​As I hobble awkwardly along the beach, two purple swollen blood soaked shins and a pain through my right ankle that feels almost rhythmic as I place one foot in front of the other, the dazzling white charter boat comes into view.
 
Full of smartly dressed tourists, the boat eases gently through the ocean waves complete with cozy deck chairs and canapes.  With phones at the ready, eager to take in the view, it is in this moment I become acutely aware of the vast chasm that exists between our two realities. Though there may be a mere 50m separating us in distance, our experiences are light years apart.
 
I am not the same person I was 72 hours ago. The beginning of each trek is always the same. Full of anticipation and excitement about what lay ahead, oblivious to the ways in which I will be changed before I arrive back at the beginning.
 
As I glimpse the lightness of their smiling faces and champagne laden hands, I can’t help but wonder what they make of this woman on the beach, dragging herself and her salty hair and battered body towards the thousand step finale of her journey. 
 
How thankful they are to be on that boat and not the beach…how much better and more enjoyable they believe their experience to be….
 
Should our worlds collide in another time and place, the boat goer and I, no distinction will exist between their experience and mine for our photographs have captured the same landscapes. ‘Oh yes, I’ve been there too, beautiful isn’t it’ you will hear them say. The difference will be apparent only to me.  
 
That difference… the knowledge of experience.  
 
I have spent 3 days immersed in this environment. Living in its vastness, I have not just walked its contours, I have touched its beauty, swam in its waters, slept under its stars and breathed its changing moods. I have felt elation and exhaustion, pleasure and pain, triumph and defeat. I have summited peaks and tumbled down valleys. I have greeted new parts of me, discovering how I deal (and don’t deal) with challenge, how to listen to the rhythms of my body, when to say yes and when I need to say no and how to quiet my chattering mind when it launches a silent assault of doubt upon me. 
 
And the tourists on the boat…what remains of their time spent here?
 
A picture. A distant memory of another nice landscape viewed from afar, a holiday they once had. 
 
For me, the woman on the beach, the wisdom of my experience will remain permanently etched on my being. Its lessons and learnings imprinted on my being like part of my DNA that will continue to reveal their meaning as they guide me into each new day and each new experience, a more alive, aware and resilient human than before.

Yesterday I read the article by Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson titled “Inside the drinking culture of the SAS”.  

Since the beginning of time when nomadic families came together to form tribes for their survival and prosperity, cultures have emerged, those behaviors, values and beliefs that a group accepts, generally without thinking about them.  

Waxing lyrical as to ‘the broken, arrogant culture of the SAS, a culture of elitism where the rules did not apply’, the story depicts images of wild parties artfully pieced to song lyrics of James’s ‘Getting away with it’.

To suggest that a song sung in an army boozer was an anthem condoning murder is not only presumptuous but insulting to those who risked their lives on a daily basis. 

Combat is a chaotic and complex environment, one that can easily take your life if you’re not on your game. When you work, live and lead in an environment outside your control it creates stress.

A beer and a song has more to do with relieving stress and surviving in the lethal chaos of war than breaking any rules.
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Every time we flew into Afghanistan we didn't know if we would be coming home again. Every time we went out the gate to face the enemy, we didn't know if we would be back; if we would see our wives, children or families again. We were accepting that we might die for our country. The thing we were trying to ‘get away with’ was our lives.

An SAS culture did exist, a culture of excellence and it was necessary. So that we could face our enemy suppressing our fear. To do our job and survive, because in a combat zone, defeat can mean you or one of your mates is dead.

To me, these lyrics signify mateship, courage and sacrifice. It represents the mates I fought with and surviving in the messed up world where we lived.

And if you watch Afghanistan on the news today you will see it’s still messed up.

Were errors in judgment made, yes. However as humans, not one of us is without flaws and one of life’s greatest lessons is learning from your experience. And I will proudly play that song on ANZAC day and toast my mates who didn't ‘get away with it’ for the rest of my life.

If you reflect on the things you value most what tops the list?

For many, the bulk of their time is spent focused on material wealth and possessions but apart from an initial buzz, how memorable are they?

In comparison, think back to your last experience and notice how your senses activate.… the smallest of things you can recall in vivid detail. This is the fabric of lasting memories.

New experiences offer us the opportunity for one of the most fundamental of human needs - growth.

As we move beyond the familiarity of our comfort zone we display courage in our willingness to be a beginner.
As we face our fears we strengthen our resilience.
As we try and stumble we develop humility.
As we persevere we develop tenacity.
And as we become more comfortable with being uncomfortable we build the confidence to stretch a little further.
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With every experience we discover more about ourselves… our strengths, our weaknesses, what brings us joy and what we are truly capable of.

Discharging from 16 years in the regular army I didn’t have to worry about getting a new job on “civi street”. I took the skills I had acquired in the Special Forces and went back to Afghanistan to work at the Australian Embassy as a security contractor with my mates. It was an easy transition from Defence and to be honest, some would say, hardly a transition at all. While there were a few major differences in my work before and after the ADF, there were a lot of similarities. Regardless, I enjoyed the challenge of private security contracting and spent the next six years after discharging from the army doing my best to keep people safe in complex and dangerous environments. 

The uncertainty and real transition for me came in 2016, when I finished working in Afghanistan.  

After 14 years of working on and off in the war troubled country, I returned to Australia with the goal of starting an adventure travel business in Tasmania. It was then I learned the real difficulties of being a small player in an industry where you have to compete for every client. As a veteran, I was running a few adventure hikes for former military and first responders, taking them into the wilderness to show them how good the adventure and tranquility can be for their mindset. Around this time, I was asked to speak to a group of military veterans about my experience post army. I remember answering a question about useful skills the military teach by saying; “Most of the skills the military teach us are not useful once you get out of Defence.” I was referring to skills like sniping, proficiency with a machine gun, blowing things up and techniques for destroying an enemy.  

A few years on, I now believe I answered the question poorly. At the time I wasn’t too different to a lot of other veterans (and society for that matter); I thought that getting out of Defence I needed to be totally retrained in order to fit back into normal society.  

How wrong I was.  

“What skills can we take from our military service that will help us in life on civi street. What skills do the military give us that make us better people. What skills should we never stop using. What skills make us more competitive in the job market and able to live a life full of passion, purpose and meaning. A life where we constantly improve and evolve?”  

If asked the question again today, my answer would be very different. 
 
The huge list of soft skills of course - the important skills in life.  
 
I believe there are two main types of skills in the life. Hard Skills and Soft Skills. The military teaches both.  

The strip and assemble of a belt feed general purpose machine gun or the best place to position your fire support in order to effectively suppress an enemy while you overwhelm them are hard skills. The more hard skills a soldier has, the more useful he is. Hard skills are the abilities and proficiencies that can be taught and trained. They are easy to recognise and test for competency. 

The real gold dust however lies in the soft skills we develop in the military. The behaviours, traits and non-technical abilities that relate to how we view and do things. 

For most people, having the marksmanship skills to hit an enemy in the chest at 800m loses its usefulness after military service. However, work ethic, flexibility, mental toughness, tenacity, patience and problem solving are key attributes that will see you succeed at whatever you choose to pursue post service. 
 
The Australian Special Air Service Regiment's (SAS) selection course, at the time I did it was the only course in the ADF not designed to teach you anything. Its goal is purely to determine if soldiers are suitable for training, to identify those with the soft skills and attributes to become Special Forces operators. Knowing that anyone, from anywhere, in the ADF can apply for the SAS is evidence to the order of priority this high performing team of professional soldiers place on these skills. Senior instructors know they can teach you to shoot later but it is a lot harder to teach you to want to learn, to have a positive mindset when situations look grim and display mental fortitude when things get hard. 

Likewise, in the civilian world today; it is why any human resource manager or selection panel worth their weight values these same skills when it comes to hiring new team members. They know it’s precisely these skills that will make you most successful in the workplace.  
 
So what are the personal traits and attributes that make up those desirable soft skills? 
 
The list is long, and examples include: 

• Mental and physical toughness,  
• Endurance, 

• Teamwork as well as the ability to work and achieve results alone, unsupervised, (having both, despite popular belief, is not common) 
• Risk management and the ability to accept risk, (something modern society is becoming less and less able to tolerate) 
• Conflict resolution and tolerance for other ideas, 
• Identification and management of your emotions, 
• Clear and concise communication, as well as listening skills, 

• Punctuality and time management, 
• Motivation and purpose, 
• Positivity and work ethic, 
• Prioritisation and problem solving, 
• The ability to self-evaluate yourself and your performance, 

• Adaptability and dependability; and 
• Interpersonal or people skills and empathy. 

 
The million-dollar question is how do we improve our soft skills? 

While it is quite easy to listen to a talk on leadership, it won’t instantly make you a good leader. Unlike hard skills that can be taught in a 40-minute lesson and cemented with practice over time; experience is the critical factor in soft skills. It is why there are thousands of highly educated yet poor leaders but also thousands of great leaders, communicators and problem solvers that have never taken a single class in it. Maybe their parents were good communicators or maybe they had a footy coach that was a great leader. Most likely they have just learned through experience what works and what doesn’t, how to get the best out of people and express their ideas, perfecting these skills over time since they were young.  

The common saying “you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with” is also very relevant when it comes to soft skills. If your five closest friends tell you it is OK to hit the beers until late on a Sunday night making Monday’s performance at work sub-optimal; you will think the same. This in turn will likely erode other peoples (including your managers) perception of your personal traits, dedication for one. But if your close friends and work colleagues promote focus and the value of not letting the team down, you are more likely to have two beers then head home for a good night’s rest.  

Self-awareness is key with soft skills. Some you will undoubtably already have to a good standard – identify these so that they can go down on your resumé and help you win that next promotion. Equally as important, is recognising any areas that could do with improvement.  

A simple system of improving soft skills: 

1. Identify the soft skill you are lacking and want to improve. Be conscious of when you are using them 
2. Research these skills and possible actions to improve them 
3. Be aware and practice the skill 
4. Evaluate and collect feedback 

Improvement in your soft skills in life should be a steady and continuous cycle, one that never ends as they assist us in all aspects of life not just work. Good soft skills will assist us to live a purposeful life full of passion, meaning and unforgettable experiences. From the everyday moments in your family relationships, to the personal achievements and epic adventures you experience before your limited time comes to an end.  

In terms of criminal activity, did you know most criminals go through a victim selection process to assess the ease with which they could overpower a victim. This is often based on nonverbal signals which victims are usually not even aware of.     
 
Attackers fear failure so one of the most important aspects of personal safety success is the ability to make yourself a hard target.  You may not be an MMA champion but let's not tell the world that. 
 
Some practical rules:

• Move with purpose and confidence 
• Don't look like a tourist - avoid shorts, thongs, fanny pack, camera on display
• Dress local and modest – the more flashy your attire, the more of a target you can become
• Be situationally aware - put your phone and camera away while on the move 
• Avoid traveling alone in hazardous areas
• Learn about where you are going - study up and have a plan. Know the routes to your destinations, be aware of landmarks, transport, police, medical aid and safe areas (Embassy or Consulate)
• Talk to the locals - for in country advice on how to behave and move in public
• Trust your gut – when something feels off it generally is              

 
Speak with authority if a stranger approaches and never negotiate your own security in the name of politeness. Avoid soft responses like "maybe”, "sorry” and "I’m not sure”. Instead, be firm and say "No."
Don't give them an inch or let them gain more control. Turn your “No” into a complete sentence and take charge of your personal safety.
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Looking to learn more about Personal Safety. Talk to us today about our tailored Personal Safety training for individuals and workplaces today.
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Whether you are in a foreign country or visiting the local shops, situational awareness is a skill worth having. Staying out of trouble is always better than knowing how to get out of trouble.

Situational awareness is the ability to observe and comprehend what’s going on in your environment and how it directly relates to you. This allows you to understand what actions to take in order to stay in control of your environment.

Being in control of your own environment is the only way to ensure your safety. Relying on others to look after you is a sure way to come unstuck.
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There are 3 simple steps to improving situational awareness and ensuring your perceived reality is aligned with the actual reality:

• Detect - be observant and collect information from your environment. Use all your senses to discover and identify the presence of everything in your environment. This can include other people’s future intentions, knowing what is normal for that environment and when that norm has changed.
• Comprehend - interpreting the information you detect and understanding what it means, e.g. the intended meaning of words and actions. Once we recognise and understand change we are able to better predict the future.

• Plan & Act – make a plan and commit to it. Take action to avoid danger and stay in control of your own environment.

 
At Point Assist we specialise in personal safety. Talk to us today for a training package to suit your needs.

Is it just me or are we now living in a society that seems to indulge itself in easy. We glamourise talent, give our kids awards just for participating, want everything to come naturally and believe a good life is one that is all just smooth sailing.

But I don’t agree. When you seek out easy, you build no immunity to hardship. You only have to watch the nightly news to see you cannot control everything, that in life hardship occurs and you need to be able to deal with it.

Hardly a day goes by when I don’t read about a struggling veteran, homeless or without purpose in life. It’s not that I don't think their struggle isn't real. I know full well the obstacles they have faced. Mistakes on the battlefield, injury, divorce, separation from my children and financial hardship. I’ve faced them too.

The difference?
I focus on developing from a life of hardship and I simply refuse to let difficulty beat me.

Maybe its sheer stubbornness and tenacity. If I get knocked down nine times, I will get up ten.
Maybe it was engrained into me during my Special Forces training with a culture of not being afraid of failure and endless hours of deliberate practice.
Maybe it is my "post traumatic growth" the experts talk about.
Maybe I strive to make the most out of life because I have witnessed adversity firsthand?
Maybe it’s all of the above.

I know I have made mistakes that almost got me killed and I believe I have avoided death a few times. Saddling up and getting out there when you know it could kill you regardless of how good your performance is makes you accept the things outside your control. And while that includes accepting death, it also means valuing life. Fear for your life over a prolonged time period like a combat veteran does and you gain a calm awareness that allows you to fully commit to each day. You develop a drive and motivation to train, learn, gain experience and improve.

The point is,

In life, it’s not how you succeed, it’s how you fail.
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No matter how skilled or seasoned or resilient, life will sometimes fight you and try to defeat you.
When you have setbacks or failures do not overreact.
Do not let them throw you off course and destroy your optimism.
Remove the emotion, step back and evaluate.
Find the lesson and learn from the experience.
Actively strive to improve yourself and your situation.
And have fun while you do it.
 
To quote one of my favourite sayings:
"Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one" - Bruce Lee

 
For most new climbers their first trekking experience is bathed in expectations of epic sunsets and triumphant Instagram worthy pics at the top of the summit.
 
Sorry to break it to you…. while that’s fun, it’s not really what it’s about.
 
To set out expecting to always reach the top is like expecting to always be happy, it is unrealistic. Every good climber has not just one but a host of non-summits in his pack. If not, I would challenge them to try some bigger, harder mountains. In my 25 years of climbing mountains I’d hazard a guess that at least a quarter of my climbs have been non summits…. And many of those have been my most memorable climbs.
 
Why?
 
Because it is in these moments you are truly experiencing the power of a mountain. The mountain doesn’t care about your wishes or desires to get to the top. Whether or not you summit, the  mountain still remains, as strong and steadfast as it was before you stepped onto it. It will not bend or cater to your wishes.
 
And sometimes you achieve your goal, sometimes you don’t.
 
Regardless of skill or preparation or desire, there are occasions when you simply won’t get to the top, when your best isn’t good enough on the day and although that may sound bitterly disappointing it is in these times that we are reminded of two of the great life lessons a mountain has to teach you.
 
It not about the destination but the journey.
 
And
 
It is not the events themselves but our interpretations of events that shape us.
 
Most people equate a non summit as failure. But we firmly disagree.
 
Whacking on a pack and marching to the top with ease in perfect conditions may sound like the ideal mountain experience but what this means is that we have failed to step beyond our comfort zone. We have not been challenged. We have not grown on any level. And if we are not growing we are merely  surviving.
 
When you dare to step beyond what is predictable and certain you have the opportunity to experience something so much more. More than just a physical rite of passage, a mountain exposes your mental muscle too. How you deal with discomfort, disappointment and even joy, cannot be hidden on a mountain.
 
Every step is an experience…physically, mentally and emotionally, as you test your capability and witness the true power and vast beauty of nature. It can be an overwhelming experience, one every human should get to experience in their lifetime. Some are physically silenced, some are moved to tears, the cameras down as you mindfully take in what no lens could ever capture.
 
The mountain teaches us how to be present.
 
How to approach challenge.
 
How to deal with adversity.
 
To discover who you truly are and what you are capable of.
 
And these lessons are not learned at the top. They are learned through each and every step you take.
 
So step beyond, be brave and take the path less travelled.
 
Nothing worth doing comes easy. Lean into the experience and grow.
 
If you want to be your best self, you need to stretch and in stretching, you must change your relationship with failure. It is not something to be feared but something to be encouraged. Understand and accept that on the path to success you will fail, (possibly many times), but it is with these experiences you will find the exact lessons you need to take you to the next level!
 
“I will come again and I will conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow.
But as a human, I can”
 
Sir Edmund Hillary

Whether you are traveling to complex, hostile, high risk environments or an adventure travel destination in a foreign country; I recommend carrying a “Grab Bag”.

What is a grab bag?

A grab bag is that small “on the person always” bag, that you don’t go anywhere without. If everything else goes bad, you will use your grab bag to get you out of trouble. It does not leave your person. It’s in your carry on during flight and it’s the foundation set up to the environment you are in once you arrive.  

During the six years I spent working in Afghanistan after I discharged from the military, my grab bag was with me every single day. If it’s important and it’s not in your pocket, its in your grab bag so if you ever have to run from danger towards safety, all the essentials are in one place and you can literally ‘grab and go’.  

It needs to be easy to carry so you don’t want it any bigger than a small back pack and the following items are what we recommend it contains:

• Passports & travel docs like airline tickets
• A means of communication. Spare mobile phone or even better a fully charged satellite phone for remote adventures
• Emergency contacts list
• GPS & map
• Folding knife
• A method of lighting fire
• Cash, $1000 US and some local money depending on your location
• Spare credit card
• Water bottle
• A small amount of food (snack bars are a great long-life option)
• Torch or head lamp
• Med Kit, including your prescription medications and spare. Also give your partner a third spare.

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Although it may seem like overkill, remember when it comes to travel no preparation is ever wasted. A well prepared grab bag can save your life.