Be Fearsome

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.

7am. April morning. Hyde Park.

20 people showing up and getting it done.

No shortcuts.
No excuses.

Just a group of people working hard together.

There’s something different about training like this.

The energy.
The camaraderie.
The support.
The banter.

Everyone pushing — but everyone bringing each other with them.

This is what it’s about.

Not just fitness.

👉 Turning up
👉 Doing the work
👉 Being part of something

We’re here all week.

Same standard. Every session.

Book Review: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Most leadership conversations happen in comfort.

This one doesn’t.

This is leadership when everything has gone wrong.

No certainty.
No clear plan.
Just people — and the decisions you make under pressure.

What stands out most isn’t the expedition itself.

It’s Shackleton’s focus on his team.

👉 If the people don’t hold, nothing holds.

He maintained morale when conditions were against them.
He adapted constantly as the situation changed.
He made decisions without perfect information.

That’s leadership.

Not when things are going well — but when they’re not.

There’s a lot in this that translates directly to modern leadership, especially around how you lead when plans fall apart.

Full review here:

Book Review: Endurance - What Shackleton Teaches About Leadership Under Pressure An adventure story is what draws you into Endurance. But what stays with you is something far more demanding. When Shackleton’s mission collapses and survival becomes the only objective, this isn’t a story about exploration—it’s a benchmark for leadership under pressure, where standards, jud...

Most team building and leadership content lives in theory.

Ours doesn’t.

Because you don’t really understand team building and leadership until you’re in it.

Under pressure.
With limited information.
Working with other people.
Making decisions that actually matter.

That’s where it shows up.

At our events, nothing is hypothetical.

You’ll see:

• How you communicate when things aren’t clear
• How you make decisions when time is limited
• How your team actually operates under pressure
• Where friction shows up — and why

This isn’t about motivation.

It’s about behaviour.

Because leadership isn’t what you say in a room.

It’s what you do when things get difficult.

If you want to understand your leadership properly — step into an environment that tests it.

That’s where it becomes real.