You can't become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again, a good number of times. There's life in a nutshell. - Bear Grylls

But, that guy who quit also missed the real point. Good things come through grit and hard work, and all things worthwhile have a cost. In the case of the SAS, the cost was somewhere around a thousand barrels of sweat.

So I got lucky. But then again, it took me many hundreds of rejections to manage to find that luck.
I am sure there is a lesson n that somewhere.
Someone had taken a punt and had faith in me. I wouldn’t let them down, and I would be eternally grateful to them for giving me that chance to shine.
Once DLE were on board, a few other companies joined them. It’s funny how, once one person backs you, somehow other people feel more comfortable doing the same.
I guess most people don’t like to trailblaze.
So before I knew it, suddenly, from nothing, I had the required funds for a place on the team. (In fact I was about £600 short, but Dad helped me out on that one, and refused to hear anything about ever being paid back. Great man.)
The dream of an attempt on Everest was now about to become a reality.
So many people over the years have asked me how to get sponsorship, but there is only one magic ingredient. Action. You just have to keep going.
Then keep going some more.
Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire.
The reality of planning big expeditions is often tedious and frustrating. There is no glamour in yet another potential sponsor’s rejection letter, and I have often felt my own internal fire flickering close to snuff point.
Action is what keeps it alight.

Samuel Smiles ends his book with the following moving story of the “gentleman” general:

The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences of life…we may cite the anecdote of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercromby, of whom it is related, that, when mortally wounded in the battle of Aboukir, and, to ease his pain, a soldier’s blanket was placed under his head, from which he experienced considerable relief.
He asked what it was.
“It’s only a soldier’s blanket,” was the reply.
“Whose blanket is it?” said he, half lifting himself up.
“Only one of the men’s.”
“I wish to know the name of the man whose blanket this is.”
“It is Duncan Roy’s, of the 42nd, Sir Ralph.”
“Then see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night.”

Even to ease his dying agony the general would not deprive the private soldier of his blanket for one night.
As Samuel wrote: “True courage and gentleness go hand in hand.”
It was in this family, belief system, and heritage that Walter, my great-grandfather, grew up and dared to dream.