Bez: Welcome back to the Combat Fuel Podcast.

Today we are joined by a guy called t He owns Combat Clipper company.

He is actually from my sister battalion and I was, uh, one

royal angling of Vikings.

He was two royal angling the poachers.

So welcome, TEG.

Thank you for your service.

Um, something that we don't thank people enough for, uh, in

this country, but who are you?

Welcome.

Teague: Thank you.

Obviously my name's Teg, as you said.

I had a three hour drive from camp in Kendrew Barracks.

Obviously we're still down there now with the Vikings and the poachers

in the same battalion, in the same camp for the first time ever.

I dunno where you, where you posted when you were, we were so, we were

per bright at the start, then down at Belford, you know, final rest place.

Bez: You were never, ever moving.

Yeah.

Then it was Woolwich.

Yeah, but they're both, they're in our camp now and everyone was

saying, 'cause there was always a, they say there was a beef between

the first and second Batalion.

Everyone thought there's gonna be loads of scraps when they turned up there.

But it's been sound, there's no, there's not, is there animosity at all?

It's been really good.

Yeah.

Both very grown up.

Italians aren't, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So Teague, you are obviously in the army still now, which I think is pretty cool.

We'll get to combat Clipper at some point, but let's just rewind this

story to, to where life began with you, like upbringing, mom and dad.

Yeah.

Happy, good upbringing.

Yeah, so I had a quite quiet upbringing.

I grew up in Surrey.

Uh.

Little town called Bookham.

Funny story, actually, my sister went to school with Draco Malfoy

from Harry Potter, Tom Felton, uh, at the Howard of Effingham.

So my older sister, uh, we lived there till I was about

11 going into secondary school.

So when my, when I was 10, my brother ended up dying.

My mom and dad used to work all the time.

So my mom worked for, as an area manager at Tesco.

My dad was an area man manager of Sainsbury's.

They were working away all the time.

Me and my sister were always with a child minder.

So when my brother died, they wanted to spend more time with

the family and have a t tightknit.

So we ended up leaving Surrey and moving to Lincolnshire and Linkages.

Why I joined the poachers, because that's where we recruit from.

And uh, we ended up moving to a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere

in Lincolnshire with a, into a shop.

It was a post office slash shop.

So dad ran the shop and then my mom used to work in the

post office, but I hated it.

Moving from somewhere where I'd grown up in Sury, where I loved it.

I had all my friends and stuff there to them move into Lincolnshire.

I was like, don't know anyone.

I'm starting secondary school in a new place.

I was like in the middle of nowhere as well, like a busy town in Surrey.

So then in a tiny little village with like maybe a thousand people.

And if that, we were the only camp, the only shop there.

Wow.

I ended up hanging around with the wrong people, getting in trouble and

uh, yeah, just doing silly stuff.

So I was like, I can't, I need to get away from this.

I mean, touched on that there, it was very brushed upon.

So you've got two sisters?

Yep.

Older sister, younger sister.

Two.

Bless his soul.

A brother that now unfortunately isn't here.

Yeah, that must have been what, 10, 11 years old you were

if you were moving away up.

I was, yeah.

So I was 10, he was 15.

Um, the younger sister's two years younger, so she was eight at the time.

And my older sister, I think she was just, just started university,

so she was kind of about the house.

It was just pretty much me and my sister and mom and dad and also my brother.

But then when he died, they wanted, my sister was still at uni

so they were like, right, let's move the family up to linkage.

And it was just me and my younger sister and mum and dad.

But again, they were just on top of us and I was like, listen,

I don't really like this.

I know all the time.

Yeah.

How did that affect me?

Some people, I mean, it's weird.

So because of that, I don't really remember my childhood that much.

Obviously I remember little bits, but it's such a gray area of

like cup, remember the word now.

I've like locked it down so much that I don't really think about it.

And I mentioned this on the um, Phil Camping podcast, but I've

never spoken about it before.

There's not many people that actually know this.

Like even my closest friends, I very rarely bring it up

until a conversation like this.

And I'm open about it, like I'm more than happy to talk about it.

It's something I've, my whole childish, I've just kind of like forgotten about it.

And up until I was probably about when I joined the Army is really

when I can remember 'cause I've just pushed everything so down and

it's, I don't really think back to it that often, like that away.

I can't remember.

Sorry that, that much.

There's little bits, but I don't speak to any of my friends there.

I don't speak to anyone that was in school with up until I joined the army.

No contact with at all.

Completely just disappeared.

I don't ever really think back to my childhood.

It's all the army and forward from there is all I can ever think of.

Wow.

That's powerful stuff to lose, lose a brother is, it's

helped me mentally though.

So I think going through that sort of trauma, you kind of,

I can get over that as a kid.

Nothing I say like, maybe not, not get over, but, you know, learn and instill

some resilience in you to be like life.

It's harsh to say, but it's life will go on.

Yeah, exactly.

You can't just stop, you know, this is an 11-year-old kid that's

just lost his older brother.

Yeah.

Um, could we ask you, feel free to, to not answer, but what, what happened to

him and, and how did that affect you?

Like you said, you've shut down, but I don't talk about how it happened,

but it's it, because I shut it down so much and it's effective relationships.

Like if you speak to my Mrs now she'll say I'm so emotionally

unavailable because I can just, things just don't bother me as much.

Like obviously I love my family and I love my kids, but I could go on, when

I went to Marley for seven months, my, yeah, seven months in Marley, but my

kid was only six months old at the time.

I was in work mode when I was away.

I don't really think about anything at home.

Like people get homesick and they miss their family.

I can just switch that off and I think that's because of what happened to

my brother, where I've just learned to just switch those emotions off,

concentrate on what I'm doing.

It doesn't really bother me.

Like obviously I love her misses, but I don't tell her every time I miss her.

Like I love her.

I don't say when I'm away, obviously I say we miss each

other, but it's more of just a.

You just, you generally just say, obviously I do miss her,

but I can concentrate on work.

And it's not like I'm homesick, I'm dying.

I need desperately need to get home.

Like I've seen some people that are really homesick.

They need to speak to people every day.

I could go a week, obviously, I still think of them, but I can go

a week without speaking to someone.

It doesn't, won't affect me as much as other people.

And I think that because of what happened to my brother, that's just my resilience

now is just hide that emotion on.

And it, the touchless actually, dare I say, it's a

fantastic trait to have mm-hmm.

In the military.

Yeah.

When we're gonna deploy on, on, on up tours.

You, you, you're married to the forces.

First time, you know, you've got a job to do.

And it's, um, like if we go as infantry, bread and butter is killed

or be killed, whe when it's on ops, you can't be worried about, you've

got bills, your misses back home.

So in a way yeah, as tragic as it was, it, it made you and, and

almost set path and, and gave you a skillset set that not many have.

And it is good and I'm thank kind of thankful for it, but at the same

time, again, it's like I said, it's affected so many relationships.

Yeah.

Like, I'm so happy in the relationship I'm with, with Lauren now.

Like, she's so sound, she wants attention.

I give her as much as I can.

But I think she now understands that like, even when I'm driving, I'll be so

blanked out and she'll say, are you okay?

And I'm like, yeah, I'm sound, I'm fine.

I don't need that assurance of like, I know we're sound, I don't need to be,

I don't need you to tell me that you love me or you miss me or anything.

I'm fine.

I, I don't need that reassurance all the time.

I just know it's there.

I do struggle a little bit to give the emotion to them, but I think

like if you speak to someone and friends, they know I care about them.

I, I'm just not that emotionally available to be like, right.

I don't need to tell you all the time.

I just think like, my mates, you mates, I'll look after you.

I'll be there whenever you need me, but I don't need to

be on top of you all the time.

I could have, I've got mates that I don't speak to you for months.

As soon as we meet each other again, it's like we're never

in a par and it's just sound.

I don't need that constant reassurance from people.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's the same, you know, there's some guys that, that I'll see, I'll speak

to them once every like five plus years.

Yeah.

And it's like you never, you never left visit.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You touched on saying you were a little bit naughty, we'll call it,

um, once you moved to Lincolnshire, you know, some, some stuff's

happened, um, with your brother and that it's obviously affected you.

Mm-hmm.

Um, if it's fair to say what, what was life like when you moved to

Lincolnshire and, and what kind of trouble were you getting yourself in?

It was, so we used to, because it's, you live in a village in the

middle of nowhere, lincolnshire's just like fields and stuff.

We used to steal fags from my mate's, dad, go down the park, make

fires and smoke, smoke his fags.

And then, uh, we used to go to the farmer's fields where there

was like hay bales and stuff.

And I remember getting chased by this.

We were, we pushed a, uh, there was like a, a dyke, like a ditch with like

water in it, stuff around this field.

And I ended up pushing the hay barrels into the dykes.

And this farmer was chasing us for ages.

And, uh, ev to be fair, actually, to be fair, that he did catch me

and, uh, he told my dad about it.

Obviously the, we are the only village in the whole, uh, only

shop in the whole village.

He knew exactly where my dad was, went and told him.

My dad made me work with him for like a week afterwards to

get to like, play back for it.

There was another time where I pissed up this guy's, we were

playing football down the park.

I pissed up this guy's house, he dragged me to my, to the shop.

He was like, this guy's pissed on my down.

And my dad, I remember him coming in my room and smashing

all my football trophies up.

So my dad, right, he's, I don't speak to him now.

He's actually disowned me, but, and I'll come on to this in a bit, but

he born and raised in Sri Lanka.

Uh, lived there till he was 23.

It was around the days when the Tamil Tigers were active.

That's like the terrorist organization in, in Srilanka.

And his mum used to work for the news like agent, uh, news reporter stuff.

And they'd gone in the village, threatened all the people and basically said, put us

on the news or we're gonna kill everyone.

And he had like his friends and people that saw, had a gun put in his face and

his mom was like, right, go to England.

So he moved to England on his own.

But he grew up in such strict, like Christian, I can't remember if it

was Christian or Roman Catholic, but certain religious rules where you

don't disrespect every single meal.

You couldn't waste foods.

Every meal you, you have on the table, you have to eat.

I couldn't leave the table until we'd finished that meal to the

point where we were like trying to hide food around me and my sister,

mom and dad weren't in there.

We were hiding food around the house and stuff.

And uh, it was super strict.

So when.

I've got people coming to the shop saying, this guy's pissed up my house,

or This guy's ruined my hay bail.

He'll be super strict on us, all like really bad, dis like strong

discipline and, uh, his worth ethic because he came over nothing.

He works like cleaning, um, swimming pools in the evening.

He worked for Asda during the day.

Swimming pools in the union worked his way up to the top.

I think my work ethic comes from that, but he couldn't.

And partly the empathy side is he had no, he would never, I don't think,

I couldn't remember a time where he'd be like, right, I love you.

I like, I don't need that Anyway.

But we weren't like your tight knit family at all.

We're not a happy, cuddly family that tells you other and you

love each other all the time.

And that's fine with me.

But, uh, yeah, he was just super strict and that's like his work

ethic and his OCD that's definitely taught me how we are now.

But his strictness and his beliefs are so bad that, uh, when I was in Marley

and I was obviously I had a, uh, I was a Mrs at the time and a kid who was six

months old, three months into the tour.

Uh, so I was messaging her.

She said, what's going on?

You seem different.

Like you're not giving us intention.

I said, I'll be completely honest with you.

I'm in work when I've got no feelings for you or my son.

I said, and I don't mean that in a mean way.

And she was like.

What do you mean?

Haven't got any feelings?

I said, well, I might get the feelings when I come back in another three

months, but I can't guarantee it.

I'm just telling you how I feel right now.

That's why I'm not giving you what you need.

And she was like, well, I'm not sticking around with the chance

that you get your feelings.

When I go back, I'm gonna go back to Liverpool.

She's from Liverpool.

And uh, I told my mum about it.

I was like, look, I think I'm gonna split up my, but more than

my ex. And she was like, don't be silly, it's just while you're away.

And I was like, well, it's not my choice.

She said, she's gonna go back.

I said, fine.

I come back and my dad, because he believes the person you're

with, especially if you've had a kid with him, with him forever.

And I was like, well, that's not my mentality at all.

That's, that's the way you believe.

Fine.

And I think I've still got the tech, the last text from

him was on like March, 2021.

And it basically was like a big essay saying You should

be with a person forever.

Me and your mum.

We go through hard times, but I'm with her 'cause we've got kids together.

Funnily enough, two years ago they split up now and they've

been together my whole life.

Uh, he, he was like, basically good luck.

And I was like, I've not spoken since that day.

Uh, two years ago, maybe.

It might get the dates slightly wrong, but my sister got, my younger sister

got married and we were there with my new partner now, or my current partner.

My dad didn't say anything to me.

The whole, even my sister were like, is your dad really not gonna talk to you?

And it was a point where I say he walked my sister down the aisle.

I was, um, I stood up at the front as like a authenticator

for the marriage or whatever.

It was like a witness type thing.

And, uh.

During the like party at the end.

I was at the bar at the same time with my dad.

Didn't even, I looked over him, he didn't even look at me once, didn't say a thing

'cause of the way he believes and he's so stubborn and his beliefs are his

beliefs and he just won't go back on that.

It's just a really weird process.

But that's the way he is.

Mom's completely different.

She's like a social butterfly.

I really happy he gets on with anyone and I was like, I always thought

you two were the solar opposite.

I dunno even know how you are together.

And it turns out two years ago, yeah, well yeah, it's too, but,

well, two years, two years later.

Two years ago they've split up.

So, so pre, pre Army, it sounds like you were just a lad.

You, you were just, you notice what we did going around, making fires,

doing bits with, with your powers.

It is not like you were out being a criminal trying to like No, be a,

a kid drug dealer peddling, no, not cocaine through school or anything

like that, you know, I mean, yeah.

Well I didn't even see anything to do with drugs till I was probably about 22, 23.

It, that didn't happen in Lincolnshire.

Yes, no.

A very quiet Yeah.

Rural town.

And it's, um, but so we, there, this is this pre army and what

was like your call to serve?

What was the bit that was like, do you know what I want to go and I

want to join, uh, the royal angling regiment and specifically the poachers.

The poachers because of where you were location wise, but what was

that, that call to be, I want to join and I want to be infantry,

not RLC Remy, uh, anything else?

Yeah, so I, I was in cadets at the time, so I used to play

sports, football, rugby, cricket.

I was like an all around sportsman.

Even like in school I was the captain of the football team.

All the athletics I used to, I, I dunno if it's still true now, but

I did hold the record for like.

Under 1575 meter hurdle thing.

And I had that for years, obviously.

I dunno, now I haven't looked at the school thing, but, um, it was when

I was, I was in cadets from maybe 15, probably about a year there.

Uh, parachute regiment, bury, went on a few exercises at the weekend and stuff.

I was like, I did rubbish in school.

I can't concentrate on any lessons.

Never diagnosed with a DH, adhd, but I'm always like hyper and just, I used

to love the sports stuff, didn't like sitting in lessons and uh, I was like,

right, I'm not gonna go to college.

I'm not gonna go to sixth form.

What can I do instead?

And I was like, well, I'm gonna try and join the Army.

So when I was still in school, went to careers office in Boston, they were

obviously recruit from Lincolnshire.

Um, they were like, well, I said, I wanna join the infantry.

My mom's like, no way.

I've lost one son.

I'm not losing another.

I was like, but that's all I wanna do.

You don't need any.

I knew I wasn't gonna get any GCSEs.

I could get into the infantry without any GCSEs.

You know.

You do the BARB test?

Yes.

Did the barb test.

Did crap on that.

Ate the crayons.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Literally basically the job, they were like, you need to choose three jobs.

So I was like, infantry, armored core.

I can't remember the last one.

I think it was like artillery or something stupid.

But I knew I didn't want any of them.

Did the pub test Failed everything other than infantry.

So I was like, mom, I'm gonna join the infantry.

So did selection while I was still in school.

So I turned 16th of February.

Four days later I was on my selection in Litchfield.

My GCSEs were in July, so I passed the selection.

I was like, don't need to do any GCSEs now.

So I kind of chin, I'd obviously sat them, but I got no, no results out of them.

I finished school in July, went on summer leave or half time, what you call it.

And then in September I joined Harrogate.

So I was like, this is what I'm gonna do.

But I was super skinny and weak and feeble in school.

Right.

Even though I was good at sports, I was like a tiny little skinny lad.

And people, the amount of people were like you, there's no way you are surviving

The army Afghan was going on at the time.

They were like, these are like men in the army.

You are little boy, what you on about?

And I was like, I'll prove you wrong.

That's changed now.

Has it prove you wrong?

Well, I'm still skinny little rat, but I still bench hundred kilo.

That's cute.

Um, so but you obviously you needed mom's permission then

to join and to go Harry again.

Yeah, under 18.

Yeah.

You were, you were too young say under 18.

But mum agreed to it, you know, she said Absolutely not.

You're not going infantry.

What, what made her be like, okay, was that like, this is what you want to do.

She could see that there was a, a passion for it.

Was there a role model or someone that you had that helped convince her?

No, I think I just, I said this is what I wanna do.

I think she kind of understood like she'd support anything I do anyway.

Like, she's great, she hates the idea, but if that's what I wanna do, then,

and she know I, I did well in cadets.

Did I get the science corporal?

I can't remember.

But yeah, I did really well in cadets.

I used to go on the exercise, loved it.

She knew that was a good fit for me.

So to be fair to her, when I was training for selection, she um,

used to drive me to, she had to do a PFA then two mile thing.

She to drive me two miles from the house.

Kick me out the car and be like, you got 10 minutes, 30 to get home.

And I'd be running, if I was going too slow, she'd like drive up my ass.

She was class.

So, um, yeah, she supported me the whole way and I finished training,

went to Germany, went to Cyprus.

Didn't really, I didn't come home the whole time.

I don't think that dad was still obviously on the scene there.

Supportive, not supportive of, of the military and, and the infantry.

I think I actually remember just before I joined or I might have come

back from leave, he took me to the pub for the first time and he sat

me down and that was the first time he ever said he was proud of me.

And it's, I think that's the only remember conversation I ever remember

in my whole life with him where he was actually like, you know, I'm proud of you.

You've proved everything wrong.

You, I can't remember if it was at what point it was whether I finished training

or I was in Germany leave or something.

I do remember going to the pub in the local village and he was

like, yeah, I feel proud of you.

And I was like, well this is, this is crazy.

It's the first time you've ever given me like praise for

anything, anything I've ever done.

'cause he's not, yeah, just the way he was you, big thing.

Then if it is obvious, he's still stuck with you to this stage.

Yeah, it has actually to fair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome man.

Awesome training was uneventful, anything happened?

You, you're smiling now.

So it's, I actually nearly died in training to be fair.

There was a, so went Harrogate 16 and they do a, call it LNIT Leadership

and initiative training where you do like, kinda like 80 hill walking type

things and we're in great Manchester in teams of six or something and you

get given a map and you'd be like, right, this is the area you're gonna go.

And you go in just your teams, but there'll be Ds walking around.

And I remember there was a, we were on this route and there was a big hole in

the ground, and I, maybe we were chucking stones down to see how deep it was.

We didn't have how deep it actually was, and we couldn't see.

So there's a big gap and a, like a clump of grass in the middle.

And I was like, to be able to see down, I'm gonna jump to this grass.

And I jumped and slipped.

Soon as I jumped my foot went, I slipped and I fell down the creek, the crack.

But it must've been about six feet down.

I got trapped in this thing.

The lads out said like someone, the lads laid on his belly, the other guy

held his foot and they like pulled me.

I remember I screamed as I went down, hit this thing like clunk.

All the lads were like flapping.

They got me out.

We reported it when we went back.

And I remember we sat in the cinema at the end of it and the Ds had

said, if I'd have, obviously I'd fall down, I'd die because it was

a hundred feet down to the bottom.

And somehow I managed to fallen in the tiniest little crack

in that gap and survived.

But I, that's the first time in my mind I've kind of, it was a split

second thing, but I was like accepted.

I remember hitting the grass.

I like my, as I slid down, my hands were like, cut up, cut up and had all the grass

in my fingers and I hit this crevice.

And I, during that time where I'd hit the ground, I was like, that's it.

I've, I'd accepted I'd died.

And it was, it was really strange.

'cause I, I remember the feeling when my brother died.

I felt like, I felt what he felt when he died.

And I remember messaging my mom about it.

This is when I was still in training.

Obviously she didn't want me to join the Army anyway.

I was like, I've just fell down a crack that could have killed me.

And she was like, I can't remember, really remember a response.

But she was like, I, I hate this.

I can't believe you've just told me that you should have, you've survived.

Why did you even tell me?

It's something to worry about.

And that's the first time I thought about that for a very, very long time.

But yeah, that was, that was a nightmare in training.

Other than that, everything was sound, how to give your mom a heart attack 1 0 1.

That isn't it.

Yeah.

I mean, so other than nearly dying by jumping down a hundred foot, um, crack.

Other than that, then training was okay.

Yes.

Any back squatting or you were straight through first timer?

No, I was the first timer.

Naturally.

Yeah.

I don't think there's anything I've No course I've ever failed.

No.

Oh no, I actually haven't.

You had to think about it, haven't I?

Didn't he?

No, haven't.

So there's no really any defining moments or anything during training

for you, uh, be at Harrogate or then you obviously, did you do your phase,

your last part of Catholic as well?

Yeah, so Harrogate, I didn't get any rank at Harrogate.

I was just, uh, just get on with that.

I was always like top three in all the fiz and events and stuff I did,

but I was never really bothered about promoting or anything.

Um, then went straight to Crick.

Yeah, did well at Crick, but it was, I can't really remember training that much.

Like it was such a long process of Haro.

It's, you're really there every year, aren't you?

So it's, it's so much going on.

Most of, in all the afternoons you're just doing your, um, functional

skills, lessons, a bit of training in the morning, like army stuff.

And in the afternoon you'll be in the classroom doing your like,

education, math and English.

So.

So I don't listen to lessons anyway.

Still didn't get any GCSEs?

Well the level 1 11 2 when I was actually Harrogate Nightmare.

But yeah, this I side of it, I enjoyed it.

And then Kari and then from Kari, straight out to Germany as a 17-year-old guy.

Did you have a choice, first or second Battalion when you were in Kari,

or, I think I was already aligned to, you're aligned to go poach.

Remember when we, we had our, I was like, I'm going Vikings.

And we sat down with uh, uh, I forgot his name, a sergeant that

was there, the recruitment guy.

And he is like, right, where does everyone wanna go?

I'm like, we've already been, everyone's like, I wanna go First

Battalion, because he knew Afghan was going on and was the Ross camp.

I think I can't, I don't think I really knew the difference between

the two battalions at the time.

Right.

Obviously in a different locations.

But I wanted to go to Germany and I obviously the Ross Kemp and Afghanistan

documentary came out and I couldn't remember, I don't think I knew at

the time if that was first or second.

I just knew it was the royal angles.

I was like, that's cool, I wanna do that.

I don't think I really knew the difference between the battalions at the time.

Obviously I knew they were going, they were gonna be in Germany for a year,

then they were gonna go to Cyprus and I was like, I wanna go to Cyprus.

I enough for 20 minutes down the road.

He camps on a beach.

Why would I not wanna do that?

Obviously about Africa at the time as well, but I was like, definitely wanna go.

Cyprus.

Cyprus was one of the best postings I did two years in Cyprus.

I've done it twice.

Two years in Cyprus was amazing.

Worked in a bar when it was out bounds at the time, every night.

And, uh, the, uh, the OC at the time, I won't say his name so I don't wanna

get in trouble, but I worked in this bar in the evenings and there was obviously

r and ps patrolling and everything.

And I used to get body painted.

So they have like a leopard print body paint or a skull mask on you.

And I'd walk around with flies with my name on it and you'd give it out to all

the people and everyone would use your fly with your name on it and bought a drink.

You'd get a euro for each one.

So I'd do that and I'd, yeah, I'd go do that and then I'd come back to them

in the morning and the ooc would get me in his office and be like, alright,

tell me your stories about last night.

Because he is like, I relive my youth through you.

I, I've got, I don't wanna give too many of the stories away

'cause I wanna be respectful.

I love it.

But yeah, give, give us one dip.

Best dip you've got that you can say, uh, you asked of seven, be careful.

Okay.

I did, I think I can say this, I did get arrested and it was that

same OC that got me outta prison for seven charges against me in Cyprus.

And it was drink driving, so I'd borrowed some, one of my mates cars and uh,

I didn't have a license at the time.

I was like 18.

It must have been 18.

Yeah, maybe 19.

And, uh, borrow a roommate's car, like an automatic RAV4.

And I used to drive it to NAFA because I wasn't paying for a taxi every time.

It was like 20 minutes there.

So I used to borrow his car and drive to NAFA and uh, been

out on the piss all night.

And I don't condone this at all.

Obviously it was a stupid decision in my time when I was very young.

But I'd got in the car, started driving and uh, there was a police

checkpoint in NAFA and the, I had my music blasted like an idiot.

Windows down.

Police picking over, pulling over cars.

And I was like, not a chance.

So I bombed it.

They chased me down, ended up eventually catching me and rather than just

arresting me straight away, they were like, right, makes your driving license.

Obviously I didn't have one, so I was fumbling around the,

um, the car, looking for it.

I opened the glove box and a caution fell out.

It was what makes, gosh.

I was like, they saw that I saw a weapon and were like, get out.

Obviously smell the drink on me, arresting me.

Took me to the, um, the jail cell for the night.

I had to get someone from camp to come and get me, bring my passport,

go to my room, unlock my room, get my passport, pick me up the next day.

And then I was there a couple of weeks until my court date and I was in court and

it was a, uh, it was a C judge who didn't really speak that much English, so I had a

translator and I was like, I'm screwed in.

And uh, the translator told me, plead not guilty.

I was like, what?

He's like, plead not guilty.

I was like, okay.

So I plead not guilty.

It got adjourned for two weeks.

Come back and the judge was like, I think it's because I was in the Army.

They didn't wanna deal with the bureaucracy between the army and the,

the Cyprus, but they were like, 400 euro.

300 euro fine.

That's it.

And I was like, what?

At the time, I, I think I went with assault agent.

And I didn't have any money.

I so major had to go to the Cash point, so got 300 quid and pay my bail.

So yeah, I ended up getting Wave It all.

So, and funnily enough, I probably shouldn't have say this, but I've got my

LSU as well because I didn't get the Army.

I got Wave, I didn't get charged.

So brilliant, brilliant.

So I've managed to get 15 years of good service and not ever get in trouble.

And I've, that's the only thing I've probably done that's super bad.

And I've regret, obviously regretted it.

And do you bad porn?

We, you can argue that those things that are, it's an idiotic thing to do.

Drink driving.

Yeah.

We've also all made mistakes.

Yeah.

And anyone that would sit opposite you and say, oh, an

absolutely slate you for is Yeah.

You know, it's wrongly.

And I've learned, I've learned it's wrong, but it's also when you make these

kind of mistakes, you know, and, and the network that I have with people,

those guys that have made these bad decisions, we'll call them some of the

best guys I know because they, they've made them and they've learned from them.

Was that a moment for you where you were like, I've been given a second chance?

You know, I, I could be in, in Nick, I've got away with paying a couple hundred quid

that I borrowed off for something major.

Did you pay him back?

Yeah, obviously.

Yeah.

I think it was like probably the end of the month and I'd spent it all

in Napa probably that night before.

I love it.

But yeah, I, no, I did, I absolutely regretted it and I, I wasn't, yeah,

I was like, I changed it around.

I was like, and now I'm obviously, I think, I know that's absolutely not

acceptable and you don't do that.

It was just a stupid young, and obviously people, it happens to people now.

And I'm like, look, I've been where you are.

I know exactly how you, and I think that that's helped me through my career.

'cause I've made mistakes and I've learned from it.

Look where I am now.

As long as you don't repeat that offense.

What?

And I obviously, no one got hurt.

There was a lot of potential.

Something bad could have happened, thankfully didn't.

I think what that is though is it's relatable.

Yeah.

Because you, you know, people are always gonna do it.

And if they don't have something, you know, you're sat down.

We're doing our, our substance misuse that brief, you know, like, don't

drink and drive 'cause it's bad.

And you PowerPoint flicking through.

Whereas then when they have now, and your color sergeant now to have someone

go up that can say to the younger generation, like, look lads don't do it.

It isn't worth it.

You know, of course color.

Mm-hmm.

Because I know I've done it.

I've been there, I've made those mistakes.

You know, I've dealt with the, the potential consequences, which

would would've been my career gone, lost everything, you know?

So I think there, and it's not, I don't You're you're a good

role model towards other people because you've made the mistakes.

Yeah.

To save others from, from doing it rather than that PowerPoint presentation, which

is like, I mean, it's not often, I, I don't think many people actually know that

story 'cause it's so long ago as well.

And the new churn that's come through, I probably shouldn't even

say it, but it's, like I said, it's, I'm open about everything.

It's a lesson I've learned from, it's a mistake that I

can reiterate to other people.

Like, look, I've done where, I've been where you are.

I know what it's like to be a young lance.

Corporate private.

You make mistakes.

Just learn from it.

Obviously.

I say don't do it in the first place.

'cause that is the absolute right option.

I've been there.

I know what it's like.

Don't do it, but if it does happen, learn from it and don't ever do it again.

And I, I think if you bounce back from that, which I have, yeah, never,

never ever, ever done it again.

I can handle and heart say that you could have been out the army or

you could have stayed and you could still be a private soldier now.

Like exactly.

Anything could have happened.

I think your last turned out pretty well.

So that was a, a pretty big, was that like big transitional point for you?

Did that change your mindset at all or did you carry on in battalion as like a, a bit

of a lad going out in Napa for all that?

I was still going out in Napa.

Yeah.

But I just didn't do the drink driving.

Um, it didn't, obviously I was, yeah, I got in trouble for it and I don't

think, because I got away with there, I don't think I even got in trouble in

battalion, but it might, I'm struggling to remember it, but I think it just got

swept under the carpet and obviously we don't want people to think you

can get away with it and that's it.

It's okay.

So I think it's kind of stuck between me and the song mate and maybe the

head shed, but I was only a che.

I don't really know what to talk about above that.

Um, but yeah, I, I still went out in Napa.

Uh, I still work in the bar as long as I, so I could still perform in the morning.

I, we'd start work at six o'clock before the sun comes up.

I'd still be the first on the run or smashing pt. I'd have maybe

have a little nap at nap time and go back out in the afternoon.

But it never affected my work, so I was just carried it on.

Yeah.

Nice.

Awesome.

Wicked to hear.

So we're, we're now what couple of years in battalion?

Um.

You've been promoted, obviously.

She said you're a lance corporal.

Yeah.

Was there any tours up to the point of when you would've done junior brecken?

Senior Brecken?

I did, uh, Afghan as a Lance Jack.

We did it.

So when we were in Cyac first time, we'd only been there like a month or

two, so I must have just turned 18.

Uh, we did, we were on theater reserve, so I went to Afghan for a month and

we did like IES on the ground, uh, checked the fobs we were gonna use, we

were supposed to be there for a while, but we ended up getting switched off.

We went back to Cyprus and then the second year we went again, but only to do a

refresher on our, uh, what's it called?

ROY package.

Yes.

Um, between the, so after the first Afghan and then coming back, I then

got sent on the NCO card actually.

So I was 18 on the course, turned 19, halfway through it come back to battalion.

So I was a coming through my whole career and then they were like, right, you

promoted you're gonna go to Sea company.

I was like, what?

I don't wanna go see company.

I went, you go in, obviously.

So back then it was a lot of, and I've, I've this conversation, I've

literally been having this conversation the last couple of weeks in, in, in

work that the pride has kind of gone between the art, I dunno if the same

as other battalions, but there's not a great amount of company pride.

Like when I joined, it was a company linkage, Shere B Company, Lestershire

E Company, Northamptonshire, blah, blah, blah, wherever you were from.

So I was from re.

You would go to a company, 'cause that's the company that you recruit from.

So you're kind of proud of that.

So you're like, yeah, I'm from Lihi.

This a company.

And any other companies that mingle, there'll be a scrap or anyone came

into our block that was not part of our company because Stranger in

the Lines, you just fill 'em in.

Obviously you can't do that now.

But what I'm trying to say is the pride between that company.

'cause we recruit, we don't recruit from the recruiting areas anymore.

So anyone can kind of go to any battalion.

And especially in the division in Queens division, you've now,

we only have used to have World Ians, oh, lemme give this, right?

PR Gi gi, I was gonna say GI training company, then the GI Shout, pj shout

out pj uh, Jabal Regimen and Fusel.

Now you've got the Duke Ls, you've got the, I wanna say Yorks, this

not, might not be Yorks, but anyway, you've got some few more there.

And uh, they, you can come from anywhere and mixed between battalions.

So that pride's kind of gone and it was only yesterday morning.

Um, we did a platoon competition, inter platoon competition.

And it was nice to see that pride coming back.

But it's definitely not the same.

And it's not like, I'm not saying you should be fighting

with the other companies.

Not at all.

But you used to ACOMs logo, like Mascot was an MP and you used to

people, you from acom, you used to get a TA of the MP on your, your leg.

'cause you, you're proud to be that don't really get that anymore.

Like people hide.

Like I suppose when you were in as well, especially in the block,

you'd have an open door policy.

You'd just mince around, go into someone else's room, play PlayStation.

Watch TV or whatever.

People nowadays just sit in their room and they'd lock it.

Playing PlayStation or watching TikTok, scrolling for Instagram.

There's no social socializing anymore.

It's weird, like when I was a sergeant walking around the block doing

inspections and stuff, it was just, there was no bonding within the platoons.

It was really weird.

And it's obviously the drinking culture.

A lot of the younger generation don't drink anymore.

And that's absolutely, that's absolutely fine.

But especially when I was in Germany and Cyprus, we, you couldn't go

home, so you'd be on a Friday night.

The block, uh, the bar, the bar, company bar was actually in the block in Germany.

So you do CSBT, then everyone go down to the bar at night and

then you go out in town together.

'cause you're not like, you're going home now.

Same as Cyprus.

Now you're based in the UK and we're kind of in our catchment areas.

People only live like half an hour, an hour home, so they'll just go

home or they go in most nights and it's, it's just a lot different.

And the culture, like I said, it's, I dunno about other

battalions, but it's just different.

Might be in a better way.

I personally don't think it's, people are as tight knit anymore.

Obviously operations back in the day used to help you go, if you're a young

lad, go straight on operation together.

Yeah, great.

'cause you're forced together and there was that bond.

Once you've been in a firefight with someone, you're getting rounds down

a shot at you, you automatically have that guy's back then you

opportunity is not there anymore.

It's a, it's a really hard one as well, I think, because, you know, it's a fine

line then on the other side of it between bullying and character building, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But I get it, you know?

When I was in, you were forced to go out for a drink, but it, I didn't

want to, not really a big drinker.

Yeah.

I like doing my extracurricular fiz going to the gym.

Well, I'm gonna be a bodybuilder.

I'm like the next army, you know, like, and I was the weird one

for why are you doing extra fizz?

We go for a training run, bro.

Yeah.

Like, what, what, what are you doing?

Whereas now, I think is lads, the drinking culture's all but gone.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I travel about a lot of camps still today and of an evening.

I would say the majority of soldiers are doing some sort of fiz.

Yeah.

Where you going?

I'll get either I'm getting my steps in in the morning.

I'm going out and going for a swim.

I'm going for a run.

I'm, I'm focused on this.

I'm doing high rocks, I'm doing CrossFit, I'm doing jiujitsu.

So it's changed a lot.

And you could almost argue that because it is very individual.

Mm. Then it, it is detrimental to it.

You know, when I was in a, b, c company D with special weapons, it was, it, it

really was massive, massive company pride.

Uh, I mean the same, we went for a mess do.

And it was traveling away on buses and they put, they mixed

companies up on the buses.

Mm-hmm.

And we obviously can figure out how that ended.

Um, should have been in a mess.

We shouldn't have.

It was bad.

But the guys that are sat on the block now, is it, it's hard run.

Is it better or worse for their mental health?

They have their own space, but I'd say the position I'm in now, it's hard for me to.

Comment on because, so I don't have a platoon now, so I'm in the CMO

department and I, it's funny 'cause me and my mates talk about this, like

we're so out of the loop right now.

Like there was a point where I did Provo, I've boxed with the

battalion for like five years.

I was like a boy.

I, everyone knew who I was.

I knew pretty much who the battalion was.

Now I kind of stepped away.

I don't really know anyone anymore.

So I don't really have the conversations with people to know what's going on.

Um, especially the, the, the lower ranks.

It's not like, 'cause I'm betting you or anything, I just don't have

the interactions with 'em because I'm not in around that area anymore.

Other than the, like the same competition I did yesterday, I could

see a bit more, but I once in six months since I've done anything like that.

So I can't, I don't really know how their mental health is, but it's not, what I

can say is the resilience isn't there.

We do, uh, a log.

I was do CSPT, we do a log run.

We did a, I did one maybe about a month ago.

So I've got torn meniscus and I want, I wanted to go surfing, like

selected for the army surfing team.

I wanted to go surfing but, 'cause I do my own fs, I don't do company pt. I

do, I go to the gym half, six till last seven every morning in a civic gym.

Then I drive into camp.

So I don't do fiz with the company and uh, or the battalion.

And obviously I wanted to go this army surfing.

So they were like, well you don't do any fears.

We don't even know if you said you're injured.

How can you go surfing if you're injured?

So I was like, you know what?

I'm gonna do CHPC.

It was a five mile tab and a two mile stretch race.

And I was.

So we did it in companies.

Me and the rc o picked up the, um, stretcher out and we bombed it.

And there's like 18 to 22-year-old private soldiers that are dropping.

Like we went.

Even on the tab, the first 200 meters, people are dropping back

straight away and it's, we're not even stepped outta the back gate yet.

And it's like we, I was a private soldier.

You, you do not wanna be known as the shit gun.

The one who can't carry the weight.

You just dig in and you just go, there's absolutely no way you

could quit in all you getting taken unless you get actually taken off.

But the mentality nowadays, unfortunately just isn't there.

The, the, they'll just quit early and they're not, you, you never want

to be in the jack wagon, did you?

You don't wanna be that guy.

People just jump in now.

They're not.

There's no shame anymore.

It's weird.

I don't, and I don't like that mindset that's happened and I

dunno how we improve it either.

And partly I think it's because there's no pride.

There's no bonding within, like there's no, you go to the bar and you don't, you

don't, you wanna be one of the top boys.

Everyone's trying to be the top boy you don't like nowadays they're

just happy to just mince by.

They're not, no one wants to be at the front of, obviously you get the

people that do train, but nowhere near everyone used to be like that.

You don't wanna be known as a shit cut.

Now if people are like, ah, yeah, I'm shit.

Oh, I'm under beer, I don't care.

I mean, it's weird.

I personally think it's a really easy fix that comes from higher, which is if you

put something here mm-hmm and you have something to aspire to, then you're done.

Not having a war is a huge thing.

Mm-hmm.

We can't just as Bos go and declare war on a country.

Yeah.

You know, there used to be things like, you know, your long service could

conduct medal, which isn't a huge thing.

Correct me if you think differently, but you know, you had your bounties.

Mm-hmm.

You do your eight years, you're gonna get 15 grand.

Thank you for your service.

You know, I wanna get promoted quicker, I wanna be better than that person.

You know, I want to go and hold some records.

I want box for the battalion.

And, you know, I think it's, it's quite easy for hire.

I mean, we're talking at the top, you know, I deal with a lot of, uh,

won't mention any names or ranks, but some guys that are relatively high

within the armed forces nowadays, especially through combat fuel.

And it's easy to sit there and say that's what should be done.

And they do.

The biggest issue I think there is, is communication.

Mm-hmm.

There, there's no communication from, uh, the top of battalion level up.

And when I started in with, I can't say his name, very

influential guy in the army.

And one of the first things he brought up on was, you still

cut about like a lot ton.

What's, what's Marrow like?

I was like, not amazing.

Mm-hmm.

And this guy was genuinely shocked.

I mean, he was like, excuse me, but we're doing this, this, this.

And we, we've got, we make sure that like late starts on a Monday Sports

afternoon, early finish on a Friday.

And I was like, the guys don't really care about that, but they,

what they do want is hot water.

And, you know, good, good actual duty lose, losing lose, they're 15 grand for

an army that's like 20 people strong now, to, to have those bounties, to

have those little bits that that's something to aspire to, could do it.

Allowing the guys to go and do sport full time and okay, the taxpayer's gotta

foot that bill, but the side of that is

guys that are going to go and get paid by the taxpayer to do sport full-time.

We're also expecting them that they ha willing to put their lives on the line.

Mm-hmm.

You know, okay, there's no war gonna allow, but when anyone signs on that

dotted line, whatever branch of it is, they've still made that commitment to

put their life on the line potentially.

So there should be something to aspire to and something to grasp that they

can, whether that's a bit of money, um, or something along those lines.

Whereas now I don't, I don't think that's, that's there for the guys.

And, and then the more you get, the more it's like, well why?

And I mean, we'll ask you what, what's your why before come Lipper company.

What, what was your why to stay in battalion?

Um, I was, so I've still had the mindset from when I was, when I joined, like

I wanted to be the best I could be.

I got top student on the machine gun section commanders course.

I got top student on the urban ops destructive course because anything

I do, I want to be the best at and, uh, it might be a bit of arrogance.

I dunno.

Like I was always, I, like I said, I was super skinny when I was younger

or even when I joined the Army, but.

I'd always be the fastest on the run.

Or there was, and even between your mates, you'd always try to best each other.

It was just, you want it to be better and if someone would be you,

like, I'll get you next time then.

And it was just, it was kind of like a bit of an ego thing probably.

But like I said, no, no one, no, not as many people have that ego driven now.

I don't think it's a bad thing to have an ego.

I don't, I like to think I'm down to earth.

I get on with everyone.

I can have a conversation with anyone and understand things, but, and I don't

think I've got a big ego, but I definitely wanna be the best at anything I do.

It's probably the same as you.

Like this.

You wanna be the best supplement brand in the world.

We, we wanna be the best, um, men's grooming company in the world.

So I'll do everything I can to do that.

And, and it's what's funny was my, one of my old OCS told me that,

uh, in fact, no, he didn't tell me.

I got told from someone else, he told him that everything I do turns to gold.

But it's not an accident.

It's not all, people are like, oh, you're really lucky for

combat Lipper company, mate.

You don't see what goes on in the background.

You don't see the, I dunno argument, some of this is, but the late nights

where I'm on my phone making content or I'm dealing with customers and

she's like, are you gonna, so are you gonna watch this TV or, yeah.

And it's, we'll, we'll, we'll touch on luck later.

I don't believe in luck, but Yeah, exactly.

So the, they're like, oh, you, you're lucky.

But I'm not.

I have put the effort in, I've done this well on this course because

I've done the research or I've put myself out, get, get as fit as I can.

I get up at five o'clock every day to walk my dog.

So have breakfast to get to the gym early so I can get into work before

anyone's even, like I've probably, I've been to the gym before Most

people even got outta bed now.

And it's, and that's not me big myself up.

That's just the choice I've made so I can actually train properly.

'cause if I did company pt, the reality is 'cause you're doing it, unless it's a

individual circuit and you can put your own effort in, fine, you can get fitter.

But if you're doing a group PT session, steady state run or whatever, it's a tab,

I would get un more unfit because you're going as the slowest man or anything.

I need to go to the gym in the morning, have my own program trained specifically

for me functional wise to get fit.

And that's my own dedication or my own choice to step out of just doing company.

Bt put my own, take the time outta my seeing my family.

I get up in the morning before my miss is even out bed.

I get home at nighttime, yet I'm still getting my laptop out, working late.

I see an hour, some for an hour before he goes to bed.

And then I'm working late.

Like that's not luck.

That's me putting the graft in.

Well, we'll touch on you being lucky soon.

Yeah.

But before you got lucky, didn't get lucky.

Hard work.

But before you got lucky, there was a tour of Marley.

Marley.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so what rank were we, let's tell us a little bit about that tour.

Yeah.

So I just got back from, I'd spent two years at Crick at ITC

as an instructor, as a screw.

I met my ex-partner at the end of Crick.

She fell pregnant even though she was told she couldn't have babies.

Um, we don't, it was first time we slept together, she fell pregnant,

told she couldn't have babies.

So we were like, right, we won't get rid of it.

Let's try and make this work.

Um, I went ons Brecken.

As soon as I finished Krick did seniors and that's when COVID kicked in.

So right at the end I just finished final X. Um, the world went into lockdown.

I moved to Liverpool with my ex while she was pregnant.

She had the baby maybe a month into lockdown, um, locked.

Then we were doing PDT for Molly then.

So I'd lockdown had come up, well stopped.

We'd gone back to work a bit earlier before the actual lockdown finished.

'cause we had to train for this tour do PDT.

So I'd gone back to battalion i'd, I'd finished the, in years, I got back to

Battalion and then Marley was coming out.

So they're right, you're going to B Company.

But B Company was the only company gonna go because it was

with the Light Dragon Goons.

It was there.

Tour as the cavalry.

We were gonna be the dismount for all the, the, um, the ops.

And they were like, well, you're gonna go as the BBC op, you're

gonna promote Sergeant, but you're gonna stay back in England.

You'll do all the training.

You're staying back in saying as a BBC opportune Sergeant back,

full casual replacement sergeant.

I was like, no chance I'm going on this tour.

Don't promote me.

I don't really care.

I'd rather go as a screw.

I'll go on the tour and promote when I get back.

So we're like, okay.

So I went to Marley.

Uh, we did lock two weeks lockdown in Trium.

Then flew out there.

So my kid was six months old at the time, maybe five, six months old.

Uh, and then we did seven months in Marley.

Loved it.

Genuinely, there's like three periods of my career with like highlights and Marley.

Seven months in Marley was genuinely the best, even though my kid had just

been born or it was like six months old.

Um, I'd have the trouble with my ex and we'd split up fine, but it

was so good in Mali even though it wasn't kinetic, obviously.

So the, my battalion, the rest of my battalion relieved us.

So once we finished, the rest of my battalion came out, they got

in contact and they had a, if you could argue a better talk.

'cause they got bit more kinetic than we did.

We, we didn't have a single contact on ours in Mali.

We did have, do we have our IDs?

No, we had weapon cash fines, um, some h uh, high value targets

to chase down and capture.

But it was more mainly a rec tour going to the different villages.

Uh, basically the mapping hadn't been done at the time.

So we were the long range Recre group.

We'd drive out hundreds of Ks in the fox sounds jackals, and we'd be plotting

areas on the ground also going into these villages and find them with aid,

rations, water, anything we can give them.

Um, and that was genuinely so much better for me than I, than I enjoyed Afghan.

Um, and if we had the chance to go again, we can't now 'cause

we're not allowed back there.

But if we got the chance to go again, I'd have been like, yeah.

I'm sorry Lauren.

'cause I said this on a la I've said this before, and she was

like, well, you're not going again.

Well, I don't want you to go again.

I was like, obviously I don't wanna go again.

I've got the business, I've got family.

Yeah, but I, it's, it's, I would love to go again.

But the reality is I've got a family and a business and I, I don't wanna do that now.

And that's why my mindset's changed in the Army and why I'm

looking at getting now because, and I can't use this as an excuse.

And as much as my battalion have been so supportive, fair play

to them, they've been amazing.

But I can't, realistically, I'm still a soldier.

You can't use the business as an excuse for not going on tour and stuff.

But that is the reality nowadays.

I just, that's my get out plan.

Unfortunately, that has taken priority.

Now I don't, I used to be green through and through loved,

especially when I was single.

I'd volunteered to go on tour or do exercise or do a training, a

short term training team abroad.

Absolutely loved it.

But my products have changed.

Now.

I've got misses and kids and the business.

I wanna be home for it.

I've the worklife balance I've got now, I live in my own house in Leicester,

been in this house for two years.

I'm just about to move into my next one on Friday.

I sold that house, bought a bigger one.

I need some space for the business and for the family.

But the worklife balance now is so good.

However, it could be in the r CMO department.

However, there was a chance I was going on in for, for six months

training the Ukrainians in the uk.

Um, I get roped into running range packages and stuff.

I'm not, I'm not solely concentrating on my job, but there's

still, and I don't like that.

The uncertainty of like, right, you are gonna go wait six months.

I'm like, what?

I don't want that anymore.

That's, that's where my mindset's changed and, and why I'm looking at getting out.

Spoiler alert.

But that also wasn't, don't you, that wasn't one of the reasons why.

Was it, you talk a lot about resilience.

Um, your body decided to not be resilient, didn't it?

Yeah.

And that was ultimately the reason why you looked at doing other stuff if you Yeah.

The wanna explain what happened there?

Yeah.

So the whole reason I started Combat Clipper Company was because two

years, two and a half years ago, I got diagnosed with Crohn's Disease.

With Crohn's disease.

So I'd come back from Marley.

So when I was in Marley, right, I did.

So I, I didn't mention this, but before I, I was, I've always

struggled with stomach issues.

Like I get agonized in pain, been sick with it a few times, but never

really been diagnosed over my career.

I'm supposed to have had two colonoscopies and I've got a weird thing with my bum.

I don't like, like my miss.

I don't even like my misses touch my bum.

It's really weird.

And I was like, I am not losing my inner virginity by someone

putting a camera up my bum.

I, I just had weird fear about it.

So the two appointments I should have had, I didn't go to.

And, uh, when I was in lockdown and Shing in Marley, just before went to

Marley, we were just locked in a room.

You'd get marched together to go in your cohort.

We'd be trapped in a room for 20 hours a day.

And, uh, I used to just watch YouTube videos and podcasts and stuff.

I watched a thing on Netflix called What the Health, and it basically spoke about

people that have gone veggie or vegan.

Basically the issues that you got in food, the pesticides and all the

sprays and stuff to longevity of it affects people with bowel disease.

And I was like, oh, no way.

So I struggle with stomach issues.

Here's an opportunity here where I'm gonna go on tour.

I'm not cooking my own food, I haven't even gotta buy my own food 'cause

you just get it in the scoff house.

Or I was gonna be on rations for most of the time.

We spent 30 days on the ground.

So I was gonna be on rations and I was like, I'm gonna try

this, I'm gonna go veggie.

So the whole time I was there, ev so we were on the same, I wasn't,

everyone else was on the same chicken curry, ve uh, ration pack for 30 days

on the ground, hating their life.

I was on a vegetarian all day, breakfast English rations because I and veggie.

And they were like, you're not even a veggie.

I was like, yeah, but I'm, I wanna go veggie now.

I haven't been my whole life but I'm gonna try it now.

And they were like, oh, you only doing it 'cause you wanna

get the good nice rations.

And I was like, nah, generally I've got the stomach issue.

I'm gonna try it anyway over the tour.

'cause I wasn't eating any of the meat when we were back off the ground.

Obviously you lose weight anyway on tour.

Spend 30 days on the ground just eating rations, minimal

water, you're gonna lose weight.

But I lost 15 kilo.

I was, every time I like, uh, in the league is out in the ground

in the desert, I was getting ammo, tins doing um, bicep curls.

I was getting the jerry cans doing upward row rows, everything I could, I was in

pullups on the back of the fox Sound.

So I was still training out camp and then in camp I was doing a lot, this is

when I was doing kinda a lot of CrossFit stuff and it's the first time I'd heard

about the CrossFit open and uh, so the, the open, you could do it remotely.

You didn't have to actually go to an event so you could record yourself

doing the event, send it in, and then you get judged against everyone else.

And I was like, well, I'm gonna do it while I'm here because the time we'd

come in 20, the, the window had opened for 21.1 or 21.2, which whenever one

it was, I was like, I'm gonna try it.

So I did it, submitted my score, I did really well, submitted my

score, and I came 84th in the world for the CrossFit open.

And I was like, bear in mind I'm 15 kilos lighter.

But I felt super fit.

And it was because of the veggie thing.

I, well I think it was partly 'cause I was probably training

more, I was eating a lot less shit.

Um, and I got stronger and fitter than I was.

I must have got dropped down to like 69 kilos ish.

And uh, yeah, I did really well in the cost open.

I was like, man, this veggie thing's a game changer.

And it got to the end of tour and we had a big barbecue and like

we'd come back in the ground and be like, oh, all I want was meat.

I was so jealous.

So I was finals on the ration packs.

I was eating all day breakfast, vegetarian all day, breakfast sound.

When you come back into camp, everyone's eating all the meat,

everyone getting as much as they can.

You'd have a brunch every Sunday.

It was like, everything meat you can think of.

And I was like, oh my God, all I wanna do is eat me.

And I was a bit miserable about it, but I was like, nah, this is helping my stomach.

I'm not really getting pain anymore.

Little pains, but nowhere near as much.

I was getting fitter.

So it got the end of the tour.

We had a big barbecue, a couple of drinks and stuff and I was

like, this isn't worth it.

The, to be this mentally miserable at just craving me, it wasn't worth the, yes, I'm

super fit, but I was kind of fit anyway.

It not being worth super fit and kind of healthier to be genuinely miserable about.

Not all I want is to meet and it's a weak part of myself.

I could have, could have carried it on, but then I moved back to meet

and I've found sort the balance.

But anyway, come back from Marley and I was like, I don't

what, what I'm gonna do now.

Um, had a great tour.

We weren't probably not gonna go back.

What else am I gonna do?

I was like, I'm gonna go on selection.

Like I was super fit.

Yes, I'm meet, meet again, but I've just come 84th in the world.

The CrossFit open.

Absolutely I can, I've got the right mindset.

I can go on selection right now.

So I spent three months going on the hills.

I every, so I've got a son that lives in that son I spoke about before.

Mar he, she'd move out to Liverpool.

So I'd have him every other weekend.

I'd drive to Liverpool, I'd have him for the whole weekend.

I'd stay in a hotel, come back on the Sunday, the weekends I didn't have him.

I used to go to Brecken.

I used to go to Yorkshire.

I'd go on the hills and train for selection.

Did that for three months and I'd was about to do the medical and my

uh, medical officer was like, so.

You know, you're not gonna get in unless you have this colon colonoscopy.

I was like, why?

They went, 'cause it's an outstanding thing on your record, medical record.

I was like, but I'm fine.

Look, I'm super fit.

Um, why can't I just do it?

And they went, you've got to have this checked.

So I was like, fine.

I love the colonoscopy.

Had the colonoscopy and they'd found, so when they did it, they found a, all

my bowels basically oblating inside.

They took loads of bios off it.

There was a growth stop.

The camera couldn't go all the way through 'cause there was a,

a 10 centimeter growth in there.

So they took bios off it, they come back and it was showing signs of cancer.

I was like, fuck.

So they were like, uh, what we're gonna do is we're gonna put you on chemo.

So it was a, it wasn't the strongest one where you like lose your hair and stuff.

It was for breast cancer patients.

Um, they found it wasn't strong enough for breast cancer patients, but it

worked for people with bowel disease.

So I was on infused every six weeks or eight weeks.

I was sat in a hospital with an infusion on for a couple of hours.

Like I was so tired, I felt horrendous.

Did that for a few months.

I can't remember how many sessions I had, but um, after a couple of months

I saw the surgeon went back to the surgeon, had an old, another colonoscopy

and he was like, it's not reducing.

So you either carry on the chemo for the chance, it might get better

because it's not working now.

Do it for another six months or so, or, um, we can do surgery.

Take out your bowels.

It's called a right hammer.

Colectomy.

Take out your bowels and then reattach it and you should be fine.

I was like, okay.

I found out that 'cause of this SF wouldn't take her.

I was absolutely devastated.

So I was like, fine, do the surgery.

He was, did the surgery.

It was eight, eight weeks recovery at home.

I was supposed to be in hospital for about a week.

I was out in three days because I just couldn't stick it in there.

I was like, I'll be fine, let me home.

All I had to do was to get outta the hospital was have, take your shit.

So I fucking forced out the tiniest little nugget on a bed pan.

I was like, right sound.

I can go home.

Got home and spent six weeks at home and uh, I was like, right.

They said you couldn't go back into the gym for six weeks.

I think I was back in within like three weeks.

Obviously taking it light.

I just can't sit around doing nothing.

Was that a bit of a, a shock to you or you, you avoided having

two of them done previous.

Yeah.

And you only did it because of that, that, that goal of Yeah, I think anyone

that goes inventory's, like, I'd love to at least have a go at selection.

Mm-hmm.

That's what it took you in the back of your mind?

Were you like, I know something's probably wrong, and is that why you were

avoiding it and potentially maybe about your brother that you, you knew that

something serious could be going on?

Yeah.

And is that avoidance, shutting, ev everything down?

I definitely knew something was wrong, but again, it probably goes back to my egos.

Like, I didn't wanna be weak, I didn't wanna go sick.

I was a, like, for my whole career, I've been a leader of men like.

Wrong to say, but I used to take the piss out people on the sick.

Like I, I'd have injuries and you just, it's definitely the wrong

attitude to have, but I'd be like, just suck it up and just keep going.

Obviously in hindsight now that's definitely wrong, but it was my

stupid ego just like, stop being weak.

It wasn't that and it wasn't, obviously it was cancer.

It wasn't something that was I've I've, yeah.

It was lucky they found it.

Heard many of hurt my hand.

You, you know, you could have died.

Yeah.

It was lucky they found it.

Yeah.

If you left it and, and anyone watching that, that has these

issues from a personal point of view, like, get your shit done.

One of my good friends, uh, Steve, his wife, really passed away last year.

Incredibly sad.

Um, I didn't get tested and yeah.

Passed away from bowel cancer.

So it's, it's a little bit off topic, but if, if something's not

right, go and get yourself seen.

And it's, it's funny because I, I'd never really heard about Crohn's disease

before this a happened, so, and I, once I'd mentioned it, I'd told people back

at uni and they were like, oh, this guy got kicked out for Crohn's disease.

And I was like, oh mate.

So yeah, going back to me getting nearly getting kicked out was, so I was on

this, I'd had the surgery recovered for others and I could go back into work.

However, I was, uh, chronically diary, I'd like really bad diarrhea.

I was wake up in the morning and I'd chip myself or I'd be driving my car

and I couldn't make it to the toilet.

It would, I probably couldn't go any longer than like.

45 minutes to an hour without needing to go to the toilet.

When I went to toilet, it was like blasting out my

ass, like horrendously bad.

Like I couldn't even use, even now I can't use toilet paper because

it, I've got, I've got horrendous piles on my bum, but it hurts and it

pulls 'em apart, makes them bleed.

So I have to use like Andre baby wipes everywhere I go.

And uh, I went to, it was maybe like six weeks later and I was like, this is

not where I was losing loads of weight.

I was just shitting everything out.

Anything I ate was just shitting out and I really restricted my diet.

I, um, I was just like, like chicken and rice or chicken and veg.

And they were like, the doctor said, you need to stop eating the veg.

I was like, what?

He said, it's too much high in fiber, but you can't have broccoli anymore.

I used to live chicken and chicken, rice and broccoli all the time.

And uh, they'd, yeah, so I was on the, they put me on the, they downgraded me

obviously once I've had the colon and the found, this was a year process,

so I was medically nondeployable.

And the way the army works now is you, if you are nondeployable for 12 months,

they start looking at your discharge if you can't be employed anywhere else.

And I was like, I'm fucked it if they kicked me out.

I've been in the army since I was 16.

I've done, I've done 15 years at the time.

What am I gonna do If they kicked me out, to be fair to my medical

officer, gave me a six month extension.

I was like, look, I'm fine.

I lied to 'em a bit, to be fair.

I said, I'm better than I was.

I'm not going as often as I was.

Excuse me.

I meant I, um, I went on.

West Storm for six weeks.

I was like, yeah, put me in the field.

I'm sound And I remember buying my own fold out toilet so I'd in

the back of my wagon, I had this toilet and time I needed shit.

I could just fold it out and go, I've got so many pictures on my phone and

people are like, oh, having the shit again because I'm literally back of the

fox out even when it's pissing it down.

I'd, i'd shit in the fox out.

I'd put, I'd set the toilet up and I have the doors open.

I'm like, yeah, people just walking about laughing.

But they got so used to it.

But that was just how I managed it.

And I was, this goes back to like I could have just down towards and been

like, right, they're gonna kick me out.

I might get some money for get medically discharged, but I didn't want it.

I wanted to carry on anyway.

I knew there was a potential, me getting kicked out and

uh, I was in the scoff house.

The beard policy changed in April, two weeks after the policy had changed.

So I'd had a beard for six years already.

Um, and I was Wow, because you weren't allowed.

You weren't allowed but I'd, so I got folliculitis.

Those people are like, oh, that's a fucking shit Biff shit thing.

But I generally, if I shave clean shaven, I got horrendous rashes

and ingrown hairs and stuff.

So it happened.

I'd gone, funnily enough, I'd gone like nine years of it without it then fine.

Everyone's like, how are you suddenly now getting it?

I was like, dunno, it just happened.

So I got this God Biff shit that allowed never to grow a, that's

bit allowed to grow a beard.

And people hated it 'cause it makes me look better.

So I was buzzing and uh, yeah.

So I'd had a beer for about six years and I sat in the scoff house.

Keep spitting, sorry.

Two weeks after the policy changed.

Sat with my mate, someone else who's already got a very successful business.

I'm never allowed to say who he is, he's told me that.

Um, but he said, why don't you do something with the beards?

And I was like, that's a great idea.

I was looking around the scoff house.

People are starting to get beards now, obviously I bought

products, but I had no experience.

Where do I get it from?

How do, how does it start?

I don't even know where to go.

What.

And he basically gave me some advice.

He'd had his business for a couple of years, absolutely smashing it.

If I'd have said the name, everyone would be like, you've definitely

heard of it, but I can't say it.

Um, anyway, he gave me a lot of advice and he basically said, just YouTuber.

Every, there's loads of business podcasts out there.

There's loads of YouTube videos and it takes me, why I live

in Great Glen and Leicester.

It's about 40 minutes from camp, but I drive 20 minutes further to

go to the city gym that I go to.

And then it's an hour from my c gym at to get to camp.

So I leave at, I train from half six to last seven, I leave at

half seven and go get to camp for half eight, start work at nine.

But that hour it takes me to get to camp from the gym.

I would put a YouTube video or a podcast about branding, marketing,

how to set up a Shopify store, where do I get products from?

And I just self-talk myself for two months, maybe three months, two months.

Yeah.

I, I had the idea in April, may, June, yeah, two months.

'cause I launched in June and I taught myself how to do it.

And, uh, I learned everything.

I didn't have any social media before.

Maybe for like eight years.

I, I was massive massively against social media.

I didn't like how fake it was.

I realized when I deleted it, um, I didn't like the people.

Um, it's worse now, but even back then, you go out for a meal with

your mates and people just be on their phone and it just piss me off.

So I was like, I'm getting rid of that.

I've got no, I don't, I don't care about boasting my life to people.

I'm not really bothered about that.

And I found out who my real mates were because when I got

off social media, people actually text you saying, oh you right man.

How you doing?

Yeah, I've spoken for a couple of months.

They'll text you saying I'll just go for a meal.

Go for a meal.

And when you meet up, you've got loads to talk about 'cause they haven't

been following you on social media.

But I had to obviously get it for the business.

So I created a new social media.

Mrs was disappointed.

She was like, I've not met you.

You've not had social media.

So most people get worried about like you're looking at other girls or there's

risk of people sliding new dms and stuff.

Totally understandable.

I get it.

Um, but she was like, I met you.

You didn't have a social media.

And that's one of the things I genuinely loved about you.

'cause there was no preconception of how you are.

I've learned, I've met you.

This is, I know you from you now you're gonna get social media.

And I was like, yeah, I know, but I need it for the business.

And it's not like to be chatting to other girls.

I don't give a fuck about that.

Um, it's purely for business.

So I create the social media, um, did a bit of advertising about it.

And at the time I knew nothing about veteran brands either

because I wasn't on social media.

I didn't really know anything about, um.

I'd seen you through people that are, when actually wearing

your clothing and your products.

And it may be a few other businesses.

I can't think off the top of my head.

But, um, I didn't really know about the veteran space at the time.

I started following, like, I think the kind of ones I knew about was like filly

boots or I can't think of anything.

But I remember I just followed, I created the Instagram and I just followed every

single infantry army page I could find.

I'd just type in Army and it would come up loads stuff.

I'd see you, I'd have a big following and I'll just follow, follow, follow.

And then I'd be reaching out to people like, look, I'm, I'm brand new to

this, just started a new company.

I'm not social media for eight years.

I'm still learning.

Are you happy to promote me or do a shout out?

Whatever.

Most people are like, dunno who you are not even interested.

Some people are like, yep, sound I was, and the amount of people that were

like, I was wondering how many, how long it would take for someone to do this.

And as I was building it, there was two other brands that started.

Should I, I'm, can I say the name?

Should I say it?

Not really, no.

I'm not really bothered.

Um, there was two other brands that started it.

I don't think they're trading anymore, but I, I knew I expected this is a great idea.

Prob you'd be silly, other people were silly not to have it.

Obviously the idea was given to me, but I saw these other companies, uh,

starting it at the same time and I was like, oh, there's competition there.

We need to go hard on this.

And to be fair, I know you say we're not lucky, but I put the effort

in and it's worked in our favor.

People have lent in and.

I think we got it right from the start.

I did my research, I did the branding right, not too in Your Face Army.

Um, and like I said, like any course I go into, I put everything into it.

I think I did it right from the start.

I've been open and honest and genuine about everything.

Like at the start it was literally just white labeling products.

We don't do that now, but it was, that's all I knew.

Like someone told me to go on this website, find a manufacturer, get

products, and I, that's what I did.

And um, as we've progressed and we're what New Year and a half

old now, we've adapted everything.

Got it better.

Don't do that White living shed anymore.

Now I actually specifically choose my ingredients, but yeah, it came out of, and

yeah, it came out of me leaving the Army.

But after the, so I got myself super fit again.

Um, after the, the surgery I did a, so the battalion does a

thing called a, an elite poacher.

It's a, so when the, you don't do the mile and off and stuff and it's the SEA now,

but if you sit certain standards, you get given a, you come out on CSPT and you give

you a t-shirt, you're an elite poacher.

And there's only like six of us in the old battalion to do it.

Right.

And I got super fit.

I ended up getting the elite poacher, the CEO's marched to like, yeah, was a color

sergeant at the time, maybe a sergeant.

I think I might have been sergeant.

He's like Sergeant Young.

So I'm marching out and he's like, you are on the Biff, how are you getting this?

And I was like, look, this is, I'm fine.

I'm sound, even though I've got this illness, I am absolutely fine.

So just keep me in.

And I went back to the medical officer, but I was still on the

six month extension at the time.

And, uh, went to the medical officer.

I was like, look, I took my T-shirt with him.

I was like, I'm an elite poacher.

I'm more than capable to do stuff.

Take me off the Biff.

And uh, they said, okay, fine, but we can't make you medically

MFD medically fit to deploy.

What we'll do is, we'll, we can only put you as medically limited deployability.

So I'll be that for the rest of my career.

Now, um, it means every time I go away, they just have to do a, a risk

assessment, sign that off, and I'm, I'm fine as long as I'm on medication

now for the rest of my life, I have six tablets a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner.

I have to have B12 injection every 10 days.

Uh, sorry, 10 every 10 weeks because the amount of portion of

my bowels they took out, my body doesn't produce, um, B12 anymore.

I've got vitamin D deficiency now and I've got bal salt malabsorption.

So reason I was shitting myself all the time, and that was only ever supposed

to last three weeks after surgery.

They basically said, so they did, they gave me a, took me to a scan,

they scanned me first, gave me a pill.

A week later I'd go back and they see how much it goes through the system.

B salt malabsorption, it's called.

And mine was like non-existent.

That's why anything I was taking in, I was just shitting out.

So they've said, you've got this, you need to have these tablets

now for the rest of your life.

I was like, what the fuck?

But it's manageable and it's keeping me in the army.

So at the moment I can balance.

I said my work life balance at the moment's amazing.

I ended up promoting last year.

Business was already good to go.

Started up, I randomly promoted, not expecting to, 'cause I

was technically downgraded.

I hadn't really done a lot.

I promoted my first look.

I only put three jobs in battalion down.

Um, and I got the one in the r CMO department.

So I was like, yes, Dex job, I can, I won't deploy anywhere

even though I did a lot.

Um, I won't deploy anywhere.

I can concentrate on the business and I can do this side by side.

I'm, I'm winning.

So yeah, that's the, that's how I could build the business and still

have a salary that pays everything else, which meant I've taken, not

taken a penny from comeback clipper.

Everything is reinvested back in into it.

'cause I get salary pays on my bills.

Um, yeah, we built it up and up and up.

However, the amount, so people are saying to me, oh, you

must be leaving the Army now.

You're doing really well.

You must, you're gonna be a millionaire.

Absolutely.

I hope I'm gonna be a millionaire.

But the reality is, if you really no business, cash flows an issue.

It may look amazing on social media, and this is why I don't like social media.

It's because of the perception of it.

I put loads of content out.

I'm going to all these events, I'm meeting all the amazing top brands in their field.

People are like, oh my God, I can't believe if you're meeting all these

people, you must be doing amazing.

Yes, we are doing okay.

But careful what you're seeing on social media, because I

was telling you this earlier.

I put, I was at the gym.

I went to the gym, started at the gym.

One of my mates has got a Porsche.

All I was doing was taking a photos to say I'm at the gym in back,

just a story of the High Rocks gym.

The Porsche was in it.

Two people messaged me with an half an hour saying, mate, you must be doing well.

You've bought a Porsche.

Like that is not mine.

Stop.

That's, but that's how you perceive things.

Absolutely.

And you know, that's why I had social media for, for no other reason

other than I'm just happy sharing my journey, you know, like just,

just me doing me, you know, not an influence on anything like that.

But I originally, you know, like pulled all my social media

down, super locked it down.

It's all private.

If, if I don't know who you are, you're not on my social media, I've

never met you in person and it's gone.

But it's, but I'll never have a personal one.

I don't see, and it's, I personally don't see the point.

I like it to connect with people because I've traveled so far and it is nice to, to

see what other people are doing and Yeah.

To have those people that I know that are, are genuine on there.

Yeah.

But it's, would you ever have social media back personally to sort of, and not just

for anything other than like, this is a bit of my life and my friends from maybe

back at school, back when you were down.

Sorry.

Way to be like, I, I'm doing this now.

It'd be cool to reconnect.

And I think it's, it's invaluable tool for connecting with those that, you

know, there's only 24 hours in a day.

We work 25 of them.

Yeah.

Fair one.

The, I think so people have actually said to me before, like,

I've put some personal stuff.

Obviously this is a business account and we're trying to promote the business.

Every now and then I'll do some personal stuff.

And someone actually did say to me, was like, mate, you

need to get a personal account.

And I was like, it's a hard battle for me because I'm trying

to stay super professional.

But when I kind of do personal content, especially if it's like.

Anything army stuff on there, I get way more views.

It's weird.

So I want to drag them to the, I wanted them to come to the business, but I can't.

And obviously we wanna be big and massive, but I still want to have the truth.

And reality is we're still, we're a small business.

It's just a guy doing it in his life.

I'm gonna be moving into a unit soon, like with my new house, but

I started off like Jim Shark did in making t-shirts in his room.

Now he's a billion dollar company.

I started in my loft and I've been open and honest with it.

And because of that, and I've been so genuine, it's why I

started from boots to business.

So loads of people ask me, or they've, I've documented it from the start,

knew nothing, been open, honest, got to where we are now, and people are

like, oh, I wanna do the same thing.

I wanna start a business, but I dunno where to start.

And I was messaging people happily, like giving them as much advice

as I could to the point where my misses was like I was, I sat at home

trying to watch TV constantly on my phone and she gets annoyed with it.

And, and fair rightly so.

But I was, she was like, whatcha doing?

I said, oh, I'm just helping someone.

She's like, you need to start valuing your time if you are helping all these people.

And I, I wanted to help 'em, but she was like, you need to start charging

people to do it 'cause this is, you are technically still working.

And I was like, well, no one's gonna pay me money to give them advice.

I don't, I don't really, I'm not a professional consultant.

Um.

She was like, just try it.

I was like, I told the lads in the gym the next morning, I was like,

look, I might have this idea of people come up to me all the time asking for

advice, um, and I'm giving it to them.

I might start charging people and I could probably turn

that into a business as well.

And they were like, oh, that, that's a big thing.

Anyway, they, you've got like, oh, that thing Alex Mosey does, I can't

remember what it's called now school, where you, uh, help people with

business and stuff and you could charge.

And I was like, okay, I'll try it.

And I was like, I don't don't even know what to charge.

I'll charge 300 pound a month.

And then someone said to me, charge a grand.

And I was like, if I don't think they're gonna pay 300, they're definitely

not gonna pay a thousand pounds.

And he said, if they want your service, they will find the money.

I was like, alright, try it.

And I've had someone, I had someone within a week or two say, okay.

And I was like, this is crazy.

I can't believe so someone would go to someone technically not a professional.

Obviously I'm, I've got the experience.

I've nearly got two years experience now, and I'm still not, I'm learning every day.

Obviously you will always probably be learning, but I've got a blueprint now

that I can help people and people are happy to take that advice and pain.

I'm like, actually you start from, no, most people in business are winging

it because you don't, there's no like actual blueprint for how you're doing it.

I can give you, I can't tell you what processes sell, but I can tell you how

I've done it and it's worked for me.

Not necessarily gonna work for you, but this is what I've done.

If you wanna work together, let's go.

It's, it's doing well.

Um, but yeah, it's, it's hard.

Businesses in general, just mental in it and trying to, like I said, the battalions

support me so much, but I, I'm, and it's been the last two weeks where I, I've

been burning out hard and I'm really struggling to the point you touch on that

quickly then like the day to day grind in, you are like five, half five every day.

You've done an hour in a gym, an hour's drive to work, you got

your day job, which is the Army.

Yeah.

But that's then the end of that day be around five o'clock.

That's then when combat Clipper company has to start.

So I'm quite lucky through the rest of the day.

I'm quite lucky that my boss is so sound and he, he actually lives an hour,

hour and a half from camp anyway, so he drives early in the morning, leaves,

has to drive an hour home as well.

So we understand that completely.

But we've got an agreement though, as long as the output's there in the day

and in the I CMO department, you can technically, as long as you get your

laptop with, you can work from anywhere.

Right.

So as long as the output's there, I goes to the gym.

I come in at, I start work at nine, I leave at four.

It gives me, it takes me four minutes to get home.

The post is closed at half five.

So I get about 40 minutes to pack as many orders as I can get the post of his.

And that's really good work-life balance.

My son goes to bed at, he goes for a bath at half six.

So from half, five to half six, I try and have some time with the sun and my Mrs.

Then when he goes up to the bath at half six, I start cooking dinner.

So I, she does the bath, I cook the dinner, he goes to bed at

seven after he's at his bath, his read his story and goes to bed.

We have dinner till probably about half seven, dinner at seven, yet

finished about half seven and then it's, Mrs will put the TV on and I'm

laptop out, phone out, still working.

I'm getting definitely in the last two weeks and I think this is

where my mojo's gone, that I was getting burnt out, that I can't keep

doing this and I totally get it.

She's like, you need to think about the family too.

Like, I've stopped weekends as well.

I don't, I was working every day.

Weekends is family time for me now.

Um, we try and go to the farm or something with the kid because

I still do orders on a Saturday because I can still get to there.

Most of it's before half 12.

Uh, 11 o'clock, sorry.

So I make sure I do still packing orders on a Saturday.

Sunday's a complete day off.

You always say day off, but people are still messaging you, still

social media still contact free, but I'm a lot less on my phone then.

Um, but yeah, you work, probably work until late and, uh, some

of my suppliers are abroad so I, there's different time zones.

I have to wake up at certain times to speak to them.

'cause that's the only time to do it.

I don't have the time in the day to get my phone out.

Like the agreement in work is, I will not let combat clipper

affect the business effects.

My daytime work completely fair.

And I don't, obviously, if I have little breaks and stuff, I'm

constantly trying to do stuff.

And on my lunch.

Nipping as much stuff as I can, but ultimately I've gotta catch

up with all that in the evening.

People are solely doing their business stuff.

I'm, it's funny this, 'cause I had a conversation with PJ about this chat

to PJ again and I was like, he said he couldn't wait to leave the Marines

to solely concentrate on the business.

He said he'd have more time to go to the gym, go to the

sauna, do all this extra stuff.

But he says he spends more time in the business now than

he ever did when he was in.

And I said, I said this to him, which made him, told me that I said,

I can't wait to leave the army.

The amount of time I'd have to myself that I'm spending, making the business

successful now, as well as having a day job, as well as doing, um, um,

as boost to business and hybrid.

The other business I've created, I've, I'm fitting all this time in.

Imagine when I leave the army and I'm gonna have all this

time for the combat clip.

I'm like, this is, I cannot wait for that.

But the rally is, I'm terrified because I'm live giving up 51 KA years when

I do terminate and it's terrifying.

Which is, and you know, if Ever's a, the sales point, obviously a

brand's products would come first.

I vouched 'em, you know, I've bought 'em off.

You'd be very kind to send me some bits as well.

But I've bought my own as well.

You, you see it in my house.

They, they're literally there.

Uh, especially all in one because it's easy and blokes are lazy.

Yeah.

And you know, you nailed that.

Don't use beard stuff 'cause I don't really have a be it's patchy, messy as up.

If you did use it, it'd be a bit neater than that.

I'm just gr she's actually like, care about my personal hygiene, shouldn't I?

You tram chat once a week, you know, if I'm lucky when the miss is home to do it.

Um, but other than that, so, and after that, it's.

The products are good.

Yeah.

Why should someone come and buy from you?

The products get all of that.

It's, you're giving up 51 grand a year, which is a huge salary.

You know, that That's what, double double the salary, average salary in

the UK or so it, it's a lot of money to say, because I believe in what I'm

doing, you know, I'm so confident in what I'm doing and it being successful.

I take my hat off, man.

That's a thank you mate.

A huge thing to, to walk away from, you know, financial security with a partner.

Yeah.

And a young child and another child in Liverpool House.

Just about to buy a new house to support with.

Buy a house massive.

With a massive mortgage.

Woohoo.

So go and buy Combat Lipper so t can leave the Army.

Thank you.

That's a sales pitch there.

Um, we've then met on and off and I think without being arrogant, you knew me.

Before I knew you, I'd seen bits of combat clipper company pop

up and I was like, that's cool.

And that's when I went and bought, um, your, like your, your kit of everything.

So I was like, remember the story?

Do you know what?

And I sent you d and I was like, do you know what this is?

And I put it on a story when had a unit just down there and I was like, you what?

This is wicked.

You know, because there's a lot of veterans that and good luck to everyone

that does skulls violence and coffee.

Yeah.

And I was like, this is different.

Yeah.

This is cool, man.

And I didn't know that you were our sister bat Italian.

And then one day someone said, oh, was the guy I had seen.

I was like, oh, who would, who would, I don't even give it attention.

Who, who would come to see me?

I'm just Alex that puts some protein in powders and pots and,

and does I make stuff for me?

And I Oh he does.

Um.

Combat something.

I was like, oh, probably coffee.

No disrespect.

But, uh, and I didn't do it.

And I think I left you hanging for a while, didn't I?

You were like in the gym trading at C 13.

Is this Oh, I think I was already on exercise.

I was, um, I was on Western Storm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Uh, uh, and eventually I begrudgingly came over to be like, because again,

who would wanna come and see me?

You know, and, and then you'd said it and I was like, oh,

who'd you say I'm doing this?

It was like, this is cool.

This is, this is wild.

And it was, I was bit, that's weird to say this, but I was actually like nervous.

It's, it's so weird.

I'd seen, you obviously seen, this is the thing, like social media, you'd see people

on social media, you think, kind even know them, but you meet in person, you're

like, you don't really, what a dickhead.

And I was like, what?

You were thinking wasn't it, it turned out now like, well you

gave me a discount gonna the gym.

So I was a bit buzzing.

No, you go.

Yeah.

We support our friends.

Carl, who runs C thirteen's, a good friend of bodybuilding la I forgot about that.

You know, I remember you did that story and I was like, I can't believe

this cl to, we said, I looked up to the biggest brands in the veteran

space and I was like, I can't believe he's done a shout like that.

We were very in our infancy then.

Didn't really have a lot of followers, but I was like, yes, this is great.

Yeah.

I still use my cutthroat to the day.

You should still make razor blades.

'cause I can't send 'em in the Post You.

I probably can, but what they don't, I mean, they never,

they're never gonna know.

I probably should.

Yeah.

But, but you, you know, I mean, yeah.

Like to this day, that was what, that was over a year ago that I

bought my bits off you, you know?

Stuff.

Stir the test of time.

It's traveled all over the world with me, like my little cutthroat, uh, and

an the all in one, which is a terrible business one make because it doesn't

run out or I just don't wash enough.

Like that's still going out.

Like no, it does like that.

And the shampoo generally does last for Yeah.

I still have my shampoo.

Yeah, it does.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Well I wish it run out quicker because people Yeah.

Buy more.

Yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

But no, it, it is brilliant.

But then let's obviously a little bit of combat fuel.

You, you touched on that.

Have you used any of our products already?

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's absolutely, there we go.

Although one thing, so I, like I said, I've got a swan rotator

cuff ligaments in my knee.

And you recommend the joint.

I'll switch.

I'm gonna get to 'em today.

Actually try.

That's the one thing I've, there go, I think I've tried

majority of everything else.

One thing I haven't done, you were, you were a big fan of Optimize.

Weren't you?

Optimize?

Yeah.

Oh, that was Game Changer.

Introduced to It's very, very good product.

Product.

I even told, I told the lad in the gym, right.

And they used it and they were like, wow, it's, so I didn't,

so I'm not a fan of pre-work.

I've never, I've never really been a supplement guy.

There was APHA in Cyprus where I used to take, um, I talk

about other proteins and stuff.

Yeah.

I used to take mute mass.

Yep.

Like a thousand calorie shakes.

And I, I think I was on op, uh, was it shade at the time or something in,

anyways, we were just on ops and shaded, basically sagging on the airfield.

We had loads of times to go to the gym and I was like, right.

I used to go on, I was on mutant mass, uh, animal pack, I think, which I don't

think the entire British Army was on.

I don't think you've even allowed it now.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

But it's back then like Jack 3D wasn't allowed a made

pisco blue green, didn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I used to do, I used to do animal pack and m stack, it

was like eight pills per pack.

I was on like 16 pills plus the mutant mass and I got fairly big fat.

But uh, yeah, that's the first sort of time I ever used supplements.

And then I found it was struggling with my stomach, so I stopped it completely.

I probably used a bit of Optimum nutrition protein for a bit.

I watched Joel Corey on, um, YouTube doing his bodybuilding

thing, and he used to promote that.

That's why he used that for a bit.

But then there was years and years, like when I was training for

selection, no, no products when I was in Maori, didn't had nothing there.

And I used to be thinking, if I can get this good, natural,

why do I need products?

Fine.

And then I used, so then I, did I reach out to you for advice?

I can't remember.

Or did I just buy stuff?

Oh, no, I told you I couldn't.

I wanted to buy protein, but I couldn't because on my stomach issues.

Yes.

And that's when you said about the ClearWay.

I think I didn't say anything about ClearWay, just, oh, was it someone might

have told you that, uh, ClearWay you can use with Crohn's and other people?

It definitely wasn't me that said that, but I can't, someone was, was it ClearWay?

Must be ClearWay.

Oh, anything clear?

ClearWay is very, very good for people that have Crohn's.

There's no lactose in it, the way that it works, but because we're on camera.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

Definitely wasn't me that told you that.

Got it.

Um, but yeah, so I. Started using that protein.

Great uni.

I got the unicorn piss.

Amazing.

Not the first time you've had choices to piss, is it?

Taste is so good.

And then, yeah, you told me about the optimize and I've, when I was,

when I was taking the mut mass and I was taking pre-workout, I hated it.

So you, to give you a buzz, I couldn't really eat on it.

I hated the like, come down you'd get, I was like, that is not for me at all.

Like I can self-motivate myself to go to gym.

I'm fine.

And then I tried the optimize and it was like,

like a pre-work.

I gave you a good stim stimulus, but it was wasn't, I didn't have to come down,

I didn't have the shakes and stuff.

I just felt like I was alert and on Good.

But it lasted ages.

I was like, this is sick.

This is an absolute game changer.

Um, and I told LA was in the gym about it in Pat and I actually bought them it.

I was like, right, I'll just buy this so I guarantee you're gonna get hooked.

And uh, yes, I bought 'em it and they were like, mate, this is sick.

They've been using ever since.

And then the other stuff, what else did I use?

The, I bought the, uh, multivits.

I take the fish oil and the re oh, the, the flavored creating.

So I don't like creating, because it was unflavored.

I used to take it, force it down, not really a fan.

And then we came for your open day and that's when you had the,

I got the strawberry and lime one.

So you had, remember when you had the tasters all out?

I tasted one, but I couldn't, 'cause I'd already tasted one that was on my mouth.

You were like, I couldn't really tell.

I was like that song.

So I can't really taste the ovens now because I've already put them mouth,

but I, I think just pink lemonade.

Is it you liking it?

Oh, that, that is, that's a goat flavor.

That's next one.

I'm fine.

Pink Lemonade.

But yeah, I swear by cine.

Genuinely.

And it was, uh, Dean Hammond actually told me that I was taking the one

Scoop five milligram and I think he did a post about upping your dose.

And I was, I didn't really know that much about it and he was like, double it.

And I was like, okay.

And I was thinking, fuck if I double it, I'm gonna have to keep buying more.

I'm gonna go through it rapid.

He was like, trust me.

So I doubled it and I was like, whoa.

I definitely, genuinely noticed it's a difference.

I was like, actually yeah.

Definitely knows what you're talking about.

Yeah.

And it's game changer creating by far.

I absolutely pride myself on, there's not many out there that

will only make good products or all that's a good margin to we'll have.

We'll get that in our range and you know, we don't, we don't

make anything that's not good.

And very selfishly, like suppose similar to you, you know, you're very open to

say you had someone else give you that advice, that wanted start a beard company

and then you've gone away and made bespoke products 'cause you know they

work for you and then you've done it.

And that's the same as what we did with Combat Fuelers other

than Vegan Protein because we had some vegan athletes is I just made

products that I wanted for myself.

You know, the whole point of joint.

Joint came about because starting Juujitsu a year ago and I'm like my arm, my knees

were shot mm-hmm To shit from the army.

My fingers, shoulders, everything was just hurting and I need

to get a grip of my body.

Um, I'm just gonna make a joint product and I wanna make it good.

Um, so we did doing work in Cocum and doesn't do shit for the body, but that's

not, i's excited to try and I'll be honest as well, I'm so like, this is

because I'm excited by picking it up.

It genuinely is the best.

If I, I'm struggling at the moment with multiple injuries

and you've said joint work.

I'll try it and I'll tell you if that's work.

There we go.

That's genuine as well.

If he's she, I'll be like, sorry Alex, man, it didn't work.

But the point this comes out, we get teed to make sure he has his own YouTube video

and he can put a comment on there and he can say, actually, shit, a or It's good.

Yeah.

And it will be good.

It won't regrow your meniscus or reattach it.

Oh yeah, no, obviously I understand that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the 400 milligram equivalent of ibuprofen that it'll give

you, um, the prevention, oh, it got that in it towards it.

Not ibuprofen, but the hydroco.

Right.

It does.

So 400 same effect as 400 milligram of ibuprofen.

Okay.

With no side effects, which is, there's lots of other bits in there

that, that we have to be careful of how we say it to, to stick.

I, I'm super excited to try that and I wanna do, but it's, it's

pretty, my mom and dad use it and they're, I mean, they're old.

They're, they're 67 and 65, you know, both got osteoarthritis and is their feedback,

not me saying anything, both use it.

They been on a walk that, what was that?

Arthritis, osteoarthritis.

Do they have to have injections?

Uh, I don't actually know because I've never asked my, I think my miss has got

that just made an Does it help with that?

People that have told me, yeah.

Yes.

I can't say, is it?

Yeah.

'cause my MR has got, um, I think it's called that she's got some sort

of arthritis and every two weeks has of injection out the fridge.

We have a lot of people that have osteoarthritis that.

Use joint and the feedback has been phenomenal.

I'll ask, get a couple minutes.

We just said that bit now, where we have to be super careful what

we've throw so we can say what other people have said because we also

fall into that positional category.

And if you make something that's too good, then people come knocking.

Um, yeah.

Joint should be a, a a 70, 80 pound product.

You know, we don't make really any money on it.

It's 'cause I wanted to make something that gives people that freedom of movement

for, for the idea was aquid a day.

We couldn't do that fortunately.

Um, because we can't give it away.

We'd go busting, you know.

Yeah.

Prop bag.

I've been holding that.

It was really bugging me.

It's coming.

We've been here for quite a while because it's been interesting.

It's been absolutely.

Thank you.

Brilliant.

Um,

where do you see Combat Clipper company going?

Uh, so the end game actually is, so we was last year in April, we got

promised that we were gonna be in every single camp shop in the uk,

Germany, Cypress, Falklands, and Jaba.

Annoyingly that deal fell through partly because we weren't,

um, UK retail compliance.

So you had to have barcode and you had to have your home address on

it, all this sort sort of stuff.

And we weren't at the time.

So we did that, spoke to the supplier, was like, can you do this?

We made all the barcode and paid for it all, put all our dresses on it.

Um.

And then he ghosted us.

I was like, Hey.

He said he got it in, had a meeting with, he used to do it for Compass

Group Sodexo, and said he got it.

They were basically gonna hold, uh, they were kind of like the distributor.

I mean, I was like, I was thinking my, can I just go some directly?

Obviously I didn't have that contact.

He was the contact for me.

So he was gonna buy a massive bulk of us and then he would

distribute to all these places.

I was like, Sam, that is exactly what I want because that's my

ticket into the big supermarket.

Tesco, Evon, blah, blah.

Um, yeah, he ghosted us.

I was devastated with that.

So we want, we do want to get into retail space.

We're in five barber shops, two hair salons.

If I had the time, I would go to more places to plug it

more and be in those places.

But that's a, that's a job when I leave the army 'cause or

when I wanna leave because I, I don't have the time to do that.

Um, but an idea I had was, so most people go down to get their haircut at

the Turkish barber down the local town.

And every single camp barbers you go to, or hairdressers is someone's

wife and they're pretty shit.

Sorry if that's the case, but back hurt.

But the reality is, yeah, they, they can't do a skin fade.

And that's what most lads want or can't do a proper barber haircut.

So if I could get a combat clip of barber shop in every single camp shop

that stocks the products, I hire a barber to actually do that full time and

do a genuine fade or genuine haircut.

Why can't we have that?

And we be the.

Obviously our target market is soldiers.

We sell to everyone and we want to do that.

Our niche was always squatters and it kind of narrows it a little bit,

but we do wanna sell to everyone.

But I think if I can get into camp shops, obviously it's gonna cost a lot of money.

We need the capital, um, yeah, to be able to do that.

And we'll get into all the camp camps to do barbering.

But next is improve the product, uh, not improve the products.

So they're good anyway.

Uh, extend the product range.

People keep asking me about clothing.

It does my in because there's like no margins in it.

Like it's just nightmare at the moment.

I don't, I did hold the stock.

I bought like a whole load of them, held the stock in my loft.

I no one in the adult world, not no one, but the majority

of people aren't a size small.

So I've got like 30 size small T-shirts that I don't have

it, I don't, can't ever sell.

So I ended up giving it to my mate.

He gave it to the local kids football team for free.

Um, so holding the stock thing is just not really viable at the moment.

So what we do is we just do a fulfilled, uh, print order thing.

It comes to me, it goes to wherever it is.

They print it, they were gonna send it to the customer, but

it, when I did the sample, I was like, that packaging surrender.

So all they do is they send it to me.

I then repackage it to make it in my comm, clipper, Brandon put giving the

coffee bag, the stickers, the patches and stuff, and I send it to the customer.

But it takes two weeks, sometimes three weeks.

Customers nowadays don't like waiting like we do.

As long as they order before four o'clock and I can get home in time,

I will send the order that day, 24 hours tracked, only charge them 3 99.

It costs me four pound 25.

So I take a 26 pound hit just to get it to the next day.

'cause everyone's like Amazon, don't they?

I will as much as I can try to get it to you next day.

Sometimes I put it on there one to three days.

I would most of the time get it to you next day unless

there's some reason I can't.

Um, but that level of service, we want high quality service,

customer satisfaction.

That's one of our biggest priorities.

So the fulfilling company, I don't, it annoys me, but people want the clothing.

I think that speaks volumes though for you as a person as well.

You know, you stay on your website one to three days, so you know, if you're rushed

or you are, you're taking your time.

Why can't you package it up the next morning, drop it the next day.

The answer is because you care.

Yeah.

You know, people are still gonna come back anyway.

We treat our customers the same.

You know, it's a real guy at the end of it who has good

products, who cares about people.

You know, these guys and girls that are giving us their money.

That's what it is.

They're giving us their hard earned money for a product.

So why shouldn't we have that care to, to get it to them as soon as we possibly can.

Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of people expect it from our demographic and,

and from a military point of view, I think the guys are just grateful to be

buying from a product where they can see it makes a difference to our lives.

And they equally get some fantastic products as well.

Um, but it's nice to see, you know, you want to get back, you

want to get that stuff out the same day to, to keep them happy.

I've said this now, but I have said this now, and that is.

Viable right now because I live 40 minutes from camp, unfortunately the

house I'm buying is an hour from camp.

So if I leave at four, sometimes I can't leave till 20 past four.

Ultimately, I won't be able to make it do it that next day.

Um, and even this, through this whole time I've said that I could have, I

could, 'cause I've got the one for three days, I could get home, spend the next,

that 40 minutes I'm using packaging.

I could have given that to my son.

I could have spent his, my son's at home.

I could have spent 40, I'm taking 40 minutes extra away

from my family to be able to pack these orders, to do that stuff.

That's the sacrifice I've done.

Fine.

But you carry current, uh, in the new house?

Unfortunately, I am gonna have to because I'm not gonna get home in time.

So I used to have the next day delivery on there and that I used to charge

5, 9, 9 for that.

And that would, and that was purely because I was taken

the 26 p heat on every order.

Fine.

I'd charge the next, 'cause I knew I could do it.

Next day I'd charge 5, 9, 9 to get a little bit of money back.

But then I thought that's too much pressure because sometimes

I can't leave work early, I can't get home to pack the order.

And I feel I would then refund them that money.

'cause I, if I'm make it, I would do it even though I didn't probably have to.

I'd be like, sorry mate, I couldn't make it.

The next day I'll refunded that money and I'll just cover the cost.

Fine.

So I, I did that for a year and then I took off the, 'cause

it was too much pressure.

I took off the next day delivery and then I moved to one three days.

But the new house is, I mean, moving to the rally is, I'm

not gonna be able to do that.

Next day they'll probably get it two days, unfortunately.

Which, I mean, it, it is still not in the army.

Like you've just gone in for like a few minutes there and like you can see

the passion behind it of being like, and it's bothering you that you're

not gonna be able to get stuff out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The same day.

Which it ah, its annoying it.

Yeah.

And you know, for, for someone that it is, I mean, if I'm not buying my shampoo,

my three and one and getting it the next day, it's my bad admin, you know,

could argue the same with supplements,

prior preparation and all of that good stuff.

Absolutely.

Um, such so you, you obviously got a very stressful life.

Yeah.

Um, purely if nothing else because of the amount of workload and your output.

It, it's incredible.

Have lovely misses.

Gorgeous kids and a business.

Three businesses.

Three businesses.

We've not even talked about hybrid eight yet.

We haven't even gone there.

No.

Um,

if you had, that's actually probably more relevant 'cause it's sport.

If you had to pick Yeah.

And you have to pick 'cause it's the question.

Okay.

What would it be?

Family, and this is obviously hypothetical Of course.

Or the businesses.

And could you, could you, I mean you have to pick, I asked you if

I had to give one up right now.

Family or businesses?

Businesses.

I'd have to like, this is the first time in my whole life I've met someone

that like I go back to the emotional unavailability that I've bounced

through different relationships.

I could end a relationship right now and be like, look, I could have all

the relationships I've had, I've ended it, not really bothered, moved on.

Sound doesn't bother me.

And I did that with my previous misses.

Like with the kit.

Now I've, this is the first time I've genuinely been happy.

Like a lot of the time in previous relationships, I'd like to go away.

I'd like the break.

This is the first time in my whole life I've, I'm excited to come

home and it's kind of weird for me.

I've never, like I always said, I was against marriage, right.

And I, funnily enough, um, yeah, nevermind.

Yeah.

Against marriage.

I don't, I'm not, I'd never, I'd say to people that, I dunno, anyone

that's ever been in a, I've on their second marriage or um, are still

together, haven't cheated on them.

And I used to say my parents were the only people that have

ever been together forever.

They split up two years ago in their sixties, nearly six.

Dunno old, they're 60 something.

Sorry, mom.

Sorry.

Um, but yeah, they're in sixties and they split up.

So I was like, I'm so against marriage.

My Mrs obviously really wants to get married.

And I do.

This is the first time when, and I speak to my mates.

I was like, I'm never getting married.

I'm never gonna do it.

And it's the first time I've actually thought, you know what?

I actually am.

I will.

This is someone that's gonna be my forever.

And I never thought that.

I didn't think anything would last, but I spoiled out Lauren.

And you'll get what you want.

I won't say when, but we will, we will get married.

Oh, that's awesome.

And it's, and it's, so if you'd have asked me this.

A year and a half ago, I would've definitely said business.

Even at the start of the business, I'd probably always said business, um, family.

I could have just skipped on the next one like this sounds so savage, but I,

I didn't give up on my first son because I still see him every other weekend.

I, amount of time, I, we spent a year having troubles with my ex-partner

that I couldn't take him out Liverpool.

She, I used to drive there every other weekend, her own mind.

I pay full child maintenance.

I'd spend the money driving there, full tank of fuel on a

Friday, three hours to Liverpool.

I'd have 'em for a few hours on a Friday night.

I'd give them back.

I'd get in a hotel Friday night, have 'em for all day, take out for, and because I

don't really know Liverpool, especially if it's winter, you've gotta do stuff inside.

So I've gotta pay for the soft play.

I've gotta take him out for dinner and then get a hotel on a Saturday

night in Liverpool, which is really expensive, to then have him a couple

hours on Sunday and drive home.

I was doing that every other weekend.

So it's not like I gave up for my son, but I gave him up relationship because I,

I wanted, I loved the army and I wanted to go away, and that was, I had no

emotion for it, so I just cut it off.

That doesn't bother me.

And it's never bothered me my whole life in relationships until this point.

But if I lost Lauren and my son now, I'd genuinely be devastated.

Yeah.

And to say that I would now say the family, and that's not, I'm not saying

that just because she's listening, because she knows I'm fucking ruthless.

A year ago or a year and a half ago have said business definitely, but no.

Yeah, family now.

Love time for that.

I'd also be fucking devastated if I lost the business.

Yeah.

I'd be the amount of time and effort put into this now.

But it's a big thing, isn't it?

You, you know that happiness.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's nice to see you.

Happy as well, man.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I see you happy, happy I'm, yeah.

Yeah.

We said businesses though.

You, you know, we've touched on some of the coaching stuff, but we've also got

another business we will touch on it.

'cause the, the main focus has been on Combat Lipper company, but hybrid date.

Hybrid date.

I say that right?

Yep.

Hybrid date is a hybrid date.

Another, um, can I call it a love child or a brainchild of yours?

It's a brain child that, um, you've had, tell us a little bit about it.

Yeah, so it's called Hybrid eight.

Hybrid Dating.

So hybrid's a component of two different jobs.

Two different things, right?

And it, it was an idea that, so I go to a High Rocks gym, two of the LA in there.

I had the idea, uh, one of 'em was a mechanic, one of 'em was a builder.

I dropped my car, my van off at the mechanics, um, shop to get a service done.

And I was telling him about from Boots Business.

Uh, he was like, how's the business?

How's comic Clip going?

And I was like, yeah, really?

Well I'm now helping people build other businesses.

And he was like, oh, we've had a great business idea.

And I was like, what is it?

He's like, I don't wanna say because I don't want give it away.

And I was like, alright.

I said, well, if you need any help, lemme know.

And he messaged me later, was like, you know what?

I could use your help here.

Um, so I was like, okay.

Between three of us.

Let's go 33% in the business.

I'll, um, I'll do, they didn't really know anything about the

social media marketing brand and all that sort of side stuff of it.

That's where I could help.

I said, I've got no money.

All my money's strapped up in my family, my and Combat Clipper.

Unfortunately, I can't invest anything into this.

And they were like, right, okay, so we'll put the money in.

You do the work.

I was like, sound I'll, I'll, um, yeah, I'll do it for free, but I'm,

I'm gonna do all the, the work.

Sound fine.

I registered the company built, built the website.

Uh, they had a contact for an app developer, um, over in India.

Someone who'd already worked for someone else.

Um, the research we'd done it was gonna cost like hundreds of thousands of pounds.

We was like, well, we haven't got that, so we'll find someone

that can do it properly.

But basically the concept is, so I've gotta be careful with this legally.

So it's a, a dating app slash what started off as a dating

app for the High Rocks athlete.

So obviously you've got Tinder, hinge, Bumble, all the other dating apps

out there, but anyone can go on them.

You get like, and you don't really know who's on them.

So we did the research.

Is there an app for athletes?

Obviously there is a out, uh, apps out there, but there isn't any

specifically for the Oxx athletes.

So the amount of people that go to s and they're highly motivated,

fit, dedicated in individuals.

Individuals, you've got different sections.

You could go as a solo, a doubles, or a mixed doubles or adaptive.

Imagine if your, your friendship groups aren't into high rocks, you don't really

know where to go to find it, but you wanna do a doubles partner, where can you go?

So we were like, right, let's build an app that you can go on

to be able to get on the app.

You have to have done a High Rocks event.

So we verify every single person that goes on, you are in a niche.

You are, you're not, you know, you're not gonna be around any dross.

They've been verified by us.

And then you can find other like-minded people.

And it's not, 'cause we say it's a dating app, but it's not just for

people that are looking for a hookup.

It's people that are, could have already been in a relationship, but they're

just looking for a doubles partner.

So it's kind of a, it's, it is a dating app to find people, or it's a

community app to just to be on there.

So we can have, we've got three subscriptions, basic pro and Elite.

Basic is free forever.

So you can, as long as you've done a UX event, we'll verify the account.

You can get on it and you don't have to pay anything.

However, some of the, um, there's limitations on it.

There's only so many swipes.

You can have, only so many messages you can send, you can upgrade to a

pro account and if you've got Ggl to a pro account, you get, you can

upload a lot more pictures, you can message more, you can swipe more.

But we add you onto a WhatsApp group and you can get to go to specific events,

say similar with the Elite package.

If you, um, subscribe to the Elite, there's more.

So the lads went to London this weekend.

The weekend has gone two weeks before that they were in Dublin.

Couple of weeks before that they were in Ros Birmingham.

So we're gonna these events and we can make group specific groups

for those pro or elite athletes.

And we can do events where they can do meet and greets, they can get certain

merch, we can have a. Um, we can hire out a venue and we can have those

sort of things for those subscribers.

So we looked on Facebook and obviously this ist High Rocks dating app,

this isn't anything to do with them.

It's a, our own dating app called Hybrid Date that you can, it's aimed

at the High Rocks athlete and that's where the legal thing comes in.

We're not like stealing anything of theirs, it's just for those competitors.

So we looked on Facebook and there was someone that commented on it.

This was only like a month ago saying, is there any places out

there we where we can find Single Ox?

And we just kept messaging saying, right, this is why we built hybrid data.

This is coming soon.

It's been in development for the past four, four months.

I register the company in May, four months, developing nearly five.

It's with Apple right now, and it's just been approved yesterday or this morning,

yesterday with, uh, Google Play Store.

It's with Apple now to get verified and then we should be launching

maybe this side of Christmas, maybe just in the new Year.

Um, but yeah, we think this is our ticket to the big bus.

Like there's, there's, we know there's a market there.

Yes, absolutely.

It's huge.

Why?

And the beauty is we, so we're starting it with High Rocks.

There's nothing saying we can't use hybrid data as the overall, overall brand.

But then we do like triathlons, we do climbing, rock climbing, um, marathons.

Well any other sport that's out there, we can manche it to those certain of things.

So we'll start with hierarchy, see where it goes.

As long as we don't get in any trouble.

We've spoke to the solicitor already, we think we're sound.

Um, and then yeah, we'll see where it goes.

We think there's definitely a market there, it should hopefully blow up.

And that is my, and the beauty of that is like, so combat the lessons I've learned

from Comeback Lipper, I've now turned into hybrid eight, like building business.

I now to do that, the market and branding.

However, the beauty of that is I don't hold any stock.

I've not gotta go home and fulfill orders eventually when we have merchant stuff,

yes, okay, we expand to that, but it's just a recurring subscription service.

As long as we stay on top of the app, we pay the developer to keep things.

Obviously people are gonna recommend stuff to us.

We've already got a phase two, like certain things we couldn't fit into

this timeframe and we kind of run outta money for their budget to be fair.

So we, there's definitely gonna be a phase two, but for now we're

in a position to launch in the new year and it's monthly income.

General income.

Yeah.

We're very, very excited about that.

We've been quite quiet in the background, now we're in a position to launch it

and now we're plugging it a bit more.

So I'm glad I could talk about it now.

Yeah.

Awesome man.

Congratulations on what will hopefully be another super

successful business subscriptions.

Is that something we can get on Combat Lipper Company or in the future?

We haven't.

We already haven't.

So we have, we've done this research before, all the, all the raises,

all the brilliant big start kits.

Yeah.

So you can have, you can have have it weekly, biweekly, monthly.

Um, and it was, someone gave me the idea, they said, so you've got all

the other, there's a lot of other brands out there that do this.

And they were like, why didn't you do this?

And I was like, oh, I didn't even think of that.

And I was like, yeah, did it.

Um, so now I, I do get it.

So if you buy an alpha blade razor, obviously you don't wanna

buy the whole razor each time.

You just buy the heads.

And they don't even think about it.

There's set up subscription, it comes out each month and I

can just send it automatically.

Yeah.

But we've done that for about Brilliant, probably about a year now.

And uh, we've got like a little rewards program.

So the more you buy, you get points and you can stack 'em up and uh, we call the,

call it the Combat Clipper Cult Club.

Nice.

You can do that online.

Yeah.

And it's always adapting.

Like I'm biggest thing, I'm struggling and I said it before, like I'm burning

out now juggling Family Life, army Combat Clipper and Hybrid eight now as well.

Black Friday was, we had a terrible time with a marketing agency recently.

They promised us the world delivered.

Nothing.

They, I'm not gonna, I'm not of never gonna mention them.

It was a, a risk we took, uh, they were great on the

phone, promised us everything.

Said we were gonna make these massive numbers.

Ultimately we didn't, technically we took a loss with them,

um, through the Facebook ads.

The only thing that saved us was, uh, only Forces Sig.

We had a few videos from time over my 17 years career that funny stupid

things like the Bayonet Lane or someone singing out and I collaborated with them.

One of my videos got 1.5 million views.

I've had multiple videos get like 200,000, 300,000, 500,000.

I think they had 3 million views in the, in one month.

'cause I was collaborating with so much and that generated a lot of

revenue, but it was organic social.

So I was like, thank genuinely.

If I didn't have that at the time, we would've definitely gone under.

Through sales.

If I hadn't funded it, I could have funded it myself fine.

But through that agency we would've massively gone under

and I would've ruined us.

Um, so yeah, we were a, a dark place at that time.

And then they, these are the same people that told us it was only a month ago,

do Black Friday for the whole month.

We were like, what?

They also told us to do free, your free shipping should be free always.

And I was like, last year we spent 7,000 pounds on shipping costs alone.

Like we can't give away seven grand a year just on free shipping.

I said, it's, we're a small business.

This, that was some of their advice.

But I was like, right, you've said you're gonna make me this.

You've been in the game Power over long.

I was like, right, okay.

I'm I'll take the risk well's, try it.

I didn't do the free shipping.

I said I wouldn't, I'm not accepting that.

But I did do the Black Friday month.

What a stupid idea.

Uh, they, their concept was all the brands are gonna do Black Friday.

Most people do it just Friday to Monday with Cyber Monday.

Some people do it for like a week before.

Why don't we beat everyone else?

Do it for the month.

So people that have still got the money at the beginning of the month, they come

to you rather than wait going all to the other bank when they've got no money

left, they get the end of the month.

They're choosing which brands to go to.

Let's just do it for a month.

And I was like, okay, last year I did it for a week.

This year we'll do it for a month.

Took the risk.

We did obviously a shit load, more orders than we have ever done before

because people that probably wanted to buy it kind of sits 'em over the edge.

And it's great because now when they bought the products.

I know they're gonna come back.

However, I won't see the amount of money with, of discount we gave away, but

we gave a shit load of discount and we weren't prepared stock wise 'cause we

sold out the razors, we sold out the wash bags, we sold out of body wash, sold

out shampoo, and now we're recovering.

We can't get it in quick enough for the December rush.

So admittedly like, and that really affected me mentally with

such a good month of sales, the revenue, it kind of evened out a

bit because it was so much discount.

Way too much more than we should have done.

Um, like I said, poor advice from marketing agency,

but now we're recovering.

We can't get the stock quicker enough.

We definitely had a lot less orders, but this is a lesson for next year.

Be careful with your marketing guys because nobody will know

your business as good as you.

We've been through the run of the mill with a few marketing

agencies and I'm not a fan.

Yeah, it's, and they were charging, you know, I'll say, uh, they wanted

three grand up front, then they broke it down to 1100 pound a month.

This was just the retainer and it was 10% of thing on top.

And I was like, man, that is a lot of money.

But they were like, but they promised me

a lot of high figures, like more than I've ever seen before.

I was like, okay, if you can do that.

And, and for, for us normal guys, you know.

We're both infantis.

Yeah.

We've come away from having, you know, when you joined it

was what, 12 grand a year?

Yeah.

You, not a lot.

Okay.

You're on a good wage now from the military, but it's, they said they were

gonna nearly match my yearly salary.

I've worked that gives it weigh there in a month.

And I was like, sweet, let's fucking do that.

Yeah.

I'll happily pay you a grand a month if you're gonna make that money.

Me.

No problems.

Yeah.

Three months later we, we've had it three months later.

Absolutely didn't.

Yeah.

And, and then, oh, we're doing this, this, this.

And then you get into the attribution of ads.

And I think they're a very hard thing to do.

I think when you make very niche, very good, very specific

products they sell themselves.

Okay.

We might need a hand to put those products in front of people.

Mm-hmm.

But using something, I won't say his name 'cause I don't think he's

that public, but the guy that runs only forces his a good friend.

It does really well.

'cause it's going in front of the demographic.

Everybody wins.

Guy good products get funny content.

That's more than any marketing agency could ever do.

And he's been so selfish and he's a sound ladder.

He's a very good for us.

So he's a nice guy.

Really been open to helping and it's good.

Leads on to like, I think we're getting near the end now.

It is there a life lesson and let's go, let's go with one person and one business.

So is there a life lesson that you could give to your younger self?

Um, and let's keep it away from business, but just in life.

A life lesson I give to my younger self.

Um, 11-year-old you, what are you saying?

It's hard because it's hindsight, isn't it?

Like the lessons I've learned through my life have made me how I'm now.

I like who I'm now, like, I didn't like it as a kid.

I, I didn't mention this before, but when I went to, when I was in year 10 and

11, I didn't take any my normal GCSEs.

'cause I got selected for a young apprenticeship program.

So 300 people out the county got an opportunity to go to college early.

And I did a national diploma in sports coaching management.

10 people got the 300 people applied, 10 people got selected.

I got selected.

So for, I did my core subjects, maths, English, science.

I didn't do, uh, ones you could choose like pe, geography, art,

where on a Wednesday and Friday I goes to college instead.

And when I went to those, that college, I, like I said, I was skinny, feeble young.

There was a lot more bigger alpha male blokes there.

One of them played for Lincoln City at the time, like the academy.

And they fucking bullied me when I was in college, genuinely.

And I remember one time they, I actually got stripped, I get naked, probably

naked, my Beamer pal, I can't remember.

And I got chucked out the, the, um, change rooms and I was like, but

that, it never happened in school.

I went to the college around older people and I was like,

what the fuck's going on here?

It didn't really last that long, but it was the first sort of experience

I've had with like, bullying.

And I was like, I hated this.

Hated it.

But it made me resilience more.

I'm now like, and I, and I fucking cannot stand bullies.

It was only a short period for me, but I cannot stand people

that pick on other people for like that It really infuriates me.

Um, but if I go back to a lesson back then it's like I don't

think I'd change anything.

I'm dedicated motivated.

I'd probably like to be more empathetic to be able to give

my misses that reassurance.

Could you say that a life lesson would be never wished for the easy route,

but like wish for the power to endure?

You know, times are gonna be a life lesson, times are

gonna be shit little Teague.

But whether the storm that power to endure and yeah.

And it'll make you who you are.

I think if you had a time machine and went back and told that person

that, yeah, I dunno how, 'cause you've not experienced it yet.

You could believe it, but until you've been through it, I'm not trying to get

too deep here, but until you've actually been through those stuff, you don't really

know and it's like, yeah, I struggle.

I dunno, it's a weird one.

I don't think that I wouldn't change anything.

I don't even know what I'd tell him because I'm still

figuring out my life now.

Like I, when I think back now to maybe like the last, before I had the business,

I dunno what I did in my spare time.

I must have had all this spare time, but I couldn't, I can't

even remember what I did with it.

No, because I don't have any time now.

No, I am constantly doing something.

I'm actually really excited for Christmas.

I've made the decision this year, 19th of December.

I worked until Christmas Eve last year.

Still sending orders, uh, the 19th of December, I'm stopping.

We were as a family, going away to Riverdale to lodge with my mom's

with my in-laws or my mom, Mrs. Mom.

Um, and I'm gonna take five days and not think about anything.

I'm not gonna take my laptop.

I'll have my phone obviously, but I'm gonna not try.

I'm gonna really try not do any business.

Um, so I don't remember saying that, what was I saying?

We go for advice, you younger yourself, but Yeah.

You know, the round about way is nice.

I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't change anything.

I dunno what I, yeah.

Like I don't, didn't have any time, I dunno what I did with myself

time before, but it's mainly how I'm now, and I'm still learning.

I pivot and do other stuff like combat clipper companies.

A year and a half ago now I'm creating a fitness dating app.

Like, what's gonna be next?

Like, hopefully that makes me millions of pounds.

I mean, which you don't really know.

You just go with it.

That's the next one.

Like mental resilience is a big thing.

It's one bit of business advice that you have.

Um, it's funny 'cause I, I do get asked this all the time, but if

you've got an idea, go with it.

Try and be niche.

There's, as we know, loads of apparel companies, loads of coffee

companies, other companies out there.

And I'm not saying anyone's better than the other.

There's a lot.

I think the reason we've done well, and like I said, there was two other

people doing it at the same time.

They're not doing it anymore.

We picked a niche.

There's thousands of beer companies out there.

There's no other milit that I know of.

There's no other military brands doing it.

I found a niche went full send on it.

It's worked.

I think.

Don't try and copy anyone else think of something that fixes a problem.

You can, like we have something that's a great product that's

affordable over than other businesses.

We've got a, one of our products is made in the same factory as

a multimillion pound company.

They charge, uh, 39.99 for theirs.

We charge 24.99.

I love to say who it is.

Yeah.

Manscaped.

Yeah.

And I've bought the Manscaped products is years ago, and every single product

I bought off that was firmly in the bin.

Yep.

YY you know, and that, and that's when people don't care about

what goes into the products.

You've said you handpicked your ingredients.

Go into it.

Your razor blades go their razor blades.

Um, they had something marketing about not cutting your balls.

Yeah, it's bullshit.

Very.

I cut up balls.

It was the ones we had from them.

We tried it and it, this was when we were going through the sample phase.

We bought it and we were like, can't happen.

So we got a better one.

And this is a multimillion pound company that sponsor the USE.

Yeah.

And there's, because some people care about the products they make, some people

care only an exclusively about making money and because they've big marketing

budget, they think they're the best.

But they're really, I know for a fact they're not, nobody thought Under

Armour was gonna ever rival Nike.

Now look how big they are.

Oh, rival night.

Yeah, I got it.

Yeah.

What do you think it said beat up?

No, I didn't know.

Said I was like, I thought they're working together.

No.

Yeah, so.

Well, I don't think they are.

Um, it's powerful stuff, man.

Like, I really enjoyed having you on there.

Thank you.

You know, we, oh, we gotta be able to chat for this long.

I think we've been like, Fraser, can you tell us, have we been a couple of hours?

No, it's hours.

It's hours.

Yeah.

We, it feels like we've been sat here for half an hour.

Got iPad here.

Like I, I was flapping on the way down it, like any bits that we need.

I've got modern.

I know you always say you've got monitor vo.

I think I've got modern home voice.

I don't think I'm that interesting, but I think it's been really interesting.

I think the conversations flowed really well.

The questions have gone well.

I, I haven't cut you up.

Um, Fraser told me off before for cutting people off.

I think I've been cut.

I've noticed I've cut you off a couple of times.

I'm sorry.

It's fine.

It's about you.

It's allowed to be

Okay.

Fraser's shouting in the background.

It's about him.

So he, he's allowed to.

Um, I'm super grateful that you've made the six hour round trip.

Yeah.

Just to come down here and, and chat about it.

I'm very grateful and thankful you use our products out of everyone

that's out there, as I'm sure you are.

That I use your and he still whip around and get some more.

They're good.

He's gonna have a whiff round.

You know?

I'm, and I hope one day that you, you are, you know, I hope you absolutely crush it.

'cause you know, it's nice to see good blokes succeed.

You know?

Thank you.

It's, um, it's wicked.

But no, I'm very thankful.

Like you've been a role model for me.

I'm not gonna lick your ass.

I'm gonna say you're role model.

I've looked up to you and it's.

It's just a friendship that's come outta nowhere in it.

Like I'm absolutely, it's not like a licking ass thing.

We generally had a great time and I think the mutual respect

from in the same battalion.

But like I said, we didn't know each other then through then.

No, no, not at all.

No, no idea who each other were.

I think we had a guy, I don't actually know his last name,

I just know its called Alex.

'cause my first name's Alex is not actually Bez.

Um, Alex, something came over as our RSM for a bit, um, was a poacher

and yeah, wild, wild to have careers where we joined at a similar time.

Mm-hmm.

Done different things with different battalions.

And then we're sat in here, uh, in lho knitted worth on

some knockoff Chesterfield.

So sofas, really comfy spinning Ds.

There's meant to be ox blood red there.

Just

hope.