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The Secret Of Mental Toughness From A Former SAS Soldier | Myprotein
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Jan 30, 2025
A former SAS soldier reveals how to think like an SAS Soldier, and why he believes the SAS are better than the USA's Navy Seals. In this exclusive talk from Myprotein's Labs Live event, SAS: Who Dares Wins Billy Billingham MBE talks to Luke Stoltman about his experience in the military. To be selected for SAS, you need a certain type of mentality, so Billy takes us through what it takes to get into the Special Air Service - (‘SAS’ is the special forces unit of the British Army). Billy spent 27 years in the military in the Parachute Regiment, with the Special Air Service (SAS) as a sniper, jungle warfare instructor and Mountie troop leader. Billy tells us about a really difficult time during his time in the SAS and how he gets through mentally - giving us tips on how to get through mental toughness. Follow Billy: Instagram – @billingham22b TikTok - @billy_billingham *** Chapters: 00:00 - Joining the SAS 04:06 - The SAS Mindset 05:35 - SAS and the Bosnian War 07:36 - Mental Health 09:18 - Honesty When Making Mistakes 10:35 - Any more questions for Billy? *********************************
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0:00
still see it now his body's next door
0:02
his neighbors are dead on the lawn just
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being killed and houses are on fire and
0:05
he's just washing his car and his two
0:07
kids are running around chasing each
0:08
other on a bike
0:10
and so when you say that that's that
0:13
always stays in my mind you know
0:21
so i then joined the parachute regiment
0:23
i had a great career you know i would
0:25
saw conflict in
0:27
northern ireland unfortunately lost a
0:29
lot of people on that you know so i've
0:31
gone into this grown business now where
0:33
he's real
0:34
um
0:35
cyprus again was a un tour believe it or
0:38
not it was forced to build sunshine but
0:39
the terrorist attack while were there
0:41
killed a number of people
0:43
so i grew through this sort of military
0:45
regime and i knew at some point it's a
0:47
bit like being a football player you
0:49
know for a sunday league team and you go
0:50
right who's the top of the league i want
0:52
to be in that league and i knew the ses
0:55
was the best and at the time i knew they
0:57
were good but and i can say this on any
0:59
platform
1:01
the sas are the best in the world i've
1:03
worked with delta the seals the specs
1:05
now i've worked with all against all of
1:07
them and we are the best in the world so
1:08
i knew that's where i wanted to go
1:10
but
1:11
to get into the sas you have to have
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done at least five years service which
1:15
have done
1:16
a number of operational tours and then
1:18
you go on selection sas selection you
1:20
apply to go on it when i went on state
1:22
selection it was almost like going back
1:24
to being 17 again so i'm now still on a
1:27
platform with
1:28
183 people
1:30
and again you look at everybody you
1:32
always do we all do you go well he looks
1:34
good he looks better than me these look
1:35
a lot better
1:37
183 people
1:39
as the days went by the lumber got
1:41
smaller and i started to believe in
1:42
myself and think you know i could do
1:44
this
1:45
and again at the end of it 183 started
1:48
seven of us finished
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not looking number seven
1:51
and then i went in to join my squadron
1:53
um
1:54
and again we talk about
1:57
memory oh sorry uh mindset and image now
2:00
if i say to you guys here i'm going to
2:01
bring on five ses guys
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you naturally probably think six foot
2:06
six v-shape all big dudes like this guy
2:08
here yeah and i thought the same as i
2:10
went through selection because you don't
2:11
meet the sas guys until you get there
2:14
so i'd finish election i was slim but
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fit
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and i went to b squadron and i walk into
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b squad and interest room is where all
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the guys hang out and i actually thought
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i'd walked into the council estate
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office
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i'm looking around expecting all these
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big super fit dudes and i look around
2:29
there's guys with beer bellies bulldogs
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skittles
2:32
this is the sex
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but what was unique about these people
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was what was inside their head
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and i remember right day one i'm looking
2:40
around it's a big guy and he was big he
2:42
was fat
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huge guy he's making a cup of tea and he
2:46
looks at me he said uh
2:48
hey nipper do you want to go for a run i
2:50
went
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yeah of course i do
2:53
anyway we went out the front gate
2:55
i saw the soul of his
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shoe for about 50 meters i never seen
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him again he left me for dust
3:01
and i got back in there and i went it
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definitely ain't about the image it's
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about what's between your ears
3:07
and then by day two
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um i've entered this new world and
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the sergeant major walks it and met us
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on me and he looked like catwoman he
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does down he's got a rolling cigarette
3:19
in his mouth and he walks in he goes
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right
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somebody's about to get killed in a
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country blah blah blah we've got 48
3:25
hours to go and save him let's go do it
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i'm like what the is going on
3:29
and then he turns around and he goes
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what's your name on the newest guy there
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he goes i says billy he goes right
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how are we going to do this in front of
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all his i'm like i haven't got a clue so
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at that point i shut my pants i'm like i
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don't know
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but he says well tell me what would you
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do so i'll come up with an idea and
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he'll not too bad but get everybody
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together now and we put this plan
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together and off we went and did this
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job and i was saying and i was thinking
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well
3:53
why is this world i've just entered it's
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crazy we went out to a foreign country
3:57
we did the job we came back
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and it's just like nobody talked about
4:00
it's like yeah back to normal what we're
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doing tomorrow it's just a crazy crazy
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world
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so the mindset that's what
4:08
sets
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the sas apart from everyone else yeah
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do you think so if you think growing up
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were you dead obviously being a torah a
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tear away
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you had that mindset or can you be
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taught that mindset
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i think it's difficult to teach at that
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sort of level about that age group it's
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what you how you grow up you know
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but i think um
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what set me in good stead was i had a
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heartbreak of upbringing and most of our
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brought on myself to trouble but being
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street wise knowing you know i wasn't
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academically smart but i was kind of
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street smart you know what's right and
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wrong but i just knew
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i could do
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better
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than you know or i thought i could do
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better than i actually could and i
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wasn't afraid to go for it and i wasn't
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afraid to get part of my ass and fail
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and get up and go again and that mindset
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was ingrained from that very early age
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you know and then
5:00
as you get into the regiment you then
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sort of
5:03
realize where you are and
5:06
everything we did in the regiment
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everything was against us we never had
5:09
anything in our favor and the biggest
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thing we always get against is time we
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never have enough time
5:14
but whenever we look at a problem we
5:15
always just say right there will be an
5:17
option there's got to be a way we can do
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this
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and there is and if you dig deep enough
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there is you've just got to find it
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persevere with it and go for it and
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that's the same if you want to relate
5:27
back to where you are now where you're
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training you want to get to a certain
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goal
5:30
it's hard it's going to be tough
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nothing's going to be easy but you can
5:32
do it and you've got to call for it and
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you've got to do it chunked by a chunk
5:35
and then going back to your career in
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the ses you know as you fought all
5:39
around the world all these crazy places
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is there one place or one
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tour in particular that was a really
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difficult tour for you
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i think it was and like united relate to
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what's happening today bosnia if you for
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the younger generation if you remember
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what happened in bosnia it was just
5:57
the hardship about bosnia was going over
6:00
there it's literally on our doorstep
6:01
it's europe
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going into europe and seeing the
6:05
atrocities of what had happened you know
6:07
trying to get your head around how all
6:09
these people have lived together for so
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long then everybody turned on each other
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and it was
6:14
you know it was it was modern day hitler
6:16
going up just like we're seeing today in
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ukraine history repeats itself so when i
6:20
got out there there was three groups of
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people fighting with each other and
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trying to get your head down the
6:25
political scenario the situation trying
6:27
to the best to help people but it was
6:29
really difficult when you just saw
6:31
neighbors that lived together for years
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and they just turned on each other and
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killed each other
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and then in every war location i've been
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to
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there's a surreal moment something just
6:43
is crazy and i remember in bosnia going
6:45
through a village that had just been
6:47
cleansed for a better word i guess
6:49
smashed bodies everywhere
6:51
in the street and and right in the
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middle of this
6:54
village
6:55
is a house and a guy washing his car bmw
6:58
like
7:00
like he's like just bizarre i could
7:01
still see it now his body's next door
7:03
his neighbors are dead on the lawn just
7:05
being killed and houses are on fire and
7:07
he's just washing his car and his two
7:09
kids are running around chasing each
7:10
other on a bike
7:12
and so when you say that that's that
7:15
always stays in my mind you know but the
7:17
other thing that says is that how we
7:18
could actually operate how that could
7:20
happen that was only in the 90s 95 96
7:22
onwards how could
7:25
this happen after what we learned from
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the second world war with hitler but it
7:28
does and it's happening right now again
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you know so
7:31
that's that always sticks to my mind
7:33
ridiculous and now horrible conflict and
7:35
more research and then how does it so
7:37
when you see this you go into these
7:39
war-torn places you see
7:41
dead bodies women children men whatever
7:45
and then mentally that must affect you
7:47
right can it come out but now have you
7:49
had any experience with mental health
7:52
afterwards or have you been pretty
7:54
strong i'm going to be very honest with
7:55
you i mean i know there's a lot of
7:56
problems with men i'll find out i'd be
7:58
very fortunate
7:59
you know i have my dark moments yeah you
8:01
know when a smile sound will remind me
8:03
of something or just like now talking
8:05
about it it's now in my head
8:07
but don't let it
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i don't let it
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drag me down i'll talk about it i'll
8:12
think about it and
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you know by doing that allows me to sort
8:16
of release it and i'll tell you what my
8:17
decompression for everything is fitness
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if i feel miserable down i'll just go
8:22
around just go for a run a jog of war
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whatever it is and it just allows me
8:25
just to
8:26
settle myself down and just move forward
8:28
so i've been very very fortunate not to
8:30
have any
8:31
mental issues at all you know but you
8:33
know i think about i have dark moments
8:34
but i just say to myself it's done i
8:36
can't change it you've got to move
8:38
forward and as tough as that is you've
8:41
just got to pick yourself up you can't
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sit there in what i call a pity party
8:44
because the only person who can drag it
8:46
out of it is you because nobody knows
8:48
what's in your head in your mind over
8:49
you
8:50
and the fact that if you're all good
8:52
enough to admit it and talk about it
8:54
have a cry if you need to upgrade so
8:56
what but you've got to do it you've got
8:57
to do that you can't just sit there and
8:59
let it and that's what's happening today
9:01
the guys i've been with seeing the same
9:03
amount i've seen been in these
9:04
situations and they just bottle it up
9:06
you can't follow you've got to do
9:07
something to decompress whether it's
9:09
fitness talking about it and there's
9:11
people out there to help as well so just
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don't be afraid to talk about it but
9:15
it's never bothered me
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yet i would say
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so i think that's a huge thing because
9:20
jimmy you're one of the most alpha man
9:22
i've ever met you've done all these i
9:24
mean you've saved the same ass basically
9:26
you know and for you to be able to be
9:28
open and talk about it you know that
9:30
gives us all the right to be able to be
9:32
open and talk about absolutely any
9:33
issues we're having because the more we
9:35
talk about that we can't get through it
9:37
you know i think you say it's happened
9:38
to us but um i think that's a
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huge thing it's just to
9:43
take ownership of ourselves more and not
9:46
look for excuses
9:48
to blame other things absolutely yeah
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exactly don't make excuses and again
9:53
talking about the way the world is today
9:55
don't make excuses for people that are
9:56
making mistakes be honest and tell them
9:59
you know that's wrong don't do that you
10:01
know don't don't cover up all this
10:03
that's what we do today we're all too
10:05
scared biggest thing missing in the
10:06
world today is the truth you're too
10:08
scared to tell the truth because we're
10:09
going to upset somebody well you know
10:10
what
10:11
life's about getting upset it's about
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bouncing back from being upset because
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that's where you learn your lessons
10:15
that's when you grow when you're
10:16
uncomfortable you make mistakes
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i always say you know you can make a
10:20
mistake just don't keep repeating it if
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you repeat it it's a problem it's not a
10:24
mistake anymore problem you've got a
10:26
problem you need to sort that out
10:27
so don't be afraid to make mistakes but
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don't
10:30
don't lie about it don't try and cover
10:31
it up or be open about and learn from it
10:34
thank you so much guys much appreciated
10:36
we'll be on later on have a good day
10:39
stay spicy guys thank you enjoyers
10:43
this is an awesome
10:44
setup enjoy
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