You think you know me. You don’t know me at all. The me you see in the SAS TV reality show Who Dares Wins is the me I want you to see. Only I know the real me. That’s what makes me a leader. A winner.

Let’s start with The Question. The one everyone wants to ask but daren’t. Because they do not know me. In case you’d forgotten, no one knows me but me. So look me in the eyes and say it. You can’t, can you? Very few people can look in the eyes of a killer. A killer and a leader. That’s me.

So yes, I have killed. More people than I could possibly name. I’ll never forget the first one. In Afghan. A Taliban rushing towards me with an AK-47. I had a choice. I chose to kill. Two gentle squeezes on the trigger. Two shots through the mouth. His head exploded. I felt nothing. It was easy. Job done. A job I’d do again. And again. You don’t know me. Only I know me.

My childhood. My father died when I was young. The next day, my mother had taken down all his photos and married someone else. That’s all you need to know. You don’t know me. Only I know me. My stepfather was a hard bastard. When I was having a tough time in school, he told me to hit the bully. So I broke his jaw. It felt good. The bully didn’t bother me again.

Don’t let anyone else define who you are. When I first joined the army, I felt I had to be part of the alpha male culture. But I didn’t. I could be just me. You need to be you. Don’t try to be me. No one but me can be me. But you can be you. Look inside yourself and get to know who the real you is. And then be that person. The best version of you. Even if the real you is basically a bit shit, it’s better than not being you.

Basic training was hard. But I made it. Because I wanted to be the best me. Sometimes you have to learn that being the best you is being the second best you. I learned the hard way that the army doesn’t want people who always come first. Otherwise there would be only one person in the army. And there wouldn’t be enough men to deploy in Afghan. The army needs people who can come second, third, fourth and last. Know yourself and be that person. Leaders understand that.

After a while, I realised 9 Para wasn’t for me. There was too much macho shit in the regiment. The reality was they weren’t nearly as hard as they thought they were. That’s because they didn’t know themselves. Like you don’t know yourself. I know myself. I know my demons. We all have demons. You may not think you have demons. But I can guarantee you do. And your demons have to be confronted.

My demons took me to some dark places. My first marriage failed. I drank too much. I went to prison. Though technically it wasn’t my fault. All I was trying to do was break up a fight by assaulting a police officer. But I took the rap and did the time. Because that is how you confront your demons. In prison, one of the inmates tried to push me around on the first day. I grabbed him by the throat. “Don’t fuck with my demons,” I said. “Or else my demons will fuck with you.” He backed off and no one bothered me again.

I joined the police for a bit. But they were pussies. And I got kicked out. So I joined the Royal Marines. The training was tough. Brutal. But I survived. Because I knew my demons. I got my demons to work for me rather than against me. That’s what leaders do. On a 60-mile trek with a 200kg bergen on my back. I felt my ankle break. Some might have given up. I broke my other ankle to even up the pain. And carried on. I never give in to my demons.

Afghan was hard. I was lead man in an area where there was a 50/50 chance of one of my squad getting killed. My mission was to make sure none of my men died. “The only people who get killed in Afghan are those who don’t know their demons,” I said. I saw that one of my blokes was shitting himself. I asked him what he thought we were doing here. “Killing the cunts,” he yelled. I knew then he was going to be OK.

At some point I got married again. This time it was for food. Because there were three people in the marriage. Me, Emilie and my demons. I also trained for the Special Boat Service. But that’s something for me and my demons. Since leaving the SBS, I’ve done a lot of TV work. Helping people confront their demons. Helping people to be the real them by sailing across the Pacific in a shit boat. We did that. Now they are the real them. Not the real you. Because only you can be the real you.

Digested read, digested: First reader out.