Bear Grylls - Mud, Sweat and Tears. Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls is a man who has always sought the ultimate in adventure.

Growing up on the Isle of Wight, he was taught by his father to sail and climb at an early age. Inevitably, it wasnt long before Bear was leading out-of-bounds night-climbing missions at school.

As a teenager, he found identity and purpose through both mountaineering and martial arts, which led the young adventurer to the foothills of the mighty Himalaya and a grandmasters karate training camp in Japan.

On returning home, he embarked upon the notoriously gruelling selection course for the British Special Forces to join 21 SAS a journey that was to push him to the very limits of physical and mental endurance.

Then, in a horrific free-fall parachuting accident in Africa, Bear broke his back in three places. It was touch and go whether he would ever walk again. However, only eighteen months later and defying doctors expectations, Bear became one of the youngest ever climbers to scale Everest, aged only twenty-three.

But this was just the beginning of his many extraordinary adventures

Known and admired by millions whether from his global adventure TV series, as a bestselling author, or as Chief Scout to the Scouting Association Bear Grylls has survived where few would dare to go.

Now, for the first time, Bear tells the story of his action-packed life. Gripping, moving and wildly exhilarating, Mud, Sweat and Tears is a must-read for adrenalin junkies and armchair adventurers alike.

The air temperature is minus twenty degrees. I wiggle my fingers but theyre still freezing cold. Old frostnip injuries never let you forget. I blame Everest for that.

You set, buddy? cameraman Simon asks me, smiling. His rig is all prepped and ready.

I smile back. I am unusually nervous.

Something doesnt quite feel right.

But I dont listen to the inner voice.

It is time to go to work.

The crew tell me that the crisp northern Canadian Rockies look spectacular this morning. I dont really notice.

It is time to get into my secret space. A rare part of me that is focused, clear, brave, precise. It is the part of me I know the best, but visit the least.

I only like to use it sparingly. Like now.

Beneath me is three hundred feet of steep snow and ice. Steep but manageable.

I have done this sort of fast descent many, many times. Never be complacent , the voice says. The voice is always right.

A last deep breath. A look to Simon. A silent acknowledgement back.

Yet we have cut a vital corner. I know it. But I do nothing.

I leap.

I am instantly taken by the speed. Normally I love it. This time I am worried.

I never feel worried in the moment.

I know something is wrong.

I am soon travelling at over 40 m.p.h. Feet first down the mountain. The ice races past only inches from my head. This is my world.

I gain even more speed. The edge of the peak gets closer. Time to arrest the fall.

I flip nimbly on to my front and drive the ice axe into the snow. A cloud of white spray and ice soars into the air. I can feel the rapid deceleration as I grind the axe deep into the mountain with all my power.

It works like it always does. Like clockwork. Total confidence. One of those rare moments of lucidity.

It is fleeting. Then it is gone.

I am now static.

The world hangs still. Then bang.

Simon, his heavy wooden sledge, plus solid metal camera housing, piles straight into my left thigh. He is doing in excess of 45 m.p.h. There is an instant explosion of pain and noise and white.

It is like a freight train. And I am thrown down the mountain like a doll.

Life stands still. I feel and see it all in slow motion.

Yet in that split second I have only one realization: a one-degree different course and the sledges impact would have been with my head. Without doubt, it would have been my last living thought.

Instead, I am in agony, writhing.

I am crying. They are tears of relief.

I am injured, but I am alive.

I see a helicopter but hear no sound. Then the hospital. I have been in a few since Man vs. Wild/Born Survivor: Bear Grylls began. I hate them.

I can see them all through closed eyes.

The dirty, bloodstained emergency room in Vietnam, after I severed half my finger off in the jungle. No bedside graces there.

Then the rockfall in the Yukon. Not to mention the way worse boulder-fall in Costa Rica. The mineshaft collapse in Montana or that saltwater croc in Oz. Or the sixteen-foot tiger that I landed on in the Pacific versus the snake-bite in Borneo.

Countless close shaves.

They all blur. All bad.

Yet all good. I am alive.

There are too many to hold grudges. Life is all about the living.

I am smiling.

The next day, I forget the crash. To me, it is past. Accidents happen, it was no ones fault.

Lessons learnt.

Listen to the voice.

I move on.

Hey, Si, Im cool. Just buy me a pina colada when we get out of here. Oh, and Ill be sending you the evac, doc and physio bills.

He reaches for my hand. I love this man.

Weve lived some life out there.

I look down to the floor: at my ripped mountain salopettes, bloodstained jacket, smashed mini-cam and broken goggles.

I quietly wonder: when did all this craziness become my world?

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible and achieve it, generation after generation.

Walter Smiles, my great-grandfather, had a very clear dream for his life. As he breathed in the fresh salty air of the northern Irish coast that he loved so dearly, he gazed out over the remote Copeland Islands of County Down. He vowed to himself that it would be here, at Portavo Point, on this wild, windswept cove, that one day he would return to live.

He dreamt of making his fortune, marrying his true love and building a house for his bride here, on this small cove overlooking this dramatic Irish coastline. It was a dream that would shape, and ultimately end, his life.

Walter came from a strong line of self-motivated, determined folk: not grand, not high society, but no-nonsense, family minded, go-getters. His grandfather had been Samuel Smiles who, in 1859, authored the original motivational book titled Self-Help . It was a landmark work, and an instant best-seller, even outselling Charles Darwins The Origin of Species when it was first launched.

Samuels book Self-Help also made plain the mantra that hard work and perseverance were the keys to personal progress. At a time in Victorian society where, as an Englishman, the world was your oyster if you had the get up and go to make things happen, his book Self-Help struck a chord. It became the ultimate Victorian how to guide, empowering the everyday person to reach for the sky. And at its heart it said that nobility is not a birthright, but is defined by our actions. It laid bare the simple but unspoken secrets for living a meaningful, fulfilling life, and it defined a gentleman in terms of character not blood type.

Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities.

The poor man with a rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit.