Bear Grylls
Bear Grylls
Edward Michael "Bear" Gryllsis a British adventurer, writer and television presenter. He is widely known for his television series Man vs. Wild, originally titled Born Survivor: Bear Grylls in the United Kingdom. Grylls is also involved in a number of wilderness survival television series in the UK and US. In July 2009, Grylls was appointed the youngest-ever Chief Scout in the UK at age 35...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionReality Star
Date of Birth7 June 1974
CityDonaghadee, Northern Ireland
How you speak about others speaks loudest about yourself.
The special forces gave me the self-confidence to do some extraordinary things in my life. Climbing Everest then cemented my belief in myself.
Once a job it has begun, do not stop until it's done. Whether it is big or small, do it well or not all.
All worthwhile journeys have big obstacles. It's the way of the world. The rewards go to those who can push through those trying moments and still manage to keep a smile on their face.
Survival requires us to leave our prejudices at home. It's about doing whatever it takes - and ultimately those with the biggest heart will win.
A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.
When I'm in 'Man vs. Wild' mode, it's not pleasure. Every sensor is firing and I'm on reserve power all the time and I'm digging deep - and that's the magic of it as well, and that's raw and it's great.
Life's full of lots of dream-stealers always telling you you need to do something more sensible. I think it doesn't matter what your dream is, just fight the dream-stealers and hold onto it.
I try and eat really healthy when I'm home, but I certainly don't eat worms and snakes.
To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.
When I'm filming, survival requires movement. You need your energy, and you've got to eat the bad stuff, and survival food is rarely pretty, but you kind of do it. I get in that zone, and I eat the nasty stuff, but I'm not like that when I'm back home.
Textbook survival tells you to stay put. Stop. Wait for rescue. Don't take any risks. But there'd been a whole host of survival shows like that and I didn't really want to do that.
Some of the greatest survivors have been women. Look at the courage so many women have shown after surviving earthquakes in the rubble for days on end.
I joined the Army at 19 as a soldier and spent about four and a half years with them. Then I broke my back in a freefall parachuting accident and spent a year in rehabilitation back in the U.K.