February 26, 2023 • 51 mins
Chris Thrall is a former Royal Marines Commando and International best-selling author of the book Eating Smoke, and he shares with us one of the most incredible life stories we've ever heard.
From the extreme highs of operating in an elite military unit and building a globally successful business to ending up homeless, suffering acute mental illness from crystal meth addiction, and working for the Hong Kong triads, Chris has seen it all.
In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Chris takes us through what rock bottom looked like for him and how he managed to rebuild his life to become Veteran of the Year, an international bestselling author, and an extreme endurance athlete.
He shares his experience of running a 999-mile ultra-marathon with little to no training and raising thousands for charity and awareness for mental health.
Through his journey, Chris offers powerful lessons on resilience, overcoming adversity, and finding a way to rebuild your life from the lowest of places. He also shares his experience of dealing with acute mental illness and addiction and how he was able to find the strength to turn his life around.
Find Chris on Youtube, Instagram and LinkedIn
We are so proud to have teamed up with 20:40, an opportunity community for decision-makers to develop the type of network, that tribe of like-minded legends going through the same challenges, in order to accelerate your business or career, whilst contributing to others' success too.
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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the Performance Hackers Podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Thrall (00:03):
So the military for me really was uh oh my god
what a just have to do 50 Pressups and 10 put up some be able
to swim and run a mile and ahalf and you know, under 10
minutes 12 minutes and you'regonna pay me how much where do I
sign up? And the notion that Ithought I was, you know, in some
(00:30):
way a man by wielding a weaponand I would have killed anybody
that had gone got in my way isjust so utterly abhorrent to Me
now. That I'm so glad it neverhappened because I don't know if
I could have lived with theconsequences Scott of of
(00:51):
shooting an innocent teenager tomake the the global elite even
more rich and powerful than theyalready are.
Unknown (01:06):
And let's just say eight or 12 triads piled out the
butt back with meat cleavers,and they just did this guy over
good and proper.
Scott Radford (01:21):
Legend Welcome.
I'm Scott ride for this is theperformance hackers. And today
we speak with Chris Thrall, aformer Royal Marines commando
and best selling author whoshares probably one of the most
incredible life stories I'veever heard from the extreme
highs of operating in an elitemilitary unit and building a
global successful business toending up homeless and suffering
acute mental illness fromcrystal meth addiction and even
(01:42):
working for the Hong Kongtriads. But I'm keen to know
what rock bottom was for Chris,and how did he manage to rebuild
his life to become Veteran ofthe Year and an international
best selling author and extremeendurance athlete, his last
effort being a 999 mile Ultrarun with basically no training.
He's raised 1000s for charityand the awareness of mental
(02:03):
health. And this is one of themost vulnerable and unfiltered
conversations I think I've everhad on this podcast. So thank
you so much for Chris forsharing some powerful lessons
here. Let's go.
Aquarius, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for beinghere, man.
Unknown (02:22):
Oh, Scott is so kind that you invited me thank you
for taking an interest in myhumble my humble life.
Scott Radford (02:30):
I wouldn't call it humble. I think that when you
agreed to come on the show atyou know, relatively short
notice, I started digging into alittle bit more of your life.
And I completely got intooverwhelm because I was like,
Holy shit, how the hell do Iresearch uncover your incredible
life in like one short podcast?
I feel like it should be aseries. So I can't wait to
hopefully do a little bit of itjustice. What is it that we need
to know about your childhood tounderstand the young man who
(02:53):
joined the Marines?
Unknown (02:56):
Oh, what a fantastic question. So probably, it's
quite a standard childhood for Idon't know if it's a majority of
servicemen, but certainly quitea lot. I experienced a lot of
trauma, a lot of stuff that atoddler shouldn't go through and
then, and then a child and evenas a teenager, I was, you know,
(03:18):
I was homeless for the firsttime at 15 Kicked out at home
again at 17. And it was I wasliving in my car when I felt so
desolate and alone in life. Ithought, Do you know what I
actually am going to join theMarines who has a friend who bet
bet me I couldn't. He justjoined the Marines. And he bet
me I couldn't join up. Becauseit's really tough to actually
(03:40):
get into training, you have todo a three day course. And on
that course, it's pretty ninja.
It's it's certainly the hardestthing you will ever have done in
your life at that moment. Andlet's just say your Michaels 15
of us rocked up there. And Ithink they soon whittled that
down to about I don't know, sixpeople. Yeah, childhood trauma
(04:02):
x, we're talking extremechildhood trauma. And this is
something that catches a lot ofservicemen up once they leave
because obviously there's notherapy, in the in the forces
Scott Radford (04:21):
was joining that sort of intense extreme
environment that sort of had toengage at your best guess. Was
there some form of avoidanceinto dealing with what you are
going through and escaping thator looking back at that? Did
that serve you joining theMarines?
Unknown (04:35):
Again, another great, great questions. Yes, I've done
what I've done all my life,which is run away. Still do it
now. You know, like yourself, Iran away to learn how to fly
aeroplanes. Jump out of them,travel the world, working out,
you know, work with kids inAfrica. Lots, lots and lots of
(04:58):
substance misuse I suppose you'dcall it just an the Marines was
no different. When you have anunstable home life, you can't
focus at school. You know, yourbecause your your deep down you
you experience a sense of uneasethat you don't even know you
have. It's only when itmanifests in later life in
(05:19):
things like substance use andbad relationships and you know,
the inability to, for example,function in a job that you
realise, oh, hang on, I thinkI'm dealing with something here.
But when you're a teenager I, tome, it was just will look, I
haven't got any qualificationsbar to Oh, levels, tried it at
(05:42):
college, and I'd kind of messthat up. I'm on unemployed and
getting things it was 3030pounds a week back in the in the
80s. And I'm obviously not readyfor university, it's not
something you'd even consider.
And life just seems to work forother people. Yeah, people that
can't leave the fifth year, andthey go into the sixth form,
(06:06):
they leave the sixth form, andthey, they either go directly to
university or they do andaccess. And all of that just
seems so alien to you when whenyou can't apply yourself in
life. So the military for mereally was that oh my god, what?
A just have to do 50 Press upsand 10 Push ups and be able to
swim and run a mile and a halfand you know, under 10 minutes,
(06:31):
12 minutes, and you're gonna payme how much? Where do I sign up?
Oh, and I get to travel theworld. This was really sounding
like a good, a good option. Andyou go from being or in my case,
and many of our cases you gofrom someone who has a quote
unquote, a failure in life tosuddenly being an elite Royal
(06:52):
Marines Commando. And the onlycaveat there is you've got to
say yes. Even when you don'tmean it, and you got to kill
other teenagers who are youknow, you got to work for the
for the ruling elite.
Scott Radford (07:09):
What was the cost of that? Looking back at that
experience? What was the cost ofsaying yes, when you didn't mean
it? And like you said, having tokill other teenagers? Do you
ever look back at that and sortof evaluate the cost of that?
Unknown (07:21):
Yeah, I'm I'm envious of today's young men because
they've got something called theInternet. They can you know, get
a search engine up and find outwho controls the world find out
the truth behind let's say,global events when things go
bang somewhere on the planet whoreally makes it go bang not who
(07:41):
the the mass media tells thebrainwash public made it go
bang, right. And little bylittle of art as I've done over
53 years, you piece the jigsawtogether, and then you get a
very real picture. And thenotion that I thought I was, you
know, in some way a man bywielding a weapon and I would
(08:03):
have killed anybody that had gotin my way is just so utterly
abhorrent to Me now that I'm soglad it never happened because I
don't know if I could have livedwith the consequences Scott of
shooting an innocent teenager tomake the global elite even more
rich and powerful than theyalready are. But going back to
(08:25):
your point we we didn't knowthis back then we didn't have
internet you thought if you jointhe commandos you're you're one
of the good guys like you'rehere for for freedom and
democracy. And you know,righteousness and that's how
indoctrinated we were we were weare you join you're a kid went
to the recruiting office on a 17signed on the dotted line when I
(08:48):
was 18. Got my green hat when Iwas 19. We we've got that and
glamorise it, Scott
Scott Radford (08:56):
Yeah. Was there a moment from your military
service that sort of stillaffects you today, either
positive or negative?
Unknown (09:03):
A plethora of things a whole whole range right from the
start. That don't get me wrong.
I was homeless and living in mycar. One of my favourite films
of all time was An Officer and aGentleman where Richard Gere
famously screams that his drillinstructor. I've got nowhere
else to go. That was me, Scott.
(09:25):
I was so incredibly proud to beaccepted into the what is
essentially the toughestmilitary basic training on the
planet. I was prouder to beaccepted into the Marines than I
was to get my my green lead. Uh,you know, it meant so much to a
damaged, abused, young man. Youknow, I could prove to the world
(09:47):
that like I shouldn't have hadto prove myself to anyone. This
is the this is how the militaryrecruit. I what I needed in my
life was good adults to puttheir arm around me and say,
Chris, do you know what You'reactually alright. And I gather
you, you've had to face a lot ofnonsense. That's not your fault.
That's adults fault. Theyshouldn't have behaved like
(10:08):
that. You know, that's, that'show we should be bringing our
young people up. We need toteach enlightenment philosophy
from a young age as we wouldhave done when we lived in
indigenous communities, and getaway from these monsters that
are controlling everything. Ihope I hope I answered your,
your, you know, life's notsimple. I could sit here and
(10:31):
tell you what a bloody hero Iam. And you know how evil this
this dictator, isn't it? Butit's all nonsense. It's all a
false construct. And, yeah,we're in desperate times, if you
see how brainwashed young peopleare into love into hero worship
in the military, now, it'sutterly frightening. It's not
(10:52):
just young people, it's most menthat have a very weak sense of
self a weak identity, that theyattach this hero worship to the
military, because they see themilitary is living the life that
they've never had the courage toleave. Whereas what they don't
realise is now you've done itthe right way. It's it. Does
(11:14):
this make sense? Scott, it's,I'm just wondering,
Scott Radford (11:16):
for the people at the moment for young guys like
yourself before you join theMarines with that weak sense of
self, maybe that have come up intough environments and are
looking for something? Whatwould you tell them now in order
to even start to look at gainingthat sense of self to be in a
position where they don't lookoutwards? For something like the
military for that purpose andthat acceptance?
Unknown (11:39):
Do you know, it's another great question, and
sometimes there's no easy answerfor things? For example, how can
you turn away a disenfranchisedyoung person who couldn't focus
at school? What's their life infront of them really is a call
centre, isn't it a call centre,maybe factory work, or sitting
(12:00):
in an office behind a screen forthe next 40 years, you really
can see why the military isappealing, can't you even though
it's absolutely boring when youactually get in, out of your
military career, 85% of thetime, if not 90%, you'll be sat
around waiting, just satwaiting, waiting to go home for
the weekend, waiting to movechairs and tables, waiting to be
(12:24):
shouted out by some person thatyou utterly despise, though,
well, that, you know, but thenthere's that small element of
excitement. That's just Ultraexciting. Yeah, I sail to
Barbados once on an on anaircraft carrier. One of the
greatest experiences of my life,I patrol down the white lines in
(12:48):
a major British city, or Irishcity, depending on what your
Polit political beliefs are.
Yeah, with a machine gun.
Scott Radford (12:56):
So how did you come to the decision to leave
the Marines and what sort ofhappened next,
Unknown (13:00):
I left and then my childhood trauma caught up with
me. It caught up me I moved toHong Kong to run what what what
was essentially quite asuccessful business I'd worked
really hard at one month in theMarines, I started a network
marketing organisation ornetwork marketing electronic
(13:20):
products. I got in contact withguy in Hong Kong. And with his
kind of taking the lead, wedeveloped the biggest business
in the Asia Pacific. For analready established American
corporation. Basically, it wasit was called quorum
International. And they marketedproducts for Chinese OEM, which
(13:44):
is original equipmentmanufacturer. So basically, a
big factory in Chinamanufacturing, manufacturing,
whatever this company wanted,and I was a networker for it.
And one month in the Marines, weturned over, it was about
$100,000. Uh, you gottaremember, this is 25 years ago.
So that would be probably$750,000 Now, and my bonus check
(14:11):
for that was two and a halftimes what I earned in the
Marines. So I and a lot of otherpeople thought I'd made it for
life, you know, I was gonna getthe Porsche 911 and all this
sort of stuff. I put my noticein the Marines to leave as soon
as I could, which was 18 months.
By the time I got on the trainto leave Plymouth whereas was
serving to go to the airport tofly out to Hong Kong. Everything
(14:34):
had crashed. It was no fault ofmy own this this marketing
company couldn't bring theproducts out fast enough. And as
such, their network just foldedlike a, like a house of cards,
you could say. So I ended up inHong Kong, determined to make a
go of my life. I didn't want togo back to the UK because, you
know, we had this conversationbefore didn't weigh this when
(14:56):
you've had a bit of a tie. restof the world you don't want to
wake up in the dark and rain ofEngland and get on the bus and
go to a factory. So I stopped inthe in Asia, at the same time.
What had previously been, Iguess what you call social
substance use. So dance partiesbasically started to get serious
(15:22):
sit more serious. Hong Kong is,I guess you'd say it's part of
the Golden Triangle in Asia. Andthere's an awful lot of very
strong drugs there.
Scott Radford (15:35):
And you are you talking about the your book you
wrote eating smoke? This sort ofcovers this period of time? Yes.
Which is an incredible book. Iactually listened to the podcast
and cheated a little bit, but Ilisten to the three part podcast
and I just listened with mymouth open because I just
thought, Oh, my goodness, likeyou at some stage were involved
with working as a doorman forthe tribes as well. Is that
(15:56):
correct? Yes.
Unknown (15:57):
So in a nutshell, I rocked up in Hong Kong Scott, I
was exactly the same person inmy mind as the one before I
joined the Marines, as in lost,probably a bit lonely, although,
you know, it's a long way fromhome to be on your own. The
difference was, when I gotintroduced to crystal meth, it
(16:19):
became like a crutch for me. Ijust loved it so much. I learned
loads of stuff about myself. I'dwile away the night hours, sort
of Wired off my head, paintingand drawing and writing song
lyrics and all this stuff. I wastold I was a failure at school,
I found that no, I'm actuallylike, I'm, I'm not brilliant,
(16:40):
but I'm certainly quite good atthis. And, you know, hence why
I've written failure at schoolwrote a best selling an
internationally best sellingbook, that that was the kind of
what you call the honeymoonperiod on crystal meth. And then
the time comes where thatceases, and your life starts to
spiral out of control. And inorder to rectify your your
(17:04):
addictive mindsets, as well,look, you've just got to take
more of the drug, you know, justif you can get some more of it,
you can make all this stuffbetter, are a bit like a gambler
desperate to recoup theirlosses, that dub keeps doubling
their bets. And of course, weall know where that n ends up.
Scott Radford (17:22):
And were you aware of this at the time? Were
you aware that you were sort ofspiralling in or did you just
think this is normal?
Unknown (17:28):
You never can be aware?
I knew I was addicted. Because Ibelieve in being honest with
myself, I just was like, comeon, Chris, you've been to this.
Dealers house, select the secondtime this week, then it would
become like three times a week.
I knew I had an issue with it. Ialso knew it was going to take
me to hell and back. And I waslike, let's go. You know, I'm
(17:51):
really have a choice, Scott.
Right. And this is not negative.
I'm so glad I passed. I wouldn'trecommend anyone else does it.
But for me, yeah, it took me tohell and back, I ended up losing
my mind something calledClinical psychosis or
amphetamine psychosis. And atthe same time, kind of crazily,
(18:13):
I was working as a nightclubdoorman. As you say, for the
Hong Kong triads. It was kind oflike one of the last jobs left I
could get, because I just burnedmy bridges everywhere else. And
yeah, things got really seriousthere. So I'm phasing in, in and
out of the most serious mentalhealth.
Scott Radford (18:33):
What are you telling yourself at the time?
What was what was your internaldialogue? Can you give us a
little insight into it?
Unknown (18:38):
Oh, gosh, so I had two voices in my head. Right? Not
like they say on TV is not likethe devil or something. They you
you've got your thoughts, whichis like yeah, shall I make a cup
of tea? And then you have thispsychosis thought that slide?
Where do you want a cup of tea?
Do you really want wondered at nn n, it's chucking in this
bizarre mixed messages to you,you start to read too much into
(19:02):
everything. It really becomeslike everything becomes one big
conspiracy. And I got so um,well, that at one point, I tried
crawling across, there was awire cable between my tenement
block. So tenement being, youknow, like a small skyscraper.
And the one on the other side ofthe cafe Road in Hong Kong, and
(19:24):
in my mind, all my Marinestraining, and the
congratulations that I had, forexample, my cousin was a colonel
in the Marines and he was reallypleased I, you know, I joined
and gave me good advice. And Ihad this letter from him that he
sent me in training as a reallynice little handwritten with an
(19:44):
Admiralty kind of letterhead andeverything and I'm reading
through it and he's saying, whenyou're walking across Dartmoor
jumping across Dartmoor at twoin the morning in the pouring
rain, you might wonder whyyou're joined. But I promise you
this crew as it will all comegood in the end something like
this. I'm up on this roofcrawling across this wire cable
(20:04):
70 metres above the trafficbelow, in my mind doing what we
call the commando crawl,thinking that my Marines
training was for this moment.
And that letter from my cousinhad primed me for this moment.
And if I can just crawl acrossthis cable to the other side of
(20:25):
the street to this other block,which would have been a bit
random rocking up someone else'sbloody building, but I thought I
was just gonna get all myanswers in life, almost like a
massive awakening, almost to thepoint where I imagined there
were people there that from mypast that would suddenly appear
and it would be like, Whoa,we've been waiting for your
(20:47):
Dude, where have you been? Comeon, you know? Did you not suss
that? That's that's oneincident, you could you could
say,
Scott Radford (20:57):
What do you think you were searching for in those
moments, then looking back?
Well, the
Unknown (21:01):
whole of my life, everything, travelling 85
countries across all sevencontinents, you know, all the
adventure, sports, everythinghas just been a quest for
knowledge. And I guess drivingthat deep down is knowing that
something is not quite right inlife, in your life or in life in
(21:21):
general, as well in life ingeneral. I mean, for me to have
gone through what I did as achild and what many many others
do that's not right, is that Imean, something's not right in
society, especially back in the70s. You know, a lot of stuff
was hushed up, and you watch thetelevision, not that not that
I'd watched this version thesedays. But back then, yeah, you
(21:44):
watch the TV and they're makingthat it's all that happy
families, you know, likeEastEnders and that we live in
such a wonderful caring? Wedon't so yeah, I think Scott
like a, like a quest forknowledge. Really. I'd say I've
I've sort of come not, I don'tknow full circles the right
word, but I'm very much on thespiritual path. Now. I believe
(22:07):
in making a bigger connection inlife.
Scott Radford (22:10):
I'd love to cover that in just a second actually,
because that is quite aincredible transformation. But
the story that you just told usabout crawling across the wires
over busy main road in HongKong, was that rock bottom for
you? Was there a moment that youfelt this is rock bottom at
which you had that selfawareness to sort of change it
or turn it around? Now that
Unknown (22:31):
wasn't even like near rock bottom? Although I know it
sounds pretty serious. So Imean, my my fellow doorman or
another English guy, he was alsoa doorman for the triads or
triad rang club. And he was saton the steps of his club one
night and a transit van pulledup. And let's just say eight or
12 triads piled out the buttback with meat cleavers, and
(22:53):
they just did this guy over goodand proper, being a true British
hardener. He was back on thedoor three days later all
bandaged up and there too, sohis thumb back on where he put
his hand up to protect himselfand this cleaver chopped his
thumb up. That was theenvironment I was in and I was
mentally unwell. You can imaginehow much I was pushing my luck.
(23:14):
Not not intentionally. I was,you know, addiction is out of
your control. It's not you know,Nobody chooses to like nearly
lose their life in Hong Kong, orto crawl across the wire cable.
It's this is just this is deepdown trauma having it's, it's a
fact. But no, I came back to theUK for the first couple of
weeks. Again, it was like ahoneymoon because I was away
(23:36):
from everything, you know, allthe substance says, and I vary
pretty much like back to myselfquite quickly. Although, you
know, a psychologist wouldprobably say Chris, you got
quite a lot of stuff you bury inthere. And you're gonna have to
deal with that at some point.
But no, you know, my addictivemindset kicked in after about a
couple of weeks I thought, rightif I just go and score a little
(23:57):
bit of, you know, amphetamineoff one of my old buddies, and
it'll be fine. And yeah, I wasborn ready bored. I'd been the
frontman of a Hong Kongnightclub run by the 14k in a
nightclub district gang Langdistrict that stayed open 24/7 I
could go at any time in the dayor night, go downtown. I'd know
(24:17):
people in all the clubs, we'dget on the dance floor, dance
the night away, go back to aparty in a mall. You know, in
the morning, we'd go to theafter party. That's when the bar
is started. And yeah, and it wasexciting. And of course I was
really high all the time. So itwas to come back to the UK was
(24:38):
really underestimate howdepressing it probably was. And
because I started mucking aroundwith amphetamine again, it just
knocked me down to a level I'dnever experienced before. The
depression I didn't know whatdepression was. I didn't know
I'm really depressed. And I kepttrying to self medicate with my
(25:00):
benefits check which I got, whatevery fortnight I got sort of 80
quid or something to live onmight have been 80 pound a week,
I can't remember. But it allwent on the gear, just to try to
pat myself up to get some lifeback. And then when it ran out,
which inevitably did after sortof four days, sometimes five
(25:23):
days, and I wouldn't sleep forfive days, just crazy, Scott,
you know, I'd like to have adecorating project in the house
and I just stay up for five daysdoing it. And to be honest, I'd
completely screw it up because Iwas just so uncoordinated and
tired and hallucinating from nosleep, wouldn't eat for five
(25:43):
days, then I literally wake up,realising I'd fallen asleep like
wherever I was full she was inwho is in my house, so wouldn't
have wanted to, like, be inbloody public. And, you know,
I'd wake up like on the livingroom floor and I'd been lying
there for over 24 hours. And atthat point, starvation would
(26:08):
kick in I'd realised I wasliterally starving I haven't
eaten for five days, I haven'tslept for five days. I've burned
all these calories because I'vejust been on the go nonstop and
and it was awful. My weekly myfortnightly shot would be I'd
have like one pound 87 leftafter buying all the buying the
gear I used to shoplift Bob row,just so on this thin white bread
(26:32):
that I'd buy for you know, sevenPLO for something, I could at
least have a little tree andthen I got caught shoplifting
and well almost got caught. Andit was so embarrassing. It was
just it's just just so low. Andthen I just trashed the house,
not not out of anger or anythingI got convinced it was my skin
(26:53):
would crawl so badly, which wasessentially the amphetamine
trying to get out of my system,you know, when it wants is
overwhelmed your liver and yourkidneys, it's got to come out
through the skin. And it'shorrible, it makes you itch, and
you get convinced that you'veyou know, you've got like lice
or something. So I was justtaking furniture in the back
(27:13):
garden and burning it and sprayin lice spray everywhere and,
and go at getting on these wildgoose chases, that was so
exhausting, and impossible toput into words are just mad, you
know, I didn't I couldn't affordheating. So I'd fill the bath
(27:33):
with cold water. And then I pourbleach in it, and then I climb
in to try to get rid of thisitch. You know, it's just it's
insanity. It's just a horrible,lonely place to be.
Scott Radford (27:48):
Did you have any friends or family around?
Unknown (27:50):
Our they couldn't be dealing with all this. They
didn't even know what a druglook like, let alone like their
sons come back from Hong Kongjust they tried. But they just
it was too much for them. Scott,you know, it wasn't fair on
them.
Scott Radford (28:03):
So you isolated yourself from the people that
loved you around you.
Unknown (28:07):
Yeah, I distance myself because every time someone tries
to help you in that scenario,they always do it on their
terms. So if I found someonesaid, Look, I'm really
struggling. Could you helpbecause I've got like a I've got
to get up the hospital. They'dsay, Yeah, Chris, right. If you
can meet me and they'd like namesome of free miles away from
where you and your friggin comeand pick me up. And this was
(28:31):
like a recurring thing. And so Iwas on these wild goose chases,
shivering, freezing cold,starving, hungry, smashing my
place and it just it kept comingto a head. I think I had what
you'd probably describe as aboutthree nervous breakdowns like
where I physically I couldn't goon any longer just hit the deck
(28:52):
and cried my eyes out, you know,cut long story short since a bit
depressing. I woke up one dayshivering on the floor. It took
me a while to remember who Iwas. That was a recurring thing.
Yeah, you can't. You can'tremember your own name. Despite
this madness going on. All thekids in my street I lived in
like a Kodi sack. Like my housewas almost like new one. I
(29:14):
bought it and now I trashed it.
But and the kids in my street.
Absolutely love me. Right? Theyjust fought the world for me
because I was basically the onlyadult that ever gave him any
time. You know, I'm live likeliving in a nightmare and no one
knows it. I woke up on the floorScott. I looked in my pocket I'd
(29:35):
about 50 or 60 pay. I'mstarving. For go to the corner
shop. I can get a pasty right.
And then I had two kids kickinga ball around out the front,
front of the house. I knew if Iwent out the door they're all
going to come run out Chris andI couldn't face him. I felt so
out out of my own skin out ofmyself who I was. I couldn't go
(29:56):
out and Chris How come thenicest guy those kids know, the
only one ever gives them anytime? Why are you doing this to
yourself? Something's doesn'tmake sense. And then I thought
back to my childhood, Scott, andI thought about that little kid
that went through all that stuffhe shouldn't have gone through.
And yet, who's doing it to him,now, I'm doing it to him, you
(30:18):
know, I'm doing it to myself.
And in that moment, it just hitme like a tonne of bricks, I've
done this to myself, you canblame this person, you can blame
that you can blame, you know,none of them are going to come
along and change things. Only Ican do it. And in that moment,
(30:43):
the light kind of shone throughthe blinds a bit, it was sort of
early ish in the morning, and Iknew my life had changed. Scott,
you know, I just knew in thatmoment, and what it was, is I
take in charge, when you put outinto society or put out into
life, the universe gives youback like tenfold. And that
(31:05):
connection with the light comingthrough the window was kind of
almost like not just symbolic ofa lot of my beliefs now about
about energy, and spirituality.
But it was like I finally made aKinect, I'd had to lose
everything or get as low as Icould to see the wood for the
trees. And in that moment, Ithought, You know what, right?
(31:28):
I'm not trying to be an angelhere, right? I'm not gonna go
and join some AAA meeting, or NAmeetings or something, that's
not my thing. I'm not going togo and join the church because,
like, I value my freedom, youknow, my freedom or my mind too
much. But you know what, I'mgoing to start cutting down on
that stuff. Rather than spendall my money every two weeks,
(31:49):
just gonna spend 10 quid asset,one little bag that is when it's
done, it's done. I was crash, Iknow, I'm gonna crash our slate
in a wake up and then I'm gonnago about my life. And that was
it. That was my transformation.
And little by little, I startedto have food, food in the
(32:09):
cupboards. And then I bought newclothes for the first time in
three years. And then suddenly,there's a knock at the door and
there's an old mate you haven'tseen for ages. And uh, you know,
my friend took me in for for acouple of weeks. And he taught
me through like, Chris, you, youknow, just go and get a job,
mate. Okay. Oh, so I went andgot a job as a barman, you know,
(32:30):
and, okay, the process of changeis a long one. lapse and relapse
is inevitable. That's just yourlearning. That's when you learn
the most is so you know, whatI'm trying to say is nothing's
happening overnight. But also itkind of is because you've made
you've made that change and, andthat was it from that moment on.
Like I say, I went on to livework and travel in 85 countries
(32:54):
across all seven continents. Gotmy pilot licence skydiving
licence, a backpack for everycountry in north central South
America. I've explored theAntarctic polar circle and scuba
dived on icebergs down there.
Taught street children inMozambique. I've lived in
Scandinavia off and on for forabout four years and taught my
(33:17):
fellow students up there, how tobuild snow, Ks and how to ski.
I've driven an old school bus toIndia and back to write articles
on people living in poverty.
Think I've written six books nowone of them, like I say was an
was a best seller. I've got whatI think is probably the best
(33:38):
podcast in the world. But you'rewelcome to. You're welcome to
take that to knock down a pegMay I would be very happy for
you.
Scott Radford (33:47):
And all of this came from just a decision to
take ownership of your situationand where you're
Unknown (33:52):
at. Yes, yes. And ironically, I'm also I'm English
Veteran of the Year or themoment very well deserved for
inspiration. You know, I one dayI just decided to run the length
for the country for about 999miles. I ran that non stop bar
sleeping at the side of the roadin my tent, raised I think about
(34:15):
18,000 pounds for veteransmental health. I come last in my
first ever triathlon. So I saidright in eight weeks time, I'm
going to do a quadruple Ironman,or at least a quadruple Ironman
distance triathlon. So I did forIronman in in seven days. I
Scott Radford (34:33):
want to take a few seconds to talk 2040 the
sponsors of this podcast becauseto me, they're the epitome of
what high performance is foryoung leaders and decision
makers looking to make a mark to2040 is a membership community
that doesn't just help youaccelerate professionally, but
it's also helped me grow anddevelop personally to bowl
intensive purposes. This is anopportunity community and it
(34:54):
brings together the nextgeneration of exceptional young
talent and connects those risingdecision makers to help them
unlock their fullest potentialthrough the power of their peers
and creating the opportunity foreach other. Now, when I joined
2014, I went from feeling alonein my entrepreneurial journey
and missing the energy and theideas and a collaboration of
others, to having an endless newsource of high quality
(35:16):
connections. Super long list ofthe world's highest performers
to interview which has beenepic. And even this partnership
that has allowed us to scale theshow, all of its really come
from the opportunities presentedat 2040. Also, the private
events are absolutely legendary.
Imagine being able to meet likeminded people at really intimate
events hosted by global industryleaders, or even just rocking up
(35:37):
to a Friday afternoon, we worksession for a free bear. It's
all available at 2040. So ifyou're on that journey, as an
entrepreneur or a decision makerin your industry, and you want
to be immersed by people likeyourself, other rising talent,
doing the same, going throughthe same journey, and the same
struggles with all theopportunities that that
provides, go and check out 20code on forty.org.uk. All the
(35:59):
links will be in the show notes.
And I bet it will be the bestdecision you make this year. It
certainly was for me back to theshow. Can I just interject here
because the list of what you'vemanaged to build after that low
moment is not only incredible,but also very extreme. I'm just
wondering with the extremesuccess that you've experienced
(36:21):
both obviously being in a reallyelite unit, like the commando
unit, and then building a reallysuccessful company and moving
out to Asia, and then also theextreme lows that you
subsequently experienced aswell. You've almost experienced
the whole bandwidth of life. AndI was speaking to someone about
this the other day, how mostpeople sort of operate in the
centre part and they're up anddown from the from the
(36:42):
centerline of this bandwidth.
Whereas you seem to have hitthat the extremists on both
sides, the extreme highs on theextreme lows, do you think
they're two sides of the samecoin?
Unknown (36:52):
Yeah, again, another great point. What it's important
to understand is there's no suchthing as bad experiences in
life. That's just a societalconstruct. That's really
unhelpful. Because I believe Ilive in paradise. So every day I
wake up, it doesn't matterwhat's going on in my life that
I know, I'm so lucky to havethis opportunity in this set of
(37:17):
carbon molecules, the chance ofthis existing is billions upon
billions upon billions to oneshot, right. So every day I wake
up, that's another thing Ipromised myself. When I was at
my lowest I said, right, everyday, I'm gonna throw up the
curtains. And I'm gonna say,Good morning, son, thank you for
(37:39):
this chance at life. And Iwouldn't say I do that
religiously. But I do quiteoften remind myself if I if I,
if I'm tempted to feel down, Imight go and say thank you. And
it just reminds me that we areit starts with gratitude. And
when I look at my life, I'm justso fortunate, I've been so
lucky. If you could meet myfamily, which I never dreamt of
(38:02):
having a family. Like I say ifyou put out in the universe, you
get back and I I met a gorgeousgirl. I mean, gorgeous as in
just such a loving a lovingwoman we have a son that I just
can't believe is mine. So it'slike a dream. beyond my dreams
come true. If I hadn't everlived my life the way that I
(38:22):
did, I wouldn't have this. So Ithink I've done everything
right. You know, I think I've,I've made like all the right
decisions in life. And yet,society would probably think
that I've made like loads ofwrong decisions. Well, in
hindsight, would I have lived mylife? And I know there's a lot
of things i i wouldn't opt todo. But yeah, it's fascinating.
(38:47):
And you're only going to knowyour own mind. And you're only
going to shed the burden of lifeand society and unpeel
enlightenment, that's what youdo. They used to have this
concept that enlightenment was ajourney. And it's not really
enlightenment is the ability toshed everything. To get rid of
(39:07):
the lies. Obviously, all of itis is experiential, isn't it?
Your whole life's experiential,the more extreme experiences you
have. So you know, being incombat, for example, or working
for the truck, you you're gonnalearn some pretty serious
lessons. I'd say the biggestwake up call for me was hitting
(39:30):
the bottom what people refer toas rock bottom in addiction.
That was a real a moment. Thesecond one was was 911 the
realisation that the powers thatbe if we can call them that can
lie to you on such a massivescale. That was a massive wake
up. I want more than that,Scott, you know, I want the
(39:53):
truth.
Scott Radford (39:54):
What does that allow you to do? What does that
unlock like having that truth?
Because I guess when you feellike the life is is a small
thing that you can kind ofcontrol, you have a little bit
more agency in your own life,and you don't have to sort of
worry too much about things thatare outside of your control on a
global scale. I'm just kind ofinterested, you know, with that
being a defence mechanism for somany people, it'd be interesting
to know what what do you getfrom understanding the truth,
(40:15):
even if you can't control it
Unknown (40:19):
for a start, and I won't even attempt to put this
into words, but on a personallevel, perfect health is a I'd
encourage anyone to seekenlightenment for the fact you
never get ill. That's, you know,once you understand, like I say
diet is a lie, Western diet isso toxic, and by diet or not, is
(40:40):
that's going to confuse a lot ofpeople. Understanding how the
body's biology works and howfood interacts with it to make
to make you ill. That's that'sbeen a massive thing. For me, it
means I haven't been ill for for20 years. I used to be or three
or four times a year, everyyear, and I was miserable being
(41:01):
that.
Scott Radford (41:01):
So what sort of things are you changing that
have stopped you from becomingaware,
Unknown (41:05):
I've got the idea.
encourage anyone to buy thesestrips on eBay, they call pH
strips. Anyone who did chemistryat school might remember might
remember these. And you justtest your saliva and or you can
test your urine, you get aslightly different reading. But
for the vast majority of people,you're going to come up acidic,
your body's tissues are acidicacid is a root cause of most
(41:27):
illness. But if you if your bodyis toxic, you're never going to
experience the natural Hi, thatpeople like myself get. It's
called esoterics. It's ancientwisdom, I suppose you'd say. I
don't know how much people wantto change. The trouble is with
materialism and capitalism is itgives people just enough to
(41:50):
think that they're doing okay.
But not enough to punish them.
Like I was punished to go Do youknow what actually I can be
doing an awful lot better thanthis. Enlightenment,
essentially, is living in themoment. It's that point in your
life where you realise the pastdoesn't exist. It literally is
ephemeral? Is that the rightword? You know, it's a it's,
(42:11):
it's just, it's a silly concept.
So if you've only got thismoment in time, that means you
haven't got to worry aboutanything in the past, it's gone.
It's not going to help you eventhinking about Yeah, I'm not
saying that you can't smile atgood experiences, or, you know,
remember people you loved orsomething, but what I'm saying
(42:32):
is, most people let the pastdictate who they are, dictate
their identity. I'm Chris, I'man ex Marine. I'm a traveller. I
write stessel Nonsense. That'swhat we call the birth
certificate identity. I'm justthe concept that we're having
this conversation now. Becauseeverything is energy, frequency
(42:53):
and vibration. That's it. That'swhat Nikola Tesla said, if you
want to understand the secretsof the universe, you need to
understand energy, frequency andvibration. You know, there isn't
like one book, you could readthat you're gonna go alright, I
get it all. Now. It starts withlearning to love yourself. It
starts with understanding thatyou can make as much money as
(43:13):
you like, you just going to bejust as unhappy. If you haven't
got these fundamentals in placeof understanding who you are,
what you are, in the grandscheme of things, then it
doesn't matter what position youget at work, it doesn't matter
what new car you're going to buyyour pleasure, can't lead to
happiness. Pleasure is just justtemporary, what least happiness
(43:37):
is understanding these conceptsthat we're discussing. And when
you understand that, if we areall the universe experiencing
itself subjectively, then thatmeans you are me Scott, an IMU,
we are the same. What are theimplications of that? Well, the
implications are suddenlythere's no competition between
(44:00):
us is that I want a genuinelywant the best for you. Your just
life experience in itselfsubjectively in this cluster of,
you know, molecules heldtogether by vibration and
frequency, to dare to dare todie. I am in this so it gets rid
of competition in life. It getsrid of nation state, it gets rid
(44:22):
of the need for war. It gets ridof the need to accumulate great
riches at the expense of keepingthe rest of the world in
poverty. Do you see how powerfulthis these concepts are? So for
people listening, if this is ofinterest, you start by watching
my channel, I can't I can'treally pick a start and starting
(44:43):
off point for you.
Scott Radford (44:44):
One final question I'd like to ask and you
mentioned about life being aboutstories and how you can never
have a bad experience in life.
I'm quite keen when I was 18. Icame up with a little philosophy
that was almost like a decisionmaking tool that I gave myself
that I've lived by which islife's about stories you can
tell either to serve otherpeople later on in life or to
serve yourself when you need it.
(45:05):
And I'm kind of quite curious tounderstand with the incredible
life that you've lived. Do youhave one story today that you're
most proud of?
Unknown (45:12):
Ah, I'm sorry to go back on old ground. And I'm
sorry if this is not theexciting answer that your view
is what the truth is, is whenyou realise that I'm not Chris
through, that's a nonsense, ifyou buy into your ego, you're
never going to find the answersin life that I'd say is the
crowning achievement. When yourealise you are the or you are
(45:33):
everything you when they say Godcreated man in His own image. It
doesn't mean like, there was aguy on a cloud, he went, you
know what, I'm going to createsome humans, I'm going to make
them look like me. Don't what itmeant is, life is like the
blueprint, you know, foreverything. We are the blueprint
of life, we are that all thateverything, like I say, again,
(45:55):
experiencing itselfsubjectively. And that's, that's
the biggest thing that I've everachieved. If you want to talk
more in sort of, you know,grassroots, I won't do the
cliche, family thing, in termsof achievements. Passing my
driving test was huge. Iremember that as a really happy
(46:15):
day. In my life, gettingaccepted into the Marines was
probably the biggest, biggestthing. In my life. Getting my
private pilot licence after Ithink it was an eight or nine
hour exam was pretty special andanatomy that, you know, you know
what I mean, they're travellingto the seventh continent,
(46:37):
Antarctica was just an amazingexperience, although we have one
of our divers drowned, whichwas, wasn't obviously what we
plan for, to walk throughHeathrow Airport, having been to
the place that I told you, I'dbeen to the depths that I'd been
to, and to see my book on thebestseller list. As I'm flying
(46:58):
out to Hong Kong for the firsttime in, I think 15 years, from
my, my official book launch,that was like a set of write a
best selling book. And there itis, that, you know, I mean, I
pat myself on, I gave myself alike a virtual pat on the back
then that was nice to be awardedthe veterans award, that was
(47:22):
really special.
Scott Radford (47:24):
I'm just wondering, what do all these
things have in common? Is therea core source that has given you
purpose or fulfilment orvalidation in some way?
Throughout all of these littlethings?
Unknown (47:35):
Yes, very simply, I tell people dream, dream big.
Don't let anyone steal thatdream. And don't use steal that
dream. You know, the number oftimes people are, I'd love to
run a marathon. Oh, come on, isgonna do it. Now. What do you
mean, is 26 mile right? Ourpromise I can get you ran 26
mile. Right now. You've got twolegs. What is it that stops
(47:59):
people around the length of thecountry 999 miles, like I say,
non stop by sleeping at the sideof the road carrying a 15
kilogramme burden on my backwith all my my camping gear. Do
you know how much training I didfor that? Nothing at all. I've
been disabled for best part oftwo years, with a prolapsed desk
(48:20):
and a waiting you know, as in Iwas in bed for the best part of
four months of that I couldn'tget out of bed. And so after I
had a spinal operation orNeurosurgery is it's referred to
the first thing I wanted to dowas make my dream of running the
length of the country get thatback online because that's what
I was trained to do when my backwent. And I thought if I don't,
(48:43):
I don't want to run in thewinter. I want to wake up with
the sun. I want the sun on myface as I'm running along. I
want to be able to takelightweight camping equipment,
not some big winter sleepingbag. So I've got to go now. So I
just went with no training atall. Worked a flight to John
O'Groats had a compass it pointitself, I started putting one
(49:06):
foot in front of the other and,you know, 36 days later after 30
I ran an ultra marathon everyday, or at least I averaged an
ultramarathon every day. Sothat's anything over a marathon.
no training whatsoever. Okay, soI say to people dream, dream
big, and don't steal your owndream, which is what most people
do.
Scott Radford (49:26):
Thank you so much for sharing that Chris. That
certainly got me fired up andlooking at the excuses I'm
currently making in my life.
Before we finish, we do havesome quickfire questions for
you. One mantra or belief thathas enabled your high
performance life. Buy the ticketand take the ride. One
ingredient or habit that hascontributed to your success the
most
Unknown (49:46):
supergreens powder is the quickest way to get your
body pH to what it should bewhich is 7.25 away from all that
acidic nonsense that most peoplelive in.
Scott Radford (49:57):
And finally, what's your go to tune or
artists for A tough trainingsession or race. Did you listen
to any music when you were doingthe ultra marathons?
Unknown (50:04):
Yes, I listened to music and audio books all day
every day. I absolutely lovedit. Once you go to tune then I
got to kind of rule with books.
Listen to what you like. Ifsomething's hard work, I'll
shelve it. You know, I likeadventure stories. I like
reading about people that haveclimbed Everest or flown planes
or got lost in a jungle,whatever. And music for me is
(50:27):
got to be house music. Becauseit's so uplifting son scream
perfect motion is just a nicetrack.
Scott Radford (50:38):
Chris, thank you so much for the vulnerability
but also the sort of unfilteredinsight into your experience.
Thank you for that and all thework you're doing with the
veterans foundation. Youmentioned before come and find
your channels. Can you givepeople a shout out as to where
they can go and find you andfollow your work and your
insights?
Unknown (50:57):
Yes, just type my name into a search engine and it will
all come all my socials areChris through CHR is th ra ll
except Instagram which is Chrisdot through. Be great to see
people. If anyone is strugglingand need like live coaching. You
can book that through my throughmy website, and we'll put all
(51:18):
the links in the show notes aswell. Scott, that's really kind
of you thinking,
Scott Radford (51:22):
Chris, thank you so much.
So the military for me really was uh oh my god
what a just have to do 50 Pressups and 10 put up some be able
to swim and run a mile and ahalf and you know, under 10
minutes 12 minutes and you'regonna pay me how much where do I
sign up? And the notion that Ithought I was, you know, in some
(00:30):
way a man by wielding a weaponand I would have killed anybody
that had gone got in my way isjust so utterly abhorrent to Me
now. That I'm so glad it neverhappened because I don't know if
I could have lived with theconsequences Scott of of
(00:51):
shooting an innocent teenager tomake the the global elite even
more rich and powerful than theyalready are.
Unknown (01:06):
And let's just say eight or 12 triads piled out the
butt back with meat cleavers,and they just did this guy over
good and proper.
Scott Radford (01:21):
Legend Welcome.
I'm Scott ride for this is theperformance hackers. And today
we speak with Chris Thrall, aformer Royal Marines commando
and best selling author whoshares probably one of the most
incredible life stories I'veever heard from the extreme
highs of operating in an elitemilitary unit and building a
global successful business toending up homeless and suffering
acute mental illness fromcrystal meth addiction and even
(01:42):
working for the Hong Kongtriads. But I'm keen to know
what rock bottom was for Chris,and how did he manage to rebuild
his life to become Veteran ofthe Year and an international
best selling author and extremeendurance athlete, his last
effort being a 999 mile Ultrarun with basically no training.
He's raised 1000s for charityand the awareness of mental
(02:03):
health. And this is one of themost vulnerable and unfiltered
conversations I think I've everhad on this podcast. So thank
you so much for Chris forsharing some powerful lessons
here. Let's go.
Aquarius, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for beinghere, man.
Unknown (02:22):
Oh, Scott is so kind that you invited me thank you
for taking an interest in myhumble my humble life.
Scott Radford (02:30):
I wouldn't call it humble. I think that when you
agreed to come on the show atyou know, relatively short
notice, I started digging into alittle bit more of your life.
And I completely got intooverwhelm because I was like,
Holy shit, how the hell do Iresearch uncover your incredible
life in like one short podcast?
I feel like it should be aseries. So I can't wait to
hopefully do a little bit of itjustice. What is it that we need
to know about your childhood tounderstand the young man who
(02:53):
joined the Marines?
Unknown (02:56):
Oh, what a fantastic question. So probably, it's
quite a standard childhood for Idon't know if it's a majority of
servicemen, but certainly quitea lot. I experienced a lot of
trauma, a lot of stuff that atoddler shouldn't go through and
then, and then a child and evenas a teenager, I was, you know,
(03:18):
I was homeless for the firsttime at 15 Kicked out at home
again at 17. And it was I wasliving in my car when I felt so
desolate and alone in life. Ithought, Do you know what I
actually am going to join theMarines who has a friend who bet
bet me I couldn't. He justjoined the Marines. And he bet
me I couldn't join up. Becauseit's really tough to actually
(03:40):
get into training, you have todo a three day course. And on
that course, it's pretty ninja.
It's it's certainly the hardestthing you will ever have done in
your life at that moment. Andlet's just say your Michaels 15
of us rocked up there. And Ithink they soon whittled that
down to about I don't know, sixpeople. Yeah, childhood trauma
(04:02):
x, we're talking extremechildhood trauma. And this is
something that catches a lot ofservicemen up once they leave
because obviously there's notherapy, in the in the forces
Scott Radford (04:21):
was joining that sort of intense extreme
environment that sort of had toengage at your best guess. Was
there some form of avoidanceinto dealing with what you are
going through and escaping thator looking back at that? Did
that serve you joining theMarines?
Unknown (04:35):
Again, another great, great questions. Yes, I've done
what I've done all my life,which is run away. Still do it
now. You know, like yourself, Iran away to learn how to fly
aeroplanes. Jump out of them,travel the world, working out,
you know, work with kids inAfrica. Lots, lots and lots of
(04:58):
substance misuse I suppose you'dcall it just an the Marines was
no different. When you have anunstable home life, you can't
focus at school. You know, yourbecause your your deep down you
you experience a sense of uneasethat you don't even know you
have. It's only when itmanifests in later life in
(05:19):
things like substance use andbad relationships and you know,
the inability to, for example,function in a job that you
realise, oh, hang on, I thinkI'm dealing with something here.
But when you're a teenager I, tome, it was just will look, I
haven't got any qualificationsbar to Oh, levels, tried it at
(05:42):
college, and I'd kind of messthat up. I'm on unemployed and
getting things it was 3030pounds a week back in the in the
80s. And I'm obviously not readyfor university, it's not
something you'd even consider.
And life just seems to work forother people. Yeah, people that
can't leave the fifth year, andthey go into the sixth form,
(06:06):
they leave the sixth form, andthey, they either go directly to
university or they do andaccess. And all of that just
seems so alien to you when whenyou can't apply yourself in
life. So the military for mereally was that oh my god, what?
A just have to do 50 Press upsand 10 Push ups and be able to
swim and run a mile and a halfand you know, under 10 minutes,
(06:31):
12 minutes, and you're gonna payme how much? Where do I sign up?
Oh, and I get to travel theworld. This was really sounding
like a good, a good option. Andyou go from being or in my case,
and many of our cases you gofrom someone who has a quote
unquote, a failure in life tosuddenly being an elite Royal
(06:52):
Marines Commando. And the onlycaveat there is you've got to
say yes. Even when you don'tmean it, and you got to kill
other teenagers who are youknow, you got to work for the
for the ruling elite.
Scott Radford (07:09):
What was the cost of that? Looking back at that
experience? What was the cost ofsaying yes, when you didn't mean
it? And like you said, having tokill other teenagers? Do you
ever look back at that and sortof evaluate the cost of that?
Unknown (07:21):
Yeah, I'm I'm envious of today's young men because
they've got something called theInternet. They can you know, get
a search engine up and find outwho controls the world find out
the truth behind let's say,global events when things go
bang somewhere on the planet whoreally makes it go bang not who
(07:41):
the the mass media tells thebrainwash public made it go
bang, right. And little bylittle of art as I've done over
53 years, you piece the jigsawtogether, and then you get a
very real picture. And thenotion that I thought I was, you
know, in some way a man bywielding a weapon and I would
(08:03):
have killed anybody that had gotin my way is just so utterly
abhorrent to Me now that I'm soglad it never happened because I
don't know if I could have livedwith the consequences Scott of
shooting an innocent teenager tomake the global elite even more
rich and powerful than theyalready are. But going back to
(08:25):
your point we we didn't knowthis back then we didn't have
internet you thought if you jointhe commandos you're you're one
of the good guys like you'rehere for for freedom and
democracy. And you know,righteousness and that's how
indoctrinated we were we were weare you join you're a kid went
to the recruiting office on a 17signed on the dotted line when I
(08:48):
was 18. Got my green hat when Iwas 19. We we've got that and
glamorise it, Scott
Scott Radford (08:56):
Yeah. Was there a moment from your military
service that sort of stillaffects you today, either
positive or negative?
Unknown (09:03):
A plethora of things a whole whole range right from the
start. That don't get me wrong.
I was homeless and living in mycar. One of my favourite films
of all time was An Officer and aGentleman where Richard Gere
famously screams that his drillinstructor. I've got nowhere
else to go. That was me, Scott.
(09:25):
I was so incredibly proud to beaccepted into the what is
essentially the toughestmilitary basic training on the
planet. I was prouder to beaccepted into the Marines than I
was to get my my green lead. Uh,you know, it meant so much to a
damaged, abused, young man. Youknow, I could prove to the world
(09:47):
that like I shouldn't have hadto prove myself to anyone. This
is the this is how the militaryrecruit. I what I needed in my
life was good adults to puttheir arm around me and say,
Chris, do you know what You'reactually alright. And I gather
you, you've had to face a lot ofnonsense. That's not your fault.
That's adults fault. Theyshouldn't have behaved like
(10:08):
that. You know, that's, that'show we should be bringing our
young people up. We need toteach enlightenment philosophy
from a young age as we wouldhave done when we lived in
indigenous communities, and getaway from these monsters that
are controlling everything. Ihope I hope I answered your,
your, you know, life's notsimple. I could sit here and
(10:31):
tell you what a bloody hero Iam. And you know how evil this
this dictator, isn't it? Butit's all nonsense. It's all a
false construct. And, yeah,we're in desperate times, if you
see how brainwashed young peopleare into love into hero worship
in the military, now, it'sutterly frightening. It's not
(10:52):
just young people, it's most menthat have a very weak sense of
self a weak identity, that theyattach this hero worship to the
military, because they see themilitary is living the life that
they've never had the courage toleave. Whereas what they don't
realise is now you've done itthe right way. It's it. Does
(11:14):
this make sense? Scott, it's,I'm just wondering,
Scott Radford (11:16):
for the people at the moment for young guys like
yourself before you join theMarines with that weak sense of
self, maybe that have come up intough environments and are
looking for something? Whatwould you tell them now in order
to even start to look at gainingthat sense of self to be in a
position where they don't lookoutwards? For something like the
military for that purpose andthat acceptance?
Unknown (11:39):
Do you know, it's another great question, and
sometimes there's no easy answerfor things? For example, how can
you turn away a disenfranchisedyoung person who couldn't focus
at school? What's their life infront of them really is a call
centre, isn't it a call centre,maybe factory work, or sitting
(12:00):
in an office behind a screen forthe next 40 years, you really
can see why the military isappealing, can't you even though
it's absolutely boring when youactually get in, out of your
military career, 85% of thetime, if not 90%, you'll be sat
around waiting, just satwaiting, waiting to go home for
the weekend, waiting to movechairs and tables, waiting to be
(12:24):
shouted out by some person thatyou utterly despise, though,
well, that, you know, but thenthere's that small element of
excitement. That's just Ultraexciting. Yeah, I sail to
Barbados once on an on anaircraft carrier. One of the
greatest experiences of my life,I patrol down the white lines in
(12:48):
a major British city, or Irishcity, depending on what your
Polit political beliefs are.
Yeah, with a machine gun.
Scott Radford (12:56):
So how did you come to the decision to leave
the Marines and what sort ofhappened next,
Unknown (13:00):
I left and then my childhood trauma caught up with
me. It caught up me I moved toHong Kong to run what what what
was essentially quite asuccessful business I'd worked
really hard at one month in theMarines, I started a network
marketing organisation ornetwork marketing electronic
(13:20):
products. I got in contact withguy in Hong Kong. And with his
kind of taking the lead, wedeveloped the biggest business
in the Asia Pacific. For analready established American
corporation. Basically, it wasit was called quorum
International. And they marketedproducts for Chinese OEM, which
(13:44):
is original equipmentmanufacturer. So basically, a
big factory in Chinamanufacturing, manufacturing,
whatever this company wanted,and I was a networker for it.
And one month in the Marines, weturned over, it was about
$100,000. Uh, you gottaremember, this is 25 years ago.
So that would be probably$750,000 Now, and my bonus check
(14:11):
for that was two and a halftimes what I earned in the
Marines. So I and a lot of otherpeople thought I'd made it for
life, you know, I was gonna getthe Porsche 911 and all this
sort of stuff. I put my noticein the Marines to leave as soon
as I could, which was 18 months.
By the time I got on the trainto leave Plymouth whereas was
serving to go to the airport tofly out to Hong Kong. Everything
(14:34):
had crashed. It was no fault ofmy own this this marketing
company couldn't bring theproducts out fast enough. And as
such, their network just foldedlike a, like a house of cards,
you could say. So I ended up inHong Kong, determined to make a
go of my life. I didn't want togo back to the UK because, you
know, we had this conversationbefore didn't weigh this when
(14:56):
you've had a bit of a tie. restof the world you don't want to
wake up in the dark and rain ofEngland and get on the bus and
go to a factory. So I stopped inthe in Asia, at the same time.
What had previously been, Iguess what you call social
substance use. So dance partiesbasically started to get serious
(15:22):
sit more serious. Hong Kong is,I guess you'd say it's part of
the Golden Triangle in Asia. Andthere's an awful lot of very
strong drugs there.
Scott Radford (15:35):
And you are you talking about the your book you
wrote eating smoke? This sort ofcovers this period of time? Yes.
Which is an incredible book. Iactually listened to the podcast
and cheated a little bit, but Ilisten to the three part podcast
and I just listened with mymouth open because I just
thought, Oh, my goodness, likeyou at some stage were involved
with working as a doorman forthe tribes as well. Is that
(15:56):
correct? Yes.
Unknown (15:57):
So in a nutshell, I rocked up in Hong Kong Scott, I
was exactly the same person inmy mind as the one before I
joined the Marines, as in lost,probably a bit lonely, although,
you know, it's a long way fromhome to be on your own. The
difference was, when I gotintroduced to crystal meth, it
(16:19):
became like a crutch for me. Ijust loved it so much. I learned
loads of stuff about myself. I'dwile away the night hours, sort
of Wired off my head, paintingand drawing and writing song
lyrics and all this stuff. I wastold I was a failure at school,
I found that no, I'm actuallylike, I'm, I'm not brilliant,
(16:40):
but I'm certainly quite good atthis. And, you know, hence why
I've written failure at schoolwrote a best selling an
internationally best sellingbook, that that was the kind of
what you call the honeymoonperiod on crystal meth. And then
the time comes where thatceases, and your life starts to
spiral out of control. And inorder to rectify your your
(17:04):
addictive mindsets, as well,look, you've just got to take
more of the drug, you know, justif you can get some more of it,
you can make all this stuffbetter, are a bit like a gambler
desperate to recoup theirlosses, that dub keeps doubling
their bets. And of course, weall know where that n ends up.
Scott Radford (17:22):
And were you aware of this at the time? Were
you aware that you were sort ofspiralling in or did you just
think this is normal?
Unknown (17:28):
You never can be aware?
I knew I was addicted. Because Ibelieve in being honest with
myself, I just was like, comeon, Chris, you've been to this.
Dealers house, select the secondtime this week, then it would
become like three times a week.
I knew I had an issue with it. Ialso knew it was going to take
me to hell and back. And I waslike, let's go. You know, I'm
(17:51):
really have a choice, Scott.
Right. And this is not negative.
I'm so glad I passed. I wouldn'trecommend anyone else does it.
But for me, yeah, it took me tohell and back, I ended up losing
my mind something calledClinical psychosis or
amphetamine psychosis. And atthe same time, kind of crazily,
(18:13):
I was working as a nightclubdoorman. As you say, for the
Hong Kong triads. It was kind oflike one of the last jobs left I
could get, because I just burnedmy bridges everywhere else. And
yeah, things got really seriousthere. So I'm phasing in, in and
out of the most serious mentalhealth.
Scott Radford (18:33):
What are you telling yourself at the time?
What was what was your internaldialogue? Can you give us a
little insight into it?
Unknown (18:38):
Oh, gosh, so I had two voices in my head. Right? Not
like they say on TV is not likethe devil or something. They you
you've got your thoughts, whichis like yeah, shall I make a cup
of tea? And then you have thispsychosis thought that slide?
Where do you want a cup of tea?
Do you really want wondered at nn n, it's chucking in this
bizarre mixed messages to you,you start to read too much into
(19:02):
everything. It really becomeslike everything becomes one big
conspiracy. And I got so um,well, that at one point, I tried
crawling across, there was awire cable between my tenement
block. So tenement being, youknow, like a small skyscraper.
And the one on the other side ofthe cafe Road in Hong Kong, and
(19:24):
in my mind, all my Marinestraining, and the
congratulations that I had, forexample, my cousin was a colonel
in the Marines and he was reallypleased I, you know, I joined
and gave me good advice. And Ihad this letter from him that he
sent me in training as a reallynice little handwritten with an
(19:44):
Admiralty kind of letterhead andeverything and I'm reading
through it and he's saying, whenyou're walking across Dartmoor
jumping across Dartmoor at twoin the morning in the pouring
rain, you might wonder whyyou're joined. But I promise you
this crew as it will all comegood in the end something like
this. I'm up on this roofcrawling across this wire cable
(20:04):
70 metres above the trafficbelow, in my mind doing what we
call the commando crawl,thinking that my Marines
training was for this moment.
And that letter from my cousinhad primed me for this moment.
And if I can just crawl acrossthis cable to the other side of
(20:25):
the street to this other block,which would have been a bit
random rocking up someone else'sbloody building, but I thought I
was just gonna get all myanswers in life, almost like a
massive awakening, almost to thepoint where I imagined there
were people there that from mypast that would suddenly appear
and it would be like, Whoa,we've been waiting for your
(20:47):
Dude, where have you been? Comeon, you know? Did you not suss
that? That's that's oneincident, you could you could
say,
Scott Radford (20:57):
What do you think you were searching for in those
moments, then looking back?
Well, the
Unknown (21:01):
whole of my life, everything, travelling 85
countries across all sevencontinents, you know, all the
adventure, sports, everythinghas just been a quest for
knowledge. And I guess drivingthat deep down is knowing that
something is not quite right inlife, in your life or in life in
(21:21):
general, as well in life ingeneral. I mean, for me to have
gone through what I did as achild and what many many others
do that's not right, is that Imean, something's not right in
society, especially back in the70s. You know, a lot of stuff
was hushed up, and you watch thetelevision, not that not that
I'd watched this version thesedays. But back then, yeah, you
(21:44):
watch the TV and they're makingthat it's all that happy
families, you know, likeEastEnders and that we live in
such a wonderful caring? Wedon't so yeah, I think Scott
like a, like a quest forknowledge. Really. I'd say I've
I've sort of come not, I don'tknow full circles the right
word, but I'm very much on thespiritual path. Now. I believe
(22:07):
in making a bigger connection inlife.
Scott Radford (22:10):
I'd love to cover that in just a second actually,
because that is quite aincredible transformation. But
the story that you just told usabout crawling across the wires
over busy main road in HongKong, was that rock bottom for
you? Was there a moment that youfelt this is rock bottom at
which you had that selfawareness to sort of change it
or turn it around? Now that
Unknown (22:31):
wasn't even like near rock bottom? Although I know it
sounds pretty serious. So Imean, my my fellow doorman or
another English guy, he was alsoa doorman for the triads or
triad rang club. And he was saton the steps of his club one
night and a transit van pulledup. And let's just say eight or
12 triads piled out the buttback with meat cleavers, and
(22:53):
they just did this guy over goodand proper, being a true British
hardener. He was back on thedoor three days later all
bandaged up and there too, sohis thumb back on where he put
his hand up to protect himselfand this cleaver chopped his
thumb up. That was theenvironment I was in and I was
mentally unwell. You can imaginehow much I was pushing my luck.
(23:14):
Not not intentionally. I was,you know, addiction is out of
your control. It's not you know,Nobody chooses to like nearly
lose their life in Hong Kong, orto crawl across the wire cable.
It's this is just this is deepdown trauma having it's, it's a
fact. But no, I came back to theUK for the first couple of
weeks. Again, it was like ahoneymoon because I was away
(23:36):
from everything, you know, allthe substance says, and I vary
pretty much like back to myselfquite quickly. Although, you
know, a psychologist wouldprobably say Chris, you got
quite a lot of stuff you bury inthere. And you're gonna have to
deal with that at some point.
But no, you know, my addictivemindset kicked in after about a
couple of weeks I thought, rightif I just go and score a little
(23:57):
bit of, you know, amphetamineoff one of my old buddies, and
it'll be fine. And yeah, I wasborn ready bored. I'd been the
frontman of a Hong Kongnightclub run by the 14k in a
nightclub district gang Langdistrict that stayed open 24/7 I
could go at any time in the dayor night, go downtown. I'd know
(24:17):
people in all the clubs, we'dget on the dance floor, dance
the night away, go back to aparty in a mall. You know, in
the morning, we'd go to theafter party. That's when the bar
is started. And yeah, and it wasexciting. And of course I was
really high all the time. So itwas to come back to the UK was
(24:38):
really underestimate howdepressing it probably was. And
because I started mucking aroundwith amphetamine again, it just
knocked me down to a level I'dnever experienced before. The
depression I didn't know whatdepression was. I didn't know
I'm really depressed. And I kepttrying to self medicate with my
(25:00):
benefits check which I got, whatevery fortnight I got sort of 80
quid or something to live onmight have been 80 pound a week,
I can't remember. But it allwent on the gear, just to try to
pat myself up to get some lifeback. And then when it ran out,
which inevitably did after sortof four days, sometimes five
(25:23):
days, and I wouldn't sleep forfive days, just crazy, Scott,
you know, I'd like to have adecorating project in the house
and I just stay up for five daysdoing it. And to be honest, I'd
completely screw it up because Iwas just so uncoordinated and
tired and hallucinating from nosleep, wouldn't eat for five
(25:43):
days, then I literally wake up,realising I'd fallen asleep like
wherever I was full she was inwho is in my house, so wouldn't
have wanted to, like, be inbloody public. And, you know,
I'd wake up like on the livingroom floor and I'd been lying
there for over 24 hours. And atthat point, starvation would
(26:08):
kick in I'd realised I wasliterally starving I haven't
eaten for five days, I haven'tslept for five days. I've burned
all these calories because I'vejust been on the go nonstop and
and it was awful. My weekly myfortnightly shot would be I'd
have like one pound 87 leftafter buying all the buying the
gear I used to shoplift Bob row,just so on this thin white bread
(26:32):
that I'd buy for you know, sevenPLO for something, I could at
least have a little tree andthen I got caught shoplifting
and well almost got caught. Andit was so embarrassing. It was
just it's just just so low. Andthen I just trashed the house,
not not out of anger or anythingI got convinced it was my skin
(26:53):
would crawl so badly, which wasessentially the amphetamine
trying to get out of my system,you know, when it wants is
overwhelmed your liver and yourkidneys, it's got to come out
through the skin. And it'shorrible, it makes you itch, and
you get convinced that you'veyou know, you've got like lice
or something. So I was justtaking furniture in the back
(27:13):
garden and burning it and sprayin lice spray everywhere and,
and go at getting on these wildgoose chases, that was so
exhausting, and impossible toput into words are just mad, you
know, I didn't I couldn't affordheating. So I'd fill the bath
(27:33):
with cold water. And then I pourbleach in it, and then I climb
in to try to get rid of thisitch. You know, it's just it's
insanity. It's just a horrible,lonely place to be.
Scott Radford (27:48):
Did you have any friends or family around?
Unknown (27:50):
Our they couldn't be dealing with all this. They
didn't even know what a druglook like, let alone like their
sons come back from Hong Kongjust they tried. But they just
it was too much for them. Scott,you know, it wasn't fair on
them.
Scott Radford (28:03):
So you isolated yourself from the people that
loved you around you.
Unknown (28:07):
Yeah, I distance myself because every time someone tries
to help you in that scenario,they always do it on their
terms. So if I found someonesaid, Look, I'm really
struggling. Could you helpbecause I've got like a I've got
to get up the hospital. They'dsay, Yeah, Chris, right. If you
can meet me and they'd like namesome of free miles away from
where you and your friggin comeand pick me up. And this was
(28:31):
like a recurring thing. And so Iwas on these wild goose chases,
shivering, freezing cold,starving, hungry, smashing my
place and it just it kept comingto a head. I think I had what
you'd probably describe as aboutthree nervous breakdowns like
where I physically I couldn't goon any longer just hit the deck
(28:52):
and cried my eyes out, you know,cut long story short since a bit
depressing. I woke up one dayshivering on the floor. It took
me a while to remember who Iwas. That was a recurring thing.
Yeah, you can't. You can'tremember your own name. Despite
this madness going on. All thekids in my street I lived in
like a Kodi sack. Like my housewas almost like new one. I
(29:14):
bought it and now I trashed it.
But and the kids in my street.
Absolutely love me. Right? Theyjust fought the world for me
because I was basically the onlyadult that ever gave him any
time. You know, I'm live likeliving in a nightmare and no one
knows it. I woke up on the floorScott. I looked in my pocket I'd
(29:35):
about 50 or 60 pay. I'mstarving. For go to the corner
shop. I can get a pasty right.
And then I had two kids kickinga ball around out the front,
front of the house. I knew if Iwent out the door they're all
going to come run out Chris andI couldn't face him. I felt so
out out of my own skin out ofmyself who I was. I couldn't go
(29:56):
out and Chris How come thenicest guy those kids know, the
only one ever gives them anytime? Why are you doing this to
yourself? Something's doesn'tmake sense. And then I thought
back to my childhood, Scott, andI thought about that little kid
that went through all that stuffhe shouldn't have gone through.
And yet, who's doing it to him,now, I'm doing it to him, you
(30:18):
know, I'm doing it to myself.
And in that moment, it just hitme like a tonne of bricks, I've
done this to myself, you canblame this person, you can blame
that you can blame, you know,none of them are going to come
along and change things. Only Ican do it. And in that moment,
(30:43):
the light kind of shone throughthe blinds a bit, it was sort of
early ish in the morning, and Iknew my life had changed. Scott,
you know, I just knew in thatmoment, and what it was, is I
take in charge, when you put outinto society or put out into
life, the universe gives youback like tenfold. And that
(31:05):
connection with the light comingthrough the window was kind of
almost like not just symbolic ofa lot of my beliefs now about
about energy, and spirituality.
But it was like I finally made aKinect, I'd had to lose
everything or get as low as Icould to see the wood for the
trees. And in that moment, Ithought, You know what, right?
(31:28):
I'm not trying to be an angelhere, right? I'm not gonna go
and join some AAA meeting, or NAmeetings or something, that's
not my thing. I'm not going togo and join the church because,
like, I value my freedom, youknow, my freedom or my mind too
much. But you know what, I'mgoing to start cutting down on
that stuff. Rather than spendall my money every two weeks,
(31:49):
just gonna spend 10 quid asset,one little bag that is when it's
done, it's done. I was crash, Iknow, I'm gonna crash our slate
in a wake up and then I'm gonnago about my life. And that was
it. That was my transformation.
And little by little, I startedto have food, food in the
(32:09):
cupboards. And then I bought newclothes for the first time in
three years. And then suddenly,there's a knock at the door and
there's an old mate you haven'tseen for ages. And uh, you know,
my friend took me in for for acouple of weeks. And he taught
me through like, Chris, you, youknow, just go and get a job,
mate. Okay. Oh, so I went andgot a job as a barman, you know,
(32:30):
and, okay, the process of changeis a long one. lapse and relapse
is inevitable. That's just yourlearning. That's when you learn
the most is so you know, whatI'm trying to say is nothing's
happening overnight. But also itkind of is because you've made
you've made that change and, andthat was it from that moment on.
Like I say, I went on to livework and travel in 85 countries
(32:54):
across all seven continents. Gotmy pilot licence skydiving
licence, a backpack for everycountry in north central South
America. I've explored theAntarctic polar circle and scuba
dived on icebergs down there.
Taught street children inMozambique. I've lived in
Scandinavia off and on for forabout four years and taught my
(33:17):
fellow students up there, how tobuild snow, Ks and how to ski.
I've driven an old school bus toIndia and back to write articles
on people living in poverty.
Think I've written six books nowone of them, like I say was an
was a best seller. I've got whatI think is probably the best
(33:38):
podcast in the world. But you'rewelcome to. You're welcome to
take that to knock down a pegMay I would be very happy for
you.
Scott Radford (33:47):
And all of this came from just a decision to
take ownership of your situationand where you're
Unknown (33:52):
at. Yes, yes. And ironically, I'm also I'm English
Veteran of the Year or themoment very well deserved for
inspiration. You know, I one dayI just decided to run the length
for the country for about 999miles. I ran that non stop bar
sleeping at the side of the roadin my tent, raised I think about
(34:15):
18,000 pounds for veteransmental health. I come last in my
first ever triathlon. So I saidright in eight weeks time, I'm
going to do a quadruple Ironman,or at least a quadruple Ironman
distance triathlon. So I did forIronman in in seven days. I
Scott Radford (34:33):
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links will be in the show notes.
And I bet it will be the bestdecision you make this year. It
certainly was for me back to theshow. Can I just interject here
because the list of what you'vemanaged to build after that low
moment is not only incredible,but also very extreme. I'm just
wondering with the extremesuccess that you've experienced
(36:21):
both obviously being in a reallyelite unit, like the commando
unit, and then building a reallysuccessful company and moving
out to Asia, and then also theextreme lows that you
subsequently experienced aswell. You've almost experienced
the whole bandwidth of life. AndI was speaking to someone about
this the other day, how mostpeople sort of operate in the
centre part and they're up anddown from the from the
(36:42):
centerline of this bandwidth.
Whereas you seem to have hitthat the extremists on both
sides, the extreme highs on theextreme lows, do you think
they're two sides of the samecoin?
Unknown (36:52):
Yeah, again, another great point. What it's important
to understand is there's no suchthing as bad experiences in
life. That's just a societalconstruct. That's really
unhelpful. Because I believe Ilive in paradise. So every day I
wake up, it doesn't matterwhat's going on in my life that
I know, I'm so lucky to havethis opportunity in this set of
(37:17):
carbon molecules, the chance ofthis existing is billions upon
billions upon billions to oneshot, right. So every day I wake
up, that's another thing Ipromised myself. When I was at
my lowest I said, right, everyday, I'm gonna throw up the
curtains. And I'm gonna say,Good morning, son, thank you for
(37:39):
this chance at life. And Iwouldn't say I do that
religiously. But I do quiteoften remind myself if I if I,
if I'm tempted to feel down, Imight go and say thank you. And
it just reminds me that we areit starts with gratitude. And
when I look at my life, I'm justso fortunate, I've been so
lucky. If you could meet myfamily, which I never dreamt of
(38:02):
having a family. Like I say ifyou put out in the universe, you
get back and I I met a gorgeousgirl. I mean, gorgeous as in
just such a loving a lovingwoman we have a son that I just
can't believe is mine. So it'slike a dream. beyond my dreams
come true. If I hadn't everlived my life the way that I
(38:22):
did, I wouldn't have this. So Ithink I've done everything
right. You know, I think I've,I've made like all the right
decisions in life. And yet,society would probably think
that I've made like loads ofwrong decisions. Well, in
hindsight, would I have lived mylife? And I know there's a lot
of things i i wouldn't opt todo. But yeah, it's fascinating.
(38:47):
And you're only going to knowyour own mind. And you're only
going to shed the burden of lifeand society and unpeel
enlightenment, that's what youdo. They used to have this
concept that enlightenment was ajourney. And it's not really
enlightenment is the ability toshed everything. To get rid of
(39:07):
the lies. Obviously, all of itis is experiential, isn't it?
Your whole life's experiential,the more extreme experiences you
have. So you know, being incombat, for example, or working
for the truck, you you're gonnalearn some pretty serious
lessons. I'd say the biggestwake up call for me was hitting
(39:30):
the bottom what people refer toas rock bottom in addiction.
That was a real a moment. Thesecond one was was 911 the
realisation that the powers thatbe if we can call them that can
lie to you on such a massivescale. That was a massive wake
up. I want more than that,Scott, you know, I want the
(39:53):
truth.
Scott Radford (39:54):
What does that allow you to do? What does that
unlock like having that truth?
Because I guess when you feellike the life is is a small
thing that you can kind ofcontrol, you have a little bit
more agency in your own life,and you don't have to sort of
worry too much about things thatare outside of your control on a
global scale. I'm just kind ofinterested, you know, with that
being a defence mechanism for somany people, it'd be interesting
to know what what do you getfrom understanding the truth,
(40:15):
even if you can't control it
Unknown (40:19):
for a start, and I won't even attempt to put this
into words, but on a personallevel, perfect health is a I'd
encourage anyone to seekenlightenment for the fact you
never get ill. That's, you know,once you understand, like I say
diet is a lie, Western diet isso toxic, and by diet or not, is
(40:40):
that's going to confuse a lot ofpeople. Understanding how the
body's biology works and howfood interacts with it to make
to make you ill. That's that'sbeen a massive thing. For me, it
means I haven't been ill for for20 years. I used to be or three
or four times a year, everyyear, and I was miserable being
(41:01):
that.
Scott Radford (41:01):
So what sort of things are you changing that
have stopped you from becomingaware,
Unknown (41:05):
I've got the idea.
encourage anyone to buy thesestrips on eBay, they call pH
strips. Anyone who did chemistryat school might remember might
remember these. And you justtest your saliva and or you can
test your urine, you get aslightly different reading. But
for the vast majority of people,you're going to come up acidic,
your body's tissues are acidicacid is a root cause of most
(41:27):
illness. But if you if your bodyis toxic, you're never going to
experience the natural Hi, thatpeople like myself get. It's
called esoterics. It's ancientwisdom, I suppose you'd say. I
don't know how much people wantto change. The trouble is with
materialism and capitalism is itgives people just enough to
(41:50):
think that they're doing okay.
But not enough to punish them.
Like I was punished to go Do youknow what actually I can be
doing an awful lot better thanthis. Enlightenment,
essentially, is living in themoment. It's that point in your
life where you realise the pastdoesn't exist. It literally is
ephemeral? Is that the rightword? You know, it's a it's,
(42:11):
it's just, it's a silly concept.
So if you've only got thismoment in time, that means you
haven't got to worry aboutanything in the past, it's gone.
It's not going to help you eventhinking about Yeah, I'm not
saying that you can't smile atgood experiences, or, you know,
remember people you loved orsomething, but what I'm saying
(42:32):
is, most people let the pastdictate who they are, dictate
their identity. I'm Chris, I'man ex Marine. I'm a traveller. I
write stessel Nonsense. That'swhat we call the birth
certificate identity. I'm justthe concept that we're having
this conversation now. Becauseeverything is energy, frequency
(42:53):
and vibration. That's it. That'swhat Nikola Tesla said, if you
want to understand the secretsof the universe, you need to
understand energy, frequency andvibration. You know, there isn't
like one book, you could readthat you're gonna go alright, I
get it all. Now. It starts withlearning to love yourself. It
starts with understanding thatyou can make as much money as
(43:13):
you like, you just going to bejust as unhappy. If you haven't
got these fundamentals in placeof understanding who you are,
what you are, in the grandscheme of things, then it
doesn't matter what position youget at work, it doesn't matter
what new car you're going to buyyour pleasure, can't lead to
happiness. Pleasure is just justtemporary, what least happiness
(43:37):
is understanding these conceptsthat we're discussing. And when
you understand that, if we areall the universe experiencing
itself subjectively, then thatmeans you are me Scott, an IMU,
we are the same. What are theimplications of that? Well, the
implications are suddenlythere's no competition between
(44:00):
us is that I want a genuinelywant the best for you. Your just
life experience in itselfsubjectively in this cluster of,
you know, molecules heldtogether by vibration and
frequency, to dare to dare todie. I am in this so it gets rid
of competition in life. It getsrid of nation state, it gets rid
(44:22):
of the need for war. It gets ridof the need to accumulate great
riches at the expense of keepingthe rest of the world in
poverty. Do you see how powerfulthis these concepts are? So for
people listening, if this is ofinterest, you start by watching
my channel, I can't I can'treally pick a start and starting
(44:43):
off point for you.
Scott Radford (44:44):
One final question I'd like to ask and you
mentioned about life being aboutstories and how you can never
have a bad experience in life.
I'm quite keen when I was 18. Icame up with a little philosophy
that was almost like a decisionmaking tool that I gave myself
that I've lived by which islife's about stories you can
tell either to serve otherpeople later on in life or to
serve yourself when you need it.
(45:05):
And I'm kind of quite curious tounderstand with the incredible
life that you've lived. Do youhave one story today that you're
most proud of?
Unknown (45:12):
Ah, I'm sorry to go back on old ground. And I'm
sorry if this is not theexciting answer that your view
is what the truth is, is whenyou realise that I'm not Chris
through, that's a nonsense, ifyou buy into your ego, you're
never going to find the answersin life that I'd say is the
crowning achievement. When yourealise you are the or you are
(45:33):
everything you when they say Godcreated man in His own image. It
doesn't mean like, there was aguy on a cloud, he went, you
know what, I'm going to createsome humans, I'm going to make
them look like me. Don't what itmeant is, life is like the
blueprint, you know, foreverything. We are the blueprint
of life, we are that all thateverything, like I say, again,
(45:55):
experiencing itselfsubjectively. And that's, that's
the biggest thing that I've everachieved. If you want to talk
more in sort of, you know,grassroots, I won't do the
cliche, family thing, in termsof achievements. Passing my
driving test was huge. Iremember that as a really happy
(46:15):
day. In my life, gettingaccepted into the Marines was
probably the biggest, biggestthing. In my life. Getting my
private pilot licence after Ithink it was an eight or nine
hour exam was pretty special andanatomy that, you know, you know
what I mean, they're travellingto the seventh continent,
(46:37):
Antarctica was just an amazingexperience, although we have one
of our divers drowned, whichwas, wasn't obviously what we
plan for, to walk throughHeathrow Airport, having been to
the place that I told you, I'dbeen to the depths that I'd been
to, and to see my book on thebestseller list. As I'm flying
(46:58):
out to Hong Kong for the firsttime in, I think 15 years, from
my, my official book launch,that was like a set of write a
best selling book. And there itis, that, you know, I mean, I
pat myself on, I gave myself alike a virtual pat on the back
then that was nice to be awardedthe veterans award, that was
(47:22):
really special.
Scott Radford (47:24):
I'm just wondering, what do all these
things have in common? Is therea core source that has given you
purpose or fulfilment orvalidation in some way?
Throughout all of these littlethings?
Unknown (47:35):
Yes, very simply, I tell people dream, dream big.
Don't let anyone steal thatdream. And don't use steal that
dream. You know, the number oftimes people are, I'd love to
run a marathon. Oh, come on, isgonna do it. Now. What do you
mean, is 26 mile right? Ourpromise I can get you ran 26
mile. Right now. You've got twolegs. What is it that stops
(47:59):
people around the length of thecountry 999 miles, like I say,
non stop by sleeping at the sideof the road carrying a 15
kilogramme burden on my backwith all my my camping gear. Do
you know how much training I didfor that? Nothing at all. I've
been disabled for best part oftwo years, with a prolapsed desk
(48:20):
and a waiting you know, as in Iwas in bed for the best part of
four months of that I couldn'tget out of bed. And so after I
had a spinal operation orNeurosurgery is it's referred to
the first thing I wanted to dowas make my dream of running the
length of the country get thatback online because that's what
I was trained to do when my backwent. And I thought if I don't,
(48:43):
I don't want to run in thewinter. I want to wake up with
the sun. I want the sun on myface as I'm running along. I
want to be able to takelightweight camping equipment,
not some big winter sleepingbag. So I've got to go now. So I
just went with no training atall. Worked a flight to John
O'Groats had a compass it pointitself, I started putting one
(49:06):
foot in front of the other and,you know, 36 days later after 30
I ran an ultra marathon everyday, or at least I averaged an
ultramarathon every day. Sothat's anything over a marathon.
no training whatsoever. Okay, soI say to people dream, dream
big, and don't steal your owndream, which is what most people
do.
Scott Radford (49:26):
Thank you so much for sharing that Chris. That
certainly got me fired up andlooking at the excuses I'm
currently making in my life.
Before we finish, we do havesome quickfire questions for
you. One mantra or belief thathas enabled your high
performance life. Buy the ticketand take the ride. One
ingredient or habit that hascontributed to your success the
most
Unknown (49:46):
supergreens powder is the quickest way to get your
body pH to what it should bewhich is 7.25 away from all that
acidic nonsense that most peoplelive in.
Scott Radford (49:57):
And finally, what's your go to tune or
artists for A tough trainingsession or race. Did you listen
to any music when you were doingthe ultra marathons?
Unknown (50:04):
Yes, I listened to music and audio books all day
every day. I absolutely lovedit. Once you go to tune then I
got to kind of rule with books.
Listen to what you like. Ifsomething's hard work, I'll
shelve it. You know, I likeadventure stories. I like
reading about people that haveclimbed Everest or flown planes
or got lost in a jungle,whatever. And music for me is
(50:27):
got to be house music. Becauseit's so uplifting son scream
perfect motion is just a nicetrack.
Scott Radford (50:38):
Chris, thank you so much for the vulnerability
but also the sort of unfilteredinsight into your experience.
Thank you for that and all thework you're doing with the
veterans foundation. Youmentioned before come and find
your channels. Can you givepeople a shout out as to where
they can go and find you andfollow your work and your
insights?
Unknown (50:57):
Yes, just type my name into a search engine and it will
all come all my socials areChris through CHR is th ra ll
except Instagram which is Chrisdot through. Be great to see
people. If anyone is strugglingand need like live coaching. You
can book that through my throughmy website, and we'll put all
(51:18):
the links in the show notes aswell. Scott, that's really kind
of you thinking,
Scott Radford (51:22):
Chris, thank you so much.
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