Ant Middleton Opens Up About His Personal Demons, Being "Cancelled" & His Spirituality
Guests: Ant
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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One of the things that I say is the most courageous thing you can do, above all bravery, is to be honest with yourself. This is the personal life that I really keep to myself. I've spoken a lot about it today, which I've never spoken about before.
Ant Middleton. Ant is an adventurer, a military vet, a television host, an author, an entrepreneur, and one that's become highly, highly respected as an authority when it comes to things like survival and endurance and leadership techniques. Due to his experiences as an elite special force member, he can talk about these things in a way that nobody, nobody else can.
Ant has very, very recently been at the center of a huge media storm where he was quote-unquote "canceled," with his biggest show to date, *SAS: Who Dares Wins*, being axed by Channel 4 after five years. The broadcaster came out and said that Ant's views and values weren't aligned to theirs.
This is his first in-depth conversation that he's recorded since he was quote-unquote "canceled." I've watched countless amounts of interviews that Ant Middleton has done, but the side of Ant that you're going to hear today is one that even he admits himself that he has never fully shared before.
I'm going to say it: this podcast lifted a ton of weight off my shoulders and answered maybe the most important question about life that we all must ask ourselves if we are going to be happy, if we're going to be successful, and if we're going to be free. Ant, thank you for your honesty. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is *The Diary of a CEO*. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
Ant, when I was reading your book *First Man In*, there was this quote at the end of one of the chapters. I thought it was a good place to start this conversation today because I tend to think that it's probably one of the more foundational pieces of information to describe who you became in your life and what you've gone on to achieve. This is what you wrote at the end of the chapter:
"It's called making friends with your demons. Having dark forces living within us is part of being human. They're the result of inevitable damage of life. Each one of us has a choice: make these demons work for us or turn them loose against us." Slightly linked to that, on the same page you wrote, "Most of us have horror stories we can tell you about from our childhoods. It's not the horror that defines you, it's how well you fought it." What did that mean?
I think that's just a generic message to everyone to say that it's okay to have bad thoughts. It's okay to have these demons inside you that exist in all of us. But the important message is to exercise them. Because the moment you lock them away, the moment you lock these thoughts away, the moment you lock these demons away, the moment you lock any negativity away, all it's going to do is take over like a mold.
It's going to completely engulf you and it's going to control you as an individual. It's only because I've been there and I've done it. Whether that's what I've done in combat, losing my father at a young age, losing my mother, seeing bodies blown up around me, seeing dead people around me, seeing the effect it has on families, seeing what my decision—pulling that trigger or not—has on a certain person or has on a certain family or has on a certain situation.
It's ultimately being okay with who you are. That's the whole thing about it. It's acknowledging that, listen, we're not perfect. We're human. We have weaknesses, we have insecurities, we have these horrendous thoughts sometimes. You'd be a liar to say that you don't sit there sometimes and think things. The things that go through your head, if you actually voiced them, then that becomes a problem. That's you not exercising your demons; that's them exercising you.
It's just about acknowledging that. I acknowledged that from such a young age. I acknowledged that from a young age when my father passed away and I couldn't really understand what was going on.
Can you tell me about that?
Yeah, my father passed away when I was five years old. Within a few months, a new man came into our life—my stepfather. Then within two years, we up-moved to France. So we lived in Portsmouth, we up-moved completely to France. A new situation, a new environment, a new man in our life.
I can just remember thinking, I remember going into a bush in the fields where we lived in France after a couple of months we were there. I sat in this bush, and the magnitude of the situation was so overwhelming. I can just remember looking at the road and thinking to myself, "What am I doing here? Why? Why am I here? What's the purpose?" I could not grasp anything at that young age.
It was during that moment when I let everything go. I can just remember thinking to myself, "Don't try and understand what's going on. Don't try and understand who this man is and where he's come from. Don't try and understand why you're in a different school speaking a different language, because you can't. Don't try and understand why all of a sudden you're living in caravans."
We moved and we were living in a couple of caravans because we had a big family, from houses. I can just remember dropping everything and thinking to myself, "Understand what you can understand." At that young age, what I could understand was what I was feeling. I could understand myself.
So when I look back on the death of my father, as I flip everything into a positive even though years and years and years down the line I've done this, the death of my father actually made me self-reflect from the age of six or seven. So I've been self-reflecting, understanding my emotions, understanding how I feel, understanding my demons, understanding the good parts of me, the bad parts of me, the weak parts of me, the strong parts of me, the positive side of me, the negative side of me. I've been really breaking it down from such a young age.
That's given me an advantage in life. I genuinely believe that's given me my bulletproof mindset on how to tackle anyone or any situation today. So even though it was a traumatic part of my life and it affected me all the way up to my mid-20s in a bad way—where I'd go out and try and understand who my father was, try and understand... I never went to his funeral. I never went to his grave.
My parents—I say my parents, my stepdad—because he came into my life so young I called him my dad. They never told me where he was buried. He was just completely cut out of our life because of the situation beforehand. For him to come into our life a couple of months after, it was pretty obvious that my mom was obviously having an affair or there was something going on. Again, I'm not judging anyone or the situation. So when he came into our life, it was like, "Right, you call him dad."
My name changed from Aaron to Middleton. Not a lot of people know that.
Really?
Yeah. This whole new life was just forced upon me. Forced upon me. So I was either forced to act or forced not to act. Sitting in that bush, me being forced not to act was probably jumping in the road. Thinking like, "Listen, enough is enough."
Did that cross your mind?
It was a big road. It was a big road. It never got to that stage where I thought, "Right, I'm going to take my life," but it was like, "There's an easy option out of here." You know what I mean? It's like there is an easy option out of here. It never crossed my mind to do it, but I can just remember thinking at that road, thinking the cars move fast there. If you wanted to... it was more like *if* you wanted to, that could be it.
Yeah, so it crosses your mind but it doesn't register?
It crosses your mind, but it doesn't register, if that makes sense. It's only throughout these few years when you start to reflect back on who you are and what you've been through that you start to go, "Bloody hell, actually maybe I was thinking like that at a young age." But then again, who I am, I'm honest with myself. I'm honest with my demons. I'm honest with who I am. Ultimately, I'm honest with knowing that we're not perfect.
You know a lot of people, and you've described it there, they never admit their demons to themselves. What ends up happening is those demons run the show but from the back room.
Absolutely.
You probably see that a lot with people that have come back from war as well, because they don't get the support they need.
I see it during war. I see people, level-headed, intelligent soldiers, lose their head on a battlefield. Come running past you, doing things that you think, "Wow, where the hell did that come from?" You look into their eyes and there's nothing there. Nothing there. Then boom, they flip out and you're like, "Do you realize what you've just done?" It's like, those demons are strong. They're there.
How do you address them?
You have to exercise them. The way I exercise my demons is by getting like-minded, similar people in the same room in a safe environment. I might drink myself into oblivion until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, chatting about what we've done, chatting about old times, chatting about who we are. Then boom, I'm done for six months. I've released those demons. When you intoxicate yourself with alcohol, it allows you to talk.
I'm not saying go out there and do that, but that's just my way, coming from a drinking culture—the military—a drinking and a fighting culture. That's the way that we deal with things. For now, it might be a blowout where I go out and have a nice meal, we'll have a few glasses of wine, we'll be in a private room and we'll shoot the shit and just talk about whatever we need to talk about, whatever's on your mind.
But also physically. I exercise my demons physically. I put myself in horrendous situations in order to fight against myself. Everest is a prime example.
I was going to say.
You know, I didn't have to go up during the storm. If I was the normal sensible person, I would have went up after that storm went.
So just for context, you decided to climb Mount Everest with a buddy of yours at probably the worst possible time, and you got into a little bit of a predicament up there, to say the least.
Exactly that. To say the least, yeah. But it's one of those where I didn't just want to walk up on a nice sunny day and gain nothing from that experience.
Why though? Why are you voluntarily putting yourself through chaos and what anyone else would perceive to be agony? Why are you choosing that?
That's me exercising my demons. That's me pushing myself to that limit. That's me having tasted that drug of living on that line of life and death. A lot of people think that drug's adrenaline, but it's not. I don't feel pumped, I don't feel... I feel ultimate peace.
People find this bizarre, but when I walk that line of life and death—which I've done multiple times—it's a pure feeling of euphoria. It's not what you think where you feel pumped and your eyes are red and you've got this aggression going through you and you have to get through this moment. It's like life is so uncomplicated, Steve. So uncomplicated.
You're either going to live or you're going to die. All the bullshit, all the complications of life that are implemented on you—whether that's through government, whether that's through work, whether that's through family—all of that goes. You are left with the most purest form of life. It's so uncomplicated that it's euphoric. It's so peaceful.
When you hear of World War I and World War II poets that are writing poems in trenches, and people are like, "How the hell are they writing poems in trenches?" I understand that feeling because life is so uncomplicated, it's so pure, it's so peaceful. They're writing with no stresses, no complications, no bullshit. It's just coming from the purest form of life of: I'm either going to live or I'm going to die.
It's that feeling that I chase. I chase that feeling where I just want that moment of peace, of pure and utter peace, for 10-15 minutes. That drug I chase. Crossing those boundaries, crossing those lines, crossing any limitations to the edge of life. You take that step, you're gone. You go over that edge, you're going to feel it. You're going to feel alive. You're going to feel everything that you need out of life.
For me, that's exercising my demons. Whether I do it psychologically where I'm putting myself in situations that I'm saying stuff that I believe in, that I value, that is a message, and it's being contradicted—or whether I'm pushing myself to a physical limit or putting myself in a physical situation which is incomprehensible to the everyday man or woman. It's because I've tasted it. I've had the misfortune, I've had the burden of tasting that drug.
Will it be the end of me? I can't say for sure. I can't say that it won't. I can't say that I've never put myself in these situations again, because I find myself constantly doing it. But for me, that is exercising my demons. Everyone's demons are different, everyone's situation is different, everyone's emotions are different, everyone's DNA is different. But that's me exercising my demons.
What were the other moments from your early years that went into shaping the man you became? Was there anything else? I hear you in your books and in your writing and in your interviews continue to cite that trauma with your father and your stepfather then coming in and being the way that he was. But was there anything up leading into your 20s that you cite as being pivotal in who you became?
Yeah, when I joined the British military. I joined the army at the age of 16, just going on to 17. I came from a background of French culture. I'd go out and drink coffee when I was 14, play bowling when I was 15. Then all of a sudden, I get thrown into a male-dominant organization. The culture: drinking, fighting. You fit in or you fuck off. It's as simple as that.
So what do you do? You try and fit in. But when you try and put a round peg into a square hole, you're going to get stuck. You either stay stuck and you go around pleasing everyone else, or you pull yourself out of that situation. That's ultimately what I done with the army. I spent four years in the army then left because of that situation. It wasn't me.
I wasn't this aggressive young lad that loved drinking. I'd never used to drink. I was always polite, always respectful. I'd walk past someone, I'd tip my hat. In France, you say, "Bonjour," you just have a little chat. You do that in England when I was 16-17, walking past someone and nodding at them, they're like, "What the fuck are you looking at?" It used to shock me. I'd think, "I'm only saying hi, mate."
That was a pivotal four years in my life where I thought to myself, "I can either fit into this UK culture, or I can pull myself out of it." For the first four years, I found myself fitting in. I found myself being good at drinking. I found myself being good at fighting. I found myself being good at being a dickhead, because that's what I needed to be to fit in.
Again, those were demons that I discovered along the way that I found that I was good at. So would I let anyone take the piss out of me anymore? You bet no, because you're going to get a good hiding. Would I go out and drink and fit in? Yeah, of course I would. "Hey, one of the lads! I want to fit in." I'm so far detached from all of that, but if I'm this young, polite, respectful, sort of multicultural individual, then that's going to be more of a hindrance moving forward in what I need to do—especially in the military—than it is a benefit.
So you find yourself turning into this person. I can just remember, I was about 21 and I went to Macedonia. I worked with the French Foreign Legion out there because I could speak fluent French. I saw how they worked. They were very mature, very sort of, going back to that French culture. They're all family orientated, very... I thought to myself, "This is who I am."
When I got back off that tour, I can just remember going to the squadron bar. I was in 9 Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers. We just done a six-month tour. I remember walking in there and I remember seeing someone, a staff sergeant, probably about 35-36. I'm a young 20-21 year old. He's drinking from a boot, an old desert boot, and he's drinking piss. Being... drinking piss from a boot. I can just remember looking at him thinking, "If I continue the way that I'm going, that's going to be me in 15 years' time."
It scared the hell out of me. I can remember just thinking I've got to get the hell out of it. I walked out of that bar and then the next day I put my notice in. I was like, "This is not who I am. This is not..." I've gained more demons from this four years than I have any friends, any benefits from it. That was a pivotal point in my life where I thought to myself, "Wow, I can either change in such a way and just be stuck in this square hole, or I can pull myself out, rebuild on the foundations that I have of knowing that I'm a good person."
And from there, you handed in your notice, and what happened next?
From there, I handed in my notice and I left. I found that in civvie street, I was acting the person that I never wanted to be in the military. But I'd found that that had followed me, that that had taken charge of me.
Can you be specific on that?
Those demons that had sort of identified themselves within that four years were running the show. So when I got out, I joined the Metropolitan Police and I was acting like a proper squaddie. Going out drinking every night, cheating on my exams, drink driving. I got all the way through training. A couple of weeks to go, passed all the tests, I got caught drink driving. Boom. Kicked out of the Met, out of the training at Hendon.
But it didn't bother me. I was like, "Yeah, once a soldier, always a soldier." I was living in the past and being someone who completely wasn't me, but who had control of me. Then getting into the street life. I got into the street life where, fighting... not gangs, not gangs, but that social circle where you have to uphold a reputation. The one thing that fitted me in was I was a good scrapper. I knew how to scrap, I knew how to drink, I knew how to fight.
You find yourself reverting back to the person who you never wanted to be. I suppose that was a defense mechanism. I knew that that worked in the UK. I'd never tried and tested anything else. As soon as I came over to the UK, straight into the military again. I spent 10-12 years in France before that. Boom, straight into British culture. I thought that's how you acted. I never knew what civvie street was about because I was never in it. So it took me a good couple of years again to realize.
What saved you? What pulled you out of this loop?
There's one moment that saved me. I refused to sign on. I refused to take any help from the government.
Same.
I can remember my aunt—I was living with my aunt at the time—she said, "Ant, you've got no money. What are you going to do?" I said, "Well, I'm going to go down to the Job Centre." She said, "Why don't you just sign on until you find a job?" I'm like, "No." I was proud. I was like, "No, I've never taken a penny off the government."
I thought, "I'm going to go to the Job Centre." I remember walking into the Job Centre, walking up the stairs, walking into the Job Centre. I had my red book. The red book when you leave the military has got all your qualifications, military qualifications, all your credentials. I walked into the Job Centre and the guy obviously recognized the book; they probably have hundreds of people go in there a year.
He said, "Oh mate, you're ex-military, aren't you?" I was like, "Yeah." He said, "Come to the desk." He sat down with me and he opened up my book and he started reading my book. He looked up at me and he said, "Why did you leave the military?" Before I could answer, he said, "I have hundreds of these come across my desk, and this is one of the best reports I've ever read." He said, "So my advice to you," as he slammed the book shut, he said, "go back into that space."
I can remember just sitting there, I was 22, sitting there and thinking, "Okay, he's going to offer me a job now." He just handed me the book and called over the next person. I was just like... picking up the book and thinking to myself, "God, he's just told me I've got..." but obviously there's all military qualifications, there's nothing for me out there apart from to empty bins or whatever it may be.
I remember taking the book and as I walked down the steps of the Job Centre, I sat down halfway down on the steps. I had a train ticket in my pocket and probably about a couple of quid loose change. That was my life. This was at the age of 22-23, maybe.
I can just remember thinking to myself, "Right, why the hell are you sat skint, nothing in your life apart from the clothes that you're wearing and what's in your pockets, jobless?" Then a moment of clarity just hit me. It's almost as if I had an out-of-body experience and I was looking back at the boy sitting on the step. I can just remember thinking to myself, "Right, I'll tell you why. It's because you're pretending to be someone else. You're lying to yourself, therefore you're living a lie."
"You think you're better than everyone else. You've got this reputation that you want to uphold that's not you. You're just a shadow of who you really are. Who the hell do you think you are? Because the person that I'm looking at, almost looking in the mirror, the person that I'm looking at is exactly where he should be: sat on a fucking step, jobless with nothing. Because this isn't you."
"And if you want to live in the shadow, if you want to stay stuck in that hole, in that square hole, then keep lying to yourself and keep living a lie." That moment, I'll always go back to that moment. Whenever I get a bit above myself or a bit too big for my boots, I always go back to that moment where I ripped myself apart because it freed me as an individual.
I promise you this, and it's not cliché, this isn't some kind of bullshit story that I'm telling you. It freed me as an individual because I can remember standing up on those steps feeling like a new man because I just identified who I was. "This isn't you. Get that out of your life. Get that out of your life. Get that out of your life. Be you."
I had those foundations to fall back on because I knew who I was ultimately, but it was just covered with so much ego and so much bullshit, so much complication that I'd implemented on myself. When I got rid of it all, I thought, "You know what? I was good at the military. I got Best Recruit, Best PT when I was in the army. You know what I'm going to do? I love that lifestyle, but I was just around the wrong people. I was in the wrong regiment. I'm going to re-join the military."
"But I'm going to be a team player. I'm going to be myself. I'm going to be this respectful gentleman, hardworking, that I know that I am. I'm not going to go out boozing, I'm not going to go out fighting, I'm not going to try and fit in. If they don't accept me for who I am, then so be it. The military obviously isn't for me."
I joined the Royal Marines. I went straight down the careers office, straight down the careers office and joined the Royal Marines. Within a couple of months, because of my previous military history, I got in very quick. Within a couple of months, I found myself going through Royal Marine training. When I passed out of Royal Marine training, I got awarded with Best Recruit, which is the King's Badge.
I can just remember thinking to myself, "Right, Ant, you've been here before. You got Best Recruit, Best PT, you rested on your laurels, went to your unit, didn't really fit in. You're in the same position now. You can either use this as a positive and push forward and go on to achieve great things, or you can try and fit in, booze, fight, be a camp hero, a pub soldier, and just be back to square one where you was five, six, seven years ago."
There's something, and I want to carry on from that story, but just going back to that, I find it super fascinating that you're sat on those steps and at a moment where your ego kind of dissolves because of the circumstances you find yourself in, you're actually able then to go and pursue your true self. I find, you know, I had someone sat in this chair previously and he's the biggest investor in the world in psychedelics.
One of the things that he talks about with psychedelics is what it does is it strips back the bullshit. Your ego, the identity you've been living to please society, and what's left is who you actually are. It's so funny that so many of the guests I speak to and so many of the psychologists I've spoken to talk about in order to find your happiness and pursue your true self, you have to get rid of that bullshit.
What I was hearing when you were saying that is you'd created this reputation and identity for yourself which actually was leading you astray, but it was helping you survive in those circles. That's a tough decision to say, "Do you know what? I'm going to break out of that circle, leave that identity behind, throw myself into an uncertain moment and go and pursue who I actually am."
Everybody faces that in their life. As a kid growing up in Devon in a school of 1,500 white kids, pretending that I liked indie music and pretending I was... to fit in and survive. A survival mechanism. I left the city because deep down in my heart I didn't resonate with anybody, but I was in that small town city surrounded by 1,500 white kids that liked The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys. That was my army career, my squaddie life.
At 18, I was like, "I'm out of here. I'm going to go be Steve." Moved to Manchester, dropped out and I started to... and I think everybody in their life, regardless of what walk of life, you face that decision. Either you've realized that you're living an identity or a life untrue to yourself and you've gone on the journey to go find yourself, or right now as you're listening to this, you are... and you'll know it. Because the words that you've described there will ring true. You'll feel it.
I completely understand that, and that makes complete sense to me. One of the things that I say is the most courageous thing you can do, above all bravery, is to be honest with yourself.
Why is that so hard these days?
People say to me, "Ant, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?" and I always talk about the story of the Job Centre steps. Because that took courage, that took balls. That's bravery right there. I've been in rooms where bullets were flying over my head, I've kicked doors down, I've taken lives, I've saved lives. That's not being brave, that's just me being extremely good at my job and loving what I do.
There's nothing to do with bravery; bravery is almost forced upon you. But when you decide to step into the arena, when you decide to step into that and go, "Right, I'm going to face this," and put that mirror on yourself, ultimately facing yourself, that is the hardest but most liberating thing I've ever done. People shy away from that and they live in the void. They live this life where they're just living in the void—I call it "autopilot"—because you're lying to yourself.
It's pretty simple: therefore, you're going to live a lie. I'm not the Archbishop of Canterbury, I'm not a rocket scientist. It's just simple. If you lie to yourself, guess what? You're going to live a lie. Standing in a mirror and ripping yourself apart does take away all the bullshit and all the complications and it frees you as an individual. But you have to do it on a regular basis. You can't just go, "I've done it once, here we go, I found myself, this is who I am."
Because hopefully, you're constantly changing, you're constantly evolving, you're constantly adapting your mindset. That's what evolution is about. The world is designed to revolutionize and we are designed to do exactly the same. The moment that you're not honest with yourself, it's game over for you. It's like, do you just want to be *that* person?
A lot of people say to me, "Ant, remember me from the military?" and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah." They go, "Fucking hell Ant, you've changed a lot. You've changed." I'm like, "I haven't seen you for ten years. I hope I've changed." I say to them, "You haven't. That's why you're still *that* guy." That's why I'm Ant Middleton and you're still *that* guy. Because of course I've changed. I'd like to think in another ten years' time when you see me that I've changed again. Because if I haven't, I'm doing something wrong. And that doing something wrong is not being honest with myself.
It all goes back to you as an individual. No one can do that for you. No one can do that for you. I say to everyone, "Everything starts with you." It's so true. If you don't want to change, then nothing will change around you. If you don't want to be honest with yourself, well guess what? You're lying to yourself. Therefore, you're living a lie. You have to do this on a weekly or a monthly basis. Anytime an obstacle is thrown in front of you, you fall back on, "Right, be honest with yourself. Be honest with who you are, be honest with how you tackle things and don't lie to yourself."
The cost of being yourself and being honest with yourself is seemingly increasing in this day and age. I think that's a really, really valid point, one that I hadn't expressed properly, which is you had that reflective moment when you sat on those steps where you say, "Fuck it, we're going to start being honest with ourselves." But then, especially as you get more successful in your media career and everything else, the forces at play trying to get you to *not* be honest with yourself get greater and greater.
This is this crazy paradox we see in society at the moment, which is: you being honest with yourself is the reason you're sat here. It's the reason you're Ant Middleton. That's what's made you go explode, right? But then the higher you get, it's like... the resistance for you not to be yourself becomes greater because now you've got... now you're more of a target, right? Hard fucking life to live.
Do you know what? I've been witness of it. You know, the cancel culture. The "don't say that Ant, because you will lose this book deal, you will lose that media career, you will lose that production." I'm witness of it right now. I hear it probably on a weekly basis. But then that's that square peg, round hole. It's like, no, I don't... every time I think about that.
I always have two principles with everything that I do. Don't go out to offend—I don't say things to offend people, therefore they choose to be offended. I just say things what I think is right, what's served me good in my experiences and my career and my mindset. And the second thing is, you know, don't do things maliciously. So first of all, it's verbal and also actions. Don't do things maliciously because then ultimately, yeah, you're going to have a backlash. You're going to have a reaction to what you've done.
So that's exactly what I do. I don't go out to offend, but I go out to tell the truth. But I also go out to *seek* the truth. And I go out to seeking the truth, again, everything starts with you—with who I am.
It's dangerous in the social media era.
It is dangerous. It is dangerous, but hopefully, you get past that stage of people realizing that, actually, this is Ant. He's not been any different. He's not voiced anything different. He's not tried to fit into a media agenda. He's not tried to blag anyone. He's not being fake. This is who Ant Middleton is, and he will always be like that, regardless.
But then there's that platform of not reaching that level quite yet and then everything descending upon you. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there that are scared to say what they truly feel, scared to voice their opinions, scared to voice their values. Because ultimately it takes food off the table. It's a career stopper. When your career stops, guess what suffers? After that, your family. And then when that suffers, guess what? There's not much out there for you.
You have to rebuild again. Well, all those 10, 15, 20 years career that you've built, all for that one moment? Is it worth it? No. So what do you do? Keep quiet. What do you do? Don't do anything. Just say what they want you to say and do what they want you to do. That doesn't fucking rub with me. That's a sore point with me. You try and make me someone that I'm not, like I've been made someone that I'm not, you're probably going to get even... you're going to get the worst out of me, even more so. Because everything comes back around to who you truly are.
And they're trying to control you.
Yeah, it's a controlling measure. It's like, listen, I've let people control my life. I've let situations control my life. And I've ended up psychologically—not physically—psychologically on that brink of questioning who the fuck am I? Who am I? That's what I question. The moment I start questioning who am I, then I know that project isn't for me. I know that sponsor isn't for me. I know that TV channel or that TV production isn't for me.
Because the moment that that comes into question, then it's like, you probably don't get who I am. You probably don't understand who I am. You probably haven't done your homework with who I am. Do I fit into your agenda? If you don't fit into one agenda, you get bounced, boom, straight across to the opposite side. It's like, no, listen, I don't belong on that side. Just because I don't believe in *this* side doesn't mean I belong on *that* side. I belong in the middle.
People say, "Ant, are you on the left, are you on the right?" I'm like, "I'm not on the left or right, I'm in the fucking middle. I'm in the middle." But there is no middle, because the moment that you go, you say slightly something that goes against *this* agenda, then again, you just get bounced straight to the other side.
The right won't recognize you, the left won't recognize you, so you're the enemy of both.
Yeah, but it's a dangerous place to live in. It's a sad state of affairs. A real sad state of affairs. Just because your values and your views are different doesn't mean my message isn't the same. My message, everything that I do is about positivity. It's about mindset. It's about bringing people together.
You look at *SAS: Who Dares Wins*, what does it do? It makes people realize what they're capable of. It makes them find themselves. It brings people together. It brings families together. *Mutiny*: teamwork, brings people together. *Escape*: straight talking, being honest and open and it makes you feel good. It brings you together, it unites people. Because they can be open and honest with themselves and therefore they know what they're capable of. Self-belief starts to kick in and they feel good about it. It's bringing people together.
You'd be inhumane really to not think like that, to not want to help people out. So the message is always the same, but it's this bit in the middle that you either get pushed to one side—you can't have this in-the-middle opinion of "well actually my values are the same as yours." I'm all about positive change. So why are you saying my values don't fit with yours? Because I want positive change. Look at my message for the last five or six years since I've been in the media. It's positive change, unity. Look at what I do.
Everything I do, whether it's my books, my tours, my TV programs, everything is about bringing people together. Bringing the best out of people. So just because this in-between bit, my views are different and mine are probably truthful, which people don't want to hear the truth, it's like, "Right, bounce off to one side." And then you start to get canceled.
What's the answer though? We've heard Piers Morgan talk a lot about this as well, and other people talk about how if you don't perfectly fit the views or the perfect hashtag of the left or whatever, then you're basically being canceled in culture. I genuinely—this is probably the most genuine question I've ever asked on this podcast because it's one that I'm thinking about all the time—I also see this happening.
My views don't always fit the left or the right. Sometimes, like in the Black Lives Matter moment, I posted on my Instagram saying—it was actually my best-performing post of all time—I said because there was this whole narrative around "silence is violence" and if you're not saying anything then you're a racist. I did a post saying, "That's obviously bullshit."
As I said, this is an unpopular Black opinion: if someone doesn't post a black square on their Instagram, it doesn't make them a racist. People process things in completely different ways. In fact, the most unnatural reaction to trauma is to take to social media. So it didn't fit the "silence is violence" narrative. Of course that's fucking true! It doesn't fit, I understand.
But not one individual in the millions and millions of views that post got could tell me there was one slide in that nine that they disagreed with. But it was the *feeling* that I wasn't wearing the football kit of the left that made some people go, "You're an awful person, Stephen." And then I'd go "Why?" and they'd go, "Ugh." Exactly! You see their minds ticking and ticking. I go, "Come on, tell me what's wrong with the post." They go, "Ugh, you know what's wrong."
I think, well, I know I'm not going to change. So when I look into my future, I go at some point I'm going to get canceled because my brand is building, I've got some stuff coming up in the media. I'm thinking, I know I'm not going to change, so what's the answer here? I know that it's getting more binary.
But what *is* the answer, Steve? I came here so this is why *you're* here. But the answer is to be true to who you are. And just take the brunt. You know, you know if you're an idiot. You know if you're irritating people. You know if you're not a good person. Then ultimately, you're going to get what's coming to you, and you probably deserve it.
But I know that I'm a good person. I know my foundations—I'm polite, I'm respectful. I don't go out to offend, ever go out to offend. I hate confrontation because of the way that I know that I can deal with confrontation. It frightens me to get into that situation because I know what I'm capable of. So I don't ever... I'm over-polite. I'm over-respectful because I think people should be treated like that. I like to be treated like that. I wasn't treated like that when I started off in my army career, and I know what it feels like. I'd never want anyone to experience that.
So I'm over-polite and I'm over-respectful. I always fall back on that. I always look at myself in the mirror and I go, "Ant, I know I'm a good person." Those are the foundations that I've built. That's *my* foundations. That's who I am. So you can knock my bricks down. Guess what? I will keep building and building and building. Even if you knock them down to the foundations, I can fall back on being true to myself.
There's no more liberating feeling than that, of being true to who you are, going, "You know what? I'm not going to fit into that agenda. I'm not going to fit into that box. I'm not going to squeeze myself in there to make myself feel uncomfortable for *your* agenda because that's not who I am."
Would you rather lose it all?
Yeah, 100%. Because I've got my foundations. I will always build. This part of the building is so high now that, can you cancel me? Crack on, because I guarantee you I'll just keep building this side, this side, this side. Because the people that know me, know who I am.
Someone said this to me with all the stuff that's been going on lately—I've had some sponsors that have canceled, I've had some TV programs that have... crack on. But the people that are by my side—the sponsors and the channels and the production companies that are by my side that have worked with me—saying, "Ant, we have the privilege of knowing you."
That rung a chord to me. They have the privilege of knowing me. And I think to myself, "Wow, you've got the privilege of knowing me. I've got the privilege of knowing myself because I know who I am." I'm glad I gave you that privilege of knowing me, because you know that this is just a storm of words. You know that this is just media hype, fake news. You know this isn't real. You know, yeah, I've maybe got a little bit of a fiery side to me, but you know you're getting that with me. You know I'm rough around the edges. I'm happy to cut a few of the edges, but those edges are still going to be there.
So when they said that to me, it's something that will stick with me forever. It's from a very, very good sponsor to do with my books. I remember sitting back and just taking that breath and going, "Keep doing what you're doing, Ant. You're doing the right thing." Then this last week, so many doors have opened. Production companies calling me, channels calling me. You hear about it—"Oh you get canceled, then that's your career done"—but then you've got your Piers Morgans, you've got your Jeremy Clarksons, and now you've got your Ant Middletons.
It just goes to show that I'm doing the right thing. And that actually, yeah, I'm not going to fit. I'm not going to be comfortable with everyone. I'm not going to be their cup of tea. Well, that's fine because, guess what? I don't want to work with *you*. If I get questioned one little bit about who I am, by any brands, any sponsors, any channels, then I will not work with them. I will say, "Listen, thank you very much, it's obviously not the right match. You go on and do your thing and I'll go on and do my thing."
Because I will always go on and do my thing. That building can completely drop to the foundations, but when you're honest with yourself and you know who you are, those foundations are solid. You will always have something to build from. But when you're not honest with yourself and everything comes crumbling down and you have no foundations to fall on, you're fucked. That's when you're in trouble. That's when you start to go, "Well, I won't say that, I won't act like this, I won't do this and I won't do that." That's when you become someone else. That's when you become fake to who you are. And guess what? Desperate times then. You're like a wounded animal. And guess what? You're probably going to be right at the back of the pack for the rest of your life.
The psychological impact of living a life that isn't true to yourself... I mean, this is why people have these mid-life crises when their mom and dad have told them to go and be a banker or a lawyer. They didn't want to be, they wanted to be a dancer or whatever, and then they get mid-life crises.
You look throughout psychology, I talk about this a little bit in my book. You look at certain communities like the LGBTQ+ community, there's suicide rates are so high amongst those groups because a lot of them have been oppressed in a way where they can't live their true life, they can't be their identity. So they've had to live a fake life, and then you see suicide rates go up because that is a form of torture.
When I asked you the question about "would you rather lose it all," one would actually, maybe even if I questioned myself, say, "Well, what are you losing?" If you're losing TV shows and you're losing things that aren't true to yourself, is it a loss?
No, it's not a loss. Because you will always find something that fits you. If you have the passion and the drive and the ambition and the positivity of knowing who you are, then ultimately the world is your oyster. People have this impression of me that I'm this hard-faced, drill sergeant, non-accepting person. I am the complete opposite. Go and be the fuck you want to be. That's my message.
Don't let anyone force you into saying anything, doing anything, or being anyone else. Be yourself. But this is the side that people don't see of you. But this is my personal side, Steve. People see what they want to see, the media will write what they want to write, they'll make you out to be who they want you to be.
But you can't put all of that into a hashtag. You've got to characterize yourself in ten letters. This is the problem with issues that are complex and nuanced—there's different layers. If it doesn't fit into a hashtag, then... and this is the football team analogy as well.
I want to talk though, going back to when you started in the military. One thing I find really interesting is the guy that was running around drinking, boozing, getting in trouble. For him then to go into the military and pass with flying colors is like a massive contradiction in my mind. One appears to be a guy that's kind of out of control and seemingly lacking the appreciation of authority, and then the other guy is one that's able to do what he's told and follow orders. How did you achieve such heights?
That's what they want. That's what they need. They need the animal on the battlefield. They need the aggression, they need the violence. Because ultimately on the battlefield, you counter violence with extreme violence. There's zero tolerance to violence in civvie street. In society nowadays, you show any form of violence, you're going to end up behind bars. Been there.
But in the military, you counter violence with extreme violence. You counter anger with extreme anger. And you're... that's needed. I needed to be that person on the battlefield. I needed to cut myself off from any emotional feelings, any emotional discrepancies because they were the missions that I went on.
I was hunting down Taliban commanders. I was getting into fucking shitstorms into firefights every week, two or three times a week. I needed to call on those demons to come to the forefront of who I was to get the job done. Then switch it. You're expected to switch it because one moment you're kicking a door down, taking out enemy combatants, the next door you're kicking a door down, there's women and children in there.
So you live on *this* side or you live on *that* side. And then when you get the two confused... you know, I might be an Afghanistan Best Man. Put me on camp... "Well, you can't be doing that, Ant." "Well, who the fuck do you want?" You know, you can't be doing that, you can't be getting into fights downtown, you can't be... I used to get into a hell of a lot of fights. Ruined my military career.
But then put me in... three tours of Afghanistan I've done, almost back-to-back. Perfect out there. So what animal do you want? It's okay to be able to flip from one to the other when you're here, but when you live on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum, you're going to get confused every now and then. You're going to be met with a situation in society where you're met with aggression, you're met with violence, and this demon takes over.
It's just a moment of madness. It's just a confusion, conflict between the two. Between the two people. And sometimes it just goes "whack." But before you know it, that crossover is too much.
They're both trying to survive but in different environments.
In completely different environments. Sometimes those environments, you're forced to act, and those environments get switched. It's literally like a flash in front of your eyes: "Bang, bang! Shit, I used the wrong person there or used the wrong environment." That's the world that I live in. That was my life.
I used to come back from Afghanistan and I've got four children at home—a fifth one from a previous relationship who's 19—but I used to come home... I remember coming back from Afghanistan and my daughter was born—she's 13 now—my daughter was born ten days before I left for a six-month tour in Afghanistan. So she was born, so I didn't know her. I came back six months later and she was nearly seven months.
Then I went straight on Special Forces selection for another six months. So I came back after like a year, really, of not really being at home, to a one-year-old daughter who barely recognized me. She would push me away. I'd interact and I'd be playing dolls on the floor, Barbies. My wife came in one day and I was playing with these Barbies, and she thought I'd lost the plot. She's like, "Ant..." I've got these Barbies together trying to make her laugh, trying to make her smile. Because for the last year, she's just seen this pent-up war machine.
I've come back and I'm not very easy to deal with during those transitions. I need a bit of time.
What do you mean by that? You're not very easy to deal with in those transitions?
You come back from... you can't just take a head off—even though I *can* do it, I can take a head off and put a different head on. But that transition of kicking doors down to being back with a family, I need... even now, when I come back off of filming, before we actually start getting on again for I start settling back in to the family, it takes about two weeks.
Me and my partner are the best, most compatible partners in the world. The teamwork that we have is absolutely amazing, hence why I've been with her for 16 years, been married for 14. But it still takes that two-week period for me breaking her routine, of me coming in, taking over everything, taking the kids to school, ruining her life that she's built.
I come in like a storm. It takes two weeks before that storm normally calms down and we go, "Oh right, okay." And again, not arguing, but just disagreements, just control issues. Two worlds colliding. Then after the two weeks, as everything settles, I'm away again. I might be on tour, I might be in Australia for two months now. So it's that constant communication or that constant crossing over of worlds that you need to really sort of mold together. As my life is getting more and more and I'm not in these high-octane situations, I'm not in these life-or-death situations, it's becoming easier and easier.
You talk about... I had actually a military commando sat in this seat as well, who talked about his experiences. When he came back from war, he was talking to me about the PTSD he suffered. Just being around the house, seeing the tin cans stacked on the shelf at home and barking at his wife because they weren't straight. Feeling some of the disciplines of war coming home with him.
I've seen you talk on this topic, so I know that you've handled that in a different way. But what are some of the things that have come back with you from war that you don't like? Or that you think aren't helping you in your personal life?
They're two different worlds. You deal with dark humor, dark banter to get you through certain situations. That dark humor and dark banter and dark way of talking is the norm to you, because you live and breathe that. Sometimes that comes out, and only when I'm doing a military-style show. You come out, you might say something which is for me, probably a throwaway comment or a bit of banter. Then you realize there's a hundred-odd crew members listening.
It's nothing, you know, it just might be I might say something about someone or it's never direct. It's always an indirect conversation that we have. It's that military banter that I fuckin' hate. Sometimes I hear myself talking like a military man and I hate it. I might say military words: "hoofin," "honkin," "wazz"—there's loads of them out there.
I think to myself, "Why are you talking like that?" But it just comes out because I might find myself in a high-octane situation, in a stressful situation, in an aggressive situation, in a violent situation, which I revert back to what I know works, which is ultimately this military person. But then I think, "Fuckin' hell, I'm not in the military environment, I'm in society. I've got to..."
Controlling that I find really difficult. But knowing, also acknowledging that it *needs* to be controlled. I'm not in the military anymore. I always hate this: "once a Marine, always a Marine." You get people go, "Hey, once a Marine, always a Marine!" I'm like, "I was a Marine 12 years ago, 10 years ago." Now I'm a media TV presenter, I'm now an extinguished author, I'm now, you know... I like to say about mindset—my mindset guru—I go around and do my tours. I'm in a completely different space.
But I have to pull upon this young soldier every now and then in order to get the job done, because I know that that works. I know that if I do that, but I just need to fine-tune it. I need to buffer it around the edges, which again, is a work in progress. I put my hands up when I go, "Fuckin' hell, shouldn't have said that or shouldn't have done that." I'm the first one to admit it. But people have to realize that it's a work in progress. It's not something that I can change overnight.
You need to understand me. You need to understand who I am in order to acknowledge that, "Oh, okay, bloody hell, yeah, that was a bit uncomfortable to see." Some of the things that we do with the recruits, they're like, "Fuckin' hell, Ant, he's on his knees and you're literally saying to him 'Stay there, you don't belong, you're a piece of shit,' blah blah blah." It's hard for people to see that and to watch that, but ultimately there's always a positive motivator behind that.
That's where people I think get confused. Negativity is a great fuel. It's a great source to use to get to where you need to be, but only if there's a positive motivator ahead of it. You can't use negativity to get through a situation if there's not a positive motivator to aim towards. It's like a plow. The plow is the positive motivator, and the fuel is the negativity—whether it's aggression, whether it's revenge, whether it's prove people wrong, whether it's... these are all things that fuel you.
But be sure that there's always a positive motivator. So when I'm talking like that to the recruits, believe it or not, it's to get the best out of them. To make them realize what they're capable of. Make them bring their attributes and personality to the forefront so they can identify who they are. A lot of people, I bring that to the forefront, or I flip that mirror on them and they look at themselves and they go, "Pfft, no, I don't like what I see," and they VW or they go or they leave.
That's what I was going to say. It's also a filter. And that's what a selection process is.
It's a filter. And that's what a selection process is. But that's how I live my life, Steve. I'm so brutally honest with what I do and situations I find myself in and the environment that I choose to be in. It's that brutal honesty, it's that brutal sort of truth that the motivator is always becoming a better version of who you are. Of learning something, growing from it, and becoming a better version of who you were yesterday.
How important is it to take personal responsibility for your outcomes in life? Because there's a growing culture of blame and victimhood. I see this as well as someone that... the best thing that probably happened to me is if I was successful and I had parents that were rich and I had loads of money and I got a degree and I got these great grades, people would immediately go, "Well, no, Steve can't tell us anything because he got it handed to him."
Fortunately, I was the opposite. Black kid, born in Africa, kicked out of school, dropped out of university after one lecture, got no degree, parents are bankrupt. So I can talk a little bit more about personal responsibility without being discredited and people saying, "Oh well, of course you can fucking say that." But I see this growing culture.
Because I was a kid in Moss Side in Manchester stealing pizzas to feed myself only seven or eight years ago, and I know that my mindset and the behavior that my mindset created is the reason I'm sat here now. Of course there's luck, timing—I understand that. But my mindset increased my probability of being sat here now. So I want to preach that to people, especially people that don't want to take personal responsibility. Victimhood or blame keeps them nice and safe and comfortable and it means they don't have to look in the mirror. They go "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you guy!" and they... but it's hard to attack me because what are you going to say? What privilege I had was moving to this country as a baby.
That's the privilege of knowing who you are, Steve, so you can take all that in. Because *they* haven't got the privilege of knowing you. But you've got the privilege of knowing yourself because guess what? You've been there, you've done it, you've got the t-shirt, you've been honest with yourself, you realized your mistakes, you realized your errors of your way, you learn from failure, you grow from it, you become a better version of who you are.
That's why I say that statement of "we have the privilege of knowing you" is so powerful because ultimately that's what you fall back on all the time. That's why you can take that and you can... it will bounce off you. It's just like, that's your negativity, that's your... it's nothing to do with me. That's you, and it bounces off me like it bounces off you.
But the moment you step into that victim mentality, that's when you feel that the world owes you everything. That's when you feel like, why is he where he is and I'm not there? Why has he got this and I haven't got that? Why... Oh right. Well, I could quite happily go back and not be canceled. For example, if I went, "Oh guys, yeah, really, really sorry about that, but I suffer from a bit from PTSD, you know, with the death of my father, you know..."
Fuckin' hell, it's like, one, I don't suffer from PTSD. How many times have I had that thrown at me, Steve? "Ant, if you say you suffer from PTSD, who can question that?" Well, no one can question it. Actually, wait, there's one person that can question it. Me. Because I haven't got fucking PTSD. "Oh no no, you haven't Ant, but if you say that then the papers will do this, the courts will do this, people will start to go 'Oh well actually, you know, the stuff that he's been through and he's seen, he's done, he's witnessed. Of course, listen, throw him another bone, give him another chance, feel sorry for him.'"
Fuck that. It's like when I went to prison. I left the military, went to prison. Got into a violent altercation. Violence on violence. Of course, put my hand up 100%, I'll do my time. My lawyer said to me, "Ant, do you want to go to prison?" I was like, "Of course I don't want to go to prison. Who wants to go to prison?"
He said, "Well, listen, here's your out." He went, "Say you've got PTSD. If you say you've got PTSD," he said, "I guarantee you, you will not go to prison. You'll get a suspended sentence, you'll have to go and do a couple of courses, and then you'll be at home with the family."
I had four kids and a wife—actually at the time I had two children and a wife at home that relied on me. But I couldn't lie to myself. I thought—don't get me wrong, I'm not going to lie to you—I thought to myself, "You know what? That sounds appealing." Because who can tell me that I haven't got PTSD?
But then the question always goes back to you. Because only you hold the answer, Steve. Only you have that answer. Only *I* knew that answer. I could lie to myself and live a lie and fuck knows where I'd be now. I might be a bloody PTSD counselor. I might be... but I would have gone down that road for years.
Say I got a two-year suspended sentence. Two years of going down a road that wasn't me. Going down that road of pure lies. Every step I took wouldn't be a true one. I always say to people, people will mold you and direct you in life. That's what people are there for, good people anyway, they try and mold... but if that first footstep that you take is not a true one, I said, do not take it.
And the only person that knows that is you. And I always, always, always go back to that. "Do I feel comfortable taking this footstep?" "Yes, I do." The rest of the world doesn't. Well, guess what? I feel comfortable doing it. "Yeah, but *that* person's going to have something to say about it. *She's* going to have something to say about it. *They're* going to have something to say about it." I don't care. Is it true to me? Go back to who I am. "Yeah." Boom, I take it.
And I deal with whatever comes at me. Because that can bounce off me. Because as we spoke about, it's like we know who we are, we know what we're about, we know we're good people. So I'm willing to take that. Bang, bang, bang! And it does, Steve, it does literally bounce off me. But also it—when it does get into me, because the moment it starts... when it gets over it, it *does* get into me—once I sit down and process it, it fuels me.
I feel like Thanos. It's just like because I'm being true to who I am and all this negativity and I'm thinking, "Right, just boom!" Because guess what? I preach positivity until it comes home. Everything I believe is down to a positive mindset and how you perceive the way that you think.
We have this default mindset which is negative—everything's like "what if this, what if that, I won't do that because of this." Mine's the opposite. Mine's like, "Right, the best outcome is this, this, this. If anything comes along, I deal with it." And it's *that* mindset that I always, always fall back on and again, it's one of those that I find so liberating that I can just think that way.
But I put myself in the firing line. I put myself constantly in the firing line to constantly challenge myself, to constantly flip these negatives into positives. Without negativity, you wouldn't have positivity. It wouldn't exist. It's a polar opposite. So people say... but so I challenge negativity. I love negativity because I will challenge it and challenge it and challenge it. I love the work ethic and the psychological resilience it takes to challenge negativity.
A lot of people, when negativity comes, they ignore it or they bat it off or they run away. But the moment you dig into it, and you dig into it and you dig, and it takes time—
It tests you as well, isn't it?
It tests you, right? And you dig into it and then all of a sudden you see a little light. You see a little glimpse of positivity. And that's all you're looking for, is that one little seed. You grab that, boom, bank that, and then you grow that seed until you find the next one. And there's nothing more rewarding in this world than flipping a negative into a positive.
Because if you're willing—and again, if you're willing to work hard enough and you're willing to take the shit and the fucking bullshit and everything that surrounds negativity—if you're willing to dive into the center of it and you're willing to work in order to flip it into a positive, then I guarantee you you will find a positive in it. And I guarantee you that will be the most rewarding thing you ever do.
And it's like failure. It's exactly the same with failure. I look at failure and it's just a challenge to me. It's like, "You can't do that Ant, you don't know enough about that, you're going to fail at that." Well, listen, I'll tell you what, I probably *will* fail at it, but I'm not scared to commit because I know that the moment I commit to failure, I'll take two or three or four steps into failure. And I might go, "Yeah, right, I haven't achieved that."
But those three or four steps that I've taken, that's what I bank. Those moments in the moment. That's what I bank. A lot of people, they might take on failure and then they might fail their objective and they think, "Oh I failed that, therefore I'm a failure." And they forget how far they've come. That's just completely automatically written off because they're going, "Oh, I failed that." "I won't go near that again."
That becomes part of your identity. "I am a failure."
"I am a failure." So they any time failure's at they think "safety bubble, safety bubble, victim bubble," whatever, they won't go anywhere near it. But I love it. When negativity comes along and failure comes along, I'm so intrigued on what I'll get out of it. I'm so intrigued what I'll learn from it. Because when you learn, you grow. When you grow, you become a better version of who you are.
It's just that knock-on effect that it has. And failure is exactly that. Failure isn't going anywhere. I've failed up to now in my life, I'm going to fail to the day I die. So are you, so are you, so are you. Every single one of you in here are going to fail. Whether you like it or not, it is everyday part of life as much as it is breathing. It's surrounded by us. So why do we ignore it? If it's part of who we are and part of what makes the world tick, then why don't we use it to our advantage?
Because the perceived cost of failure, whatever that might be—Jenny at work is going to think I'm not so whatever and this person's going to write this about me—the perceived cost, especially in the short term, feels greater. It feels... and that's the same force of like the PC brigade. It's like, it's better just to stay in your lane today and to just put your head down, be quiet.
Because people think—and this is where it's wrong—people think that's the safest place to be. Reflecting on my own journey, when I went to university and I knew that this was a piece of shit and that I needed to quit if I was actually going to become an entrepreneur. Calling my mom and then telling her I'm dropping out and her telling me never to speak to her again—that was the resistance. That was the moment where life goes, "Stay in your fucking lane."
But my brain was so clear: the biggest risk, the biggest failure would have been staying in university and living a life not true to myself. Some people say, "Oh you're so much courage." Courage would have been staying. And I think that's the thing. Of course, my mom says "I'll never speak to me again" and I don't speak to her for two years, but look at the upside of living my... even if I'd failed, look at the upside of being myself.
I think that's pretty much what I'm hearing from what you're saying is like: there's this the short-term resistance where it's like "Oh my god if you fail you're going to lose it all." No, you'll lose it all if you *don't* try.
Exactly how the thing about it is, the way that your mindset thinks is it's not a complicated way of thinking, Steve. It's so simple, so simple-stupid that it's almost incomprehensible. And everything that I do—and you just said it then, it makes complete sense to me. Every single word that you said about that story, I'm like that, "Yes! It's obvious!"
Why wouldn't you do that? But sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to process, the hardest to achieve. And with my books and my tours, I don't get people coming off my tours going, "Ant, you know I've tapped into this part of my brain now, thank you for this." They come off my tours or read my books and go, "Ant, it was always in there. You just gave me this kick-yourself moment where I'm just like: how did I not see that? How did I not..."
You put it in such layman terms because I'm a simple man. I'm not an intellect, I'm not a bookworm. I'm a simpleton, I'm a simple man. I keep things... the way that I get to my answers is: good-bad, right-wrong, positive-negative, yes-no. But it's listening to who I am. It's the most simplest way of getting to where you need to be, but we let the constraints and the bullshit and the complications of society and what other people think cloud all of that.
I almost see it like two dials. One of them is this voice inside which everyone has in them. They're saying "Go and dance in the hills of Costa Rica." Then there's this other really loud dial, the sound dial, and it's society and your mom and your whatever. And that one's saying "Go be a fucking lawyer and shut up." In all of our lives, I think one dial is a little bit higher than the other.
The challenging thing, but the most important thing you can do if you want to reach your potential, be happy, avoid mental health issues, avoid mid-life crises, is to turn up the internal dial and just try and get that other dial, which is society's voice, right down to fucking zero. I just feel if everyone could just do that in their own lives—which is not easy to do, because listening to this internal voice is going to come with real resistance. People are going to cancel you, my mom's going not speak to me for years.
But in... that's the short-term cost for a long-term gain. As is the way with comfort, I see like comfort and avoiding that resistance is a... it looks like a friend. It's a short-term friend but a long-term enemy. And if you'd in these moments where you've said you've been "canceled," had you caved, short-term friend—probably would still have a show or two—long-term enemy.
And I say to people, what you've got to realize is that you are with yourself 24 hours a day for the rest of your life. No one else can even come close to that. No one else will ever come close to that. So you are with yourself your whole life. People they come and go, situations they come and go. So ultimately you've got to live with yourself first before you try and live with anyone else, before you try and live with any situation, before you try and put yourself into any environment.
That's what I say to people, and they go "Wow." I'm like, you're with yourself 24 hours a day to the day you die. Nothing comes close to that. No one comes close to being anywhere near that.
That's the person you've got to honor.
That's who you are. So that's the person who you've got to make happy. That's the boss. That's the person you make it for. Please yourself and ultimately, what comes out will be raw, should be authentic, should be true. And then you'll find your belonging. You'll find your circle, you'll find your like-minded people, you'll find your belonging.
You must know: as you get more successful, as you start thinking, you start changing, you start evolving your mindset more and more and more and more, your circle gets smaller and smaller and smaller. I'm happy with that. I'm happy with that because, not that I'm above anyone or below anyone, we're just on different ends of the spectrum. Because guess what? I'm going to keep evolving. My mindset's going to keep changing. I'm going to keep getting wiser, I'm going to keep getting more knowledgeable, I'm going to keep being honest with myself.
§02Transcript — part 2
For me, that's my purpose in life. Nothing out there—it's nice to have the nice cars, the nice houses, don't get me wrong, it's nice to have money. I've had no money, and now I've got money. I know which side I'd rather be on, okay? But that's all part and parcel with being true to who you are. My purpose in life, which I will never achieve but which I find fascinating, is trying to get to the best possible version of Ant Middleton.
Knowing that I'll never get to that answer because I'll be on this constant progression of becoming a better version of who I am. But I'll never become the *best* version of who I am because that's when you're perfect. That's when you're 100% you and that's not real, it doesn't exist. But the purpose of getting closer and closer and closer to that answer is such a fascinating journey for me that there's nothing that comes close to it.
Whether I have the canceling or the shows that keep coming or the TV production companies that call me now and the channels that call—whether I have failures or whatever it may be, all of these, everything that bounces in towards me is something to learn from. And it's a lesson and I'm going to learn from it and I'm going to grow from it and I'm going to get closer and closer to the answer. Closer and closer to my objective. Closer and closer to my purpose. And that is to try and get as close as I can to being the best version of myself.
I'm addicted by it. I'm obsessed with it. So like I said, when I get that Thanos moment, bring all this negativity at me because I'm just churning away at it. Doesn't mean I'm always happy. I don't go around sprinkling positive fairy dust, I'm not that type of preacher. But I preach working on your mind to make it positive. Challenging negative situations, thinking "this negative situation I've got to tackle it with a positive mindset." Make a concerted effort to train your mindset to think positively.
To flip the script from this default mindset where everyone thinks negatively. I love working at that. So all this stuff that you give me, it does... once I go... because I go quiet. This last week's been a media storm. And I'll go quiet and I'll be with my family, I'll be with my management. They're like, "Ant, you're quiet." I'm quiet because I'm churning away at negativity. I'm not unhappy. I need to be left alone for two, three days, maybe a week.
Because there's so much negativity coming in and I'm chipping away at it, trying to find light. Ah, boom! Bang! Then I bank this positivity, and then the next week I'll be boom, back to Ant. Back to this naturally positive person because I've trained my mind to think like that. I'm always in a positive head space.
But sometimes I go quiet, doesn't mean I'm always happy. So don't get positivity mixed up with happiness. Because they're two completely different things. And happiness comes from in knowing who you are. It comes from being true to who you are, knowing who you are. You could be the poorest man in the world and you could have no one or nothing, but you could still be happy. You know the script.
One of them's like a general sense of optimism, that I'm positive about the future, and the other's this like internal contentment. But our moods change. We have shit days, bad days, whatever. But internally we're optimistic and tight, right?
One of the questions I really wanted to ask you because of what's going on in the world with this whole pandemic and COVID, is I was thinking as I was brushing my teeth or whatever this morning: if my audience could ask you one thing, probably it would be around the fact that the world changed this year. A lot of people's lives were uprooted. They lost their businesses, their jobs, whatever.
And then I thought, Ant's probably, well for sure has been in situations where, whether it's on the battlefield or whatever, that this was a fight where the odds were against you. In those moments, there's winners and losers. You always talk about mindset. What is the mindset that people need in these moments where the odds don't look like they're very much in their favor from the battlefield where you've emerged victorious because you didn't indulge in victimhood or whatever?
It's about embracing change. Majority of people, they live their life on autopilot or they live in the void, I call it. Where everything around them is changing. The world is constantly changing, everything around us is constantly changing. Whether it's climate control, the way that we think, the way that we're evolving, the way that the world is going, the way that animals are evolving, the way that the sea is encroaching or decreasing—everything is changing around us.
And we are designed to change with it. So what we're actually doing is we're actually going against the grain when we become complacent, when we get comfortable, when we get into one sort of situation and we stay in that situation. You're working in the opposite way that the world should be evolving. We should be constantly changing, we should be constantly evolving, we should be constantly moving forward.
Look at my career. I've gone from the army to the Marines to the Special Forces to the media to books to authors to literacy to business. It's like I'm constantly... I love, love change. I love being put in a situation where I'm literally chucked in the deep end with dive boots on and I have to tread water. I love that because it's so challenging and it's so stimulating that you're forced to change.
You're forced to think of something different. You're forced to do something different. You're forced to change the way that you approach something because you've been put in a situation where it's been forced upon you. But when it's not forced upon you—which the world does, it force it upon us—but when it's not forced upon you, when you get comfortable, then you get... you fall into this void, you fall into this complacency, you fall into not moving along with the world.
But does that... are those your demons again? Because I'm thinking, the reason Ant loves to be chucked into the water with his dive boots on is because you relish challenge. This comes maybe links to the victimhood point and a general problem in culture in society where people like comfort. A lot of people are being brought up now with cotton wool.
We're not designed to be comfortable. We're not designed to have cotton wool strapped around us. It's society, it's the restraints and the shackles of society that is forcing us to be like this. It's not who we are. Look at how far we've come. Look through history how far we've come.
And I feel like we're actually devolving now. I actually feel that we've got to a point where we're going backwards where, you know... it used to be survival of the fittest. You used to have to push a rock in front of your cave to survive. Used to be at the top of the food chain. We're not designed to be comfortable. We're not designed to be wrapped up in cotton wool. We're not designed to be shackled down.
And that's why there's so many problems in the world right now, is because of these shackles, because of these chains, because of the restraints society is putting on us. It's forcing us into mental illness. It's forcing us to act in ways that we're not designed to act in. It's forcing us to switch off the most powerful tool that the universe—that's in the universe—your mind. We're forced to just put it on dormant.
We're going against the grain of what we're supposed to do, of who we're supposed to be, on how we're supposed to act and how we're supposed to evolve. So when you've got this going round like this and then this stops, you've got this synchronicity that's not working in partnership with each other. Without us on this planet, this planet wouldn't be as evolved as it was. Without the planet, then we wouldn't be evolved as it was.
And what we're actually doing is you've got this... these two forces that are grinding against each other rather than working together in synchronicity.
I was reading this crazy thing the other day, but it shows that the life expectancy in the UK and the US fell for two years in a row for the first time ever. And they look at the numbers as to why the life expectancy has fallen, and it's because of the opioid crisis—people who are getting addicted to drugs.
And then they say, "Okay, so why are people getting more and more addicted to drugs?" and they say, "Oh, because they're lacking meaning in their life." And when people lack meaning, there's the science they've shown whether you do it to animals, you take away their meaning... I talked I think in the last podcast, I hate to repeat myself but I also don't care.
About these rats! I write about my book it's so fascinating. They put a rat in a cage and take away everything from it, and they give it the option of drinking heroin water or normal water. It becomes a drug addict. They then introduce a partner, some stimulation, a running wheel, some other things, and they give it heroin water or normal water, and it doesn't choose the heroin water. It doesn't become a drug addict.
Just by inserting meaning into its life, it avoids the heroin. And then you think, okay, so what's going on in the society? You think, well, people are lacking challenge and meaning because we're trying to create a culture maybe where challenge and meaning are a bad thing. And that's actually having an adverse effect because as you say very eloquently, like that's not who we are.
Do you know what? I love how you just put that, Steve, because you've just put my thoughts into a scientific form. Because again, I'm not an intellect, I'm not a bookworm. I have psychiatrists come up to me and go, "Where did you study, Ant? What books do you read?" And I'm like, "No, no, this is all, every single ounce of me is through life experience. I come from the University of Life."
What you've just said there, it's strange that I've put that as in how I'm thinking. I haven't read anything from a book and you've just put it into a whole scientific and that's exactly that. It's exactly what I've just said and you've just put it into something that's been proven. And that's the way that I think, that's the way that I perceive life.
It's funny because as you say, you're not an intellect, but I've sat here with intellects and they've said the exact same thing. Johann Hari, he wrote a book on this, *Lost Connections*: nine reasons why people are getting depressed and anxious. He sat here and he said the exact same thing. So when I hear it twice or three times and then I read it in another book, I think these are just fundamental truths.
And when I get to that point where you've been, you've walked a different walk of life to that intellect who's wrote a book on it, but you've both arrived at the same place. I'm going to go, "Okay, that's going in my diary forever."
Yeah, but that's super interesting as well. It's like you can't unwrite that because it's written within evolution. It's written within the way the world has evolved. It's written in the way that we think. It's written in the organs, the muscles, and the body that we have. It's all here, it's all present right now.
It's not in a book that we're going to read; it's happening right now. It's here, it's real. This energy source that you are—you're a fucking energy source, we're energy sources—is synchronized with the planet, which is one big energy source. It's one big ball.
I had a moment of clarity when I was filming. I've always felt a connection with the Earth. I talk about, we can climb to the highest peak of the apex of the world, Mount Everest. We can climb to that because people have said, "Yeah, but we've had to do this, this, and this in order to get there, working against the mountain." I'm like, "No, the way that that mountain is formed, that's a foothold for you. That's an arm reach for you. That's... it's designed to work with you."
So don't look at a mountain and go, "Fuckin' hell, I've got to get up there, it's working against me." No, no, it's that little stone there that you put your foot on, that's helping you up to stand on its apex. It's helping you up to stand on its summit. And I've always felt a connection with the Earth. Always, always, always. You know, when I put my feet in it, when I put my hands... I belong here.
I have this theory that people think that, you know, that if you put the planet as a tree, they think we're just birds that come and sit on the tree and think we're just visitors and then we go. We're not. We're the leaves of the tree. We're the leaves of the tree. And then the... we grow in it, we're part of this evolution.
That's very spiritual.
Yeah, but I'm not a spiritual person.
Maybe you are but maybe your definition's wrong. Because I posted on my Instagram last week, I said, I've never thought of myself as a spiritual person because I don't resonate with like the hippie stigma of it. I'm not that guy. However, the end of my story was like, "If you define spirituality as feeling somewhat connected to the world, which I now do, then I now consider myself to be spiritual." This was one story and this was like three days ago.
A lot of people do ask if I'm spiritual and I always say no. But yeah, maybe I am. But it's that theory of being connection. One can't live without the other. And we're the leaves. Yeah, we're going to fall off and there's going to be new leaves. But everything recycles back into itself. We don't just all of a sudden go up into... everything goes back into the Earth, everything regenerates.
You're definitely spiritual. Because I went and googled the definition of spirituality, and the definition I read was "the feeling or belief that we are interconnected with the world." The stigma is the issue. That's what alienates both of us from saying "I'm a spiritual person," because we're not like hippies, we're not like... but we are.
I love that. And going back to this moment where it just resonates, and the reason why I do all these things is I just want to re-confirm that my way of thinking is true to me. That's why I put myself in these awkward situations because it gives a lightbulb moment where I go, "Do you know what? Bloody hell, I'm on the right path, I'm getting this right."
I was away filming and I felt this, you know, I was out in the mountains in Chile, in the Andes. I could just feel a real connection, a real presence. It's a lovely, lovely feeling. And I can just remember, an energy connection. It was really strange that it happened. An energy connection. I was walking along alongside of this mountain. As I was walking along alongside, I heard a big "boom," massive bang.
I turned towards the mountain and, I'm not joking, it was probably about 300 meters away. And this bit of rock must have passed—no word of a lie—within two meters of me. It had a big... because the mountains, they're an energy source. They're bursting, they're literally like that. And the mountain every now and then—it's the first time I experienced it, I'd heard about it but I'd never experienced it—it went "bang!" And it nearly took my head off to the point where I was like, "Fuckin' hell, I thought this was incoming."
Then I realized, you see a little bit of the mountain fall off, boom, boom, boom. And it's where the energy, the energy of that mountain... and unless you get out and about you see it, it's like "poof!" And I thought to myself, "Wow." I remember stopping and thinking, "I felt that before that even... not that specific moment, but I felt the energy." I felt the connection there. And then that was almost as if the mountain was talking to me going, "What you're feeling is right. Listen. We are powerful. We have a connection. Without you there wouldn't be me, without me there wouldn't be you."
Just that confirmation just makes me realize, "Wow, this is powerful stuff. This is how you should be feeling." Once you're in tune with yourself and connected to this planet, then there's not much that you feel that you can't do. There's not much that phases you in life. There's not much that you won't try and achieve, and there's not much that you *won't* achieve.
I feel sorry because I can talk about being in tune with the planet and being connected to Mother Earth. But unless you are in tune with that, then you just think I'm talking bollocks. You just think, "What the hell is he on about? He's some spiritual idiot." This is the personal life that I really keep to myself. I've spoken a lot about it today, which I've never spoken about before.
But this is who I am. So there's so much more behind what the media put out and what the papers put out and what the media agenda is and what they want you to be seen as. There's this whole life behind me that is just... that's the real me. That is who I am. So when any of this other stuff that's made up by other people that comes in from not within, it is so easy for me just to bat off.
So easy for me just to go bang, bang, bang. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I work harder at it to bat it off, sometimes it does stick and you have to go... but it's such a liberating feeling. I'll always say to people, find out who you are. Go on that journey—not of self-discovery, because that sounds spiritual—go on that journey of finding your purpose, of becoming the best version of who you are. Because once you start that journey, you will get addicted to it. It is fascinating and it will only serve you well.
It will only serve you well. Because it's a life... I want to live till I'm 150. Say I live till I'm 100. 100 years isn't long enough. I still want more, I want to know more, I want to be on this journey for as long as I can be on this journey. This is what gives me longevity, this is what gives me purpose. I want to be on this journey for as long as I can be.
When I think the only setback is when I think, you know, I've got another 50, 60 years of it, it sort of saddens me. So I'm hoping that by that stage, we can live to be a bit more immortal.
Well, listen Ant, I think that's a really powerful place to end. I think that's something that I'll continue to ponder. I wanted to say thank you though, because there are very few people that are... have the courage in this day and age to be themselves and to speak their mind. And unfortunately, it feels like a bit of a dying breed. But you're one of those people.
Having spent time with you before we started filming and during this conversation, I got to know, I had the privilege of getting to know who you are a little bit, as you say. And that's a person that I do respect, one that inspires me and reminds me of the importance of following my truest self. So I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for having this conversation today and thank you for being yourself.
Steve, you're a gentleman. Thank you.
Thank you.