a healthier and happier life, and that and that's it in a nutshell. So you'll see the black and white timeless diagrams of the sort of how to do something, and then an explanation of of how to do it, but then also the why. Why is that important? What are the takeaways here? How does it help you when you're uh when you're trying to find clarity in your life? Uh and what what can we learn from it? And so that's all there in there, and at the end of every single um chapter is a rewelding reminder. So if you're if you're too overburdened with information, you think to yourself, I can't possibly read a book, I can't sit there and look at this, you know, I can't take that in. Well, actually, you can go straight to the end of the chapter and in grey you will see one, two, and three. Is it raining where you are?

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Uh no, it's not, it's not quite that bad. Oh, is that is that the sound of me rustling through the pages as I'm as I'm going?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

No, I don't know. There's there is like a it's gone again now. There was a there was a uh a sound yeah that had uh picked up his disappearance.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

But but what I love about this book is you you've taken the um you know you've learned a lot a lot of skills in your you know your manual the manual labour you did before uh went off your childhood, the military experience as well. So there's stuff in here about natural navigation, etc., that that you put into good practice uh when you were out there in this vast area that you know the size of Yorkshire with so few of you and and coming up against so much.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Um some of that, depending on how you read it and how careful you are, I've laced in parts of my journey. So not all of that is taking place in that area, some of it's taking place in other continents in other parts of the world as well. But you'd have to you'd have to pick it apart to to to pick up on those little uh bits and pieces. Uh, I was quite careful when I wrote it and I redacted an awful lot, especially from the first for the 12 pages, which kind of talk about the trauma side of it.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Uh in the end of the day, really the the purpose of this book is is is kind of um like the purpose of what your life has really become now with the Woodland Warrior um program and the Hidden Valley bushcraft and like your television presenting, etc. Your you're used around the world now. Um I mean what just just tell us about that. Tell us about the the Woodland Warrior program and how that kind of builds on what we've been talking about so far, your your previous history.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

When I hit the recovery centre, I was absolutely fried. And due to the nature of the work that I had just been conducting right towards the very end of my career, uh, I was uh massively paranoid, uh, really struggling with hypervigilance. I think everything from having a burner phone under the seat of the car all the way through to blue tack over the camera and speaker on the phone, uh, very, very wary of my surroundings at all times. Everything was just notched up to 10 constantly. Um and and I still maintain for fair reason back then. But now, 10 years on, in a different industry, a different version of myself, almost a different person. Um, one could argue, I am a lot more relaxed. That's not to say that I'm gonna be out there spilling all the all the beans, but what I mean is I'm much more relaxed in myself because uh you know I know who I am now and where I'm going now, and it's not in in that direction or in that realm anymore. So it's it's okay. Um to the so far as it can be okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, doesn't mean I've been up to switch. Um I'm far I'm far from switched off, but I'm I'm not nearly, you know, there's levels, I've got more gears now, I've got more tools at my disposal to to ramp up or ramp down rather than being on or off, which is which is all I had.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

But I like that you've you know you you recognize that. Uh you know, let's call it pressure uh from from the past. And like one of one of your phrases now is like you're on a mission to turn pressure into something people can handle. Um absolutely that goes across all these things: the book, your professional talks, TV presenting.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

That is alignment. The best way I could describe myself currently as I speak to you today is I feel utterly aligned. We we've just had a uh little baby girl in the last 10 months. Um becoming a parent for the second time, going back through the trenches, sleep deprivation, and that whole process. Um is it easier second time round? Well, no, because I'm older, but but yes, because I have a bit of previous experience. Um it's it's a wonderful journey, and uh I'm very, very fortunate to be in the position that I'm in today because I didn't quit. I didn't give up on myself, even when I wanted to give up on myself, other people didn't let me give up on myself. You know, it's been it's been a hell of a journey. So um I'm hugely thankful uh and feeling very aligned uh at this point, which is interesting because just as I hit level four, 40. Um I look I look at ages in levels now, we're all trying to get to level 10. I'm at level four. Don't know where you are, but you know, next year I'll be level 4.1. So there we go.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Level 5 and a bit more than a half.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Okay, all right, level 5.6, shall we say? But but it's great, like, you're we're all trying to get to level 10. Not everybody gets that luxury of getting to level 10, right? Most people, it just doesn't happen, and and it's not the way our life works. So live for now, live in the present, focus on the next 10 feet in front of us and the next 10 minutes of time. To look to the rear, other than to take lessons, which were hard learned a lot of the time, um, brings about a sense of depression. To focus on the future too far ahead pretty much is anxiety inducing with the world we're facing right now. So let's just live here and now, deal with what's in front of us, just like being on a mission, deal with what's in front of you, okay, with with what you have at your disposal and decide on a course of action from there. And that ties into quite nicely something I want to touch on uh about the the human needs. Um okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

And I was listening, you're not going to stray into the area of adventure habits because we're yet to get to that bit.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

But but that's what I'm talking about. Essentially, uh, I think it's Adventures, there is something that links all of us as humans that we are overlooking and we need to embrace a bit more.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Yeah, yeah. And then when you get to if you if you accept that and you live by it, then when you get to level 10, you'll have something brilliant to look back on, which is David Attenborough, Mr.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Attenborough.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yes, yes, yeah. What an inspiration that guy is. But um just because I don't think we've really um explained it. The the Woodland Warrior program, you are taking people who've who've got um PTSD. Uh they're from the military, they're that's it, various mechanisms of injury.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Uh more often than not, there are elements of of mental um disruption going on there. Um and certainly that is uh a diagnosis that people do come on onto the course with. But um, yeah, so we have we have blue lights, emergency services, uh prison service, RNLI, that includes okay, all the way through to ambulance, paramedics, police, uh, fire service, and then your armed forces and veterans. Now I say armed forces and veterans, I've opened it up and we are getting people who are usually quite senior in service, not always, who are going to leave in the next five years, and it's also a great opportunity for them to uh begin to acknowledge transition, have a look towards what that might look and feel like, hear other people's versions of that. Um, it's a very strong, powerful peer environment. So it's a peer course, um, uh and and you come on board, have an experience with us, and then continue to engage with us as time goes on. Now, some people come on, we see them once, they go back raving, it's great, disappear. Some people come on, we see them continually for nine months whilst they go through whatever it is they're going through, sticky divorce, addictions, transition from military life into civilian life or the police, etc., whatever they're going through. It's not easy, right? This thing called life. Um, and when you're in an environment of people who are cut from a similar cloth, who think a similar way, um, but you've got this variety of stages from people who've been out now for 20 years, people who've just left, uh, and so on and so forth. My role is to facilitate uh and then scaffold and support their pathway thereafter. So they will come on board, get involved with us, get involved with other organizations, um, and depending on what the need is, there we will help them to recognise the need. So it's a bit like helping the horse to realise how thirsty it is, rather than say, there's the water, because we cannot make a horse drink, even though we've shown it's the water, we all know this expression. So I'll I'll help it through socratic questioning, through telling stories, through a number of different techniques, um, get them to a point where they can kind of recognize what it is that maybe they need, if there is a need, and then help to signpost them on or or handhold them over to that service, whether it's uh talking therapies with a psychologist, whether it's getting them into um conversations around the idea of going into another workplace and maybe doing that handover. Um, it's not something we set out to do, it's stuff that we've ended up doing. Um, so it's really varied, but they can always come back and jump in on a course, and they're all nature-based activities: stonewalling, hedge laying seasonally, uh, basket weaving, woodworking, green woodcrafting, conservation tasks. We're partnered with the um with the duchy, so we we we uh have access to 1800 acres of the Duchy Estate and Duchy of Cormall, um, and we've been doing a few bits and pieces with those more on horizon. And uh very recently, and by the time this goes out, we will be working this year with the Blue Light Card Foundation charity, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Um, important part of of um getting these getting these people uh straight to uh to to um manage their their situations better. Bushcraft is is a strong element of that. And um are you on the bushcraft circuit at all this year? Are you doing any of the bushcraft festivals or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Uh so last time I saw you I was on the stage at the NEC Birmingham, I believe. Yeah. Um I have taken a step back from going to all the shows and doing the bits and pieces. Uh as I've kind of so if we talk about the Woodland Warrior there, right, then you've got Hidden Valley Bushcraft, which is the core of what we do. Part of that, which is for everybody, not just veterans and blue lights, has seen me more and more keynote speaking on the subject of resilience, going to everything from defence technology symposiums and being the speaker there to talking to government organizations, uh, won't name any names, but big household domain companies and um as well as global brands that you will use their household items every single day and working with their teams. Uh most notably, tail end of last year, I did one for three days uh down in Foy Hall in Cornwall, which was just absolutely stunning. Uh and I really, really enjoyed that. So, yeah, that was cool. Um the takeaways and the change that you can have in a short space of time with the with the right approach, with the careful communication there. Um, yeah, love it, love that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Nick, I mean we we've we've uh that's that's fantastic, and of course, the you know the the TV, the broadcasting stuff that's all coming along on this side of the Atlantic.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

It it is, it is. Uh so potentially, and again, I don't know when this is going to go out, and I need to be careful because contracts are to be respected in the world of television. But but we wouldn't want to break our thing early here, would we? We wouldn't be. Um, I I may have presented slash co-presented something that will be out soon, uh, and that something will probably go to about 11, potentially 13 million televisions, depending on which where which channel and how that works its way around the globe. That's fascinating. So that's exciting, mildly terrifying. Um, and I think if anything, my my journey on YouTube some years ago taught me uh about the trolling and and the other stuff that comes with it, the unfortunate side effect of sticking your head above the parapet. Um, but this felt uh in the guise that I am presenting in like it had great alignment, and I really enjoyed the project, and it was actually a lot of fun. Um, so from my perspective, uh I would you know actively seek to do more of that if it came my way. Yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Um and and and you'll be brilliant. I mean, you are brilliant at that, and uh, I think I think everyone here can learn now that you know they they know now that you are one of the best qualified people to give them their five adventure habits. And I think I'll just take this opportunity to thank you personally, Nick, for the stuff you've done for us. Those uh back back in those uh you know a few years ago, you did a a couple of videos after phoning me up enthusiastically, you then um bought a few of our maps and then you started using them making videos about about them. All the time. But um the credibility that that brought was was just immense. We were just waiting for someone like you to come along and just you know, have that weight of capability behind it, and then to know that the map and to demonstrate that the map was was working for you was was just great for us. So uh big thanks for that. You're following in the States and then the UK that all followed, and yeah, splash maps is uh that's a happy place to be.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I'm glad I'm glad I'm glad I could be of such use to you guys. Um, yeah, it is it is uh a stalwart uh go-to, the uh the the splash map. I've got several of these made up. I think I've got ten banding around in a box upstairs as well. I give them to clients after they've they've been and done. Maybe uh I might have example head of a defence company needs some time away. One-to-one, we disappear for a day or two uh across the Mendip Hills and yonder. We re-emerge, having um got it all out, put it all back together again around the campfire, alignment and clarity, and they go on their way and I send them with a little map of the area, some of the ground that we covered. Uh, and it is just such utilitarian. Uh, I'm sure I don't need to go on, but everything from cliff water is amazing. So there we go.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Um thanks very much. Thanks very much. Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

South Downs, Offers Dyke, and uh and further afield.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

So my yeah, yeah, I mean that that's been mad. I mean, I I I've witnessed you using these maps, and uh, we did make a couple of long-range ones for you, which uh we're we're doing more of now. We've got a challenge series that's just come out, but the Offers Dyke one cut up from uh uh sections of one to fifty thousand. Uh that that was uh in a freezing cold January condition. But I met you on the uh South Downs Way one just set off. I cycled over to see you, and I was nice and warm from riding the bike and stuff, offered you a cup of coffee, yeah, and then saw you guys romping off, and I thought, oh I'm so pleased I'm not very, very heavy packs.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Every year we do that. Last year we raised 11,000 pounds and we did the entire coast to coast, 315 kilometres across the country in 10 days through that was 2025, uh, that was last year, June, uh January 2nd. We set off, and that was one of the worst winters that Britain has seen for about 12, 15 years, waist deep in snow, up on nine standards rig, savage, savage, and then in no rush to do that again. And that really pushed the boundaries for both myself and Carl uh and James, who was tagging along, who've decided to bravely throw himself in the mix. He's a fantastic NHS psychologist who works with us. Um, and uh yeah, we we all got there in the end, but it was hard grass. So my adventure habits.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Well, okay, yeah, let's let's go with that. What would you plunge in your first adventure habit for our our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Um my adventure habits start before I leave, right? So it's always about the bag. Um and one of the things, and this all ties into the same theme of what is adventure, um, is I actually nowadays I travel very light and I deliberately travel light. Um I travel with key essential items. Okay, so essential items of multi-use clothing and uh you know everything's very lightweight and um a bit of local money in cash as well as having it loaded onto a card, all that kind of good stuff, you know, um pockets, hidden pockets, etc. Always keeping the bag through an arm, through a leg looped on you, okay. So that is your lifeline. The bag is you, you are the bag when you go away. Um, but not not overpacking, not overthinking too much. Okay, now when you think about the human needs, certainty, uncertainty, variation, uh, connection, contribution, significance, and growth. And I want to focus in on the uncertainty. We are so programmed to want to control and micromanage everything to death nowadays, and especially in the military, the heavy conditioning is all about prior planning preparation prevents poor performance. Okay, so we go into this kind of micro, we have to absolutely pull everything apart and make sure that everything is dialed in, dot the i's and cross the t's. Now, what I've learned on my journey since leaving service, becoming civilian, is what other parts of my journey, what does my subconscious chimp need? Okay, I have to give my chimp a banana every now and again. Now, when I go away and I do these challenges, I actually thrive on the uncertainty, the variation, andor there is a risk element. Now I mitigate the risk by doing the right drills at the right time in the right order, and that's where the skill set comes in, and that's where the challenge is, especially a long-distance uh something in the UK. Um, the risk is obviously cold and wet, lethal combination, but actually, when you really think about it, it's the uncertainty. I don't know quite what I'm gonna face. And so, by not planning in, for instance, we're always unsupported, we don't plan in every single BB stop. I don't know when I'm gonna get my evening meal, so I'm having to carry some of it on my pack, and there's that whole kind of thing when I'm travelling in Europe and I'm travelling light. Um, uh I went to Normandy recently cycling, and we only averaged about 50 kilometers a day for about four, four or five days, right? I took the train down to Pompey with my bike uh from Bristol, which was an adventure in itself. Um, then got on the ferry, cycled off the ferry down to um Bayeux, stayed in the hotel there, and every day we would forward out of there to the various locations. I wasn't in charge of the trip, so all I'm doing is just following the Peloton to get to the next place, to talk about the next thing, whatever happened, whichever battle it was. I was with Royal Marines veterans, and it was really interesting for me to see how far I've come. Very easy, yeah. Interesting to see how far I've come, and by far I had the lightest pack of anyone there, just because I have not gone into that sort of classical have something for every eventuality in my kit, because then I need to use this, then I need to think about stuff. So I was washing socks and t-shirts and stuff in the sink and then drying it out, so I was always sort of a day ahead of myself for the next day. The t-shirt writch repeat, and it was fine. I had enough clothes to go for a meal in the evening, had enough clothes to cycle in every day, and though I wasn't head-to-toe clad in lycra, and I did survive, uh, and it was it was good. Um, so yeah, I mean, it is that is great.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

We got um I was talking with a customer yesterday who's doing the Caminos, the you know, the long distance walks uh across Spain and France.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

And um, he does it by uh flying Ryanair, uh and but he doesn't want to pay them the extra baggage. Um so the one thing he does is he he packs super light and he um uh just puts whatever will go into a day bag and that will last him a week. So it's all about washing the socks overnight.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

And you you you you so so it kind of falls in line with the rest of the stuff that I tend to do. So culture, local customs.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

So wherever you're going to habit number two now.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Just yeah, habit number two is to embrace local customs. Um so so wherever you're going, Camino's a good example, you're gonna go to Spain, okay. Um, really, you know, get on board with that. If the local culture is to dress a certain way or wear a certain type of clothing, or see if you can pick some of that stuff up in country, wear it on your way through. At the very least, it's gonna help uh that language barrier. One of my other key skills that was picked up on uh during my time in service was my ability to communicate. That's not just what comes out of my mouth, it's my gesticulation with my hands. My mum's French, it's not my fault. That's the uh the Normandy Parisian connection in me. Um, the non-verbal communication, the uh things like your body language, your posture, what you're wearing, if you look like they do, okay, we're starting to bridge the gap. You're making an effort, you're meeting them halfway, not just blindly shouting at them loudly in English, expecting that to work. So um yeah, and you'd be amazed to see how many local people uh will go out of their way to help you.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Okay, so that was habit number two. Um Nick, tell us what your third adventure habit is.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

The third adventure habit I would discuss is communication, actively learning the local language so far as the colloquialisms. So in in northern France, I'd expect it, I would be expected to pronounce and deliver words, phrases in a certain way, whereas in the south of France, they might have a completely different uh approach to the way that they kind of gesticulate with their hands or whatever it is. Generally speaking, it works across the board, a bit like English, right? Take a Geordie and get them to speak to someone from Cornwall. There's a vast difference in the dialect uh and the wording that they use to describe something like a loaf of bread, right? It's that that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, uh if you say bread, bread travels from Geordi land down to Cornwall. However, they might call it some weird and wonderful variation of a type of sandwich or whatever it is that involves the bread will be completely different. And so for that, I think it's really important that we we embrace local uh communication like we communicate like the locals do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

You get more of that in in the UK now, I guess. But perhaps with the people that come visit you to at the uh you do, you do.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Um further afield, you know, other continents, other places in the world, whether it's the jungles of Bleas or you know, on the African continent in various places. I just think it's absolutely amazing. Some of the different greetings, and they're so simplistic when we think about navigation, everything is always centered, bringing it back to the splash map element around the positioning of the sun, the wind andor the rain, the absence and presence thereof, which is in its snap, which is natural navigation. So there are certain places in the world where I've been where the morning greeting is about uh good morning to you, the sun is basically in its lowest, it's just the sunrise. You're kind of saying to them, good morning to you, the sun has risen. Good morning to you, the sun is almost at midday. Good morning to you, it is now midday. Good morning, you know, hello to you, it's now post-lunch time. Uh, and then yeah, and the last greeting is about um embracing the evening, and I think that that's really, really nice. It's just it's just beautiful. You haven't got to think too hard about uh being specific and being really anal about time. Well, is it is it 1600 or is it 1630? I mean, where you know they'll just say hello to you, greeting to you, the sun is nearing its zenith for today, sort of thing. It's really, really nice. So I think universal, so hand on the heart over the over the over the heart, a sincere look in the eye, uh, and and and a quick mention about where the sun is in the sky, and you've basically had this wonderful interaction with a person uh who may then turn to you and sort of gesture at what is what do you need? What do you need? Do you need food? Do you need whatever it is? And I think that's just something really lovely in that. So always try to learn the language, and even if it's some of the handshakes, you know, some of these kind of really complicated handshakes that go on where you're touching elbows and all this sort of stuff, but again, that's all to do with trust, it goes back to you know years of uh years of old when we shake a hand to show that we're not carrying a weapon, we're not a threat. Uh, and I think that's really lovely if you take the time to learn their way of communicating, and you you know, they they that's reciprocated uh tenfold, it's really nice. Um, so with communication and with that whole cultural piece about clothing comes food. For an adventure, it's very easy to go and get lots and lots of space packets of dehydrated food around your pack to the gunnels. Um, I think the ability to forage for yourself, as in from the natural world, the ability to supplement your diet with local food where possible is a must, and again, that's what's making it part of the adventure. You know, you're you're sourcing, you're bartering, you're you're negotiating. Um and uh and I think it's a great place to hone the skills of bartering and negotiation and the confidence and competence.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Well, I would imagine, yeah. It's yeah, it is too easy to go for the the the packs that you just pour boiling water onto and and whatever takes the theme.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

I'm not knocking them, there's some fantastic companies out there, but again, it's that certainty, you're getting 860 calories, you know how much you're getting, and so the adventure is the is the uh embracing the unknown, stepping out of that front door uh and and heading out across the world or wherever you're going. You need question marks over certain parts of your journey, or I need them. I have a higher than average uh appetite for uncertainty uh to give my chimp that banana, which is very positive. Um, to to be able to fulfill come home with that feeling of of I overcame, I did this, that, and the other. Not that I micromanaged it all to death down to the last calorie. You know, I'm I'm I'm not competing, it's not a an ultra marathon, I don't need specific amounts of gels at the 26 mile mark and so on and so forth. I'm I'm I'm challenging myself in in many different planes rather than just going from A to B with a pack on. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Yeah, and I think uh yeah, absolutely it does. And uh I I I love what you're saying about foraging and doing things locally. I've got to say one of the one of the guilty uh one of the guilty pleasures that I actually have is uh mil uh military pack of curry eaten from a bag. I actually quite actually quite like that. I thought, wow, these guys are getting delicious flavours here, and there's an extra ampule of hot stuff to do.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

There are, yeah, and I think and I listen, I think that I still share a certain romantic element of that, as weird as this may sound, and it's more towards the more modernistic new age rations we just spoke about, 860 calories, because they're fantastic, and there are some companies out there who you and I both know well who go to all the big shows and set up. Yeah, also I mean, just some of the things they put into these now, and they make them so tasty and so fulfilling, and it really does make a difference on the mountainside when you're tucking into a nice packet of something. Yeah, yeah, that is a really good thing. I think what ruins it for most of us in the military is at some point we've gone into a tiny location taken over from a partner force or somebody, uh US Marines in my case, or or and Carl Carl had a cracking one whilst we were on the walk. He unpacked uh a story about going into a patrol base, stacked floor to ceiling with ration boxes from the various resupplies, very, very tiny location. The only way to get food in and or water in and out was on the back of a quad bike on a very hairy, dangerous route through a series of narrow streets. Um, anyway, only to find that the previous occupants had actually gone through, eaten all the best menus, and all the lads were left with was corned beef hash times 2,000 rations or whatever sat in here in these boxes. So all they ate for months on end was the same space packet food every day breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It does it, you you you literally it will send you wild that whole um because there's a lack of variation, there's the lack, it's the certainty, isn't it? What's in this box? Oh dear god. So yeah, so I think the military guys have had that knock the stuffing knocked out of them with the the excitement of of some of that type of stuff, but I think that there is a place for it and it exists and it's fantastic at the same token in the adventure world.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah, yeah. It is probably for for for civvies like me to discover and go, oh that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

I think there's a lot of cool stuff out there now, yeah. I don't think there was as much cool stuff when I was serving.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Well, we're all in favour of military ideas finding the way into the hands of consumers these days at Splash Maps.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

So uh, you know, that's the uh Well, the reason I reached out to you, if you want to go back to the original story, was my grandfather had one of these sewn into the inside of his trousers uh as part of a member of Bomber Command. Um and one of the one of the few things that we inherited from him was uh some sort of silk map, whether it was his or a mate's, I don't know, a silk map of um Italy, and on the other side how to get to the Swiss border enlarged, and it was it was uh like I think it was silk, yeah, brick fine.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Silk or rayon note they would use at that time.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Fantastic detailing inside, and you can see it's frayed on the edge where it's been stitched into uh into something like that.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

And the the amazing thing with some of those maps is they double sided the maps as well, which is that's what they worked out to do two years ago, and um how are they doing it? You can double side your maps now, so if you're your next one, that could be that could be an idea. Now we're on to habit number five. Having had uh don't overpack and uh embrace local culture, uh communique and food.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

So we're gonna now we're on to the most important thing, the certain part, the certainty you have to have in place. Okay, and that's the water plan, a plan for water. No matter where you go on the planet, you're not going to go very far for any more than a day to two days without water. You must have a plan to have safe, clean drinking water, at least a plan to source it, a plan to filter it and purify it in the absence thereof, being able to get safely bottled water. Uh, and just a quick note on that, I got very poorly off the back of uh operations in one particular country, and we're still not exactly sure what did it to me, but I would hazard a guess at the fact that it was some sort of water, water-related or water bottle that that that put me down hard. But I ended up with something called Jardia Lumbardis, which is horrendous, which is basically fecal bacteria parasite, and that put me down hard. So um uh yeah, it's not it's not always the operations that do you in, it's the terrain, the temperature, the the you know, the the climate, and the the animals and the bacteria that that are foreign to us that we we uh we supposed to where you source the water from, it's what you put the water in as well as it's what you put the water in, right? So your your containers. So to that end, on the side of my uh my travel pack, I'm actually using a uh I think it's carry on, and I want to say it's made by a company called Salkin, is it carry-on? Um I bought it a while ago. I'm not I'm not advertising, I'm not paid to be advertising them by the way. Here, I just I I had a go, I went fine. I'm gonna put my money down. I like the look of the design. It's been to quite a few places with me now, and I get on with it really well. So in the side of that is a uh stainless 40 ounces water bottle. Um, I generally carry one because it's foolish not to, just a little life straw.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

I mean, if anyone's seen some of the videos in the past, even true story. I was aiming to go for a water stop on the South Downs in winter. Uh, we got down to this particular position and we're turning the tap and we're we're thinking, uh oh, it's frozen. No, they they turned the taps off because it's it's not in the season, is it? So I ended up drinking legitimately out of the crook of a tree that had been pollarded and had lots of branches coming off of it, and so the the middle bowl shape had formed, it was full filled with sort of leaf, uh leaves and water. Um, and I drank out of that with a life straw absolutely fine, and that got me through. I'd have really probably pulled out a good litre of that and then and then went and got my head down. And the next morning.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

So the the straw is is basically to get to the parts of the drink.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

It just extends it, it extends your ability to go find more water, yeah. So uh a life straw, they weigh they weigh nothing. I mean, I'm picking up this, I mean, it's probably the same weight as this little highlighter uh in the office here. Um they're relatively relatively cheap, they'll probably do 10,000 litres of water, um, and it's just something, and then you blow back through it at the end of sucking the water through, put the little lid back on there, give it a wipe down if you can, and just in in in the top flappy day sack. It's not a full soya water system, gravity fed, you know, it's not a great big life systems pump. There's lots of models out there now. Um, but I'm I'm always I'm quite old school, I'm always an advocate for anything like the uh the old millbank bag, um, which has been brilliantly redone by young Elvis at Forest Fundamentals. I use his stuff uh as well, so there's a lot of very cool stuff out there, and it depends on what type of adventure you want to have and how on the go you want to be, and how tactical, non-tactical you want to be. You can you can build whatever you want, but if you're just traveling in general, I think it's a very good idea to carry a life straw, have a vessel, clean drinking vessel, or something that you can sterilise yourself and trust. I mean, with a stainless steel water bottle like that, if you're really not sure, you can even run a lighter around the rim. Do you know what I mean? Between drinking and sterilise the rim if you're worried that you're you're you're passing stuff. I don't know. So um, you can heat water in it and boil it if you had to. There's a number of different things you can do. It's always a good idea to just have a water plan, think about where you're going, what the quality of the water is there likely to be, and how you think you're gonna manage that, and then mitigate the one non-negotiable water by having a light straw or something like that in your pack that you can just fall back on, drink out of the water for things you can't rely upon, like uh you're not gonna get very far without water, right? Anywhere you go in the world.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

Yeah, too right, too right, too right.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

It's only ever as clean as the as the um vessel you collect it in, or the surface you collect it on. So that includes your tarpaulin, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Well, fantastic, fantastic. Well, so we've got uh Plan for Water uh as your fifth one. The fourth one was about food and the ability to forage to supplement your diet, or the main part of it, maybe source the food locally rather than rely upon the stuff that you can come along. And I'm thinking people with their uh suitcases full of baked beans for some reason.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Um I mean have some of the space packet food up your sleeve to fall back on, right? But aim aim to embrace aim to embrace local culture, find a village shop, find a bakery, find a butcher, whatever it is. Okay, try try and work with that. Uh work with nature, not against it. Um and that includes human nature. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Yeah, and then the other one, the first one was like do not overpack and uh take things easy. And that's your uh but I I happen to know having seen you do that South Downs Way one, really that was like 14 kilograms, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

I no, I think we were we were close to the 20 kilo mark there. Every time we've done a winter challenge, we're up around 19 kilos, and mainly because you're carrying three or four days worth of food because you're unsupported. Um, but what we've learned since those sort of earlier days, um, so we did the South Downs, we got so far, and then Carl because so Carl Carl uh was shot unfortunately during his service, um, and and his foot still has a piece of shrapnel in it, etc. So it's kind of monitoring that, and it got a bit angry, and we decided it wasn't worth you know pushing on. Um, so we we pulled off, learned our lessons, licked our wounds, uh, and came back again. Finished it off the next year, did the other half, and then the next year we're like, right, we now know what we want, what we don't want, what we need, what we don't need for this type of particular long-distance winter UK, which I defy anyone to have a go at, it's nails challenge. And we did offers dike, so Chepso to Pristatin, 285k through the Black Mountains, and we really honed in that whole kind of piece at that point. The pack was lighter, better quality equipment, full waterproof. Everything was just we'd spoken to a few sponsors, a few fantastic companies helped us out, and then we went for it and did the coast to coast. And I think that that earliest inception, meeting you on the South Downs, just past Cheesefoot Head, sort of area, yeah, on coast to coast, um moving in line with our military training, but away from some of the unhelpful sides of that conditioning and embracing more of that uncertainty and adventure uh has created a really interesting mix of capability. Um, and uh yeah, I'm I'm very proud to have him uh by my side there because he's it's great to have Carl as a constant. Oh, he's absolutely nails. He is a tough, you know. I don't want to give him a big head if he sees this, but yeah, he's tough kiddy.

SPEAKER_02 56:09

Well, make sure he gets make sure he gets to it, Nick. Um and I I just want to thank you, Nick, for spending your time with us today on Adventure Habits. It's um always a pleasure to meet you, and it it's it has been too long since the last time, so uh hopefully we'll see each other uh somewhere on the circuit. Or if we don't see you on the small screen in the meantime.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

That's it, yeah. Fingers crossed, eh?

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Okay, thanks, Nick.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

Goodbye.