21/02/2026
I was at Mam’s today with the girls.
You know when you’re not looking for anything.
And then you find something that stops you in your tracks?
An old photo.
Taken straight after I passed my PT course in the Royal Navy.
First year based at HMS Drake.
White vest.
Big grin.
Probably weighing about 14 stone wet through.
But what that photo doesn’t show.
Is that I’d had two surgeries before the course had even properly started.
Two.
If I’m honest, I probably should’ve delayed it.
Sensible people would have.
But quitting never crossed my mind.
Not because I was some hero.
Not because I wasn’t in pain.
I just genuinely didn’t know how to give up.
I wasn’t the strongest on that course.
I wasn’t the most naturally gifted.
And I definitely passed parts of it by the skin of my teeth.
But I had something.
I had a decision already made.
I was finishing it.
Standing there today in Mam’s house.
My girls running around, I looked at that younger version of me and thought.
He had no idea what life was about to throw at him.
Business struggles.
Family health scares.
Fatherhood.
Faith.
Responsibility.
But the one thing he had right was this.
When you start something that matters.
You see it through.
The fire back then was raw.
Now it’s refined.
Back then it was about earning a vest.
Now it’s about earning trust.
From my members.
From my family.
From my friends.
Old photos don’t just remind you what you looked like.
They remind you who you decided to be.
Consistency builds momentum.
And quitting?
It was never in the vocabulary.