Podcast: The High Performance
Published Date:
Fri, 17 Jun 2022 00:00:12 GMT
Duration:
9:14
Explicit:
False
Guests:
MP3 Audio:
Please note that the summary is generated based on the transcript and may not capture all the nuances or details discussed in the podcast episode.
This week's bitesize comes from Aldo Kane, a trained Royal Marines Sniper, world record breaker and extreme TV adventurer. From a life spent abseiling into erupting volcanos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rowing the Atlantic, getting locked in a bunker for 10 days with zero daylight... he has learnt that with the right head game, no matter how hard it gets, you can get through anything life throws at you.
Aldo joined us on the High Performance Circle (our free members club - link below) and took us through the lessons he's learnt from the very edge of human experience.
Aldo touches on his personal experiences with failure, worthlessness and doors literally slamming in his face, Aldo reflects on how he was able to rediscover his identity and harness his emotions to his advantage to find determination, purpose, and a renewed sense of belonging.
It's easy to join the HIGH PERFORMANCE CIRCLE! Just go to https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/thecircle
You will get
This month includes a very special High Performance collaboration with Headspace and an offer of a FREE month.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aldo Kane, a former Royal Marines Sniper and world record-breaking adventurer, shared valuable lessons learned from his extreme experiences during a High Performance Circle session. Kane emphasized the significance of courage, determination, unselfishness, and cheerfulness in the face of adversity, the core values of the Royal Marines that have shaped his life.
Kane highlighted the profound impact of our thoughts, stating that we become what we think about. He stressed the importance of controlling one's anxieties and fears by focusing on controllable aspects and making decisions, even in challenging situations. By taking ownership of the morning and dedicating time to productive activities, Kane believes individuals can unlock their potential for growth and fulfillment.
Kane also emphasized the importance of dealing with facts rather than imagined worries, particularly in high-stakes situations. He shared a quote that resonated with him, "We have two lives, and the second one starts when you realize you have only one." This quote encapsulates the urgency to make the most of our limited time on Earth and strive for excellence.
Kane's insights offer valuable guidance for navigating life's challenges and maximizing personal potential. By embracing courage, determination, and self-control, individuals can overcome obstacles, achieve their goals, and lead fulfilling lives.
[00:00.000 -> 00:03.440] Hi there, welcome along to this bite-sized episode of the High Performance Podcast. This
[00:03.440 -> 00:07.680] is where we just break down an episode of the podcast or some content that we've created,
[00:07.680 -> 00:11.680] and we just make it a bit shorter for you. I know life's busy, you can't always dedicate
[00:11.680 -> 00:16.320] an hour to come and listen. And actually, what we're going to share with you today is a clip
[00:16.320 -> 00:20.640] from the High Performance Circle. And if you don't know, the High Performance Circle is our
[00:20.640 -> 00:26.960] members club. All you need to do to become a member is simply go to the highperformancepodcast.com,
[00:26.960 -> 00:29.320] click circle, we'll send you an invite,
[00:29.320 -> 00:30.160] and you're in the club,
[00:30.160 -> 00:31.880] and then you will get keynote speeches,
[00:31.880 -> 00:33.280] you'll get high performance boosts,
[00:33.280 -> 00:34.440] you'll get newsletters,
[00:34.440 -> 00:36.400] you'll get exclusive competitions,
[00:36.400 -> 00:38.800] giveaways, information from the podcast.
[00:38.800 -> 00:40.940] And here's a clip from Aldo Kane.
[00:40.940 -> 00:44.680] He is a world record setting adventurer, explorer,
[00:44.680 -> 00:46.920] he's a fellow at the Royal Geographic Society.
[00:46.920 -> 00:55.720] He has loads of TVs and author and absolutely amazing guy who seems to have an attraction for the world's most dangerous, extreme and remote locations.
[00:55.880 -> 00:59.440] And here is what he shared on the high performance circle.
[00:59.800 -> 01:00.880] You are going to love this.
[01:01.400 -> 01:02.960] Here are his lessons from the edge.
[01:04.440 -> 01:10.880] Hi, I'm Aldo Kane. I'm a former Romer and Commando sniper, and I now work in television
[01:10.880 -> 01:17.620] and film. I travel the world going to extreme, remote and hostile places, usually looking
[01:17.620 -> 01:27.000] after film crews. And that can be anywhere from being in South America, working and filming narcos,
[01:27.000 -> 01:31.800] through to being inside active volcanoes, exploring cave systems in Borneo
[01:32.840 -> 01:37.160] and every environment in between jungle, desert, Arctic and mountains.
[01:37.280 -> 01:42.880] So I joined the Royal Marines at the age of 16, one of the hardest infantry training in the world.
[01:43.920 -> 01:47.200] And so 16, still a boy, but very, very focused
[01:47.200 -> 01:53.760] on joining the Royal Marines and I became a sniper and I spent the next 10 years in the Royal Marines.
[01:54.800 -> 01:59.360] The main thing that I learned in the Royal Marines, apart from all the actual skills,
[01:59.360 -> 02:08.000] which are long gone now, is the commando spirit, and that is courage, determination, unselfishness,
[02:08.000 -> 02:14.000] and cheerfulness in the face of adversity. Those are the four pillars that hold up the Royal
[02:14.000 -> 02:19.520] Marines and hold up my life now in the extreme environments that I work in. And we're not
[02:19.520 -> 02:30.800] talking about, I'll talk through each one, but courage, we're not talking about the courage to go to war, the courage to get in a fight. We're talking about courage to do the small things, the things that
[02:30.800 -> 02:36.960] count. Courage is about what you do when you think nobody else is watching, the type of person that
[02:36.960 -> 02:43.360] you are. So courage is a big one. Like I say, it's not running out in front of a bus to save a pram.
[02:43.360 -> 02:50.540] It's the courage to do the small things and do them well to the best of your ability every single day.
[02:50.540 -> 02:56.360] Determination is drive. Drive is the thing that should get you out of bed in the morning
[02:56.360 -> 03:04.280] to get stuck into your goals and into your activities. If the why isn't big enough, for
[03:04.280 -> 03:06.660] me to join the Royal Marines and spend six
[03:06.660 -> 03:12.160] or seven months of my life at 16 going through the hardest training, if I didn't have a strong
[03:12.160 -> 03:17.220] why, why did I want to become a commando so much, then I wouldn't have achieved that.
[03:17.220 -> 03:20.220] So you need to have a very, very strong why.
[03:20.220 -> 03:24.660] Unselfishness is the biggest thing that you learn in the Marines.
[03:24.660 -> 03:25.680] I help out my mate,
[03:25.680 -> 03:30.560] he helps out me. Do that in the workplace, in your environment, wherever you are,
[03:30.560 -> 03:34.800] if you're looking out for other people and instill that into the workplace, that means
[03:34.800 -> 03:40.320] other people are looking out for you. And then courage in the face of adversity.
[03:40.320 -> 03:47.360] Life is all about hardship, getting knocked down. None of it is easy and none of it is supposed to be easy.
[03:47.760 -> 03:51.480] But cheerfulness in the face of adversity is something that you can control.
[03:52.600 -> 03:56.040] And and being chipper when the chips are down
[03:56.240 -> 04:00.400] is essentially one of the biggest building blocks
[04:00.400 -> 04:02.720] of the life of adventure that I lead.
[04:03.120 -> 04:05.120] You know, expeditions are very difficult.
[04:05.120 -> 04:06.680] They're tough.
[04:06.680 -> 04:11.000] But you do have control over how you react to those situations.
[04:11.720 -> 04:15.920] Might be called gallows humor elsewhere, but courage in the face of adversity.
[04:16.320 -> 04:18.440] So that's that's the building blocks of the Royal Marines.
[04:18.440 -> 04:20.880] That's where I where I come from.
[04:20.880 -> 04:23.240] I've just written a book called Lessons from the Edge.
[04:23.240 -> 04:27.840] And essentially what that is, is a distilled volume of lessons that I've learned
[04:27.840 -> 04:32.000] from working all over the world in extreme environments.
[04:32.000 -> 04:35.560] One of the biggest things that I've learned over the years
[04:35.560 -> 04:39.360] is that we become what we think about.
[04:39.360 -> 04:42.080] Now, if you think about that for a second or two,
[04:42.080 -> 04:46.240] that is so profound and yet so simple. The voices that are in
[04:46.240 -> 04:51.800] your head continually saying the same things over and over again, and whatever you're thinking
[04:51.800 -> 04:58.280] about and concentrating on will dictate your future. And if you work back from that, that
[04:58.280 -> 05:04.640] means that you are exactly now where you are because of your thoughts. So you become what
[05:04.640 -> 05:06.320] you think about. I wanted to be a
[05:06.320 -> 05:13.520] Romarines Commando Sniper from the age of about 12 or 13 and it happened almost relatively easily,
[05:13.520 -> 05:19.360] even though it was a very tough course. And that's because it consumed my waking hours,
[05:19.360 -> 05:25.520] my thoughts, even my subconscious. So we become what we think about. And if you're not thinking about anything
[05:25.520 -> 05:31.120] in particular, that means your head is basically being filled with stuff that isn't very helpful
[05:31.120 -> 05:38.400] for you. So that's one of the biggest lessons. The second one is to control your anxieties and
[05:38.400 -> 05:42.800] fears. Everyone gets it. You know, if I'm abseiling into an active volcano, if I'm
[05:42.440 -> 05:46.280] You know, if I'm abseiling into an active volcano, if I'm exploring a new cave system or cave diving,
[05:46.600 -> 05:50.640] then what I can control are the things within my grasp.
[05:50.640 -> 05:52.440] So I can control what I wear.
[05:52.440 -> 05:53.840] I can control what I think.
[05:53.840 -> 05:56.880] I can mitigate as many of the hazards as I can.
[05:57.960 -> 06:00.560] And then there are some things that are just out of your control.
[06:00.560 -> 06:05.680] That's why one of my mantras, I guess, is to control the controllables.
[06:06.800 -> 06:11.920] By doing that, even if you're thrown into a situation where you are not in control,
[06:11.920 -> 06:18.240] let's say, for example, extreme, but you end up in a small plane crash and you survive, and
[06:18.240 -> 06:24.480] you then start making decisions. And by making decisions, you're then controlling your
[06:24.480 -> 06:26.980] environment, even though you didn't choose to be in that
[06:26.980 -> 06:30.920] environment. So decision making, massive, make decisions, even
[06:30.920 -> 06:33.140] though you may think that they're the wrong decisions,
[06:33.140 -> 06:38.120] they open up other doorways, and control the controllables. These
[06:38.120 -> 06:42.040] are these are two of the biggest things that you can do. And
[06:42.480 -> 06:46.080] another thing that I personally do when I'm on expedition, when I'm at home,
[06:46.080 -> 06:52.000] is own the morning. I always say, an hour in the morning is worth two in the afternoon,
[06:52.000 -> 06:57.760] and it's so true. So if you're controlling the controllables, get up an hour early than you need
[06:57.760 -> 07:04.480] to and then get stuck into that one hour a day productive. It's quite a lot of time over the
[07:04.480 -> 07:06.360] year that you could be learning a new
[07:06.360 -> 07:12.600] skill, learning something that's going to enable you to flourish and thrive in the future.
[07:12.600 -> 07:14.560] That's quite a big one as well.
[07:14.560 -> 07:17.560] Another one is we worry so much about what other people are thinking.
[07:17.560 -> 07:21.520] We compare ourselves to other people.
[07:21.520 -> 07:29.240] We suffer these imagined worries when actually dealing with facts is absolutely key.
[07:29.240 -> 07:32.080] You know, when I get to the top of a Niagara volcano
[07:32.080 -> 07:34.160] in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
[07:34.160 -> 07:36.440] and I have to get a team of people inside there
[07:36.440 -> 07:39.160] and out alive, and it's erupting,
[07:39.160 -> 07:40.480] you know, there are so many things
[07:40.480 -> 07:42.760] that I could be worrying about at that time.
[07:42.760 -> 07:46.520] But what I try to do is deal with the facts.
[07:46.520 -> 07:47.880] Deal with the facts.
[07:47.880 -> 07:49.480] I know that I'm well-trained.
[07:49.480 -> 07:50.980] I know I have the right kit.
[07:50.980 -> 07:53.360] I know I have the right people.
[07:53.360 -> 07:55.840] And then you just go through small processes
[07:55.840 -> 07:58.920] like anything else, big goal,
[07:58.920 -> 08:00.960] and then break it down into smaller chunks,
[08:00.960 -> 08:03.980] and then just start taking those off, taking those off.
[08:07.040 -> 08:07.840] smaller chunks and then just start taking those off. That, I would say, is probably
[08:15.120 -> 08:21.920] my biggest lessons that I've learned. What I would say as well is that in my line of work, I've come close to having a few scrapes. There's a quote in the book that I use and it's,
[08:21.920 -> 08:26.760] we have two lives and your second one starts when you realize you have only one.
[08:26.760 -> 08:27.760] And that is so profound.
[08:27.760 -> 08:33.040] If you can think about that, we do only have one shot on this planet.
[08:33.040 -> 08:35.280] So do the absolute best you can.
[08:35.280 -> 08:39.240] And remember, you can't control everything, but what you can control are the things within
[08:39.240 -> 08:40.920] your grasp.
[08:40.920 -> 08:48.960] Thank you very much for listening.
[08:48.960 -> 08:51.860] As always, thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget, you can also get your hands
[08:51.860 -> 08:57.080] on our book. It's so much more than just conversations about the podcast. It is lessons to change
[08:57.080 -> 09:01.040] your life. So if you feel like you need a change and you're ready to embrace it, you're
[09:01.040 -> 09:05.160] ready to grow, you're ready to challenge yourself. Get your hands
[09:05.160 -> 09:10.360] on high performance lessons from the best on becoming your best available from all good
[09:10.360 -> 09:15.640] bookshops and we'll see you for another episode very soon of the high performance podcast.