Last Neanderthals Podcast

Defying Expectations: A Former Marines Journey From 4 GCSE’s to the Middle East to a Russel Group University || Sebastian O’Callaghan

Last Neanderthals Episode 34

Ever wondered how far resilience can take you? Our guest, Seb, shares his extraordinary journey of rising above academic and personal struggles to achieve remarkable success. Leaving school with only four GCSEs, Seb self-taught his A-levels during military deployments and earned acceptance into prestigious universities, ultimately pursuing an economics degree at the University of Liverpool. Listen as we uncover the emotional highs and lows, periods of depression, and the pivotal moment that led him to join the Royal Marines.

Seb's story underscores the incredible impact of dedicated teaching and mentorship. We reminisce about transformative educators who made a lasting difference and discuss how effective teaching methods can spark a passion for learning in even the most reluctant students. Personal anecdotes reveal the emotional toll of perceived academic failures, the addictive nature of video games, and the values that shape family dynamics and commitment. We also delve into the intricate dynamics of sibling relationships and the importance of creating a close-knit family environment.

Embark on a gripping narrative of military life, from the intense 32-week Marine training to the camaraderie among soldiers. Seb provides insights into the mental and physical challenges faced during training and deployments, emphasizing the importance of mental resilience, teamwork, and accountability. The episode explores the transition from military life to university, highlighting self-teaching strategies, time management, and the philosophical reflections on kindness and personal legacy. Join us for an inspiring look at overcoming adversity and achieving one's goals against all odds.

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Speaker 1:

Left school with four GCSEs. I taught myself my A-levels whilst I was on deployments in the Middle East and the Arctic and then I applied to a Russell group without any predicted grades and got into four of them and then got three A's in my self-taught A-levels and you join the hardest fighting force in the world to join from civilian pretty much.

Speaker 2:

Four GCSEs. When you saw those results, what did you think?

Speaker 1:

I cried I. I remember I was just wasting my school Like this is forever. This is my GCSE.

Speaker 3:

This is it. How does that affect an individual like yourself?

Speaker 1:

I actually spiralled into pretty bad depression. There was a point in the middle, I think, like three months into this bit, where I couldn't get out of bed. And then I remember at my deepest point I was kind of just sitting there watching a film. I looked online hardest things to do in the UK. My initial goal was to be a soldier and to sort my life out, and I got both of those in the end.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, what did you feel like when you actually got accepted into the Marines? I?

Speaker 1:

was buzzing. I'd started training. I'd started 32 weeks of pain, All the training I did in preparation. It's like getting your mind ready to deal with the shit.

Speaker 3:

Everything in Marines is pushing through that.

Speaker 2:

So when things get hard, what would you tell yourself? I wonder what it is in someone like yourself that differentiates you from the other kids in the same place who will just give up.

Speaker 1:

I was just so disappointed in myself. Sometimes the lowest point can cause the most pivotal change.

Speaker 2:

You, as I said, have a really interesting story. You're currently at the Uni of Liverpool studying economics, same university as me. Yeah, yeah, but it didn't start out that way. So could you tell us a little bit about your life early on, and especially your academic journey towards little bit about your life early on, and especially your, like, academic journey towards the start of your life?

Speaker 1:

yeah, if I, yeah, if I start from when I was younger, it's, it's actually quite a weird one to be fair when I go back to initially before, we'll say post before, a level is a pre-a level. Um, I, I will see, I've grown up in quite like a middle-class. I've grown up in quite a middle class family. But there's this side of it that is very strange in terms of my mum was very, very, very poor. She was poor growing up because she had about five different divorces, which is insane. Yeah, so that doesn't sound like a constructive reason. But one of the reasons is one of them happened in 2008. The crash happened. She lost loads of money on her house and then she had three kids and we didn't have a house. So I was about 10 at the time, I think Maybe 2008. I would have been nine years old. So, yeah, and from that point on, 2008, we never owned a house and there were three of us, uh, kids with her, so she was single most of the time. It's kind of hopping between relationships.

Speaker 1:

I shouldn't see this podcast and then, uh yeah, she actually declared bankruptcy of some form at one point. So essentially the whole point was it's so strange because we all I speak, I speak well, I'm very well spoken, um, and I'm very privileged to be from a middle-class family but the situation growing up was very like the opposite to what you would expect. It was a lot of like. After she declared the bankruptcy she was only a teacher, an English teacher, so she had to tutor a lot in the evenings. The whole point of this is I essentially didn't really do well in school. I didn't try at all. I used to mess around a lot in the evenings.

Speaker 1:

The whole point of this is I essentially didn't really do well in school. I didn't try at all. I used to mess around a lot. I got kicked out of school. I got expelled in year nine from my first secondary school and I was going to get sent to in Milton Keynes they call it sort of like, which is where I'm from, milton Keynes growing up. They call it like a, they call it like a, call it peck, it's like basically a school for like kids who are badly behaved. So I was gonna get sent there. My mom is a teacher, but she said. She said I'll take them at my school as long as it goes, that one, because those schools can be, you know they can um. You know when people get sent to the schools they never come back normal do they?

Speaker 2:

they're pretty screwed or pretty fucked from that point onwards yeah, because those kind of establishments don't get the right funding and everything they need to really like support the kids that are in them yeah, yeah and they're just yeah.

Speaker 1:

The environment that they're in. People are doomed to fail a lot of times, so she made sure I didn't go there what?

Speaker 2:

what does that stand for?

Speaker 1:

peck, peck. I have no idea. We, it's a milton keynes thing, there's bridge and there was peck. Uh, there were two like academies for, like, if people who'd misbehaved. So then I got sent to my second school. I was two years below deli alley, big up, yeah, um, and then essentially from there I started trying a bit harder.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I started going to more lessons and stopped. It, stopped like skipping school and like, so I used to. Instead of going in, I would like I'd go in at 8 30 through the gates and they used to have like the back of the fence, of the back of the field, used to be just open so you should walk out and go to the shops, um, and then I used to just walk out and I stopped doing that as much in the newer school, um, because my mum was there. I didn't want to embarrass her too much and she was never that strict with me, so I didn't really want to take the piss either, because she's not, she'd never been that bad. Um. And then I got like I got four gcses just from, literally. I've always known that I'd had more in me, but I was so just lazy and I was gaming all the time actually yeah, massive, dangerous.

Speaker 3:

That's what I wanted to ask you because, like not many people like you, you know your mother divorced so many times. How does that like, how does that feel? How does that affect an individual like yourself?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so I, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because I didn't know any different. That was the way I grew up, and the thing I enjoyed was the independence. I used to look after my siblings every night, so till 9 pm, a lot of time. I'd have the house on my own. After school. I'd make dinner. I'd play as much at my lawfare 2 and cod as I wanted, basically, and I essentially just used to like play fifa, make everyone dinner to make sure the house didn't turn into a mess. Uh, we do each other. You know the frozen like chicken nuggets, so it's easy to make.

Speaker 1:

Um and I, I used to love being independent. I could just go out and see my mates and I'd tell my other brother, ruben, who's like three years younger than me, to look after the others, or I'd have to know my other brother, and then I always used to think as well, this is a weird one, but with her divorces, I think a lot of people see it as that, not like chaotic and like you know what I mean, or make you angry. That's what I'd say no, no, no, no, no, quite. The opposite, I actually see it as quite a good thing in terms of the way I see it as a good thing is she was strong enough as a woman who was in a lot of financial problems not crippling to the streets, but crippling that we were just racking up debt.

Speaker 1:

She was in a lot at some points, um, and the fact that she could still get away from a marriage that was either abusive in certain ways or it was bad to us, or the guy was just not someone that she was in love with anymore. I think it's quite strong the fact that she didn't feel that you have to stay with someone for the sake of it. I feel like a lot of people get trapped into marriages, so I admire her for being able to say no, I won't do this for the sake of it. I'll put myself first. My kids are always going to be a big priority and they're always going to be fed. Let's carry on. I always admire the fact that she didn't just stay in a relationship because her life would pan out that way.

Speaker 2:

What have you learned about relationships from that experience? To marry yeah yeah, yeah, not.

Speaker 1:

Not to marry until I'm like one million percent certain. Not to even get a girlfriend until I'm a million percent certain. Actually, I uh completely hate the idea of being at all with somebody, even seeing someone on your dates, unless you think this is someone I could marry. And do you think that's because of? Yeah, 100% yeah. I don't like the fact that she had to go through liking someone for three years or two years and then falling out of love, which happens like that's so natural, happens all the time that people are in love with someone in one part of their life and then drift apart because they both change, like that happens so much. You need to make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into it I always think with relationships, yeah how do you make sure though?

Speaker 1:

yeah, by never getting into one. And then when you are in one, which I am now, with a girl called sophie I know now that I probably would I'm very open to the idea of marrying her I would still push it seven, seven or eight years.

Speaker 3:

Make sure we've lived together, moved together, had jobs together, you know I mean I heard this advice from someone, that one should be comfortable with the idea of dying single and only then should they commit to someone. What do you, what do you think of that? Like one should be, one should be comfortable with the idea that they may not ever end up with someone, but instead they should choose the right partner. It's better to does that does that make it?

Speaker 1:

sounds. That is exactly how I think. So I think that it also the way where you were there is like um, you should be comfortable with the thought of dying dying on your own, not with a partner. I think that's quite like. That's like that's still quite looking negatively. You have to frame it in terms of I don't need to be with somebody, there's no need for me, we don't need to reproduce, we're not in the animal kingdom hundreds of years, thousands of years ago. If you're able to stay alone and have friends, if you're able to live in a house and if you're able to find comfort in being alone, you're able to live in a house. And if you're able to find comfort in being uh, you know alone, then you should. Then you're ready to find a relationship. But if you're codependent, there's so many things can go wrong manipulation that you could fall out of love and then you could be in a bad situation. There's just so many reasons you shouldn't be codependent, because then you've sacrificed your choice almost yeah, the biggest one is desperation.

Speaker 3:

It's like you meet someone who doesn't have strong values and you know you're like, oh, I'm lonely, she's pretty so because, she's pretty.

Speaker 1:

That's data, yeah yeah that's, that's like how do you want that?

Speaker 2:

yeah, how has it affected your your perspective on having kids?

Speaker 1:

yeah, not, not at all. I love having my siblings. I love being the oldest of seven, like I've got six younger brothers and sisters. I love that. I love how close-knit we all are. We all communicate well, other than uh one that goes in and out. He's just tumultuous, but generally we all it's like a little tight-knit group, yeah, and we've all made sure to keep good relationships. You know, people hate their siblings. We none of us hate each other. Yeah, so I would love for my kids to have that as well.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I probably I wouldn't put a cap on how many kids I'd have either but in terms of, like, getting married, would you wait till marriage or do you not care? Because if you don't find that right person, like you said, if you're not 100, are you still picking someone to have kids with?

Speaker 1:

That's a good question. I would. I would. I'd only have kids. Yeah, if I was married to somebody, I wouldn't have kids with someone I was half-assed about or someone that I thought there's probably a marriage here. They're all steps to me. If someone would see no sex before marriage, I would definitely see no kids before marriage, is it's a personal thing. I wouldn't impose that on other people, that other people can do that, but I don't think that's a good idea really, until you know that this is maybe the person for you for life yeah, I'd agree with you there.

Speaker 2:

Coming back to the academics for gcc's, hearing that from you is crazy, and that's crazy hearing that from you because obviously we go to university together, we have some of the same modules in economics and he's very clever guy, so thank you. Um, how did that happen? You said you were lazy. You said you were gaming. When you saw those results, like what, what happened in your mind? What did you think?

Speaker 1:

I thought I was thinking I'm going to scrape a lot of c's here and all I was going for was an a in maths. So I just wanted an a or a star in maths. I actually did get that. It's the only subject, yes, the only subject. I tried it because everyone that interested me really good teacher as well shout out mr humble, he's the best teacher I've ever had, and I was so lazy. I was actually pretty arrogant. I refused to learn always, and this guy actually made me want to learn. That's how good he was. So if he, that's the worst student, that's what teachers should be like.

Speaker 3:

But what was about him that helped you do that like that's incredible he was.

Speaker 1:

He never condescended any of the students. He was so engaged in the way he taught. He taught things in like a first principle. So if he he took like a math concept which doesn't make sense if someone teaches it badly, you just know the way it works. But if someone breaks it down, they say so, look at this. And then it's like some they just show you like the initial thing right, you don't know what's to do with. And they say, now I do this. And they do like another step. And they say, okay, now we do this. And then you look at it and then all of a sudden you're looking at like a quadratic formula or something, yeah. Or you're looking at, um, you're looking at like factor, a factorized formula, and you're thinking like I now get the intuition and it's like a problem solved and it makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he did that a lot, yeah that's literally by far the best way to teach. I had a a level maths teacher who did a similar sort of thing. But in school so much so most of the time we're just told things and we're basically expected to memorize things without understanding where they come from. And I can't learn that way. If I don't understand something, like I don't care about it enough to like memorize it. But when they break things down this way especially in maths because in maths you have these, all these equations and no one knows where they come from even like working out the area for triangle, all of that stuff no one has any idea. So when you finally get a teacher that explains it to you, things just start to click and I feel like you can take that understanding onto different things, because I always had this approach in school, especially with scientific subjects, like I'd really understand the basics, and once I did that, it makes the whole subject so much easier.

Speaker 2:

I was quite lazy in school as well, as Hossam knows. Like a few weeks before my gcses he came to my house. He was like test this, I didn't know anything. It was gcc physics, and then I ended up getting a level eight in physics just a couple weeks later just I don't know it was literally from oh, it's so good, it's's like an.

Speaker 1:

A-star, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's an A-star it was literally from going to the basics first within those few weeks and understanding it as well as I can. Yeah, yeah, Exactly so. Yeah, I think. Shout out to Mr Humble as well.

Speaker 1:

What a name is that? Yeah, yeah, he was a humble guy as well. He used to be the Luton or something at academy level. He's a cool guy, but yeah, he's a great athletic. Yeah, he's a great character. I should have probably emailed him.

Speaker 3:

Actually, he's the biggest person. To me this goes to show your story that the schooling system is massively letting students down. Because if this lazy guy right, self name right, you managed to get an a-star because of the teacher and then the rest of it, you hated school like me and him did that like. That goes to show like how much like the lack of good teaching is affecting the coming generations yeah, I need mr humble.

Speaker 1:

That guy is exceptional teacher. He's not a good teacher, he's like exceptional. I was pretty doomed. I would say we had. There were probably two or two or three good teachers out of all the how many nine subjects. There probably were two or three other good teachers. Yeah, like you say, 50% completely unengaged. You couldn't control the class, couldn't empathize with students, couldn't talk to people. Um, they were just there. I feel a lot of teachers. My mom agrees that she's a teacher herself, that's a head teacher now. She believes that, um, students, teachers go into it a lot of people because easy, easy, guaranteed pay. You literally can't be fired unless you touch a child. Pretty much that's an exaggeration, but it's it's. It's on that level. You can't be fired for being bad and they also just get holiday all the time. It's enticed a lot of people into teaching that really shouldn't be teachers. How do you, how do you change?

Speaker 2:

that, yeah, that's a good point because it's I I see it similar to medicine. Like to be a good doctor, you have to really care about your patients. Same way, to be a good teacher, you have to really care about your students, and I feel like that's one thing that was really good in my school. The teachers were so good. So, even though I was a lazy student and without doing any work, I wouldn't have done well in my GCSEs. All I needed to do was just build on those foundational things that those teachers gave me. So then in a couple weeks I went from not knowing anything to getting like mostly a's and a's stars in my gccs, and literally it was just down to the teachers.

Speaker 2:

Like in gccs, I think mostly there's not so much of a difference between people in their intellect and intelligence levels. Even if you think someone is really stupid and you think someone is really smart, the difference between them isn't significant. In my opinion, if this guy gets given the tools, he's maybe. If he can't get here, he's getting like right under him to the point where he's pushing him as much as he can. If this guy is performing as optimum as well, if he's not got the tools and he's intelligent, he's dropping down to. So, yeah, I think teaching is just so important. But I don't know if we got an answer like what. What went through your mind when?

Speaker 1:

you um it was just, it was just like I. I cried. I remember I remember when I opened I cried. I was just looking at it, I like trying, and I was just trying to be happy and then I just started like crying and then my dad was like, oh, it's all right, it's all right, you got. You got into, uh, you got into the college you wanted to get into, because that's all I was trying to get into this college.

Speaker 1:

Um, and then I was like, yeah, but this is, this is just embarrassing, like I just I knew I had so much more in me. I was like, oh, my god, I've just wasted five years, I've just wasted my school. Like this is forever. Like this is my GCSE, this is it. Like it's an unchangeable thing. And it's like how, if I never did any more education after that, that would be how people would define my intelligence, which is stupid. But in my head I was like that's it, I'm defined as an idiot. Now, you know, I mean I've just failed most of my GCSEs, but yeah, it was I. Always, when things get bad for me, I always start like instantly thinking of a solution. It's like a mind code mechanism. So I just need to start going on elaborate plans to sort it out basically yeah, what were they?

Speaker 1:

um, it was initially when I went to my uh new college in nottingham to my dad's house I was. I just had this crazy plan to get like three a stars and just like completely disprove everything. And that one was really derailed by gaming. I had a real issue with video games when I was in year 12. First four months of the college I was just hardly going in, like not at all. All I could think about was going on a game again of some sort.

Speaker 3:

There was Haas on my phone, rainbow Six or Val rainbow six or valorance like that can I just stop you there, was it, were you addicted to games because you wanted to escape your reality, or you just enjoyed them that much?

Speaker 1:

no, no, no, it wasn't escaping reality. I. I've always been very social, I've always loved reality. But my, my thing is I have like an addictive personality for problem solving and competitive stuff. Yeah, so if something's competitive, um, and I can work at it in order to get better than other people and I can find out, like how, how it works, if my head is a little ranking going on, and then I just I will just like focus on that, nothing else. And games is a very good uh gateway to that. When you find ranked stuff online, you can you find a forum where you're able to prove competitively you're better than everyone else and you can work it, and that's I used to love that and also instant rewards as well.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's the dopamine aspect of it. They've mastered it. If they apply the same simple, like principles of video games into education system, we will have super geniuses. Yeah, but you see some of my stuff like Brilliant and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

I think they're pretty good. What's that? There's something called Brilliant that like is. I think I've heard it's gamified, yeah, gamified learning, but apparently it's really really like engaging and it gets people stuff without even realizing. Essentially, yeah, yeah, you like sponsor us which should it should be in schools that sort of system a lot more, like khashoggi said with with gaming it's like instant rewards.

Speaker 2:

With the rankings it's either weekly season based with your education, it's like a decade that you have to put into this to to get the rewards at minimum for your a levels. Let's say two years. Two years versus being validated in like two weeks. Yeah, most people are going to choose the two weeks and you can.

Speaker 1:

You can instantly see improvement yeah, instantly. And also you get on a chart where you know. You get on a ranking board. You know exactly where you are in the world in school, you don't know. Kind of you've got into estimation of how good you are.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's hard to measure intellect, yeah as well. It's just metaphysical, yeah, whereas like something like also, you have less appreciation for your teachers as well, like some of them can be super smart, but when you go to a jiu-jitsu class, right, and you try to fight the black belt and you have your ego, right, like just like you think you know better than your teachers, but I grappled with this black bill, I couldn't do anything. I might as well be punching this wall and you're like, okay, this is what mastery looks like, yeah, and then you have a lot more admiration where intellectually, you can't really do.

Speaker 1:

That it's also, intellect is really something you shouldn't do. That with that's the whole point of insects is really not competition. It's intellect is about freeing your mind and striving for greatness. It's not really about comparison, which shouldn't be, but it is, but it shouldn't be in terms of fundamentals, really, if we think about it yeah, I think it's a very good way to look at it too.

Speaker 2:

I think that comes with the wisdom. Like you can be very intelligent, but if you don't have the wisdom to go with it, you get stuck in these like combative cycles, vicious cycles of comparing yourself to other people and everyone knows people like that, especially in school and stuff people who'd want to get the like highest grades and the homeworks and the tests that is me to be fair, though.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I would. It's a bad thing to do, and I know it's bad, but I still do it yeah interesting.

Speaker 2:

I think it's quite damaging, to be honest, especially because in my school and stuff there's people who'd work really hard but then, to try and portray themselves as really intelligent, they pretend they didn't do the work and got the good grades.

Speaker 1:

That's insane. That's narcissism, though you know, that's I don't. I don't like that if you've worked harder than people and you're obviously just say you know you should be.

Speaker 2:

You should be proud of that. It's a good thing. Not everyone has the work, I think, to do that I know ari certainly didn't at that age but because we feel as though hard work is not as good of a quality to have as like intelligence or the perceived intelligence. Everyone lies about things like this, which I think is so detrimental, to be honest because so many people get fooled by students.

Speaker 3:

You know they're like oh, it creates like this superiority, inferiority complex, that they're like oh, wow, this guy doesn't even work hard and he gets his stars. What chance do I have?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, right. And what's that make someone think who's very struggling?

Speaker 3:

like but I realise they're all lying the students would work so hard. But this is like the individualism in these societies that is, you know, everywhere. To be honest, that's really letting students down. You know, instead of like collaborative work, sharing, becoming smarter. We had this one teacher um, almost said his name, but anyways, we said, uh, we were sharing notes. Our class was great at that, right, because we, the teachers, were shit. Basically, the reason why our teachers got away with it is because we did independent studies, right, and we were sharing our notes.

Speaker 3:

And you know what he told us? He was like be careful in sharing your notes because the person sitting next to you might increase the grade boundaries. And I was like, how can you think this way? We're just one school in thousands, kids as well. Why is that teaching to kids? Oh my God, that's when I realized what do we have here? But then, thank God for you know Matt's genie and free science lessons. Free science lesson he got me my A star in physics. My teacher my other physics teacher told me to that the next person is going to get higher grade than you if you share your notes with him.

Speaker 2:

He want me to. The next person is going to get higher grade than you if you share your notes with him. He's a youtuber, basically. He made, uh, science videos basically covering all of gcse biology and he was my entire revision for my sciences and I got level nines in biology and chemistry genuinely just because of that guy, because he broke everything down so well and gave you everything you needed to know for the exams. And then I had good teachers in my school who gave me those building blocks as well. Oh my days, it was such a cheat code, yeah, but that makes a big difference as well, like knowing how to learn, because I I don't think gccses are actually too difficult as long as you've got the right things in place. Like I think even um, the like least competent student can get a's, a stars easily, b's in gcc, in gcses, if they've got the right support and they know what to learn in high schools exactly.

Speaker 2:

I went to a private school and honestly, I, when, when I left my private school, I went to my college, I was surprised at people being like really happy about getting level nines and eights because of my results. They everyone's opening their results. Everyone's got nines, everyone's got eights. It was like most of the year had level nines and eights. So when I went to a levels and people were like really gassed about getting these grades, I was like really out of touch. Yeah, because I thought it was quite normal and this was before the period that we had those. Like you know how nowadays, like gcses and a, levels have become a bit easier, the grade boundaries are lower and people got given grades as well. Oh, yeah, it was before that, so they were harder as well. And yeah, in this in the private school, everyone's getting sick grades. Go to colleges. Very capable students, very smart students, and not as many have these level nines and eights and it's literally because of what they teach you and how they do it.

Speaker 1:

So any evidence that it could be that because these kids aren't genetically different at private school, so it's obviously the support system is different. Everyone's got the potential. It's just sad. It's sad that, yeah, everyone's got the potential, but it's it's not always accessible, especially if the worst in the worst schools.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly moving back to you. Um, hi guys, hope you're enjoying the conversation. Thank you so much for tuning in. Remember to like and subscribe. It helps us a lot. So you ended up joining marines. Yeah, how did that happen? You're in this education system. That's a 180.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so got kicked out of college, obviously about seven months in. What do you mean? Obviously, obviously we can chop it, put that bit ahead.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, but, um, yeah, the game addiction got way too much, just, uh, completely dropped out of college seven months into the first year, so it didn't really didn't even finish the second half of first whatever. I didn't even finish the first year, um. And then I was like this is fine, I'm just, I'm just going to join the army. I thought like my head, I remember I think about like I'll just join the army. That's what people do. I read books about special forces when I was a kid all the time, because my granddad was a sniper in the commandos and I always knew a lot about them. I'd read a lot and I was in the special forces. So I was like I was joining the army, it's fine, I didn't need any of this shit. And then I thought I'm gonna work for a bit, first get myself fit. Because I wasn't fit. I played football but I wasn't fit like um and that's.

Speaker 1:

I actually spiraled into pretty bad depression because over that summer everyone was. I was with everyone again because I was like this is summer, we're all together. They went back to a levels in September and I was working as a, because I was like this is summer, we're all together. They went back to A-levels in September and I was working as a pot wash in a pub. I got pretty mistreated there, like £4 an hour, maybe £3.92.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, this is like 2017. 2017, 2018. All the nation? Yeah, yeah, and it was a cash in. I agreed to cash in hand before because I was like, oh my god, no tax. I was like I'm gonna get no tax. You didn't even get taxed at that amount, so I was just. I got fooled by some like pub landlord, um, and then, after dropping out of that, I didn't have a job for four months. I used to get up at like 5 pm, go to sleep at 8 am, trying to avoid my family in the house as much as possible, have dinner with them as my breakfast and then I drink all through the night. I'd have like whiskey and I'd watch films. It's by cambell and cheese all the time just sitting rotting pretty much. Do you get fat?

Speaker 1:

um I got like skinny fat because I think I'm quite it's quite hard for me to get fat, I think, with the way I'm built. But like I did get skinny fat. But I was just there was a point in the middle, I think it was like three months into this bit. I was just not happy. I couldn't like smile naturally. I couldn't get out of bed like I was. She's so lethargic and I'm going downstairs and I get lightheaded and I know I would like just go downstairs, my dressing gown, I would, wouldn't change clothes, wouldn't shower for a week, sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

But it wasn't about like me being a slob. It was more about like I actually struggled mentally to actually get myself to do the most basic basic task like my clothes. My whole room would be disgusting and I would just I couldn't even put like a plate downstairs. It was too overwhelming in my head and that's how that sort of thing happens. Yeah, I can relate. Yeah, it was situational depression, though not like I don't actually have this position. It was. The situation was definitely geared towards me getting that. And then I remember at my deepest point I was kind of just sitting there watching a film four in the morning. I was just like I need to change man. This is I've. I've constantly failed. I've failed my GCSEs, I've failed college. I'm now turning into like this slob and I can see myself being like one of those 25 year old guys who live with their parents just like absolute bum, really like disgusting behavior, but not that's bad is is of your head and I was.

Speaker 1:

I need to find the most drastic change. I looked up online at most drastic ways to change life. It's like train for an ultra marathon or it was like, uh, there were just loads of crazy tasks and one of them was, uh, join the power, the paratroopers or the royal marines, and, like the hot I know, I searched up hardest things to do in the uk. That's what I searched up. So it was like ultra marathon, um, parable marines. There was like getting to oxford. I was like I can't do that one right now. And then I settled.

Speaker 1:

I was like I've always wanted to be a soldier. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for the paris. And I went to my dad. I was like I'm gonna join the paris and he was like a you won't pass, which is fair enough. If he's seen my track record, I'm right now, I'm some lazy mess. He's failed everything. And he was like if you are, if you, if I also wouldn't let you, it's the army. He has a thing against the army a little bit. He was like I was like can I join the marines? He was like you, if you want, if you can get in, you can join the marines but how come?

Speaker 2:

what's the difference between the marines?

Speaker 1:

is like um, it's not the armies, the marines. Actually it's funded by the navy. But if you ever see posters in the forces or you ever see, like the way the forces are described, the marines is kind of the fourth one. So the army raf and the Marines is kind of its own thing. The Royal Marines and they're also commandos. So in World War II they got given commando status, which basically makes their training a lot harder, a lot more selective and when they got that they're very well respected.

Speaker 1:

The powers are seen as. This is not my opinion. This is not my opinion. This is general consensus, because I don't want to disrespect powers. They're very good blokes. I've met a lot of them, but generally in the UK, by people who aren't involved in the military, they're seen as thugs. You know, you know all the white lads with the shaved heads running around just starting fights. You know pubs and that sort of thing. And the marines are seen as like these special, civilized, more fit. There is actually much of a difference between the two. When you meet both the blokes, they're pretty similar sorts of people, but the general public consensus is that the royal marines is, you know, sort of more gentleman's version of it. A little bit. That's my dad. That's why he was more open to it as well. He's got more respect in terms of how the blokes are.

Speaker 1:

Um, and yeah, I set my sights on that. That was pretty, it was good for me. It was. No, it's the best thing I ever did. Yeah, it was the best thing I ever did. Yeah, it's. My initial goal was to be a soldier and to sort my life out. Those are my two goals and I got both of those in the end, so yeah, wait, let's start.

Speaker 3:

Let's bring it back a bit. So your dad was like. He was like yo, you're not even gonna make it because you're this lazy, you got bad track record. Yeah, how tell us the journey? How did you tell? Tell us, like your David Goggins beast mode carrying the balls in the logs. Walk us through it.

Speaker 1:

So I just looked at each. There's five different stages before you can even start Royal Moose Training, right. So there's the application. There is the medical, the fitness test, the PRMC and also an interview somewhere. So there's five stages. Three of them are pretty physical, two of them are very physical. Um, prmc is potential Royal Marines course, by the way. It's four days long. So I just looked at each test one by one and started training for each one. That's how they say to do it. They don't say train for training, they say train for this test. We're setting you up for training if you pass.

Speaker 1:

So I read into it a lot. I'd also read lots of special forces books and I think that was one of the best things for me, because I never trained fitness, I never trained anything, a strength. All I trained was my mind, which sounds so ridiculous. I know in like like very Chad over the top. Chad just means uh, you know, someone says that's gay, it's like in Marie, you said that's Chad. So yeah, um, and I basically just trained my mind.

Speaker 1:

So when I go on runs, I wasn't focused on my speed, my time. I was focused on like getting to a point of pain and then going further as as much as I could, and also because you do that, fitness comes with it. It's like a side product. All of my stuff would be burnout, burnout, burnout. Because all I'd read in trainers they'd be thrashings, which is where they take you outside, basically, or they keep you in the combination and you just have to. They just shower you in physical exercises for an hour until you're broken and you can't just stop or say no, that happens all the time, all the time in marines, and it's the reason they're doing it is to train your mind to just be able to take all this shit. Um, so all my training I did was training to feel pain and then deal with it and know how. As soon as you know how to push through it and how it feels to push through it, it becomes less alien when you do it again. So all of of my runs would be about hill sprints, carrying people up hills.

Speaker 1:

I used to take a guy from football called Dave with me who was a six foot three rugby player and I was a small guy as well. I was like 65 kilos. I used to fireman's carry him up this hill. Then we'd both jog down and then we'd both sprint back up. We'd jog back down and I'd fireman's carry him back up. We'd jog back down and I'd find with carrying back up again and I just kept doing that as many times as I could for like half an hour.

Speaker 1:

Um, a guy from the marines are called mike. He used to take me out to uh, basically will and laking munkins got moved. Back in my month my dad kicked me out. Um, I used to. We said basically he was a marine in the careers office and every week he'd take us out and he'd simulate a thrashing and so we'd just carry each other up this hill, me and these two of us trying to train it. We'd fireman's carry up and then we'd crawl around. We'd bear crawl up the hill and all the training I did in preparation was try and get. Try and get into the times, because time limits just to do for running and there's pull-ups and there's sit-ups and press objectives to adhere to. That's not hard. What's harder is like getting your mind ready to deal with it, deal with the shit.

Speaker 3:

That's everything in marines is pushing through that so when things get hard, what would you tell yourself?

Speaker 1:

when you're about to say I love this.

Speaker 1:

I, if I get back on a hard, hard run if anyone's ever played football with me you'll see it like I will just run and run. It doesn't stop. I smoke a lot. I don't even go out and run that much Like. I'm very comfortable being in like a deep amount of like physical pain in terms of fitness-wise and that means I'm actually probably not fitter than most people I'm running on that pitch with. But I'm just so much more comfortable with that end level of stamina that end level of stamina?

Speaker 3:

do you know?

Speaker 1:

what I mean. So how does?

Speaker 3:

this lazy guy just have this mentality in himself. Yeah, so he came from a place of insecurities and dad as well.

Speaker 1:

My dad, it was always. I remember one thing's always stuck with me. I was on a run when I was 10 years old. We were going. I was going around for a race. You know, one of those like 1k runs you do for like a school where all the schools compete.

Speaker 1:

He came down Mill and Keens just to visit me for the run. I remember I was like huffing and puffing, like 400 metres in or maybe like at the top of the hill or something. You know what I mean. I pretended to trip up basically and throw myself off the race and my leg hurt and he kind of saw that I pretended and he just kept calling me a giver-upper and saying that he is. He kept saying his surname is out because he's not my surname, but he said his surname like which is the one family don't give up. He was like don't people don't do that.

Speaker 1:

And I just remember how disgusted he was in me for it. And now he was just he was so unimpressed and he'd always see me as this giver-upper and the way my dad saw me growing up was a big driver. Disprove to disprove and also to prove to myself that I'm better than that. Like yeah, because I've been so used to like accepting that maybe I'm just kind of a loser with things, you know. I mean, yeah, I can't accept that a little bit.

Speaker 2:

That's uh well, first it's really impressive because people can't switch out of that mindset so easily. Lots of people go through these like hurdles in their life, and then they get to one hurdle and then they just stop, Like, for example, at the gaming point. You could have just stopped when you got kicked out of college. You could have just stopped, but you kept going. And I wonder what it is in someone like yourself that differentiates you from the tens of thousands of other kids in the same place who will just give up, like if someone's listening, who is more inclined towards now just thinking I'm a failure, I'm gonna give up. What? What would you tell them to motivate them?

Speaker 1:

I always struggle with this because I don't actually know what caused the pivotal change, other than how far down the pit I was. I wasn't going to commit suicide. I was on that path of where my mind was thinking about myself. I was just so disappointed in myself and I was so hurt about how I, how what I become, that I I was like it made me make such a drastic change. And people do say this to me how do you get out of it? My brother one of my brothers really struggles with always being at that sort of place where I was before as well, and I tried to tell him the stuff that was going through my head. But some people I think they struggle cognitively to have it work that way for them. I don't. If someone does think the same way as me, it sounds weird, but you might have to just just keep it lazy and let yourself get to a fucking low point.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes the lowest point can cause the most pivotal change constantly. If you've got a massive pit and you're constantly going there and then come back out, you won't go much higher again. You're constantly kind of cycle around there. When you go to like the bottom of the pit, that's. That's when you can really change very fundamental ways about how you think. That's what. That's not when you say I'm going to start doing things a bit differently now. That's when you say I need to change the way my mind is approaching situations, how I approach my day, how I approach my goals. That's you have to kind of have a pivotal change and you can't just have that unnaturally, you can't tell yourself to have that. No, it has to come from a situation, I think, and that's that's probably the worst thing about it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there is this beautiful quote. It says that pain won't leave you unless it's done teaching you.

Speaker 1:

Pain won't leave you unless it's done teaching you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the dilemma then is right I'm more like you where I've hit rock bottoms and then fixed my life and had this U-turn and being afraid of being a loser. So I was very much driven by my insecurities and feel of failure and regret. And then you get better, life gets better, you get, you become naturally complacent. Then you almost, like, miss that darkness, like I don't know if you have had this where you want to hit that rock bottom again because you missed that grind, you missed that climb to the top again. Have you had that? And then, if yes, how do you avoid that kind of self-sabotaging Like, what advice would you give me that I don't bring it to that, that I just stay on my course?

Speaker 1:

You've been to King's College London right.

Speaker 3:

You obviously got very good A-levels as well.

Speaker 1:

No, I failed first time, but you got good A-levels right, it's even more impressive. Actually, in a sense, what I do is I look back. If I'm in that complacent state and I can see myself starting to drip off again or just get really stagnant and not really impressive, I think. Fuck me, you left school with four GCSEs and you joined the hardest fighting force in the world to join from civilian pretty much and the other stuff that I'll talk about in a bit, I think we'd say now. So I taught myself my A-levels whilst I was on deployments in the Middle East and the Arctic and then I applied to a Russell group without any predicted grades and got into four of them.

Speaker 3:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

And then got three A's in my self-taught A-levels and now I'm getting like a first at uni. I just always. The accumulation of achievements in your life should always be your driving force. I am so much better than this. And if it means that they were a long time ago let's say you excelled at GCSEs or you were a great sportsman a teenager think that is still you. That's still that person. Think, fuck me, I am so much better than what I'm doing right now. Look, this is the evidence I'm better. Use that as your fuel. Use the evidence I'm better. Use that as your fuel. Use the use, the evidence of I am so much better than this. Here's what I've done. If you haven't done that, I don't know what I would say, but that is what I would try to do most of the time.

Speaker 3:

That's what I do anyway yeah, you know what I do. That's a great advice I'm going to take on that. What I tend to do is now envision going back to a dark place, place and I imagine I'm like do I really want to face that pain again, but instead face the discomfort of doing the hard things and keep going. Does that make sense? Yeah, like I really imagine how I can lose everything. How can you can all go back, how I can do. I want that. Like do I always want to be hitting rock bottoms and then climbing up? Because I'm like there might be a time where I hit the rock bottom and I stay rock bottom. There's a risk of that.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, just reminded me of the the rock from wwe yeah, thank you for lining up. That's okay, you're getting too serious but I want to get back to the marine training a little bit. How similar is it to that one tv show, sas, who does win um, yeah, it's completely not similar at all.

Speaker 1:

It's just there's probably nothing similar about it. Actually, what they're actually trying to emulate as well, which is SAS selection and SBS selection, is even more different from what they're doing. They're probably resembling a day in the Marines of how they talk to you and treat you maybe best in terms of that's what people are like to you. A lot of the time A they don't shout as much. That's not that bad. People shouting at you is not a good thing. That's not very productive. The punishments they get in terms of crawling around or doing press-ups or holding the press position or running up and down a hill they get minuscule amounts of it compared to what we would get with no weight. All the time they're on a fitness boot camp. Um, it's just, they're on a fitness boot camp.

Speaker 1:

They get any fun stuff as well, where they jump off like uh, you know, I think you want, you know, when they jump on, jump or they go backwards off the things, like we do that for, like, for a sports day, I don't know. That's like that's pretty fun, just yeah, it's just not similar at all. But, as military training is about teaching you how to be a soldier, people, people have seen the boot camps, the fitness, and you've seen guys come out the military and you've seen them run boot camps and you go to one, right, and it's all. You're caught around, do this and then run along here. Yeah, that is something that happens in military training, but especially marines and, I'm assuming, power training as well. They're teaching you how to be a soldier, that's everything. So, um, being a soldier isn't what you'd expect, people think. People have preconceptions about what it means to teach someone to be a soldier.

Speaker 1:

Being a soldier is about getting the, having a basic structure of how to exist in a battlefield so that you stay alive, and how to make sure your teammates stay alive, your oppos, and then how to make sure you know exposed and how to make sure that you're hiding your tracks. You're moving well, you can navigate. Um, you can keep track of all your things very well. Uh, to keep all your things clean to keep, because if you're, if you're out there for 10 days, doesn't matter how fit and aggressive you are, if your rifle's covered in fucking mud and you don't know how to protect your mate, because you're focusing on keeping yourself alive and you can't really map read. You're so shit. You're just a gym lad. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

Yeah it's like gym lads going into a boxing ring. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's just they're not. They're not who you put in your mind. You've, you've got people in your mind. You think of marine or sas. They're not what you're. They're not what you think. They look like, they're skinny lads, but their mind is strong. Their mind is so strong they can put up with shit for hours and days. Even they get almost tortured for two days at one part of the training when they get put in stress positions have crying babies. That thing happens maybe in the show. That does happen. Yeah, in SAS selection. What do you mean? Crying babies? The sound of a baby crying is one of the most biologically distressing sounds you can hear. So they constantly play it on a loud speaker while you're holding stress positions in a room. They just try and make everything and dogs barking as well very distressing things just constantly here. So they just have these sounds going on.

Speaker 1:

People in stress positions against the wall with a bag over their head, sensory deprivation, visually, and basically these people they're in special forces. They've got stamina, they've got mental resilience, but the main reason they're special forces is not these two. The main reason they're special forces is because when they get taught information, they learn it and they retain it. So if you taught me how to put together this set of cameras and microphones and the whole film setup, if you can teach that once and then I retain it very well and I can do it on my own again, that's a skill. Say, I get given an enemy rifle. Someone teach me how to take it apart, shoot it. Uh, what ammunition needs all that? Or a new mapping area? You get taught it once you know it, how useful is that as a person in a soldier environment?

Speaker 1:

Number two how well they look after their things. It doesn't sound that important, but if you can keep track of it from where it is and be very organized in how, how it's laid out in your bag, in your kit here and making sure that you've not got shit flapping everywhere, you're going to move quicker. You're going to be able to get to things quicker. You're nowhere. If it is quicker, you'll never have things lost very important. And then finally, um, we call it like the soldiering basics, which is sort of drills. So how well someone can. A very basic thing is called something called fives and twenties, which is where when you get to a new location or it's been a while, you're five and twenty, so you do a five meter check around you and a 20 meter check. And then there's other drills as well, like how you stay in a line, how you communicate, if you say the right thing on the line. These are basic drills, but everything about soldier is basic. It's just not getting it wrong over and over again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah and doing the basics under pressure, basics under pressure. Oh yeah, finally, yeah, not flapping under pressure, flapping, you know flapping yeah, yeah, yeah, not flapping under pressure is the final know.

Speaker 1:

Flapping, yeah, yeah, yeah, not flapping under pressure is the final thing. That's what makes a special forces soldier. It's not being a stone cold killer, it's not how well you can shoot, it's not how big and strong you are, it's not how far you can run. It's a culmination of the other things I spoke about. Yeah, that's why you'd see, if you ever look at what american special forces like in realistic films. Or there's a guy, I think from Vietnam, who's got one of his confirmed kills. He looks like an accountant, small guy with glasses and he's very skinny, but he's like one of the deadliest soldiers of all time. I can't remember his name, but he's very famous as well. And, yeah, once you see that, you're like who does wins? It's a fitness boot camp with a military brand on it. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3:

is that the when Tony Bellew gets like punched by?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah but no one's punching you with boxing gloves that's more like a mental milling, and they're not able to defend themselves that's Paris, that's not Marines.

Speaker 1:

So in Paris, training, they do milling, it's just so they can. They can teach someone how to untap their aggression. Oh, so is that the thing? So is that right in the paras? Which is why they get a more thuggish reputation. Because they do. It's called milling. So they punch in a boxing ring each other until someone's knocked out bleeding on the floor, or it's been a minute. But you're not allowed to defend your head, you have to only be on the offense. But what about 12 people? Oh, that was just for the show, it's one-on-one. They usually pick a big lad and a small lad or a shy lad and an aggressive lad, and they usually try and mismatch. So like tap out. They try and, like you know, unleash the aggression in the one who needs to be unleashed.

Speaker 2:

So that's the point of that. I think I've never done it. What did you feel like?

Speaker 1:

when you actually got accepted into the marines, when you got in. Well, however, it works, I've got no idea. Yeah, yeah. So every stage I passed price training, all five stages, I was elated, I was buzzing, I was literally. Each of them was conceptively the happiest day of my life. So I never really achieved that much. And then, when I start, when I got, when I got my prmc and I finished it and I was allowed to start training.

Speaker 1:

So before you even start training, I think five stages, and one of the five stages is a four day, no, three days at limston, which is where you train for the marines, and that was one of the happiest feelings as well finishing that pure potential war marines course and then going off to limston. I was buzzing, I'd started training. I'd started 32 weeks of pain, which has got like a 40, no, 50 to 60, 40 to 50 pass rate itself. So we already had like probably a thousand applicants at first. Now we're down to I believe it was 54 at the start of my training and at the end of our training we had 12 people left, original and then a few back troopers. So we'd gone from 54 to that and probably 18 in total together in the troop and um, the feeling of getting my green beret after 32 weeks of just cane, because it's a green beret as well, like a commando, one like you know the greenberries in america.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's what, that's what we get here, that's what it's based on. I believe it's one of our one. Um, and like I remember when they told us on the end of the 30 mile at the final test, um, they were like you're done. I was like you're even serious. They're like, yeah, we're like, we're all looking around, we think they're just messing with us. Because they do that, they do that, they like they'll mess with you, like now we're all more up, and then they just everyone's like people bagpipes and put it back on.

Speaker 1:

And then, uh, I was just, I just took my backpack off and I was like crying, like tears of joy, almost, and everyone's just like hands on their head, like on the floor, like they finally passed. There were six of us there, I think, at that point in terms of like in our cohort. And then also they, we told they told us straight after we were meeting prince harry as well, because he was giving us our berries. So, yeah, we just we got into this little like open circle and then there were all of us in this big open square, sorry. And then prince harry came around and gave us our green berries individually each yeah, that's kind of cool and how many people apply.

Speaker 1:

You said some crazy, yeah, so I will fact check this. I believe it is 24,000 a year apply for the Marines and I think 400 pass out of Royal Marines training each year. Wow, so yeah, there used to be an advert saying 99.9% need not apply and the whole point of that is because they're only 0.1% pass, the other ones don't even need to apply. That was the whole point of the advert, but it got a very famous tagline for it. In terms of actual physical tests, I would say it's got more of like an 8% pass rate, maybe lower. You also have to weed people out before that as well. It's probably a 1%. It's 1% from the point you click apply to actually finishing, becoming a real read.

Speaker 3:

No one wants it, sorry, yeah so impressive to go from just a lazy video game thinking I is gonna be loser for the rest of his life.

Speaker 1:

We're aware from shooting people in cod to shoot I always do think that impact me, but I don't think it was that, to be fair. Yeah, it impacted you in what way? It's always worried the fact that I'd you know, you know you're telling loose women and they're talking about kids playing video games and getting them into the military. I've always worried was I that person? I realized no, I'd. I'd had other, I'd read books that would really inspire me way more than these videos. They were just fun to play. Yeah so yeah, but I do sometimes wonder how much that has an impact yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about.

Speaker 2:

I think there's a point to be made with that, with kids being aggressive when they play these kinds of video games. I'm not sure how much there is to them joining the army. I do think, like you said, most of the time people who take that decision have some other sort of interest in it beforehand, because there's millions, tens of millions of people who take that decision have some other sort of interest in it beforehand, because there's millions, tens of millions of people who play these games. How many of them actually do go into the military?

Speaker 3:

I was really good at carding. I never wanted to join the military. I broke air controllers with anger issues. Not at one point was I like God. Let me do this. I like the training aspect of it. I've always wanted to, especially after reading what is the hardest part of training.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what is the hardest part of training? It's the fact that it keeps getting harder and you think it's hard wherever you are. So, like week one, you're like this is fucking shit. And then you're thinking foundation week, first two weeks. We get out of this soon and we get into our own accommodation. You know the room with loads of bunk beds where everyone's in the bunk bed shed and the lights will come on at six in the morning together. That's what you're in for the first two weeks, called foundation. After that you get put in a six-man room for that, to train in um. And then you get out of it and you realize it's still shit. It's still shit and it's actually getting worse. It's getting harder, it's getting worse. The physical training is getting worse. They don't treat you nicer. Everyone always says that, oh, they'll start being more soundly later on. They don't like. They're pretty bad.

Speaker 1:

All the way through the training team um and my hardest part was week 21. We were on an exercise called violent entry, which is basically to where you go to um, south wales, for like seven days, but it's what is known as um, one of the hardest exercises for carrying weight. I think I was carrying somewhere around 50 kg for this one in terms of ammunition weapon, maybe 55 on my back and then on my neck, and then I messed up the week before and the week before that two times. But when you're in training the training team always target a certain bloke, or two or three for about a week and I think they purposefully do it. They must do it because they switch all the time. They even have the best bloke in the troop under it for a bit and they just go in on you. They just make sure you feel worthless and useless. And we were on the coach up to Wales and I was feeling pretty low because they'd been bollocking me for ages so do they say mean things to you?

Speaker 3:

yeah, like what.

Speaker 1:

You are fucking useless, o'callaghan, or you are fucking shit like how, how do you, how do you even get on some registrations and stuff like that? And then every time you get something wrong, they just say that sort of thing and just make you feel like fuck's sake, or the looks they give you, or they make you hold a presser position for like 30 minutes.

Speaker 2:

So does, even though you know like they're doing this because it's training, does that still have a huge impact?

Speaker 1:

yeah, that you think that when you think you know they're doing this, if the training but they've, they've. It's been designed for all marines training. In a way it's been designed raw Marines training. In a way it's been refined by PTIs, physical training instructors in the Marines. So everything's meant to evoke a certain thing. Each week is specifically made for a specific thing. So, no matter how well, it still works.

Speaker 1:

You know, I was. I was on the coach that exercise and all I could hear was my corporals in front of me, two seats ahead on this coach, just saying how shit I was. My say, my surname, said I hope you, I hope you get to fucking kick him out this week. I hope he fails. I was just, I was sitting there on the way already feeling alone. I was like I just felt useless, like yeah, then I had a really good exercise after that and then all the heat went off me and then they liked me again and I may realize they never hated me. They were just. They were just testing because I was, I was showing weak points. They were testing, they were, they were digging into it, seeing how I reacted. I reacted well to them, so yeah.

Speaker 3:

They would rather you quit in the training than on the field.

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you, if you quit in the training, ever give up on anything and it's not because you're injured or it's not because your body is literally failing you're giving up because you're, you want to stop. You think this is too much, too overwhelming? They will make very conscious efforts to make training very hard for you from that point onwards. Because they've seen it. They've seen that you're you, they've seen your ability to quit. That's what they've seen. You can't have that in a in a in a violent place like with when your teammates are out there, your elbows like, yeah, their eyes on the line, your other people's eyes on the line. Sometimes you get left out in a country. Let's say that all the all the trap, all the uh helicopters can't come pick you up. There's no, there's nowhere to pick you up. There's no rations, no food supply for two days. What are you? What are you going to do then? If you gave up in the field in Wales, you know?

Speaker 1:

what I mean when you had food with you. Like you need to prepare for the worst.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, so you've got into the Marines. What did the Marines actually do?

Speaker 1:

That would take me two hours. But, um, the whole idea is that Marines are commandos. Commando just means small team. Um, a small team causing uh, what's the word? Unproportional damage, so like team of four blowing up a whole building, or a team of four killing a very high level person in a certain place, or a team of four stopping blowing up a railway track, or like sabotage. The whole point is to go in smaller so that people don't know you're there, and then to cause big amounts of damage. That it's just. Yeah, it's easier. It's good to have those sort of people on your side.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we've kind of evolved more into the elite soldiers now. So now it's more just about being integrated in with other parts of the forces but being like the sort of beacon of example of how you should be a lot of time. But I've, since I've left. Actually we've gone more back to being commandos again. So small teams, teams doing little, we call them basically covert sort of stuff, you know, not being seen when they go into places doing something, extracting someone, sabotaging something, putting up communication somewhere and then getting out really quickly without anyone seeing you. That's the whole point of Marines, essentially Marine Commandos.

Speaker 3:

So you guys are like the Navy SEALs off the ground.

Speaker 1:

We are the UK Navy SEALs. I don't want to offend anybody too much. They are a little bit better than us. For example, I believe there's somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 Navy SEALs in America for their population. In the UK there's about 1,400 to 2,200 Marines. So we're close in terms of eliteness but they are more elite in terms of proportional population. But yeah, we are essentially very similar to the Navy SEALs.

Speaker 3:

And how does Hell Week compare to training units?

Speaker 1:

Hell Week isn look that bad, getting hell week from. What I've seen is just loads of thrashings, loads of physical exercise over and over again. Isn't the worst part of training? The worst part of training is when you're out in the cold. It's your fourth night in a row. You've hardly eaten, you've hardly slept, you're wet, you're soaking wet through you. You can't really go to bed because you've got to clean your rifle. You have to eat cold food because you can't let any fire off when you're eating, because that's that lets away your position to other people.

Speaker 1:

Um, and your, your, your kit is drenched wet through. You're so hungry. You're carrying almost your body weight on your back and you know you've got three more days and everything's wet. Everything's wet. Your feet are wet, you're covered in fucking mud and you've got to still maintain a high level of standard as a soldier. That's the hard thing, it's not the physical stuff. People don't drop out in the physical thrash and so they drop out in the exercises where you're simulating a war zone. Yeah, and people who've been in elite, elite sort of forces like Paris Marines, navy SEALs, they'll tell you that is definitely the worst, the worst part, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Do you see people quitting Like?

Speaker 1:

did you have a chat with?

Speaker 3:

them like no, no, no, they're gone. Yeah, you don't chat to them, like when they were trying to quit. Like have you told someone? Like you know what? Like have they been? They've been honest.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I would I would be like I'd be like come on, man, if I like the guy, but come on, man, you can, you just you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, and we have to do a lot of each other. Like someone like I don't know anymore'd be like come on, there's probably only two more miles, probably only two more miles. Like on a yomp we were carrying loads of weight in the middle of the night and then we'd usually get them through. If there's a bloke, a lot of people didn't like we'd probably let, we'd just let them. We'd be like it's probably going to be another 30k. I heard that he looked like a pencil as well, so we didn't even go there. You brought a swimmer home, mate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

If someone was shit and people didn't like them. Though you probably hear from movies that people like that get bullied and that sort of thing, the reality of what actually happens more of the time is that people really see them. People despise them because they're like you're so fucking lazy, you get away with not doing. We're all doing work for you all the time. Whenever someone doesn't do work, we're doing that work for them in the field, we're doing their jobs for them. If someone cleans their weapon for an hour and a half and everyone else does it in 20 minutes, we're setting up the whole uh harvard base, we're setting up all the sentry positions while they're fucking cleaning their rifle and it's just, it makes you hate someone and it's and you know they can do it quicker.

Speaker 2:

They're just lazy pricks and that's that's why people take it out of it and they're like, yeah, you should quit I could see the anger coming on got some dead debtors, that's not yeah, no, I can imagine, because you're sleep deprived, you're hungry, you're going through what is close to torture and then you've got this guy slacking off.

Speaker 1:

He knows, he knows you can get away with it a little bit, because as soon as the training team come over, he'll finish, clean his work and put it back together and then he'll start helping. He's like I just finished like fuck off.

Speaker 3:

It's also unjust because like they're getting an a-star you know that one guy in the group well, without doing anything, yeah those blokes always get found out, almost always.

Speaker 1:

They always get found out, so none of them make it through to the end really ever, if you're that guy don't cut corners yeah, yeah, don't cut corners and think you're. Think of the boys you're with, like if it's marines, there's no girls yet. So think of the boys you're with and think about, think about fucking. Are you being supportive of them?

Speaker 2:

really, yeah yeah, it's very selfish, isn't it? It's not about yourselves, not about how well you're doing.

Speaker 3:

It's about your section and your troop doing well yeah, cutting corners on when they cut you, that's what that's so then what?

Speaker 2:

what was your experience like in the Marines? You said earlier you were deployed somewhere where you were studying your A-levels.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I went out to the Middle East on a minesweeper called Actually I won't say the name and then we were what is that? A minesweeper is just a big ship that sweeps for mines. We weren't doing anything to do with that. We were their protection force, so we got embedded on the ship with them. It was my first deployment, so we were just doing basic protection work. What that just means is we do constant sort of guard duties around the ship.

Speaker 1:

We check for, like enemy, which was iranian ships at the time because it was 2020 um, it wasn't actually iranian. What they use is they use the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is not actually Iranian military, like a paramilitary that is employed by the Iranian government. So there's a very strange relationship over there because they're not actually Iranian troops, but they kind of are Iranian troops, so we'd always have to be looking out for them so they could pull alongside or to be there Pirates as well, like ferrying drugs. There's a lot of drugs that go through that sort of part of the world and a lot of the people I was with out there on different ships were looking for like big meth shipments, big heroin shipments Some of them are in the news for about some like 250 millions worth 250 million yeah yeah, that was the Marines that did it as well they were.

Speaker 1:

They were very good at what they did out there. How'd you?

Speaker 3:

find that out like how?

Speaker 1:

intel, and then, as soon as you get the intel, these, these destroyers or these frigates will go and track these ships, find them. As soon as they get eyes on, they'll tell the ship that they're going to board. Then the marines would go out on the other little ribs they're like inflatable boats. Yeah, they'd go out like lying down on one of them, get up like, throw a ladder on the top, um, and it wouldn't be a rip sorry, it'd be a bit of a bigger one, they can stand in. They throw a ladder on the old board. As soon as the marines get close, or any military gets close to these boats, they all throw their weapons overboard, because if they've got weapons on, the people are going to shoot them. So they just say, oh, and we can't arrest them. We can't arrest these guys. I think we can detain them, I think, and then hand them. So there's a loophole in law. It's international waters, a different nation. Okay, all we can do is seize the drugs, okay, I think. I believe they detain the people and then hand them over to someone else. But I can't imagine they go anywhere serious. Maybe they do. I don't really know how that bit works, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I was in the. I was in the gulf for a bit and that's when it actually kicked off with iran. It was, I remember we just finished new year's celebrations 20 2019, the 30th of december. Um, we just finished new year's eve celebrations in dubai, all hung over. I think it was a day after or two days after we were hung over and then at four in the morning or six in the morning, you just hear like this ship, sirens, come on and we're like what the fuck is going on. And then we look around like why would they get us through a drill right now? They're not. It's not a drill, surely.

Speaker 1:

We go look out. There's like no ships. Usually there's a ship to spot, see, like you say, where the ship is. And then a corporal came around. He's like there's no ship. And I was like, oh okay, why are we up here? We're completely done so we can go out to bed. Um, and then he was like just stand by. I see people like running around the ship. I'm like what the fuck is going on. And then essentially it comes back to like donald trump is just like airstrikes. This guy in iran, general sulaimani, and we were the closest ship to iran at the time and I was like, I was like fuck sake because that was a really volatile situation.

Speaker 2:

Everyone was saying at the time world war three, yeah, yeah you started turning on twitter.

Speaker 1:

I was like 20 miles south of iran and then we were just we were excited, we were like it's a bad, it's weird, but yeah, that's what we were kind of all thinking, that it's like quite excited. What is that? Because of boredom. Uh, when you train at that hard level, uh, for a specific thing, and you're also bored, you're kind of like you're, you're dying to do what you train to do. You've done these simulations for for a year almost, and then, like someone tells you you might actually do it, then all the old folks say, be careful, you wish for, because they've been to afghan, they've been to iraq. Yeah, you say to us like I know, I know you want it, we did as well, but just be careful, how much you want yeah, are you.

Speaker 2:

Are you not in that mindset? Are you not thinking about the risks?

Speaker 1:

we think about being soldiers, like we're all thinking about, like being a bootneck, being a.

Speaker 3:

Marine, you just want to be tested. It's like sparring. I really want to have a fight.

Speaker 2:

I've been training for a while, but with with like high levels of deadly consequences if it goes wrong, like with boxing yeah, it's the same.

Speaker 1:

If you sparred for ages and never had a boxing fight, how?

Speaker 3:

frustrated, would you be? It's very frustrating for me, trust me. It is so frustrating.

Speaker 2:

I got seven weeks of sparring. I was doing my fight.

Speaker 3:

I wasn't waiting any longer. Yeah, that's what I need to do as well, Because I've been training for a while now and I just need to get out and I can imagine You're chomping a bit. Yeah, because you're like what am I? Okay, I'm doing all things in training. What can I do it in?

Speaker 1:

is this crazy to me because of the risk that's involved it is crazy because, like yeah his one is on steroids, but I sound like it sounds like I want to shoot people, sounds like I want to kill people, doesn't it? But that's not what it is. Is that they obviously made us think? Not made us think? They ushered us down a route which we were willing to go on of. We're shooting the targets and you're seeing how good you are shooting targets. You see how good you can clear this house, seeing how good you can make sure when a civilian dies and see if you can extract this target. So it was like a, it's like a game, how quick we do it. We make sure every shot hits when we go through these houses. So we weren't ever thinking we're going to go and kill people. We were all thinking we get to go, we get go.

Speaker 1:

And then I know a lot of people actually that when they did Afghan, when they did Iraq, I actually spoke to one of the folks. I was very close, we did both and he said he never, ever tries to think about. He didn't confirm to me that he killed people, but I kind of know that he did. He always says it never goes further in his head than a target, as soon as that thought goes past that in his mind, it's infected his head and he's, he's instantly he, what? What good is it going to do if he starts deep in what happened? Um, it's done, there was someone who was going to probably shoot him. It's best it should be left that way. Um, and yeah, when you think about that, when you go into morality, when you go into why are we here, when you go into who are we actually shooting at, then yeah, it does it, it's not, it's it all goes bad, but that's not what you're thinking when you're there.

Speaker 2:

That is not what you're thinking at all. Is that all rammed? Is that why they use terms like target?

Speaker 1:

yeah, and things like that tango in america. But yeah, we didn't. I think we did say tango sometimes actually. Yeah, we did say tango in recce reports, but yeah, it's to dehumanize and to group them all. It's like tango is something you shoot at yeah enemy force.

Speaker 1:

they'd call it that. They just call it that all the time. And then, yeah, we just, I don't know, like we didn't ever I never actually shot at somebody, so I can't talk fully on behalf of someone who's been there but the way we were thinking wasn't to do with that. It was about shooting targets and it was about shooting a room once.

Speaker 2:

You joined the Marines? Yeah, you were deployed. When did you start thinking I want to do my A-levels again?

Speaker 1:

It's actually got a little bit of a story to it. So, obviously, in terms of qualification-wise, I've got four GCs and a BTEC. I've got nothing. And I'm not thinking about qualifications, I'm looking out into the sea. It was in the Middle East, actually at the point in the Gulf of Oman, and I was kind of just like this is fucking shit. This is so shit. I thought we were going to do all the round. We didn't, which sounds crazy and psychopathic, but I was just like nothing's going to happen, is it?

Speaker 1:

I'd always heard stories about blinks never actually getting to go anywhere and just being constantly frustrated. I was like, all right, I started imagining my life at uni. I was like fuck, I've wasted my mind because I could have done well at school if I tried. I definitely had the groundwork for it and I just didn't try. I thought I think I've got all the tools I now need mentally to try and to actually push through and do it. And I'd been doing Sudoku for a few weeks. So I wasn't actually at uni. That was just a massive hit in my head. But I, for a few weeks, um, so I wasn't seeing my uni. I was. That was just a nice bit in my head but I've completed the whole sudoku book, um, and then I thought I was enjoying it.

Speaker 1:

So I I got my mum to send my old a-level math book from the year, from the first year that I never completed, just for just to do a task the problems of fun, just work through them. And I completed that and I was like, oh, could I? Because she bought me a second year one, so she sent a second year one over, started doing that and I came back and then COVID happened. So this is 20, this is March 23rd 2020, um, and once COVID happened, I had loads of free time. Uh, I used some of it quite lazily, but a lot of time. I was just doing the maths for fun. And then I thought I just completed two books. I may as well, just, I may as well try for the A-level, just see if I can do it.

Speaker 1:

So I signed up for the like an exam hall basically, where you just go in and sit with like random people. I signed up for one of them, did that and after years, after revising for the whole year and that sort of thing, maths was easy as well because it was just problem solving. I, Maths was easy as well because it was just problem solving. I didn't need anybody with me, all I needed to do was go through problems and that sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

And then that shit thing happened where grades were reported. Now I was an external student so I couldn't sit, they couldn't, no one could report my grades. My mum called in a few favours at her school and she asked the people at the school basically please could my son submit his work and sit some mock papers and basically, just like he was a student, do what they've done. And they it was a lot of pushing and shoving but I found a lot for this. She's like got it pushed through.

Speaker 1:

Um, I had to send them exact six exam papers that I did in front of her in time conditions. That was a lot of time for her to do. So thank god again. And then I've sat um three exam papers in the school that were like um, they pulled different questions from different years, so they kind of just made a paper up, um, and then they got. They said they'll report grades for me. So I was like thank you so much. And then I found out I got an a in the summer. I was kind of annoyed because I should have got an A star. I was on like 89% for all of my mocks. Um, I've got like 85% in the one that they gave me, but they said that this this sounds like a lie. They told me that they couldn't be seen to be giving an external student an A star when they had to, like, give a certain amount out to their own students during that time.

Speaker 1:

That's completely believable because that was so shambolic yeah, fixed amount they could give out and they couldn't be seen to give it to like an external person who just asked yeah, so they gave me an a instead. Now I was.

Speaker 2:

I'm still very thankful yeah, and, by the way, 89 for a level math is really high it's because because you can just learn maths.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and they're not going to change the questions, they're going to change the numbers and you can learn every process quite easily without external help. I don't think I don't want to belittle anyone's uh maths a level, but it's probably one of the easier ones to secure. You can't get 100 in english lit, but you could get 100 in a maths paper if you wanted. That's the difference. What was your?

Speaker 1:

favorite paper favorite paper, it was the um, it was the uh, non-calc, definitely the first one, I think really. Yeah, yeah, I didn't like the calc one because it was like, uh, they, they get the questions in a certain way so that you need a calculator and they go a bit insane. The paper one's very intuitive and like mechanics yeah, yeah, mechanics, yeah, mechanics is so good when you get it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's a more satisfying one it just made sense to me the whole paper. It was so, so sick, I think.

Speaker 1:

But that bit where it doesn't make sense it's like and then it clicks at once. It very much clicks at once. Stats is boring and frustrating yeah, I hated stats.

Speaker 3:

That was the worst one for me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I knew in my mind that this is the most useful part of maths for real world. It easily is. Out of all those topics, it's the one you actually use Stats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. It's the only one out of the three that you will use in most jobs.

Speaker 2:

I think at that time the grade boundaries from what I remember, an A and A-level maths was like 60%. You needed wasn't it yeah. Which is crazy. That's like 89%, and not getting an A-star is quite unfair.

Speaker 1:

I can understand it and I'm still thankful because they sorted me out and they didn't need to, so I'll always be thankful to the school for doing that. And then, when I got that, I just thought sorted me out when they didn't need to, so I'll always thank the school for doing that. Um, and then I, when I got that, I just thought, fuck, so I just need to do two a levels and get two b's and then I can go to a russell group. And no one of my family's ever been to a russell group, wow. So I was like I was like going, like being the fuck up to then being a raw marine who went to a russell group. That is the full pivot because it's realizing my potential. It's also one of my goals, if you remember, for the marines was to sort my life out and put me back on the path that I probably should have been on if I, if I had the right sort of maybe environment or mindset on. So I was thinking right, this is it. So I I start. I took psychology and economics. I just bought the textbooks. I found this guy on youtube called econ plus doll and he just taught me everything in econ. He was wanting to do that. Like that science guy you were talking about earlier, he was insane. Insane at teaching and I he could teach you a really complex topic very quickly, shut up. Uh, can I use him for my uni economics? Yeah, yeah, you can for the basics, like he's. He's good man. He's very good in psychology.

Speaker 1:

I made this disgusting system where I had an a4 top a4 page. I had eight a4 pages for each subtopic within one of the three papers. Jameel has three papers and there's like eight topics in each. Yes, I made like a piece of paper for each topic within there. Uh, drawing together all the researchers and then having arrows so they all link together in a mind map with loads of colors and loads of like god, every single. Oh one thing I should say as well.

Speaker 1:

The biggest thing I learned was a how to teach myself uh stuff without any sort of external help. I did get an economics shoot for the last few weeks, but I was just gonna need an essay structure. Teaching how to teach myself was so good because I learned that each subject requires a different approach. I thought I could just do either with maths and go through the textbook, do the questions at the end of each chapter and then get it right, do a mock paper. That's not how I learned psychology and economics. Economics was all about I actually didn't have written work that I used to revise.

Speaker 1:

Economics was all about getting to understand the topic, feeding it back in an essay, thinking have I got it right? Seeing what other people said, no, do I understand it? It was all about understanding how it moves together, the mechanics, the fluidity between each of the topics. So you needed more feedback. Yeah, I definitely did. I definitely did for economics. I got an A in that, but it was the one I enjoyed most and I think if I had a teacher I probably would have been closer to the A star.

Speaker 1:

And then psychology was all about rote learning these pieces of paper so I could feed back questions on the topic, which I hated, hated. I hated the fact that I was just. I had these April pieces of paper on the back. I had 16 questions that and I'd write the questions based on things. So if it was like a researcher here, I'd say what researcher did this silly? And then I'd turn it over. You'll say Zimbardo, yeah, as I. And one of the questions be what were the cons of the Stanford Prison Experiment yeah, and then I'd say the answer in my head and then I'd do all 16 and turn it over soon because I got it right and wrong. And then I'd either red mark or green mark them. As soon as something got three green marks, I didn't do it again as soon as something had a red mark. I had to do that twice over and I had that system that I was going through Arctic Light.

Speaker 3:

System they call it. Yes, I love that system. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And it was really good for rote learning, but I hated it because I didn't actually learn much. I learned how to say, I learned how to memorize and spew out all this information. I just thought this isn't interesting to me at all. And then, yeah, I got two A's on those as well. They were stressful because two a levels at once.

Speaker 1:

Whilst training in the arctic was awful, I had to just set aside to an hour and a half every every evening from 9 30 to 11. No, but it was. My rule was, uh, one an hour and a half, no more, no less. So that means that it was guaranteed. So on a really busy day, I'd still be able to do it, and a day where I had lots of free time, I'd just do the hour and a half. And if I had loads of easy days in a row, I'd just do the hour and a half. And then a hard day would come and I'm like I've done so much over the last few days, I probably don't need to do it. And I was like but it's only an hour and a half, and I've done it so many times, I'm so used to how it feels. So I just did it and then that meant that it was so achievable because it was a guarantee, no matter what in my day, I was doing that and that was definitely the best way to approach time management because I had to do my job, do operational stuff. So, because that's out of hours a lot of the time, get called into the store, get called in to help out with stuff, um, go go and retrieve someone from some part of the field or the exercise, um, and also just to keep with the physical routine. But yeah, that that taught me a lot in terms of time management and time blocking as well.

Speaker 1:

And then I just applied to uni with, like I didn't have particular grade, I only had maths, a level maths, and my whole, my whole personal statement was like this elaborate way of saying I've failed everything here. I made a pivotal change, joined the Marines. So I looked at how to do personal statements online. I'm like that's for A-level students, I need to write one. I'm convincing someone and I said I've got one A-level. I've got an A in A-level maths from self-teach. I'm currently self-teaching psychology and economics. I'm very sure I will get an A or more in each of these and my source was kind of trust me, bro. That's incredible.

Speaker 1:

And I got accepted to Leeds, liverpool and Bristol and then Liverpool, john Moores, because I needed an insurance one. Manchester rejects me and I'm never forgiven for that. They missed out. Why did you choose Liverpool? It was Manchester first and Liverpool second. It was just because I wanted to be in a big northern city, big hub for music and culture. And Liverpool and Manchester to me were those. Leeds isn't much what I don't like, leeds as much as the other two, so it was always between those two. The city had to be massive. I couldn't.

Speaker 1:

I'm a big city guy, yeah yeah, and liverpool's a sick place as well yeah, yeah, now that I'm here, I I would recommend to anybody's coming to uni here yeah, yeah, I'd say much better than manchester.

Speaker 2:

I'm not gonna.

Speaker 1:

I might be a bit biased yeah, I'll say that as well, just because my hatred of Manchester yeah but what?

Speaker 2:

what did it feel like like when you finally decided I'm going to uni? Was there any like sadness leaving the marines?

Speaker 1:

because it completely changed when you're leaving the military, you don't? You feel the opposite of nostalgia. You remember all the bad stuff, really, um, and then once it's been a year or two out, then the nostalgia comes. Everyone in their last year of military service is I want to fucking get out of here right now. It's a year's notice as well. It's not quick, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So when did you give that notice.

Speaker 1:

I started psychology and economics, I didn't even know if I'd gone to uni, yet I was economics. I didn't even know if I got into uni, yet I was just like I'm gonna, I need to, I need the, I need the pressure of you know, I need to get this done, otherwise I'm fucked. So, yeah, um and yeah, now I'm here at uni and I I love it. To be fair, I love it, yeah living life on edge man.

Speaker 3:

The most impressive part of all of this is that this guy decided to just get a maths book and he was like I'm gonna solve these questions I did it for fun, that's the thing though yeah, that's a bit psychotic, that's a bit like I don't know when I think when

Speaker 1:

you're really bored and you actually do enjoy maths problems.

Speaker 2:

It's quite satisfying, yeah to be fair, I've been out of a classroom.

Speaker 1:

I've not have a classroom for four years as well, so I I hadn't been used to having to do fucking questions in homework all the time. It was quite fun for me.

Speaker 2:

I was just like oh, I get solve these problems and then I see if they're right yeah, that's really interesting because I've found that maths for me becomes so much more difficult if I don't do it regularly, like unlike all the other subjects that I did biology, chemistry and stuff I retained that so much better than maths for some reason. So doing it four years later and then just being able to finish that book is I didn't know, I didn't remember any of it.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I hadn't done a level maths before, I just learned it all from like these. I read.

Speaker 3:

I read the bits.

Speaker 1:

To be fair, those textbooks are really, if you actually read what they're saying, look at the problems they're doing, but they do it in a really um, progressive way, and maths is a very easy subject to put in a book. I think if you follow it in a linear fashion, 100, it's not like an essay subject where you have to think like, do I understand what they're saying? It's like they're telling you facts building on it, building on it, building on it and then getting you to the end of the problem and so yeah, well, another question of the burning question I've got is that why is it burning?

Speaker 3:

because I was kind of big it's hot and also I almost interrupted so I apologize. Um, that is that you have experienced like such a different life at marine when you transition to university. It must feel weird, wouldn't it? Like that all these guys in a bubble. They don't even know what's suffering like. Do you have a bit of that?

Speaker 1:

like wait, just no, no, no, no, no. I uh, I I actually always believed I was very heavily not institutionalized. I was never. I was never a military man. When I was in the military I got think I got a lot of the skills, a lot of the discipline, a lot of the really cool mindset parts and how to approach problems. I never was like a soldier who couldn't think about anything else, or patriotic to death, or like I didn't sort of unquestionably take orders. Sometimes I would even, because in the marines sometimes as well, you're encouraged to say if you think an order is a bit silly or if you think it's, uh, actually not helpful, I would. I would always be more in that boat. I got called cheeky quite a lot actually, um, by my like sergeants and corporals. I had a few bollockings as well about that sort of thing. Yeah, I was because I was never that military action man sort of thing. I was always ready for uni when I was in the marines.

Speaker 3:

It wasn't actually that hard for me to okay, yeah, yeah, okay. So one year, like with some kind of culture shock, like, oh, what is this? Not at all.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I visited my mates in leeds all the time. Okay, we were at uni over covid, um, and I'd stayed in their house for a bit because, uh, I'd go home. But I couldn't go home because there were people in my house with covid, so I'd go home for work, just straight to them, stay with them for a bit and I got to experience what they were living like at uni and covid, which is obviously not like uni, but it was. I could see it. I like the sort of, I like the way people were a lot of the time I love how, like you're very, you got a very fluid personality, very adaptable.

Speaker 3:

You never put yourself in a box or you know, this is me, this isn't me, or like you know, I really like.

Speaker 2:

That's quite fascinating yeah, I think the biggest compliment you can give someone is I wouldn't be able to pinpoint what your answer to questions would be like. Do you know how some people? You ask them a question, you already know what they're going to say? Like, yeah, you can hear what they would say already. You, you can tell you kind of think for yourself, and there's not many people in this world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah let's pride myself on that a little bit, to be fair. Yeah, as you should. Yeah, because everyone should think critically. You should. You should take all these opinions you see everywhere, but you should take them towards forming your own based on your thinking skills that you've got I don't know. You should never be ushered into a train of thought.

Speaker 2:

Definitely that's why this conversation was so fascinating, because when we were asking you these questions, specifically the military ones, I had no idea what your response was going to be. It wasn't like oh, he's done this, so then he's going to say that and he's going to believe this. Because so it was a really fascinating conversation, very fascinating story, very smart as well. So we wanted to talk politics with you, but we don't have time maybe next time, maybe in the future?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I'd be. I'd be up for 100, um see, if it's more than five years, they might hate me um, but no, thanks so much for joining, yeah, thank you for having me as well.

Speaker 2:

Red, you did a really good job as well, but we've got a final question that we'd like to end on that Pushan likes to ask.

Speaker 3:

Oh, go ahead. What would you want written on your tombstone?

Speaker 1:

I don't know, what the wording would be. That would have to be for a linguist or someone like a poet, but it would be something along the lines of how I was always thinking just generally, not about like answering something or anything like that, just generally thinking, and how I was always, always managed to find the time to be kind to others, even if I didn't need to be. Um, yeah, something along the lines of that, I think. I think that's what I would want. I'd want people to think that I was a carefully thought out person with logical thoughts, but also not nasty in any way yeah, well, you've done a very good job of presenting yourself in that way on.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, thank you, seb, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much and thanks for watching everyone thank you for watching.

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