Death before Dishonour.
It served me well for most of my life.
Until last summer…
Back in my Special Forces days,
we lived by the same mindset the Spartans held.
For them, there was nothing worse than Dishonour, not even death.
Death was a logical and inevitable result of living the warrior lifestyle.
What you feared most was the shame in the eyes of your teammates. Your unit. We were all like that.
My wife knew it too. She didn’t worry much about the danger of deployment itself. What worried her most was the ease with which I’d throw myself on a grenade to save my buddies.
Not just me. All of us.
That mindset served me well.
Last summer I competed in the Red Bull Romaniacs Hard Enduro Rally in Romania. Four days. The toughest hard enduro event in the world.
Four weeks before the race, I jumped over a large fire during a celebration and broke my ankle.
I knew there was a risk I wouldn’t finish but I started anyway.
Day one went okay. I only remember two moments where I thought “this is going to hurt” as I twisted it.
But when I pulled my boot off at the end of the day, my ankle had swollen up like a melon.
That night, it wasn’t just the pain keeping me up.
Six weeks out, I had the Kilimanjaro climb with my daughter Leyla waiting. A trip I’d been looking forward to for a long time. Completely paid for.
Everything I value (time with her, building memories that last) all of it hanging in the balance.
But it wasn’t even Kilimanjaro that was eating at me.
It was the conversation I was having with myself.
Because not finishing the Romaniacs, I saw that as Dishonour.
And I beat myself up for hours going back and forth on whether to continue.
I decided to quit.
To give up. To fail.
And man, did it feel bad.
Here’s what I’ve figured out since.
The warrior mindset is a powerful tool, but only when the stakes are significant enough to justify it.
Point it at the wrong thing, and it doesn’t stay quiet.
It nags you.
It turns a smart decision into something that feels like a character flaw.
I’m still having trouble figuring out what’s not important enough to deserve that weight.
What it’s okay to fail at.
Still learning. Not finished. Work in progress.
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