Commando Lee Spencer - "Training, instinct, and mindset kept me alive."

 In this powerful follow-up conversation, Frank returns to share the extraordinary story of how he survived a life-threatening accident on the M3, lost his leg, and fought his way back from the edge of death. He speaks candidly about the split-second decisions, the long road through recovery, and the sheer force of mindset, training, and instinct that kept him alive.

The discussion also goes far beyond the accident itself. Frank reflects on the challenge of leaving the military, the loss of identity that can come with stepping outside that world, and the importance of purpose, standards, and accountability in civilian life. He and Hugh also explore the psychology of high-pressure decision-making, the value of military training, and why having a clear “why” matters so much after service.

Frank also talks about his remarkable achievements after injury, including rowing across the Atlantic and setting records as part of the world’s first all-amputee crew, before going on to row solo to South America. Throughout the episode, he offers honest, insightful reflections on resilience, recovery, and the responsibility to keep wounded service personnel in the nation’s conscience.

You can follow Frank here: https://leespencer.co.uk/

This episode is sponsored by Sin Eaters Guild - sineatersguild.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Frank Frank Spencer back into hey show. You can't stay away, can you? Can't stay away. Look, I I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

No, you're welcome. Thanks for having me again.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Well, in all seriousness, I'm I I said this last time, you know, you're welcome back anytime. And I know that you're in London fairly, fairly frequently. So why the like why not? You know, why not? It's a good chat every time. Um, however, so so we've got a load more questions from the patrons on this. We're not gonna we're not done an icebreaker on this one because you did one very recently. Um if we get around at the questions, cool. But on the last episode, for people who haven't listened to this, I'd suggest going back and listening to the first episode with Frank only a few weeks ago, uh, or a few episodes back in your list. Um, were you talking about Frank's uh experience and relatively unique um uh not perception, yeah, vantage point of viewing the Afghan campaign in the different worlds you did out there. So I'd strongly recommend you go and go and do that. Um for those of you who follow Frank, you will know that uh you'll know that Frank has got three limbs instead of four, he's different your leg. And uh you may assume that he lost that limb in his service, and that is not actually the case. Uh I know some of the story, I don't know the entire story. However, we're gonna talk on this this this podcast now, if it's right with you, Frank, about basically from leaving the military onwards. If that are you good with that? Yeah, yeah. Because you've done a shed loads of issues left as well, and and uh I'd like to get into that. But to start with, so how did you lose your leg?

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Um, yeah, don't don't abbreviate this. Like let's go in, go, let's you know no, no, the the hesitation wasn't um uh uh working out how to abbreviate this. So the hesitation was I'm so I'm so used to uh lying. Um I I'll I go from a breakdancing accident to uh um four monkeys uh pinned me down and one sawed it off in Long Lee and long story. Um no, I actually stopped at an accident on the M3. Um pulled over, a card crashed into the central reservation and uh it was all smashed up. At the time I'd done three Afghans, one Iraq, so I would have counted myself. You were still in? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would have counted myself as a very uh competent first aider. Actually, I was returning back to Chick Sands um after Christmas leave. Finished a convent in London and uh the South Coast and uh with the FCO and I was going back to start training to take up a more more of an operational, less training role with the FCO. Um so that's why I was going back to Chick Sands, and uh it was a Sunday night in January uh 2014. A card crashed into the central reservation. I immediately pulled over, and uh first thought was making sure the people were out of the vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

So it obviously just happened and there was no charger, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Yeah, I didn't see it happen. I could I I was driving, and you know when you you look and you think you could see hazard lights, so you immediately pull off the accelerator, and I thought that doesn't look right, that doesn't look like it should be on the hard shoulder, so I started to slow down, and as I came up level, I could see the car crashed into the central reservation and it had its hazard lights on, but it was also a car on the uh hard shoulder to someone else had pulled over. I pulled up behind them, uh, got out, uh, made sure that the people were out of the vehicle. It was two, uh they're all Polish, not that it's got anything to do with it. It's a very heavily pregnant woman and two guys, and um just one car involved, just one car involved, just said you to plowed. Yeah, one car, one car. Um that it it was kind of um straddling the fast lane and the middle lane, but it was all beat up and there was bits of uh bumper and um so that it looked like the crash had happened and then they'd progressed a good hundred, two hundred and fifty metres. Excuse me, so it's all debris and and everything in the road. Um, so it'd been quite a violent crash, but they'd they were all okay, even the uh woman who was very heavily pregnant. And uh I checked them over, and then you start thinking about uh internal injuries and things like that, especially with the uh woman who was pregnant. But I thought there was nothing I could really do to add value to the situation uh other than walk along the hard shoulder and use the torch on my phone to warn oncoming traffic. Uh so I told the people that were there, I said, right, that's what I'm gonna do, turn to go. And as I turned, uh, I heard an enormous bang and uh almost simultaneously felt myself hit and I could hear screaming, lots of noise. It's really weird because I kind of went into myself so I could hear everything that was going on, but it was like I wasn't there. If that doesn't make sense, but it's the best I can do, really.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, like kind of an out-of-body kind of thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

More more inner body, I kind of went into myself. I don't know that that makes sense to me. Um, and I could feel myself moving, and I knew something bad had happened, and I kept telling myself, in a minute, all this all this movement's gonna stop. You've got to check yourself over. And uh probably um about three, four minutes worth of memory could have only been a couple of seconds in reality, and I kind of landed kneeling down.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Um and uh me Oh, so you were thinking all this as you were basically flying through the air gap. Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

So I sort of landed kneeling down and um I sort of patted myself down, checked my face. I don't know why, but I had a real fear that my jaw had gone. Don't know where that came from. Don't never come across an injury like that previously, or um so I kind of checked my jaw first of all, patted myself down, and then that's when I noticed my left leg, the one that's still there, that was going at a right angle instead of going behind me when you kneeled down, it was going at a right angle. Off to the side, yeah, yeah. Oh my god. So it was completely dislocated at the knee. Oh my god. That's what I realised quite badly. Yeah, yeah, and I fell backwards down a grassy slope, which was confusing because moments before I was on the hard shoulder, um, I crawled under the barrier back onto the hard shoulder, and that's when I saw that my right leg had gone. Um, there was like a bit of my boot and a bit of my leg still attached by some sinew, looked pretty grim, but I knew it had gone as soon as I saw it.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

How did you react when you realised that?

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Um, I thought, fuck, my leg's gone. But instantly I could see how much blood I was losing. I was like, I've got to stop that bleed.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

But was there any kind of sense of panic there? No, it was calmness. Yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Yeah, and it wasn't it wasn't unexpected, which was shocking in itself. What do you mean? I think um this is just a theory, when you go out the gate in Afghan, you make peace with something like this possibly happening, because it happened all the time, and I think I still had that in me, even though it was two years since I'd been in Afghan, or 18 months, but um it's two years, but I think I still had that in me because it was so matter of fact, oh, let's gone.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

It's also probably yeah, it's yeah, it's also probably an element of normalization there with those kinds of injuries. You go, huh, I don't know. Leg stiffy, huh?

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, because you've seen know so many people, yeah. Um, but sort of jumping ahead here, a lot of people uh think of the irony, they go, Oh, you know, you do you do three Afghans, get through it okay, and then you lose your leg on the side of the road. I don't see irony. Um if I hadn't have done the Afghans, even though I know that I'd have looked at my leg and gone, um, I probably should get a tournique or something on that, it there wouldn't have been the urgency without Afghan. So it's not just the way I see it, it is the way it is. Life happened, it could have happened to anyone, but because luckily I'd been to Afghan, as soon as I saw it, I was like, I've got to stop that bleed. And I had from that moment a laser focus on stopping the bleed. And if I'd if I'd have hesitated a few moments, I wouldn't be here now. It was that close.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

So how did you and you're on your you're on your own now down the bank, realizing this is the immediate aftermath of. So what so what happened? You got hit by another car, I take it.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

No, so what had happened is a um yeah, no, uh, a car hit the one that had crashed first of all, and uh hit it with such force it span it round three times with such violence that his engine flung out. His engine went about 70 metres, nearly a ton of metal. So I was hit by the engine, and then I was knocked about 15-20 metres through the air to land the other side of the barrier on the grass verge.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

And where were the occupants of the car that had crashed in the first place?

SPEAKER_03 10:25

The uh guy who uh drove the car into the one that had crashed first of all. So the car that crashed first of all was a BMW 4F series.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

But were they on the hard shoulder?

SPEAKER_03 10:34

They they were on the hard shoulder at the stood right next to me. Um so bear that in mind in a second. They were stood right next to me when you when it happened, yeah. And the uh the guy who drove it was a Audi Six, Audi, it was a sport anyway, a big Audi. A6 sport, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

A big R6, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

I don't know, whatever. But it was a big Audi. Yeah, he just had cuts and bruises, apparently, but I didn't know that at the time. So that's what happened. It here was such false. There was no uh when they tried to do skin analysis to see how fast he was going, he didn't break. So he's obviously you know what time was it? What time was this in the morning? It was midnight. Midnight, he is midnight belt in it along a quiet motorway, yeah. And he's just looked down, looked up, and gone, oh, bang, and it's happened. I mean, we've all done it.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, middle of the night, the road's empty, but you know, it's just uh I suppose it's very easy to lose concentration anyway. We won't speculate on why it happened, but um all right, so you're down the bank. So okay, you need to stop the bleeding, but you you're in a world of pain right now.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

Yeah, so I shout, I shout, as soon as I see it, when I'm up when I'm on the grass verge before I fall down, I shout medic. And then as I'm shouting it, as I'm shouting it, I've I thought part of my brain went, Where did that come from? Because I I didn't make a conscious decision to shout that, it just happened, and then part of my brain was kind of marvelling at training. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Exactly what it is again.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

It'd been two years since I've been in Afghan. And uh then I thought, well, no one's gonna react to that because they don't know what you mean. So the next thing I shouted was, I need medical attention. Because I don't know why. But uh and um as I fell down the grass verge, uh there was um the car that I pulled up behind. There was a young guy who was with the uh three Polish people out the out the vehicle, and there was an older guy who was on the phone. So before this happened, I said, Are you on the phone to the police? And he went, Yes. I thought, right, one job I haven't got to do is dealing with that. I said, Is everyone out of the vehicle? He said, Yes. He goes, My mate is with them now there, and I sort of walked about 10-15 metres and out of the gloom they appeared, and I was stood right next to them when it happened. Um I sh I am now laying bleeding and I shouting, I need help. And uh they the three Polish people didn't come down to help me, which was annoying at the time, but in reality, they were stood right next to me when that engine hit me. How it missed them, I have no idea. So obviously they're they're quite traumatized. Um, and the young lad comes down and I said, I need a tournique now, and he went, tourniquet, okay, tourniquet, and he disappeared. And I thought he doesn't know what a tournique is.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Is he Polish as well?

SPEAKER_03 13:53

No, no, he was uh English. Um and I remember thinking to myself, right, you've got to communicate better with people. And uh it was kind of learning on the job a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

The clarity of thought you is quite amazing, isn't it, when you think of what you've what you've just immediately gone through at that point. You know, your body's been turning into a world of turmoil, but you've got this clarity of thought which can must be the the primary driver for that must just be survival instinct, yeah. Yeah, and and then how you how and what what you communicate then is driven by the training and instincts, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah. So then next thing that happened really was a uh breakdown vehicle pulls up next to us, you know, like um AA or whatever, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that, yeah. And the guy puts on his orange flashing lights, uh, he jumps out, he's got a beard and glasses, and he had an air of kind of practicality, and I thought. You're still down the bank at this point. Yeah, no, I'm I'm on the hard shoulder here.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

How did you get back up?

SPEAKER_03 14:54

I'm on the hard shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I thought when you got knocked, you got knocked down the grass purge.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Yeah, the grass forge went up. I fell down the grass.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, right.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah, so it was I fell backwards down grass forge and then crawled under the barrier onto the hard shoulder.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

I didn't make that clear, it was up to the rock. No, no, sorry. And um, so the guy jumps out and I thought, right, brilliant. Uh I said I need a tourniquet now on my leg. Took one look and he went, I can't go down there, I'll be sick. I was like, that I'm going to bleed to death.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Fucking hell, man.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

No, well, right.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

No, I don't try and excuse that.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

No, no, let me explain. He said, he goes, the ambulance will be here in a minute. And honestly, is the weirdest thing, even though I knew I didn't have time for the ambulance, right? Even though I knew that, it felt like laying back and just wrapping myself in cotton wool, and just yeah, everything will be okay. And it was actually it was a fight to get out of that. But he was there. I couldn't reach him. Does that make sense? Yeah, he he was sort of wrapped in his own cotton wool. Yeah, it makes sense. You know, I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

And I still want to throttle him.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

I thought about saying to him, look, this is serious. I'm going to die unless you do something, and you're gonna have this, you know, this is gonna affect you. Um but he was also the only person there, and I was scared of antagonizing, and I know how ridiculous that is. I was scared of anti antagonising him as if he'd go, oh well, you can help yourself then, mate, and then jump back in his vehicle and pull off as if he'd do that. Um so all the time I'm sort of bleeding to death and going into shock, and I can feel this happening, and um I just didn't know what to do. Uh the I subsequently found out that I'd lost over half my body's blood when the ambulance did turn up. Spoiler alert, I didn't die. Um when the ambulance did turn up, they couldn't move me because I'd lost that much blood that had to fly um blood in and gave me a transfusion.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

On yeah, yeah, yeah. On the motorway, yeah, yeah. Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Yeah, uh I say to people, I was absolutely balanced on a knife edge between life and death. Yeah, and I absolutely was. And the only way I can describe it is is the cold of the tarmac was just I just felt it, felt it go right through into my absolute core. And um I knew the only way I can describe it is there was uh there was an abyss, not the A, it was the abyss, was there right next to me. So it I couldn't touch it, couldn't see it, but I could it it was as real as anything I've ever experienced. I don't know, I don't know how else to explain it.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Just on the subject flying the blood in, just by chance, the next guest is walking in you uh as you walk out is uh helicopter uh London ambulance London helicop London ambulance helicopter ambulance pilot.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Oh, right, okay. Might have been the same bloke.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah, no, it's a it's a girl, it's a lady, it's a girl lady, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Well, I didn't see the uh pilot anyway, yeah. Um so absolutely um and you know I said I was gonna use my uh phone to warn oncoming traffic. I still had my phone in my hand, and I thought about I genuinely contemplated whether I should just ring um Claire, my wife, to say goodbye. I genuinely contemplated it because I thought if I don't, this might be my only chance to do it, but if I do it, that's an aw in the coffin. That's admitting that I'm gonna I'm not gonna live. And so that I was I was sat balancing that thought.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Um can I pa can I pause there a second? Sorry. So so you weren't able you weren't able to tournique yourself at all. You ended up you ended up being there bleeding out until until uh the ambulance turned up, which was a wheeled ambulance.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

No, not yet.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

Yeah, I've got about half an hour before the ambulance gets to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Half an hour, half an hour. Fucking hell. Like well.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Out of the gloom, a large Rastafarian gentleman from Hackney called Frank and his daughter, Zanelli, said Do you need any help? I said, I need a tourniquet now. Whipped off his belt, wrapped it round my leg, and we just couldn't get it tight enough. Um at the start of this journey to work, so near Oakhampton in uh Devon, about half hour into the journey, I got a flat tyre, so I changed the wheel. And as I was uh jacking the um the uh van up, I took a quick picture, posted it on Facebook and said, could this journey get any worse? I promise you, I promise you, but the reason I say that is I knew where my uh tyre wrench was because I just threw me uh spare excuse me, through the flat tire into the um back of the van with a tyre wrench, and I thought I could send this guy Frank, I didn't know it was called Frank then, um, to get the tyre wrench and use that as a windlass to tighten because it just couldn't get their belt tight enough. But I I could see my van, it was probably about 30 metres away, 20, 30 metres away, and I knew that if I sent him to the van, there's a real chance that by the time he came back I'd be unconscious, and if I was unconscious, I was dead. I knew that. And I just had this idea, and I and the first like I had the idea then immediately thought, why didn't I think of this before? Is I got his daughter to stand on my femoral artery and right you're groining there. Yeah, yeah. I had a pair of jeans on and I tried to feel for the pulse, but I'd lost uh she was 22, 23. So I was trying to feel for the pulse of for where the ephemeral was. I couldn't feel it. I'd lost so much blood anyway, it was so weak. There'd be no pressure every day, yeah. Guest got her to get her heel in, and she dug her heel in, and I didn't know I could feel myself bleeding until I felt it stop. Genuinely felt it stop. And um we waited about half an hour from that point for the uh ambulance to turn up. In fact, the first responder came, first of all.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

So for 30 minutes, she is stood on your femoral artery.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Um the there was a older guy who I first spoke to when I got out of the van. He suddenly appeared and I looked at, I don't know where he'd been this whole time. Perhaps he was stood with the um uh the Polish people and didn't realise I needed uh help and the guy who was with me wasn't helping. Um he suddenly turned up. I done some quick maths, realised he was a lot bigger than uh than Zanelli, who's Frank's daughter. So I swapped him over. Um and then I rang my wife because I thought, right, I've got a chance at living here. And uh I was looking at my van and I thought, well, someone needs to pick that up. And also, she's gonna get a knock at the door at some point, so I thought I need to prepare her for that. So Claire, I rang Claire and said, Look, I've been in an accident. Um, and as I was on the phone to her, I saw some blue lights going on the other carriageway, and I said, I was like, look, I'll have to call you back. And I thought it's the police, it's an ambulance, and I said, No, it's the first responder. And I sort of done the maths. I thought, right, I'm about three minutes away from three, four minutes from the junction, so six to eight minutes from to get here, and that's when I genuinely first thought, I might have a chance here. First responder, it was pulls up next to us. He opens the door, and um, I'd learnt my lesson about uh communicating with people. So, um, for anyone who who's not in the military, and a a medical report called a nine-liner, so you've got these nine lines that which is critical information that you give over succinctly. Um so I kind of civilianised this nine-liner, so I had it in my head what to tell him and how to say it, and then he gets out of the vehicle and I says, Right, I've got a catastrophic bleed, lower right leg, and and he went, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've got to put my luminous vest on. So I was like that, really, so I bit me tongue, waiting for him, and he sort of faffed around in the back, put it on, and then uh he goes, right, and I went.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

To be fair, there's a fair point because it will happen to you, not that a luminous vessel. But we can see there's a logic there, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Yeah, but then you know, have a bit of sense. There was there was a pickup truck with orange flashing lights there. And uh so he roots about, puts it on, and then he sort of like turns round and goes, right, and I went, right, I've got a catastrophic bleed, lower right leg, and that and he went, I've got to do a triage, and that's when the first time I thought, ah, there might I might not be the only person injured here, and I knew that if there was someone else worse off than me, I was dead. I knew that. Um, and the cold, heartless drive of pure and utter survival instinct, I felt that surge through me, and I couldn't care less about anyone else. Um was quite I'm quite ashamed of it, shocked by it, really, about how hard that was, that thought. It's completely justified though, that thought. Uh, I didn't know I had that in me. I thought I'd be a little bit more compassionate.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

You think I'm close to death, you were fine.

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Um, but I I turned around to him and says, Look, catastrophic bleed, I'm your priority. And then a bloke went, There's no one else, there are no other casualties. And the first responder, it was almost like it was like, Okay, then they're still with you. Jeez, and he put uh he put the tournique on over my jeans, and uh he sort and then he sort of wandered off to put some plasters on other people, bizarrely. Um and uh the guy was this guy ambulance service? No, I don't know what I'm not sure. First responders, are they volunteers?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

I don't know. Sounds like St. John's ambulance to me.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Yeah, something along those lines. So anyway, he um he put a tourniquet over my jeans, and the guy who stood on me uh feminil, he went, got off, and I went, no, jump back on, mate. I don't trust that that's on tight enough. So he stayed there until uh the ambulance came. The police came first, um, then uh an ambulance. When the ambulance came, um as soon as they they obviously cut my jeans away and put two tourniquets above the knee on. Um as soon as they the ambulance got there, I knew I was gonna live. I knew I had a cut on my um in my palm on my left hand, my left leg was completely dislocated and my right leg had gone. But apart from that, I knew I was unharmed. I knew there was nothing else going on. Um so I knew I was gonna live.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

What was the level of pain you remember? I'm just about to say The dislocated knee is no walk in the park, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 28:09

As soon as the um as soon as they got those two tourniquets on, I felt the pain wash over me. And I said, lads, give me morphine. And um the paramedic who was there, he was packing my leg away. They got me on a stretcher and was packing, and they said they'll try and save that. And I looked down and I went, that's gone. They're not saving that. And uh he turned around and I said, give me morphine, and he said, Uh you're in the you um you're in the army, Lee. I went, No, no, I'm a boot neck. He went, Well, you've got a power looking after you now, um and I went, okay. And then he went, uh he said, I can't give you morphine because you lost too much blood. You know what morphine does, don't you? It's like he was questioning me, and I was like, Yeah, it's a respiratory depressant. And he went, Yeah, see, we can't give you it, you're gonna have to hang in there. And uh um they got a they got a line in which was quite impressive for how much blood I've got. Yeah, uh so um morphine. Um, I don't know how it works, but it basically stops your blood taking in uh as much oxygen as it should. Um, so it it basically makes you less able to breathe. And um it doesn't actually do anything to you to the mechanics of your lungs getting full of oxygen.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

It slows the heart slightly as well, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 29:40

Does it?

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I think so, yeah. I think it slows the heart slightly.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

If you haven't got a lot of blood going around your body, which I didn't, which means you haven't got a lot of oxygen going around your body anyway. Yeah, so that's why they couldn't give me uh morphine. Um I wasn't testing you then, by the way. So I was um then a helicopter landed, and uh they picked me up, put me in the back of a helicopter, and gave me a transfusion. They got a line into me, and uh there was a doctor there in the helicopter, and um he said to me, he goes, No, it was the uh medic, sorry. He said, Right, Lee, we're gonna give you something better than morphine now, we're gonna give you ketamine, and I felt the pain wash away, and as the pain washed away, I looked up at this uh doctor and I said to him, This morphine, uh this ketamine, sorry, this ketamine's brilliant. He goes, because I want to say I was with you yesterday in Romford Market, but I know that's not true, and that's the last thing I can remember.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Goodness me. How long are you so how long was it before between getting hit and lifting lifting off? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

It was um I it's hard to um estimate time, but Frank uh he says it was about half hour from him getting to me before the ambulance got there.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

That's a long time. It's a long time. Yeah, I I I want to see the chances of survival uh like slimmer than slim.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

I once this once I got weight, once they closed down the femoral, and the guy had all of his weight on there and he was balancing, um I knew that that that just stopped the the bleeding. And then from then on, um I was told afterwards that uh that it was my physical condition and shape, um muscle density, and the fact that that uh I I kept fighting mentally that kept me alive.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

So your physical and mental fitness help with it, they're saying yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

That's right, that's what they said.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

But uh makes sense. There's there's very few injuries, I'd say, where being unfit gives you a better chance of survival. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

I can't imagine any. Um so that was that's it. I woke up the next day in a hospital bed in um Tootin in uh the ICU. I actually fought my way out of a coma three times, and there's a bit of a story to this about two weeks before two two things happened that really I find really odd. First one was about two weeks before, or a week before it was less than two weeks. A week before I'm laying in bed with a missus, can't sleep, and I don't know where it came from. I just said, um if I'm ever in a coma or something like that, um just want you to know that I'll be inside fighting to get out. And Claire went, Why are you saying that? I said, I don't know, and I don't know why I did. And she went, that's an old thing to say. I went, yeah, well, oh well. And then I never said anything about it, didn't think about it anymore. And um I fought my way out of a coma three times, and the third time they decided it would have been it's because they tried to keep me in an induced coma. Um uh because they after they uh amputated my leg, what was left of it, uh they I needed a couple of more operations, so they were just gonna keep me under and do uh as as easy as an easier option. Um but I fought my way out twice, and on the third time, uh instead of uh sending me back under, they thought it'd be easier if I just woke up. And um they rang my wife. Like, so if I go backwards, her story. So she gets a phone call from me. Um she calls my um mate um uh Bondi, who was one of my couples when I was a sergeant, and he um he he he he had a restless night and said I knew something was gonna happen. So he just put his uh got out of bed, put his trousers on, drove all the way, uh drove, picked Claire up, drove all the way to the hospital where I was already there by then, and then drove back and I met a uh a Royal Marine the other night who remembers that day because Bondy was a PTI at Limston, and he said we got a particularly bad thrashing from that PTI who said I've just had to go and you know I've got I'm in a bad mood because I just had to go and uh go drive my mate's wife to, and that was me. He can remember that moment anyway. So um uh they sent uh she went back to my mum's house in Essex. Uh this is my wife, Claire, when they was on their way back when they got a phone call from the hospital asking, saying, Are you still on the hospital grounds? Well, no, and obviously she heart in her mouth, you know, thinking the worst. And they said, Oh, your husband's awake. And um uh spoke to Claire, and uh I can't remember this because I was a bit groggy. Um, but apparently I said, you know, I'm just glad to be alive, and I could, I can remember. Um, when they brought me round, the there was a female doctor, I think it was the surgeon who operated on us, and I think she said, Look, I'm very sorry, Mr. Spencer, you lost your leg. And I said, I'd be surprised if it was there, and I could remember every moment I'm fighting to uh be alive, and I think that fight stayed, and why I um uh I didn't uh that's why I fought my way out of the coma three times, but that saying to Claire, she said later when later on that day, like she spoke to me, got a shower, and then turned around and came back. But when she was in the shower, she just remembered that conversation we'd had a week before. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is even weirder. Um I pull over, I see the see the crash. I don't see the crash happen, but I see the car crashing on the uh central reservation. I pull over, um, grab my phone, and then I go to open the door to get out, and I'll make and I think right keys. So I take my keys out, the van, and as I open the door, again, this is really hard to describe I didn't hear a voice. It was like I was aware of a voice, as if someone had said it, but it would just appeared in my head, and it was be careful, this is dangerous. Those words, I didn't hear them, it was like I just became aware of them, and it was like someone pulled me back and stopped me opening the door, although I didn't feel anyone pull me back, really weird, hard to explain. So at what point was that?

SPEAKER_01 37:29

When was that?

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Getting out of the vehicle after I'd just pulled over in front of the crash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never it shocked me because of like Iraq and the three Afghans I did and all the things that happened, all the firefights, all the stupid things I've done. I've never experienced that before, and it shocked me. It really shocked me. And I went, oh I had to get out anyway.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

But do you think do you think we're we're not the superficial now, but um there's a before I asked the question, so when I was a lot younger, uh there was a family friend, uh long long story short, he got he got killed in an accident uh on his pushbike, got hit by a driver, but it was not the driver's fault, it was his on the pushbike, he'd be pissed nighttime middle of the road, you know, swerving about basically, I think. Um but that morning uh he he he his behaviour that morning was super uh uncharacteristic. I remember my parents were counting that he was like good friends with my parents and he lived next door and and he was behaving in a way that he was going away for a long time. The way the things he was saying. Um like he told my mother, you know, that you know, just remember I I love you, or words to that effect, you know, you you're great, I love you as in as a friend, you know, I love that kind of thing. And then that evening he got killed. Um and you and you mentioned about the you know the the coma, the dr the when you said your wife got the coma.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Do you think I've got sorry, I'm gonna sneeze. Go for it, I've got sight to my head.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Go for it. That's the devil.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

Almost, almost similar, uh, almost uh same uh story. My best friend, uh lad called John Brown, he uh he cleared up all of the loose ends in his life, came round to see me, knocked at the door, was like hello mate. He says uh he came in. We went upstairs in my bedroom and he said uh put comfortably numb on Pink Floyd. Oh, what a tune. Put that on, and then he was like, Okay, I'll see you later. I was like, that's odd. What'd you do that for? He says, Oh no, I just thought I just wanted to come around and see you. He'd had this girlfriend um called Rowena, she was a lovely girl, and he kind of messed her around and and he he ended that in a way, and it weren't just that, it was lots of loose ends in his life that he tied up, and then a day later he died on a motorbike. And I remember at the time thinking, because we you know we see things as humans, and then we attach meaning to them, so we pick out things that fit a narrative, you know. So, and that's the same with what you're saying with your friend, and I would have argued that well, actually, he'd probably done very, very similar things, but he didn't die, so you didn't notice them. It's only because he died that you then attribute those actions to a narrative that until that happened to me, and it's changed the whole way. No, it hasn't changed the whole way, it's it's opened up questions. There's lots of things that um you people have said to me, well, perhaps it's your your subconscious, um, your limbic system, essentially, the part of your brain, the lizard brain, um, that knew that this was and and it was communicating that this is a dangerous situation to you to your more conscious mind. That don't cover what I felt. That just don't cover what I felt. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

See, that's what that yeah when you said it, I thought that that didn't strike me as out in the ordinary. So that's that's got it sounded to me as you saying that to yourself, be careful, but in a th in a third person kind of thing. Yeah, but what what I thought was out of the ordinary was the coma comment to your wife. So so describe that, so it wasn't what you felt. So what was it then?

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Don't know. It in in all the dangerous things I've done, all the situations I've been in, I've done three Afghans and an Iraq, and you and you know never felt it. That's what shocked me was the fact I'd never felt that or heard that voice before, and I've been in way more dangerous, obviously dangerous situations. And that's where pop, you know, someone said, Well, perhaps it's your subconscious telling your conscious because your conscious hasn't picked up on how dangerous it was. And I was like, now it's it this is the hard shoulder of a motorway, middle of the night. Kind of know how you know I didn't think go skipping out of the van, you know. It I knew it was a dangerous place, but that voice, it weren't a voice, it's the only way I called it a voice, but it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

What do you think it was?

SPEAKER_03 42:45

Don't know. Um as in I didn't hear a voice, I just became aware of the words, aware of the meaning, as if, and it was like someone screamed it. It was so at the forefront of my mind, and that I didn't feel anyone pull me, but I stopped as if someone had pulled me.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Are you religious?

SPEAKER_03 43:07

No, I do I don't look, we live we live in a universe where a particle can be a wave until you look at it, yeah, yeah, where an electron could be in two places at the same time. Um there's there's a really famous experiment, and anyone who's listening to this, please Google it. It's how uh the northern Eurasian robin migrates and how it knows to go south, and they got it down to uh quantum mechanics and basically a particle being in the same place, two places at the same time. Um, I can't remember the ins and outs of it. But if a robin knows to go south. Because an electron or a particle, subatomic particle, can be in the same place at the same time, then time or space doesn't work the way we think it works, which is probably a really good explanation of quantum mechanics, which is that nothing works the way we think it does.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Alex, I've I've got it here. Let me just explain this. So let's have a look. I've I've never heard of this, by the way. I I understand quantum entanglement entanglement and all the rest. I say I understand it. I understand it as a Joe Blog's layman. All right.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

I understand that you don't understand. It's probably as good as anyone ever gets.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

The the bird is the European robin, widespread across Europe and into Western Asia, including Russia and uh parts of the world. Uh they are migratory and they fly southwest or south to winter in southern Europe and North Africa. How it connects to quantum mechanics. This is AI telling me this. Experiments suggest that light sensitive proteins called cryptochrome 4A in the Robin's eye form short-lived radical pairs whose electrons become quantum entangled. The Earth's magnetic field slightly alters the spin states of these entangled electrons via the radical pair mechanism, effectively giving the bird a quantum compass that helps it distinguish north from south during migration. Oh my god. Oh my god. My goodness me.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

I bet you didn't think this podcast would be going into quantum mechanics, would you?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

I did not think that at all.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Yeah, but my point, my point being is that the way we see time isn't, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not um I'm not suggesting I know or I've got a uh I've got a theory on how these things happen. And and going back to my friend John Brown and your friend who live next door to you, that Paul Jenkins isn't it. Paul Jenkins, that perhaps well, time doesn't work the way we think it does, it slows down at speed, the faster you go, time slows down. How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 46:25

I'll tell you why. Because it's infinite, right? Time is infinite. Okay, and uh what I subscribe to the to the view that time is infinite, and when you when you like even thinking about infinity boggles the mind. So if it's infinite and it has no beginning and it has no end, no, but time does have a beginning. I don't think it does, it's infinite, it's just a measure.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

Well, I think time began at the big bang.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

I think that that's that that the universe began at the big bang.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

I think time began then as well. You need to look into that, I think.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

But if that well, if the time began at the big bang, then then there was nothing before it, and you can't you can't have something from nothing.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

Well, I'm gonna say something now, and I want not just you to know, but anyone who listens to this, I do not think that I know better than the you know uh the the greatest minds that that we've ever imagined. I think it boggles the mind possibly time oh excuse me, time only exists in consciousness, and that's why um when you when a conscious mind observes something, it changes it, it changes it from a wave to a particle.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Okay, that's kind of where I was getting, not on not on the change the way of the part, kind of where I was getting with the the infinite time, right? So because so if if time on the So in answer to your question, no, I'm not within. To your point, if time is infinite, it has a start and it's had an end, then time has always existed, it will always exist, and all of the eventualities that are happening now have happened, are happening now, will always happen forever.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

But does all of the mean that there's no uh free will, there's no we're kind of locked into something that's gonna happen anyway.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

No, I don't believe that. But you're not religious, okay. Let's get off quantum mechanics. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

I was religious, yeah. I met my I met my wife, Clara. I was a born-again Christian from the ages of uh about 15, about 18, 19. 18. 15, 18, three years, yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

You weren't raised religiously, though?

unknown 48:51

No.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

That was the opposite. I was raised religiously, wrong Catholic, and then I binned it.

SPEAKER_03 48:55

I went to a Catholic school. Um half my family were Catholic my dad's side, and uh yeah, I became a born-again Christian when I was 15. Might have been 14 now, 15. That's where I met my wife, Claire.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

So, what do you think? So you you just you are you resigned to sort of not trying to understand where that feeling came from in the car before you got out that warning?

SPEAKER_03 49:26

Um, I don't know if I ever will. Um it absolutely happened. Uh it might be a coincidence, these things happen. People have psychotic episodes all the time, and the chances of a psychotic episode of that nature happening just before I very, very nearly die. Quite slim, but you know, if one in one in a million chances they happen, you know, once in a million, you know, then they exist. Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Um, another question I'd had for you, I was writing them down as you were talking earlier. When you said you you fought your way out of a coma three times. We so were you conscious inside you inside the coma? You described to me then fighting your way out. So how do you know you didn't?

SPEAKER_03 50:25

I was told that I kept waking up, they put me under and you're shrinking because you're and I and I was pulling tubes out and and then they'd give me a higher dose and get me back under. I'd done that.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

And you were screaming in that coma, and then you're completely out.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

I've got no memory of it. No, no, and I had no memory of it um then either. So I've got no memory of the memory.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah the co people's experiences of comas kind of fascinate me. I've had a few guests on room of varying experiences another Royal Marine called um Chris Shirley, Royal Marine Annex RMP, uh, and he I'm sure he described well he coming out of the coma. I don't think he fought his out, but he was coming out of the coma and and like losing his shit. Like, what the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_03 51:19

I've had that experience, but it was uh in an operation.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

And there's another guy who had on called Aaron Welsh who wrote a book about his his experiences, and he he got uh it was basically I can't remember the medical term, it's anesthesia induced psychotic episode, and he was in a coma for induced coma for I think it was maybe four days, maybe ten days, but in the coma, he he lived a life for three months. He was a three-month in his he was in a three-month-long reality inside his coma, and it's horrific. Like he like came out of it a change, man, because of the things he was going through in there. It was a horrific experience. Um that's so serious. It is and then when I released the the what the heck is the condition called? When I released the episode, it's frightening, Frank. I like to the point where I think I do not want to go under with general. Oh, it's general anaesthetic. Yeah, I do not want to go under with the general, it wasn't a coma.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

I've experienced something similar years and years ago.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Uh when I released that episode, um I someone else who's actually a patron of the podcast messaged and said, I went through exactly the same thing, not the same kind of dreams, but I went under. And it literally was basically a living nightmare where you don't re you you realize you're under, but you everything is real. It's you can feel it, you can taste it, you can touch it.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

But I I had a uh I broke my jaw.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Aaron Welsh's one. Sorry, Aaron Welsh's one. This is how how bad it was. Have you ever seen Event Horizon? Yeah, you know how horrific the horror scenes are in Event Horizon. Do you remember? No, they are grim, they are grim. The scenes of hell in there are like real grim. That was what Aaron Welsh's experience was like.

SPEAKER_03 52:59

Three months.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah, it's like there was at one point in it uh for hours and hours and hours, and I think it would happen daily. He is suspended in the air, and he's looking down, and he's looking at a planet, and the entire planet is covered in basically his brother. It's close. If it's brother, uh and it's just bodies, and it's all his brother lying next to each other, like clones, but they're all his brother, and they get in tortured and quartered and hung and just like physically tortured, and he hears above watching it, and he can't do anything about it. That was just part of it, and you go, Fuck. And it's as real as you and I are talking now. And it's three months he was in there for. That's how and he wrote the honestly, it's like well.

SPEAKER_03 53:43

I I had a I had an operation and uh on a uh broken jaw, broke my jaw, and I woke up and I could feel them tugging around, and then I suddenly thought, oh no, and I couldn't move, and I thought, oh no, they're doing this on purpose, and then everything became clear, and it was layers of conspiracy. So, first of all, I could see that the doctor was in on this, they've just got me to this position just purposely, so that they could torture me, and I can't move because they they give you neuroblockers to make sure your muscles don't twitch and things like that whenever you give an operation. Um, so that's why you got like you got a paralysis, and I thought they're doing this on purpose, and then I realised that actually uh my was it my wife? Was I married then? Yeah, my wife Claire, she knew all about this as well. In fact, she is the one who instigated it, and then my mum and dad, they were in on it, and and it was these layers, and in the end, there was this is bizarre. You know the life of Brian, the film, the life of Brian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like the um the rock uh like the poster for the film, you got like the rocks when it spell out the life of Brian. Yeah, yeah. That was it, that was it, and it just said that's it, in those rocks, in the middle of nothing, because I'm I'm dying now. That's it, I'm dying. And it was God who'd said that's it, and I went, and I could hear these steps running off into like the distance, and then the door closed. I was like, What do you mean that's it? He went, That's it. Everything was just to take the piss out of you, like the lot the layers of of conspiracy to get me to that point, and then I heard, come on, Lee, breathe, come on, Lee, breathe. And I took a massive breath and then burst into tears. And it was like That was the joy, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so basically they I've I spoke to a medic about it like about two or three days later. I went, you'll never guess what happened. And he said, Well, basically, you know, um the uh drugs that they use to put you under, um, they send you, you know, at on a lower doses, they send you on a massive trip, don't they? Um and they give you neuro blockers to stop your muscles spasming whilst they're operating on you. Um and they basically time it all so that you come out the operation as that last stitch goes in. The less time you're under, the better. And uh so what had happened is just a millisecond between the two, and I just had the worst trip you can imagine. Yeah, I sort of laugh about it now. It was traumatic when it happened, and I burst into tears, but sort of just the thought that that everything was just a joke on me.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

My god, but it happens, doesn't it? Yeah, but I I've got going back to me in losing my leg, no recollection of fighting my way out of uh the um uh coma induced coma.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

The brain's behaviour when it's uh in a near-death experience, or when it thinks it is or when it actually is, and the way it behaves differently depending on what the hell is going down in your environment or what's in your body, like carmin or or you know, uh um anesthetic it is amazing, and the very the uh how different we all are in the way we deal with things, you know, like but going back to um that clarity of thought after you've just literally been hit by a flying engine block thrown to the air, you know, which is that is uh about as traumatic an event as a body can take, you know, physically, and then you and then mentally you should be coming around, not should be, yeah, you come around for that panicking, screaming, nope, nope, just laser focus as you described it, laser focus. This is a situation I don't need to sort it out, and it's what I need to do. Even to the point, Frank, where you're cons you're being considerate of other people's feelings and what they may, yeah, how they may behave.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

Yeah, I know yeah, just to help me, yeah, use it. I won't like being considered, I didn't want to, I didn't want to inconvenience them, you know. It was more a case of I I need to communicate better and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

It's amazing, isn't it, we think of it. It's amazing, isn't it, we think of it.

SPEAKER_03 58:20

No, I don't think so. I think it's experience. I think I think it's the experience that we go through when we go to war.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

So you do you think then that anyone can be prepared to for that kind of situation to act calmly?

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, resilience.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Yeah, because I I've been in um when we went into Iraq, uh I was in Charlie Company. So Charlie Company 40 Commando, we went in and we captured the Manifold Metroid Station MMS, just outside L4. We was in the first wave in the whole invasion. So basically, we had to secure the MMS, and then everybody got the go-ahead to roll across their start lines, and that's the whole invasion. And I my section took the second building in the whole invasion, and there was a point where it was on the corner, I couldn't see a way in, um, and I was panicking, I couldn't work out how we could get in this building. There was a little window at the back, and uh I didn't only have the rest of Charlie Company on my shoulder. Like you had the rest of 40 commando waiting for us to clear the MMS before they then roll across their start lines, and and actually nearly a quarter of a million coalition soldiers, so I was under a bit of pressure, but was it that many? Yeah, yeah, it was at 230,000. I didn't realise that and the um my troop sergeant, obviously getting impatient, his name's Craig Rennie. Craig jumped over the bun line and started taking over, started getting a grip. And I had a moment of clarity where I knew this was my moment. I just happened to be a corporal, a section commander going in to like you think of how many, how many Royal Marine corporals there were in the entire corps, and how you know how many of them were there at that very point, you know, and how lucky I was. And I could just feel that moment, my my one chance slipping through my hand like saying. And I knew that if I didn't perform then, that's really the end of my career, you know. And it weren't only that, it was there was more to it. Um I'll come on to that in a second to try and in fact, I'll just quickly explain. Like mine, I grew up in a um uh quite difficult circumstances, I suppose. My dad used to beat my mum up and beat me up as well. And my mum used to cry for me to come and help her, and as a little tot, I used to freeze with fear, so I I believed I was a coward and I dreamed of not being a coward, and that's where I always wanted to be a Royal Marine, that's where it came from because I wanted to be someone who was big, strong, tough, and for me, that was the epitome if someone like that was a Royal Marines commando, so that's where it came from, and I spent all of my career absolutely believing that I was a coward, and with a knowledge that um, you know, on exercises or anything like that, was when this becomes real, you're not gonna be able to do this because you're you're a coward, and it was a reality that I'd never challenged. So I had a conscious thought that used to plague, yeah, goodness me. And I never never it was so much part of who I was that I didn't even challenge it, didn't see it as unusual. I just knew that I was a coward. So there was there was more to that moment than just my my time in the you know in the limelight uh from a career perspective, it was everything that I thought about myself, whether I could actually do the job or not. And I had a moment of clarity where going back to doing section attacks on my junior command course, which is the course to qualify you to be a corporal, and being told um to take a condor moment. As soon as you come under effective enemy fire, just stop, do nothing, don't even think about it, just do nothing, and then the plan will become obvious. And I hadn't done that, and as soon as I stopped, I went, oh right, actually, I know what to do now, and I and I went over and I went to my sergeant, I went, Craig, I've got this. I told him what I wanted to do, and then got on with it, didn't give him the chance to question me and wrestled back control of that situation. And I think that that learning experience, because you got you got your two, you got your two brains, really. There's a brilliant book that explains it really well called The Chimp Paradox. You got the chimp and I listened to it whilst I was rowing, and um actually I do I talk a lot about it. Um one of the talks I do is is about making better decisions, and you've got the two parts of the brain, and if you understand how they work and the limitations of both of them, so you've got the human, the human is quite good at doing calculations and working problems out, but he's really focused and misses everything on the peripheral, whereas your limbic system, so that's your prefrontal cortex part of your brain that evolved later. Um, your limbic system, which is like your lizard brain, that can't do anything complex, can't think, can't come up with a solution. Um, but it does see everything, you know, and and it's more in tune with how you feel, and and in times of high stress, that part of your brain takes over. But with practice and understanding, you can listen to that part of your brain that says something, there's a big problem, and but use the the prefrontal cortex in conjunction with it to come up with a solution, and that takes practice. So that started really where in that corner of a building in a rack where I nearly lost everything, but that regaining control of the situation by engaging the prefrontal cortex and going, right, I need to work this out, okay. I've got the plan. That that ability to do that can be taught, and the more you do it, the better you get. So actually, yes, you can be taught to to to be more calm. And it's not calm, it's it's understanding a situation and coming up with a solution.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

I I totally agree, but I think there's two parts to it. I totally agree. There's two parts, I think there's two parts to this. Uh uh, and that is so the one aspect is I think you can you can train yourself or train people. People to be better at handling stress, extreme stress. And then the second part, which is kind of uh uh role specific, should we say, right? Is you can train that you can train in then the ability to make the right decisions in that extreme stress situation. Like the first part of being calm and not being a headless chicken in there. I that's probably then related to uh that's probably then like overriding the lizard brain instinct fight or flight, right? Uh override that and go fight or flight. No, we're gonna chill, condo moment, work out what we need to do. And the second part is okay, what do we need to do? And and and then making the right decision. I think there's two parts to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

There's two parts to it. You know, um, it's one way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:48

The first part is much easier than the second. So I think it's I think it's very, very easy to become comfortable in high stress environments. I think anyone can achieve that. But then the second part is performing exceptionally well in those environments is not easy to do. That takes that takes a lot of preparation.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:06

I think that's what I agree. Yeah, the the way I frame it is um is to ask yourself a series of questions, and if you answer them, then in in general, we'd call it a combat estimate, but a very um a lot of a combat estimates faff that you don't really need. So it's kind of slimming that down. First thing you'll ask yourself is what do I need to do and why? The why gives you the context, and and it goes on from there, and then another part of um making those decisions, which I think is as important, is communicating those decisions effectively. There's no point coming to a to the right decision, first of all, regaining control of a stressful situation, the second part coming to a correct decision if it isn't acted upon in the way you intend, it's pointless. So the the way I frame the the one of the talks that I give about making better decisions is there's two principles. The first principle is taking a condor moment, the second principle is effective communication, and under communication is one thing that we all can be guilty of when we're trying to communicate with someone is what do I want to say, and not what do I want that person to hear? What action do I want to initiate, and often um what you want to say is based in emotion, and in high stress situations, that's allowing the limbic system, the chimp, that comes to the forefront. Whereas if you think what action do I need to initiate, you know, that enables you to think about communicating to a person in a different way. I like going back to that high stress situation. I knew when communicating with my troop sergeant Craig, I knew to I needed to get back control of the situation from him. So I needed to be uh uh decisive, but also don't give him the chance to question. So don't ask him any questions, tell him what I'm gonna do and then do. So that was one way of that I needed to communicate with him. Um then getting my section together and telling them that's a very different way of communicating. So you you so communicating decisions, so actually, it's probably I would argue three parts. There's taking that condor moment, so regaining control of a situation that's high stress from your chimp from the limbic system, however you want to frame that. That's first and foremost, then making the correct decision, then communicating that decision. That they're all as integral uh to making affecting a uh a positive action.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:23

You know, now that you are out of the military and uh well out of the military, how do you how do you keep yourself sharp, mentally sharp? I don't think uh you know what I mean, but I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:42

Um it's very kind of you to think that I am mentally sharp.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

I've got to be kind to you. Um I've got some difficult questions for you in a minute. Buttering you up.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:52

I don't know. Um I think if you used to say what you what you're gonna miss when you go outside, if I'd have asked you two years before you left, what are you gonna miss? You'd have probably said the legs, camaraderie, the piss-ups, the not having a proper job, mucking around helicopters. And I bet that was wrong. I bet what you missed was doing something that mattered, having a purpose, and I think that's where a lot of people who struggle when they come out of the military, it's your your identity, who you are, is so bound up with what you do to the point where I I I gave a talk, um I was doing a talk for the Ron Wins charity, and with me was General uh Messenger, Gordon Messenger, and he was talking um about his work with the NHS and other stuff that he does, and he said something that really shocked me. He said, We don't understand in the military, we don't understand teamwork, and I looked across and I thought, pretty certain we do. He went, it's so integral to everything we do that we don't think about it, we don't have to understand it because it is so much part of who we are, and in that and I went, all right, yeah. Whereas in the civilian world, you have to acknowledge it, you have to um think about it, you have to understand it, and in the same way, doing something that matters is so integral to what we did that we didn't give it a second second thought. And in fact, if you'd have said that to me, what you're gonna miss is doing something that really matters, doing something, having a purpose, I'd have laughed at you, but in that same way, it's so much so integral to what we did that we in a sense don't think about it in any real meaningful way, yeah, yeah. Um I think that's what I struggled with um initially was regaining that sense of purpose. I when I woke up in hospital and I thought, right, I've got no leg, I had set myself a goal of raising £10,000 for the Rome Marines charity um in my first year as an amputee. That's really just re trying to reframe a purpose. Um kind of lost. I thought the person I was, the person I was the night before was um uh volunteered for special duties, not special forces, make that clear. Um but ultimately I you know I passed the course, only three of us passed out of about 126 people who started uh the initial selection. Um you know, I I worked in the covert profile in Afghanistan, and you can imagine the competencies you need to um manage to do that. Uh we'll see the Gucci technical term is covert human intelligence operations in the most dangerous place in the in on the in the world, and then I went off to work on to comment with the FCO. Um so you can imagine, you know, I felt that I'd reached very much the pinnacle of what it was to be a Royal Marine, and then I wake up the next day and I've got no leg. I'm not that person anymore. And uh not only did I lose a big part of who I was, it was someone that I dreamed of being. You know, some I dreamed of being a Royal Marine. I was told at 13 at a career's fair, you know, when you take your options. I was told you're not what we're looking for. Went to the careers office 18. Jesus. Not million miles from here, Holborn. There used to be a careers office there. Oh, right, yeah. Chief Petty Officer Smith from the Royal Navy didn't even get past the interview stage, said those same words, you're not what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:51

What for what reason?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:52

I don't know. You have to ask them. But then I finally got through the interview. Um, was it tried how wrong they were, Frank? Yeah, well, that's the thing, isn't it? Um then scraped a uh potential recruits course, and I know I scraped it, so I got called in by the SART major and told you've literally just scraped this and got into training, but the whole time striving, you know, believing I was a coward, that moment in Iraq where I faced down uh that belief with action because from that point on I could say, well, here's my evidence I'm not a coward. Um that voice got quieter and quieter, and it and it meant that I volunteer, you know, it gave me the uh the confidence to volunteer uh for uh OPSamson DHU Defence Human Unit. Um I was too old for selection by then. And uh that person that I daren't even dream, like my dream was just to be a Royal Marine, you know, I daren't even dream of being coming. That person had gone when I woke up in the hospital without a leg. You know, I thought I'm now a disabled person, I can't be that same person, that person I was the night before. But giving myself a purpose for raising money for the uh Rome Ways charity, that kind of softened the blow a little bit. And the end of that year, I was literally thinking, right, what am I gonna do now? Where do I go now? And I got an email asking for volunteers to put together the world's first um all amputee crew to row an ocean, having never been in a rowing boat in my life before. I put in for that, got in, got on the boat, rowed across the Atlantic, and that rowing the Atlantic, I can still remember the moment that happened where I was rowing along and just suddenly realised I'm still the same person. I regained that sense of self, but it's that sense of purpose that was important, regaining that sense of I'm still the same person I was.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

I I think the sense of purpose is what most people would think it is that's is missing when they leave, what they struggle with. And funny enough, just on this, like I our our I would say our psychological journeys are not that far apart, uh, believe it or not. You won't know because I've not spoken to you about it, but my um I was not far off your thinking when I joined and the reasons for joining. I I was not happy with myself, to put it that way. Uh I'll I'm just abbreviating you because I've spoken about it before. Um, and that that fundamentally changed for me in my on the first Afghan tour where ship went pear-shaped, and I realized actually I can do this absolutely fine or and better, you know, in the most difficult circumstances, sort of prove myself to myself, which is kind of where I joined. Um but and what I think when people leave, I think I think they're they think okay, sense of purpose is gone. What in and they struggle to regain that. What I really think it is, is that the the the values and standards that they have lived their life according to and and what they're measured against, that what you and I are measured against uh in our service are fundamentally different to what it is when you step outside the the military world. And also when you step outside the military world, you're not there anymore. How you therefore how you map how you measure your own value and self-worth compared to the new society that you're in, the new culture and a new world that you're in is totally different. You don't know how to know how to value yourself, and that comes across as a sense of purpose slightly, but I think in reality is you're a fish out of the water, you've gone from one life, which is a set of cultural norms, cultural standards, societal standards, right? Ignoring the professional side of it, just that, and you've you're plonked into this new world, and yeah, you've been a civilian before, but years before, and you're plonked into this new world, and you're this person that was built, you're literally your whole existence is built to operate at the best possible possible way, socially, professionally in the military. That's who you are now, but you're not in the military anymore, you're in the civilian world. What are you worth there? What's your value there? How do you measure yourself? Are you are you valuable in that new world? How do you understand what you should do, what what uh um how you should act, how you should behave in this new world? And why is everyone else not behaving to the same set of high standards as they did when you were in? The teamwork example is a really good example you mentioned. I've not thought about it before until you mentioned that. Teamwork, you're right. It's like it's ingrained in us.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:08

It's not me, that's uh Tim O'Gordon's. Yeah, but when you mention it to me, it's ingrained in us.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:12

One of the things I really I really had to bite my tongue on multiple times when I first got my nine to five corporate job, right? Was one example was the lack of accountability and the lack of integrity that people have. And I'm and this is general population, but it is so much lower, the bias so much lower than the military is, and the military aren't well, everyone's really got loads of integrity and loads of honesty and loads of accountability. No, that's not the case, but it's much higher. Do you know why it's a civilian world?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:44

I think that is um we train 95% of the time for 5% doing, yeah. Whereas in business they they haven't got that luxury. So, what that means is we are able, there's more accountability because we can fail. We're allowed to fail. We're allowed to make an absolute cock and ball arsache of an operation on exercise, laugh at it, and then look back on what went wrong and how you improve. Whereas in business, if that happens, they're like, Oh, that's my job, that's how I'm providing for my kids. That's you know, I could be out of here, it's his fault.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:29

And it's done at a granular level as well, the individual level. If you think about how you were built up as a as a as a Royal Marine, how I was built up as a paratrooper, and how soldiers are built up from you go from civilian, okay, you're a new human being with no you're a new soldier with no experience. You know, if you think about uh the level of uh oversight and supervision and training that goes into it on the individual level is far and above what a civilian has. We're very lucky in that regard because it's let's just think about rifle drills. You pick up the rifle for the first time, you're not even allowed to pull the trigger of that rifle until you've passed a load of tests to just show you can handle it correctly, you can do the drills correctly and safely. And when you've been shown these things and tested on these things, it's one-on-one. One person is watching those individual drills you're doing, what your thumb is doing, what your forefinger's doing, what the grip isn't on it, what your eyes are doing, whether you've got your both eyes up, all of that stuff. And you build that up to you go up to another level the first time you go and do a section attack, or even before that, you do fire maneuver, you and your buddy, right? You're going to do pairs, fire maneuver, you tools if you can do it correctly. And then you've been watched to see if you do all these things that you can do on the rifle, and now you're moving, making sure you're moving in the correct way. How are you speaking or communicating to each other? What are you observing? It's it's granular, like I said. It's like the attention to detail is like nothing else, which then I think cascades down to the individual, as in you and I who's been through that and you're being trained. You are hyper-aware of every single little thing that you do, from what your body does physically to what your brain thinks, to what your mouth says, how you can and what how you listen affects everything. It infects the whole, affects the whole machine. The effect isn't the machine, you know. So you become hyper-aware of your place in the team and the teamwork and how important it is, without even realizing it, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:18

Yeah, yeah, I get that. And I get what you're saying about um being a fish out of water when you first come out in the different uh different way of operating, different standards. Um yeah, that that all has an impact. But for me, I can only speak about my experience. I'm still intimately connected with because I have I'm lucky enough to not have what I'd consider a proper job. I can concentrate on doing other things, um which enables me to mix with um servicemen, former servicemen. But for me, it's having a purpose, having a reason to do things. That's the most important thing I've found. You're white, mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. My why, my my purpose, overarching purpose in life now is keeping wounded, injured servicemen and women in a nation's conscience. Because I passionately believe that we owe them, and I say them because I wasn't injured in service, we owe the people who've had their lives shattered. Families we owe them a life with dignity. No bells, no whistles. We owe them a life with dignity as a as a basic principle.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:56

Do you not think that's provided now?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:59

No, no, absolutely not. Not a life with dignity, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:02

What needs to change?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:04

Um societal change, lots of things, too complicated. That's why the military charities are picking up the slack. Look, you it there's so there's like you know, brain tumours in children, there's heart diseases, there's so many great um causes that I could have attached myself to. But for me personally, what gives me a purpose that drives me is that belief that we owe those who have had their lives shattered, we owe them a life with dignity because they've had their lives shattered in our service. That that's my purpose. Within that, there's other little purposes, you know. Um, every challenge that I've undertaken, there's been a reason behind it, there's been a purpose, otherwise, it's just vacuous nonsense and it doesn't go anywhere. I've failed more challenges than I've succeeded in. And I and I understand that that's part and parcel. If you're gonna try something that no one's done before, there's a chance you might not be able to do it as well. So you you you gotta accept that. But what softens the blow when those things don't happen is the purpose was right, it was correct. Someone should have tried it. Someone should try and do this. I tried, I failed. So having a purpose for me, it not only keeps me sane, it keeps me attached to the person I was when I had a bit different purpose. But No less important. But when things go wrong, having that purpose, it allows you to fail with dignity if you can, or as close to it. So so that's why I get your point that people do struggle. Um and it's probably maybe as as important a part of why people struggle when they leave the military is that they're living in a different world with different standards.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:34

Culture shock.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:35

Yeah. I for me the biggest uh challenge I had was losing um a sense of purpose, missing us, missing a mission, having a reason. That was for me per uh for me personally, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:55

Uh we've got a lot of questions, mate. Um you're right if we can get on to those is that okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:00

Crack on, mate. Crack on. I am getting chicken wings this time. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:10

Dave's chicken wings using.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:11

No, uh wingman's in Soho.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:15

I might let that have one man.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:18

Yeah, if anyone wants to get in touch with them and uh get me free wings imagining them in a podcast, I'm kind of obsessed with the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:27

I get you free bingo wings. Um okay, we got we've got a lot of got quite a few questions here. Uh let's have a look. Let's have a look. Uh okay, so from Coke in the in the live stream chat. How how does your how does your heartless excuse me? How does your hardest experience in war compare to your hardest experience in civilian world?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:53

Um, what was the hardest experience in war? Sangin, um 2010. Oh, you talked about the first episode, yeah. Yeah, it was a c culmination of lots of uh stress. The hardest thing uh I've done is the last two weeks rowing solo um into South America. Uh I hit the wall. Uh exactly the same as a marathon runner, uh, quite apt after yesterday. Um typically they'll they'll hit the wall with three, four miles to go. I hit the wall with two weeks to go. Yes. And then uh physically absolutely exhausted, but I couldn't not row, I couldn't rest because the currents would have pushed me too far north, so I had to keep the same pace going in, had to keep rowing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:52

So physical and mental fatigue, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:55

Well, then the mental gymnastics of having to get out and row without a choice, I couldn't not row was so difficult that I then became um mentally uh exhausted, and then on the back of that was emotional exhaustion, and the last two weeks I can only describe as an absolute honking pit of despair. I lost all hope, all reason, had no idea why I was doing it. And when I finished my solo row, um if you don't know, I I rode solo from um Europe to South America, so from Porta Mayo in Portugal to Cayenne in South America, I beat the able-bodied record by 36 days. Um I still am the fastest person to row from Europe to South America. I was the first physically disabled person to row across the Atlantic.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:52

Um I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:54

And also the uh the longest ocean row by a physically disabled person. So I still hold four Guinness World Records. I was in the Guinness Book of Records twice. But that that when I finished and I broke the record, I had absolutely nothing left. Nothing, no emotion. I was absolutely empty. I wasn't relieved that it was over. I was it just it was as if I just couldn't be bothered. And for months afterwards, I couldn't look at the roam in a positive way because that those last two weeks were so mentally traumatic. When I said an absolute honking pit of despair, I meant it by far the worst thing I've ever experienced.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:47

I I believe you, right? And I've I've spoken to a few people who've done races like this. Uh wrong, not what you did, you did a solo row, right? I uh people do the Atlantic, the Atlantic, uh the Tanzka whiskey challenge. I had a lady on um called Annisley Park who um she she sailed where is she she rowed the Atlantic solo, kind of like yourself, not not part of anything. I gotta get this done. And she was a team GB athlete, lot wasn't able to do that anymore, lost her sense of purpose to just actually not too dissimilar, like motivation to yourself, actually. Um and she spoke about hard times, and one of the reasons these this the rowing fascinates me, whether it's a team or a pair of four or on your own, on your own particularly, is because of the situations you just you just talk about. I've not heard someone talk about it before like this, where because you only hear about the positive sides of these rows, and I've always thought myself there must be some absolutely soul-destroying times on those solar rows. But I wasn't thinking two weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:58

There's a reason, there's a reason behind that. I was chased out of uh Porta Mayo by a uh very experienced rower, uh Dutch guy called Ralph Touin. We'd been talking, uh, we were planning on going on subsequent years, uh, but he I my mum died three days before I was due to go, so I had to postpone it by a year. So we ended up going on the same years, and um uh all of my navigation systems, everything's collapsed five days in, and I had to call into the canaries on the way down, and the record would still stand, but the clock's ticking, with one of the world's most experienced ocean rowers chasing me. So, from when I got out, I lost five days in the canaries. So when I came out, every rowing session, which I rode two on, one off during the day, two on, two off at night with a four-hour off. So it's around 12 hours a day. Um every two-hour rowing session, I rode my heart out, absolutely pulled as hard as I could, and that was unsustainable, and that's why I hit that level of exhaustion two weeks from the end, and because of the nature I could have slowed up and rode within what was sustainable, but because of the uh there's a current called the southern equatorial current that goes up the coast of South America. If I'd have stopped rowing or rode any less, then um that would have pushed me uh too far north and I would have missed me uh me finishing point, which was critical because there's so much, so few beaches and rivers you can get in, and actually just so much mangrove swamp where you just can't stop. There's there's no end to the uh to the Atlantic, it just turns into a mangrove that I had to keep the pace up. Plus, the boat was slowing down because of barnacles underneath, couldn't get underneath to scrub the barnacles off. So it was a culmination, it was almost a perfect storm. Um, and that's why it's still the worst thing I've ever experienced.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:22

Yeah, it does. It's it sounds uh it sounds terrific. I I you know if if I was ever asked to do that row, I'd I would almost certainly say no. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:34

I'd almost certainly say no. I won't row again. Uh I need a purpose. Someone gives me a purpose. I did have a purpose and almost rowed again. Um, in fact, it started, but I had to stop uh because the boat wasn't prepared well enough, and then the people I was rowing with stole the boat. That's another story that I don't want to go into.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:57

If you if people only hear that story, go back to the uh the recent episode with Frank. Uh it's a few episodes back. Look for that one. But that was a purpose.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:05

I was given a purpose again. So when I say I'll never row again until someone comes up with a good idea and a reason to do it, then I'll consider it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:14

Right, we've got five minutes. Uh, I'm gonna have to pick and choose these questions from the list that are in you. Um, so did all right, so this is one from Cog again. Okay, so I had a recent guest on a bit of context here, I had a recent guest on called uh Rowan Byfield. Uh he's an ex uh Power Edge sergeant major um SFSG. Uh worked uh he was one power than SFSG, obviously worked a lot with the Marines. So in that interview, he said that in his experience working with the Marines, limited experience working in the Marines, it was his observation that full screws in the Marines have, and I'm quoting him, less power than what full screws in Power Edge have. And what he meant by that was he g he gave the he gave the example of he was sitting in our group, uh bunch of Marines there sitting in our group, listening to platoon commander, um, and the platoon the the platoon basically the platoon commander's plan and what he was saying, some of the stuff should have been questioned or discussed, uh pointed out some stuff to the platoon commander which is normal in Power Edge, like a screw, like uh I don't think that's the greatest idea, or this, that, or whatsoever. And no one piped up from any no one piped up in that old group and Rowan ended up doing it, as I recall what he said. I was surprised by his description of that. I my uh my understanding was Marine Corps kind of the same as power edge corporals and general infantry corporals, and that I you should you should have a duty and an obligation to question or query the plan that has been delivered to you by the platoon commander, and also in doing so you shouldn't be you shouldn't be uh dis um discouraged. What what so what's your thoughts on on that observation?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:10

Um don't know every power reg officer I've ever met, I've assumed was an OR, so they're very different to other officers in the army. One I uh worked at DHE for eight years, so I worked with every single cat badge, and the the whole boot neck powers thing that gets you know the uh word I'm looking for um competition, um the rivalry. Yeah that I never really experienced that because it was kind of like boot necks and powers against everybody else. So we all sat together. Um you'd have a little bit of banter, but generally um kind of all got on.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:05

Um Roman's pointing out a cultural difference there, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:08

Yeah, I I don't see one thing that I definitely see, and it's the way we are treated, and the way boot necks are treated is far better than any other part of the armed forces. A close second is power edge.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:32

Um in what way? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:35

Just I'll give you an example. Um when I was at Headley Court, all the boot necks every weekend, a driver would come and take you home. The army, you've got lads who've got like no limbs with their bags, you know, expected to get themselves to the train station or stay at Headley Court. Uh the powers, there was a power lad that used to they used to send a taxi for him so he could get a taxi all the way home. There's a clear difference in the way they're treated also when I was at DHU the way other officers treated boot necks was different to how they would treat their own cat badge, as in they treated us better than what they were treated there and spoke to. Um I'm good friends with brigadiers, uh generals, dare I say, but don't get that outside of the Marines as much. I can't comment on the power edge, but I know absolutely with the army in general. Whether they questioned, did I question as a corporal? The corporal, um, your I was in Charlie Company, and and again, our our boss, he got given the radio in Iraq. I won't say his name, but Craig basically became the troop boss, he was our sergeant. The senior corporal was a lad called Topsy, he kind of became the troop sergeant, and our boss got given the radio.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:20

What Craig was that?

SPEAKER_03 1:42:21

Craig Rennie, it's called uh really, really good bloke. He's a huge jawgy bare of a man, mounting leader. I think he might even still be in. I loved him, he was absolutely brilliant bloke. But so I don't know if that if he's uh his experience actually is a is representative of the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:47

I think he's probably a a rarity. I think I you know I'd be surprised it did surprise me, but anyway, we are out of time. Um so how can I say it again as at the start, you're welcome back in Europe anytime, anytime whatsoever. But before that, next time, how can people follow what you're doing? Um, and you are doing you do corporate and motivational speaking as well, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:43:19

Yeah, yeah. So um that's how I actually earn a living. Um, but I find myself I'm so busy doing other stuff for free. Um yeah, so I talk, I'm talking tomorrow, uh singing for me dinner. It's a it's an odd way to earn a living. It's not something you go up to your careers advisor at school and say, I want this is what I want to do. Um, but it means I can concentrate on other things. So if you want to follow us, um I'm on most social media except Twitter, so that's a cesspit of hate, uh, or ex, whatever it's called now. Um, and I've recently started doing little videos, uh putting videos together of like walking up and darkmoor. It's more of a hobby. I don't, it's not um, yeah, I really enjoy doing it. It is a hobby. Uh so there's a couple of uh YouTube videos that I've put out and you want to check them out. Yeah. Talking about walking with one leg and other things. Um, yeah, so come follow us. But I suppose if you really uh I wrote a book and the book's out, it's called uh The Rowing Marine. If you Google it, you can buy it on most Waterstones, um Amazon and Pen and Sword are the uh the actual publishers, so you can buy it off their website as well. Um and that that tells the whole story actually goes from uh my childhood uh to rowing into uh uh KN.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:59

Well worth a read. Well worth a read. I highly recommend it. And uh I would strongly suggest um if you are listening to this or watching this and uh in a position to recommend or book in speakers for your event, be that corporate or be that after dinner, whatever it is for your uh for whatever it could be, whatever organization, motivational talk. I highly recommend uh booking Frankens. So definitely, definitely do that. I think it's pretty obvious by now the kind of value that he brings based on the two podcasts and the future interviews you can do when you come back in. There's loads of questions. I'm getting beasted in the live chat. It says, Yeah, you better come back. My questions need answering. That's one of the pictures. Definitely, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:41

Well, I'm always in and out of London, and thank you for the plug for the speaking. I'm reassuringly expensive.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:50

It's a pleasure. It's been good to carry on the story again. Listen, stay safe and um good luck with a talk tomorrow. Yep, yeah. We are done. See you later, folks. That's it. If you enjoyed this episode, why not become a Hey Chour patron? Patrons will get access to all of the episodes before anyone else, they get advanced viewing of the episodes, and you also get other perks and bonuses. All of the information is on charliecharlie1.com. Just hit the menu item, become a patron. It'll show you everything there, including access to the Heych Hour Discord community and private patron only channels on there. So go to charliecharlie1.com and hit the menu item, become a patron. Easy peasy. Thank you for being a supporter, subscribe to the channel, and I will catch you on the next episode. Thank you.