The Wall

By Ant Middleton

Ant Middleton, ex-soldier, marine and ex-SBS, is most well known for the role of chief instructor of the channel 4 TV series SAS: Who Dares Wins. He is now an established author, with two fiction books – Cold Justice and Red Mist, and four non-fiction self-help books, Zero Negativity, First Man In, The Fear Bubble and Mental Fitness that feature advice from somebody who has seen the highest levels of combat and has experienced the associated challenges.

The Wall is his fifth foray into guidance. Expect advice for how best to tackle life, dissatisfaction and tragedy, with takeaways and a book packed full of advice.

Caught in the crossfire

Ant Middleton’s books perhaps suffer from a slightly blurred lines: why five self-help books? Of course, he felt like writing them, but what is the purpose of each? Let me try to delineate them a little. First Man In spoke of the challenges he faced, troubled upbringing, lack of role model, and using the military to expend all his frustration and to provide a purpose. The Fear Bubble took elements of this, but emphasized slightly more overcoming hurdles – usually in the form of fear or anxiety, and illustrated how to overcome them through his military and sometimes personal life. Zero Negativity focussed on transforming negative thinking to being more positive. Mental Fitness provided ideas for maintaining and improving mind and body – often together.

Chapters such as ‘You’re too focussed on the destination’, or ‘You give up too easily’ make up the book, where Ant discusses the issue, some related anecdotes. It often comprises sub-sections for the issue and a bullet point list of key takeaway points at the end of each chapter. It is all pretty good, generic advice, solidified somewhat by the stories. If you’ve read Zero Negativity, the format is almost identical.

Good addition to the squad?

The unique selling point here is Ant himself, and his war experiences. The military anecdotes work well for illustrating his points, and I felt in First Man In Ant’s humility and openness definitely does him credit. This book is no different. He recounts stories of advice he’s given people with terminal illnesses, soldiers in training, events in action and more. I did feel the stories were weaker and less well fleshed out than First Man In or Zero Negativity. Some of the stories in those were more memorable, giving the book greater uniqueness.

A tiny reviewer such as I will not have an impact on the sale of these books – and perhaps nor would I want it to. They will inevitably sell well. I think a man who is willing to fight in the military and for their country is completely deserving of respect, and worth listening to. But as a fifth book, this one perhaps suffers from elements of repetition. It feels like aggregated and generic – albeit genuinely useful if you haven’t heard it before – advice. But I do have a feeling that if you’ve read any self-help books before, you probably already have come across all of this advice before. Indeed, the concept of The Wall was articulated most poignantly by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art in 2012. We’re not dealing with new concepts here.

Ant attracted criticism for some of his comments during SAS Who Dares Wins, after which they replaced him, but I didn’t see anything particularly controversial in here. In fact, its part of the problem: I didn’t read anything particularly revelatory, even if it all is good solid advice.

The surest way to end up trapped behind the wall is to live your life as a follower, not a leader. So don’t be passive. Don’t sit there waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do or think. The first thing you need to accept is that you’re the person who has ultimate responsibility for how your life works out. You can’t rely on others to save you. You can’t rely on them to always have your best interests in mind, or even to know what you want and need from your life. That has to come from you.

(pp.87 The Wall)

As you can see from this quotation, there’s nothing really wrong with the advice, so it really depends if you’ve heard it before. It might be good for somebody that barely ever reads, but needs motivation, as the advice is quite clean and generic, and the writing is simple and easy to access.

Final score

The advice here is good, and I think Ant Middleton is humble, likeable and worth listening to. This book doesn’t have a huge amount wrong with it, but perhaps lacks focus or purpose, and there isn’t anything new here really. If you’ve never read a self-help book, it might be worth it, but I’d still argue read First Man In instead, his first book. Otherwise, within this genre, there’s probably better choices.

5/10