Be Fearsome

A great day out at the wonderful Home Farm with the team from Monster Energy.

Hot weather, full involvement, and a team that threw themselves into every challenge.

We ran a range of command tasks, giving the teams the chance to feed back to each other after each one, learn, and grow as the day went on. Then we took it onto the ground with an orienteering challenge that tested navigation, decision-making, and teamwork in the field.

Great fun. Great group. Great event.

This is what we do — challenge with care, activity with impact.

In the Royal Marines, we were always trained to the rank above.

Navigation. Communications. Weapons. Tactics. Everything.

The obvious reason is simple: if the person above you goes down, you step straight into their role. No handover. No briefing. No time.

But the real value goes much deeper.

When you understand the role above you — and alongside you, and below you — everything changes. You stop seeing your job in isolation. You understand the pressures, decisions, and responsibilities the people around you are carrying.

That changes how you communicate. How you support. How you challenge. And how you follow.

Because following well isn't passive. It's active.

During my Mountain Leader assessment, this was tested constantly. Three days and two nights navigating mountainous terrain. Four candidates, one assessor.

At any point, the assessor would turn to one person: "Take me here." You'd work out the route, lead the group, and when you arrived, commit: "We're here."

Then the assessor would turn to everyone else — the ones following — and ask: "Tell me where we are."

Every single person was expected to know. That's check nav. You don't switch off because someone else is leading. You maintain awareness. You catch mistakes. You confirm when things are right.

Nobody is a passenger.

This is exactly how I run things at Be Fearsome today. For our big events, everyone has access to the full event plan. Not just their section. The full picture.

My operations manager always knows what I'm doing, what the plan is, and what my role is. He's constantly pre-empting my next move because he understands the wider operation, not just his own part.

When you find people like that — people who think beyond their role, who check nav without being asked — you hold on to them. You make sure they feel valued. You make sure they stay.

Because people like that are rare. And they're invaluable.

The teams that perform best under pressure aren't the ones with the strongest individual leader. They're the ones where everyone is trained to lead.

Full article here:
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Level Up Leadership: Why the Best Leaders Train Beyond Their Own Role | Be Fearsome Leadership In the Royal Marines, we were always trained to the rank above — in navigation, communications, weapons, everything. Not just for contingency. But to understand, support, challenge, and strengthen the people around us. This article explores why the best teams don't rely on one leader, how "check n...

What predicts success more reliably than talent, intelligence, or background?

Grit.

Angela Duckworth's research across military cadets, elite students, teachers, and salespeople found the same pattern in every domain: the people who succeeded weren't necessarily the most talented. They were the most persistent.

Her effort equation captures it simply:

Talent × Effort = Skill
Skill × Effort = Achievement

Effort counts twice.

The book also introduces the concept of wise coaching — being both demanding and supportive simultaneously. Four decades of research shows this combination consistently produces stronger outcomes in individuals and teams.

This is essential reading for anyone responsible for developing others — leaders, coaches, and organisations.
Our full review explores the key ideas and how they apply to leadership, team development, and sustained performance.

👉 Read the full review here:

Book Review: Grit by Angela Duckworth | Be Fearsome Leadership Talent gets you to the start line. Effort gets you across the finish. Angela Duckworth's Grit is built on a simple but powerful idea: the most reliable predictor of long-term success isn't talent, intelligence, or background. It's grit — sustained passion and perseverance for long-term goals. This...

Crystal Quest at Home Farm

Another fantastic day delivering Crystal Quest — our take on the Crystal Maze.

Teams rotate through a series of themed problem-solving challenges, each testing communication, teamwork, and decision-making under time pressure. Complete the challenge, earn a crystal.

The more crystals earned, the more time in the Dome — a final race to collect as many gold tokens as possible while avoiding the silver. Competitive, chaotic, and genuinely fun.

A brilliant group, fantastic catering from , and always a pleasure to work at .

Crystal Quest works indoors or outdoors, at any venue, for teams of all sizes.
👉 www.befearsomeevents.com

Leadership is a performance discipline.

Athletes prepare deliberately — structured training, planned recovery, nutrition, sleep, mental conditioning. They understand that how they prepare determines how they perform. They wouldn't dream of showing up to compete without doing the work beforehand.

Most leaders do exactly that. Every day.

No structure around energy. No planned recovery. No attention to the fundamentals that drive clear thinking, emotional regulation, and decision-making under pressure.

There's a balance to get right. Service-led leadership matters — looking after your team, putting others first. But if the leader is running on empty, they can't serve anyone effectively.

Self-leadership isn't selfish. It's the foundation that makes everything else possible.

Our latest article explores why the principles behind athletic performance apply directly to leadership — and what leaders can start doing today to show up better.

👉 Read the full article here:

Leadership Is Your Sport — How Are You Training for It? | Be Fearsome Leadership Athletes don't show up on race day and hope for the best. They prepare deliberately — physically, mentally, and emotionally. Most leaders don't. This article explores why leadership is a performance discipline, why self-leadership isn't selfish, and how the principles that drive athletic performan...

When people aren't performing, most leaders focus on the people.

But often, the real issue is the environment around them.

Our Founder Tom Frearson shares a leadership lesson from his time working in maritime security in Nigeria — where repeated instructions failed to change behaviour, and the real solution had nothing to do with authority.

It had everything to do with understanding what was making the right behaviour harder than the wrong one.

A simple principle that applies to every team, every organisation, and every leader:

Design the environment for the behaviour you want. Remove the friction that pulls people toward the behaviour you don't.

Read the full article: 👉

Make It Easy to Do the Right Thing | Leadership Insight | Be Fearsome Leadership When people consistently aren't doing what's needed, most leaders repeat the instruction louder. But the problem is rarely that people didn't hear you. More often, something in the environment is making the wrong behaviour easier than the right one. This article explores how one experience leading a...

“Check your flashes.”

A simple phrase with a much deeper meaning.

In the Royal Marines, commando flashes sat at the top of the sleeve and represented far more than just a badge.

And in difficult moments, someone would often say:

👉 “Check your flashes.”

What they really meant was:

Remember who you are.
Remember the standard.
Get hold of yourself.
Keep moving forward.

It meant living by the Commando Values:

• Excellence
• Integrity
• Self-Discipline
• Humility

And the Commando Spirit:

• Courage
• Determination
• Unselfishness
• Cheerfulness in the face of adversity

It meant belonging to something bigger than yourself.

It meant no excuses.

No lowering the standard because things got uncomfortable.

Years later, that idea still matters.

At Be Fearsome, our team wear Be Fearsome patches on our kit in exactly the same place.
Not as decoration.

As a reminder.

👉 Check your values.
👉 Check your standards.
👉 Remember what you stand for.

Our company values:

Humble Excellence.
Team Spirit.
Infectious Enthusiasm.
Accountability for Success.
Led by Service.

Because culture isn’t built through slogans.

It’s built through the standards people choose to hold when things get difficult.

Book Review: Your Brain at Work

This is an excellent read for anyone leading people in demanding, fast-moving environments.
At its core, the book explores David Rock’s SCARF Model — a framework built around five core social drivers:

Status
Certainty
Autonomy
Relatedness
Fairness

And once you understand those properly, a lot of workplace behaviour suddenly starts to make far more sense.

Especially under pressure.

One of the biggest takeaways from the book is that most people are trying to operate beyond their brain’s actual capacity.
Too many decisions.
Too many interruptions.
Too much context switching.
Too much mental clutter.

And eventually, performance drops.

Not because people are weak.

Because cognitively, they’re overloaded.

That shows up in leadership more than people realise:

reactive decision-making
poor communication
reduced patience
emotional responses
short-term thinking
struggling to prioritise clearly

One of the strongest parts of the book is how practical it is.

It explains why seemingly small things:

uncertainty
lack of autonomy
poor communication
unclear expectations

can create disproportionately strong reactions in people.

Especially in leadership and team environments.

A very useful read for anyone responsible for leading people, managing pressure, and improving performance sustainably.

Full review here:

Book Review: Your Brain at Work | Leadership & Brain Performance A practical review of Your Brain at Work by David Rock, exploring how the brain responds to pressure, threat, reward and overload — and why understanding this changes leadership, communication and performance.

Most leaders think they’re being clear.

They’re not.

And usually, they don’t realise it until something goes wrong.

A deadline gets missed.
A task gets interpreted differently.
Someone delivers something completely different to what was expected.

Then comes the frustration:

👉 “That’s not what I meant.”

But leadership communication isn’t judged by what you meant.

It’s judged by what people understood.

A great example of this came up during a recent leadership development session.

Someone said they needed to deal with something marked “ASAP.”

Another person in the group immediately responded:

👉 “Remember — ASAP isn’t urgent.”

The team already had a shared understanding in place:

ASAP = complete as soon as realistically possible
Urgent = immediate action required

Clear definitions.
Clear expectations.
No confusion.

That’s what strong communication looks like.

Because under pressure, vague language creates:

hesitation
frustration
duplicated work
poor ex*****on

Most teams don’t have communication problems because people aren’t capable.

They have communication problems because assumptions are being made.

Strong leaders reduce ambiguity before pressure arrives.

That’s where clarity comes from.

I’ve broken the full idea down properly here:

Most Leaders Think They’re Being Clear. They’re Not | Be Fearsome Leadership Most leaders think they’re being clear. They’re not. From “ASAP” vs “urgent” to the deliberate language used in high-pressure environments, this article explores why strong leadership communication is built on shared understanding — not assumptions. Because clarity isn’t what you say...

A great day out on the South Downs Way this week supporting Chana Charity.

48 walkers covering 30km — and everyone who started finished.

That was brilliant to see.

We were lucky with the weather as well. Amazing visibility, great conditions, and a genuinely good atmosphere throughout the whole day, even towards the end when the miles were starting to bite a bit.

A lot goes into delivering days like this behind the scenes, and I’m really grateful to the team who helped make it happen.

The planning is important, but ultimately it comes down to the people on the ground who create the experience and keep everything running smoothly throughout the day.

Most importantly, a huge well done to everyone who took part and supported a great charity doing important work helping people grow their families.

A long day, but a very good one.

Here’s to next year.