One of the things that I say is the most courageous thing you can do above all bravery is this is the personal life I really keep to myself. I've spoken a lot about it today, which I've never spoken about before. And Middleton, and his adventurer, a military vet, a television host, an author, an entrepreneur, and one that's become highly, highly respected as an authority when it comes to things like survival and endurance and leadership techniques. And due to his experiences as an elite special force member, he can talk about these things in a way that nobody else can and has very, very recently been at the center of a huge media storm where he was quote unquote canceled with his biggest show.
So today, SAS Houdes wins being asked by Channel 4 after five years, and the broadcaster came out and said that ants' views and values weren't aligned to theirs. This is his first in-depth conversation that he's recorded since he was quote unquote canceled. I've watched countless amounts of interviews that Middleton has done, but the side of Ant that you're going to hear today is one that even he admits himself that he has never fully shared before. I'm going to say this podcast lifted a ton of weight off my shoulders and I wanted maybe the most important question about life that we all must ask ourselves if we are going to be happy and if we're going to be successful and if we're going to be free.
And thank you for your honesty. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is the Diabeseo. I hope nobody's listening. But if you are, then please keep this yourself.
And one of the things I was reading your book, First Night In, there was this quote at the end of one of the chapters and I thought it was a good place to start this conversation today because I tend to think that it's probably one of the more foundational pieces of information. Well, it might lead to one of the most foundational pieces of information to describe who you became in your life and what you've got on to achieve. And this is what you wrote at the end of the chapter. It says, it's called Making Friends With Your Demons.
Having dark forces living within us as part of being human, the result of inevitable damage of life, each one of us has a choice. Make these demons work for us or turn them loose against us. And slightly linked to that in the same on the same page, you wrote, most of us have horror stories we can tell you about from our childhood. It's not the horror that defines you.
It's how well you fought it. What do that mean? I think that's just a genetic message to everyone to say that's okay to have bad thoughts. It's okay to have these demons inside you.
They exist in all of us. You know, but the important message is to exercise them. So, don't you lock them away. They might lock these thoughts away.
They might lock these demons away. You lock any negativity away. All it's going to do is take over like a mold and it's going to completely engulf you and it's going to go into control you as an individual. And it's only because I've been there and I've done it, whether that's what I've done in combat, losing my father at a young age, losing my mother, seeing bodies blown up around me, seeing dead people around me, seeing the effect it has on families, seeing what my decision, pulling that trigger or not, has on a certain person or has on a certain family or has on a certain situation.
And it's ultimately being okay with who you are. That's the whole thing about it. It's being acknowledging that, listen, we're not perfect. We're human.
Okay. We have weaknesses. We have insecurities. We have these horrendous thoughts sometimes.
You'd be allowed to say that you don't sit there sometimes and things that go through your head. If you actually voice them, then that becomes a problem. That's you not exercising your demons. That's them exercising you.
And it's just about acknowledging that. And I acknowledge that from such a young age. I acknowledge that from a young age when my father passed away and I couldn't really understand what was going on. Can you tell me about that?
Yeah, my father passed away when I was five years old and within a few months, a new man came into our life, my stepfather. And then within two years, we moved to France. So we lived in Portsmouth. We moved completely to France, a new situation, a new environment, a new man in our life.
And I can just remember thinking, I remember going into a bush in the fields where we lived in France. And after a couple of months, we were there and sat in this bush and the magnitude of the situation was so overwhelming. I just remember looking at the road, thinking to myself, what am I doing here? Why am I here?
What's the purpose? I couldn't graph anything at that young age. And it was during that moment when I let everything go. And I can just remember thinking to myself, don't try and understand what's going on.
Don't understand who this man is and where he's come from. Don't try and understand why you're in a different school speaking, a different language, because you can't. Don't try and understand all of a sudden you're living in caravans. We moved.
We were living in a couple of caravans, big family from houses. I can just remember dropping everything and thinking to myself, understand what you can't understand. And that young age, what I could understand was what I was feeling. You know, I could understand myself.
So when I look back on the death of my father and as I flip everything into a positive, even though years and years and years down the line, I'd done this, you know, the death of my father actually made me self-reflect from the age of six or seven. So I've been self-reflecting, you know, understanding my emotions, understanding how I feel, understanding my demons, understanding, you know, the good parts of me, the bad parts of me, the weak parts of me, the strong parts of me, the positive side of me, the negative side of me. And I've been really breaking it down from such a young age. And that's given me an advantage in life.
I generally believe that that's given me my sort of bulletproof mindset on how to tackle anyone or any situation today. So even though it's a traumatic.