SAS: WHO DARES WINS
TV’s most experienced and most decorated SAS leader
BILLY BILLINGHAM
10 lessons the SAS taught me about life
FURTHER
10 lessons the SAS taught me about life
BILLY BILLINGHAM
and Conor Woodman
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First published by Ebury Spotlight in 2025 1
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For my grandchildren
INTRODUCTION
I’ve spent the lion’s share of my professional life engaged in extreme combat. I have survived battles all over the world during times of war. I have led gruelling missions during military campaigns and conflicts in the most dangerous places on earth. I have experienced life and death situations at close quarters, lost dear friends and made enormous personal sacrifices in the name of protecting and serving my country.
I joined the Parachute Regiment in 1983 and the SAS in 1992. All told, I spent nearly three decades in the British military, 20 years of which were spent in the SAS, the pride of the UK’s elite special forces. I held an array of positions, culminating as sergeant major, leading countless operational tours all over the world. Later, I served as a training instructor for the regiment in counter terrorism, sniper, tracking, jungle warfare, navigation, demolition and sabotage, mountaineering, combat survival and battlefield medical life support – to name a few.
During my time as SAS sergeant major, I was responsible for planning and executing strategic operations and training at the highest level in numerous locations. I have led countless
hostage rescues and brought scores of dangerous terrorists to book. As a result, I have received numerous awards, including the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery and an MBE presented to me by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on what was the proudest day of my life
After my military career ended, I became a bodyguard and looked after A-list celebrities such as Sir Michael Caine, Hulk Hogan, Kate Moss, Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise. I was head of security for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for many years.
Now I am proud to work as chief instructor on Channel 4’s hit TV show SAS: Who Dares Wins , and as one of the Directing Staff on Fox’s version of the show, Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test . Both shows are based on elements from special forces selection, putting civilians and celebrities through an eight-day selection process that tests them mentally and physically.
I’m not telling you any of this to blow my own trumpet. Rather, I want to set out my credentials to explain why I think I may have something helpful to share with you. During my career, I have seen the best and worst of humanity. I came from very humble beginnings, and have learned everything the hard way. I want to show you how, if I can go through all the shit that I went through and still come out the other side, then maybe I can help you to see how you can too.
My language is often frank, but the insights I will share with you are simple and attainable. I will focus on how you can develop self-discipline and push yourself a little further
every day in your quest to overcome many of the obstacles we all face in life.
You might have bought this book because you’ve seen me on the telly or because you’re interested in what a former paratrooper, decorated SAS leader and bodyguard to Hollywood superstars has to tell you about life. In which case, welcome. I want to share with you what I learned from my service in the British military, and let you in on some of the insights that I’ve picked up along the way.
I’ve chosen to pack the book with real stories from all aspects of my life that I hope will illustrate what I have to say. Out of respect for the secrecy of the SAS, I will not reveal operational details from missions that could compromise any individuals. But those details are unimportant here. What matters is what I learned from the experiences. I will use these examples to highlight the ways in which the SAS gave me a solid foundation for change in life.
The key lessons I want you to take away will be illustrated by my first-hand accounts both inside and outside the military, whether from my childhood in Walsall, my time in the SAS, or later as a celebrity bodyguard and presenter of TV shows. You’ll hear about the people that inspired me, the experiences that pushed me beyond my comfort zone, and the places that had the most profound and long-lasting effect on me.
I will often relate some of these lessons in military terms, using analogies that make sense to me. If life is like driving a tank into battle, then who do you want in that tank with
you? Who is helping you, giving you advice, looking out for enemies? Every army needs a general, but who is your general? Is it you? By the time you finish this book, I want you to feel that you are in control of your own tank, that you are your own general, fighting whatever your personal battle is on your own terms, and with the best possible chance of victory.
While the steps are small at first, they will hopefully build into something powerful; from not fearing failure to how we can break down our fears, to understanding that the fight in the dog and not the dog in the fight is what really matters. There is advice for everyone, whatever stage of life you’re at.
I want this book to leave you feeling a fresh determination to change your life – and the life of those around you – for the better. Just picking up this book shows me that you are ready for self-acceptance, self-compassion, flexibility and a more sustainable type of wellbeing.
A lot of young people struggle in life, particularly looking for help with motivation. If that’s you then I want to talk to you. It’s important that you build a strategy that isn’t based on toxic, dogmatic rules but instead grows from a set of principles that can help you to achieve a healthy and sustainable way of living. I believe that you don’t train to look good on an Instagram post, you train to feel good all the time. Comparison is the thief of happiness. Comparison is a cancer. I want you to tap into the person inside and learn how to listen to them. You already have the solutions; you only need to learn how to ask the right the questions and listen to the answers.
Some of what I say will be rooted in psychology. I’ll go there myself to show you that there is no shame in asking yourself searching questions about your past. I will talk as openly as I can about some of the most emotionally difficult times in my life. I believe that our pasts are not to be feared but to be understood.
I want to show you how you can tap into your own past to build a new, modern, compassion-focused set of principles, tips and techniques that will serve you, not hold you back. Good mental health and wellbeing is based on flexibility rather than rigidity, and I want you to move away from dogma and all-or-nothing ways of seeing life. I want to help you avoid boom-and-bust solutions that never work.
While I was in the SAS, I learned that the world’s most elite fighting force didn’t want people that were only good at following orders. They wanted people that could think for themselves, who could trust their guts and find solutions outside the box.
The SAS taught me how adaptation and flexibility were key to success. Many times I found myself in combat situations where the plan had been derailed. I learned how to adapt mentally, how to stop self-criticism leaking in, how to accept the new reality and simply ask, ‘What am I going to do now?’
There are so many everyday comparisons that I can apply to what I learned in the SAS. For example, you want to eat healthier and lose weight, so you’ve determined to cut out carbs and exercise every day. But what happens if your best friend’s wedding is coming up or you just had a big night out?
You ate and drank too much, and now you’re hungover on the sofa and feeling like a failure.
Do you give up? Or do you adapt?
I will help you to see how setting impossible targets isn’t helpful. People routinely set themselves up to fall short of unrealistic expectations, which only serves to push us towards failure and disappointment over and over.
Instead, let’s turn these motivations on their heads. Let’s see things more as an SAS mission, based in psychological theory and practical application.
I will show you why you can’t wait for motivation to come to you – you have to go to it. I will help you to grow your motivational muscles while you also grow your physical ones. If going to the gym is your goal and you have a tendency to be hard on yourself for not going, telling yourself that you’re a piece of shit or lazy, then you are only working one muscle –the negative muscle. I will show you how to grow your positive muscles instead.
We’ll also explore the importance of building in a little R&R to your schedule. Even in the SAS, there was time for rest and recuperation. I want to convince you that being busy is not a goal in itself but often a sign that we’re getting the balance wrong. I want you to find a way to cultivate a little fun time for yourself. Giving yourself permission to enjoy your time means you’ll make a lot more out of life.
Finally, I want to encourage you to find your team. The SAS is the deadliest fighting machine in the world not because it is made up of uniquely deadly individuals, but because it
harnesses the power of those individuals and magnifies their potential as a team. Teamwork requires thought, patience, compassion and empathy. I want to share with you how we achieved success in the most trying circumstances, and inspire you to maximise your own potential with whomever your team is.
You’ve already come this far; now it’s time for you to go a little further. Every day I wake up and ask myself, ‘Can I go a little further than I did yesterday?’ Sometimes it’s hard, but the answer is always ‘Yes’. Tomorrow offers us another opportunity, so let’s talk a little about some of the strategies that might help to make the most of that, to go a little further than we went before.
CHAPTER ONE
PREPARE FOR BATTLE
‘BY STARTING OUT WITH SOMETHING SMALL, I WAS TAKING MY FIRST STEP TOWARDS MUCH BIGGER THINGS.’
DREAMS ALMOST NEVER COME TRUE
Dreams almost never come true, so why do we hang on to them so hard? I’m not saying that dreaming is bad or wrong. There’s a place for dreaming in the same way that there’s a place for holidays or ice cream. I enjoy a nice dream as much as the next bloke, but I can’t spend my whole life dreaming any more than I can spend it eating ice cream on holiday because if I did, I’d go mad with boredom and frustration. Human beings are a complex bunch. We can’t help but think ahead to the future, fantasising about what might be, how things could play out, and all the things that could go right (or wrong) if we did this or that. But the problem with that mindset is that if we’re not careful, we can become stuck in dreamland, too focused on the things that could go wrong, and incapable of ever getting out there and finding out what happens for real.
When young people ask me about how they could join the special forces, or achieve whatever their dream is, I always tell them that big dreams rarely come true. That doesn’t mean that what does come true isn’t going to be great too. But we
don’t know. It’s always better to focus on the task in hand, think about what’s in front of you now and ask, ‘What do I want to achieve today?’ Maybe tomorrow at a push. But let next week or next year take care of themselves.
The smaller your ambition is, the more likely you are to achieve it – and achieving ambitions is why we’re all here. Set your goals small and allow them to build up. I served over 20 years in the SAS. I became sergeant major, the pinnacle of every soldier’s ambition. Operationally, I was responsible for planning and executing strategic operations at the highest level. I led countless hostage rescues during that time before I became a certified special forces instructor, leading selection for the next generation of SAS recruits. I was decorated for my service multiple times and even received an MBE from HM the Queen.
Did I ever dream that I would achieve all that? No. Did I ever sit down and work out how I would get to that point? Never. If I’d decided one day to set out and achieve what I’ve now achieved, I’ll be honest with you, I’d never have left the house. I’d still be sitting on my mom’s sofa in Walsall. What I did think about was how I wanted to be a soldier.
As a young lad, I joined the local boxing club and the army cadets. These places became my safety net during a time when I didn’t have anything else. By the time I turned 15, I realised that I needed to get out of Walsall if I was going to change the life I was leading. I needed a new direction, needed to hang out with a new crowd, and I suspected that, out of boxing and the military, the army was the way to go.
I saw that the army required 24/7 commitment and so if I could get in, it would keep me occupied and out of trouble – exactly what I felt I needed.
That might seem at odds with a kid who hardly ever turned up to school, and had trouble sitting through a maths lesson or an English class, but there was a big difference. In the cadets, I could see a practical use for what I was taught in a way I never could with maths and science at school. In the cadets, I could triangulate on a map, find a bearing and hike to a location with pinpoint accuracy, but the second you told me that was trigonometry or asked me to find the hypotenuse, I wouldn’t have had a clue. I could see the relevance of learning in a practical sense, which gave me the ability to do things I couldn’t do in the classroom.
It’s a lot easier to apply yourself to something you’re good at and I was good at the things they wanted me to learn in the military. Teachers at school often accused me of having a problem with authority, but that wasn’t true. In the cadets, I respected the structure and the discipline. So, it became my goal to become a soldier. That may seem a very simple dream, but to me, it was one I felt I could realistically achieve if I put my mind to it. I didn’t know it then, but by starting out with something small, I was taking my first step towards much bigger things.
NO SOLDIER SETS OUT TO BE A GENERAL
Joining the army and making a good fist of it would probably mean that one day I could be a non-commissioned officer, become a leader. If I saw action and gave a good account of myself, I could put in for the SAS. But I never chased any of that. My whole career, I waited, took each day as it came and took each step as I saw it in front of me. I didn’t see any of those other things as goals from the start. I just focused on becoming a soldier.
The night before I left for Parachute Regiment selection in Aldershot, my dad called me downstairs to talk, something that usually only happened if I was in trouble. We sat in the living room and, for the first time in my life, we had a father–son chat. He told me that if and when I got injured on the battlefield, it would be him and my mother who had to look after me. As he talked, I could feel how focused he was on all the worst things that could happen to me and not the best. To me, all I could hear was his certainty that I was destined to fail.
I look back at how my dad’s words impacted me and I wonder how much they swayed my decision to join the army.
I believe that he knew the effect they would have on me, that he actually wanted to motivate me to go and make a success of myself.
I think my dad knew that it was going to be hard for me to handle the discipline and routine of the army, so he tried to say something to help motivate me when I was experiencing times of doubt. Challenging me to prove him wrong was his way to help me find that extra bit of resolve to keep going. He knew that his words would be ringing in my ears, pushing me on, telling me to find the extra bit of strength not to quit.
My dad wanted me to get out of Walsall because he could see that the lifestyle I was living would have ended up with me in jail or worse. He did what he could to give me the drive to go and find another path. He wasn’t the kind of man to sit down and give me a pep talk or to reassure me that I was going to be a success. That wasn’t his style. It was just not him. We never once sat down and talked about all the stuff I did. He didn’t tell me that he was proud of me, or come to watch me box, or see me parade with the cadets. I only found out after he died that he’d actually followed it all. I was clearing out his stuff when I found a shoebox of clippings he had saved over the years. It contained newspaper cuttings from my amateur boxing days, pieces from my time in the military, some of the SAS stuff that the press had been able to cover, and an article about my meeting with HM the Queen. But back then, I thought he expected me to fail. As I went to sleep that night feeling frustrated at my dad’s lack of belief
in me, I was determined to prove him wrong. His reverse psychology had worked. I was angry at him for focusing on the negatives, for not backing me to succeed. When I woke up the next morning, I just knew I was going to Aldershot and I was going to front up for Parachute Regiment training, pass it and come back a soldier. I was going to prove my dad wrong and show everyone what I could make of myself. I took my bag, kissed my mom goodbye and left for Walsall train station to begin what I knew would be the next chapter in my life.
The act of setting myself that unique goal gave me something to focus on that I thought I could achieve. There were no big dreams getting in the way. I just knew that I had to go and do whatever they told me to do. If I did that, then I would be accepted into the Parachute Regiment of the British army. That was the task in hand. That was an achievable ambition. Nobody was saying it was going to be easy to achieve, but at least it was easy to understand.