James Elliott joined the British Army in 2006, going to 7 Para, Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) into a Fire Support Team to the 3 Para battle group. During his time there he deployed around the world, including to Afghanistan. It would be these experiences that would create a pathway to mental resilience coaching. After his own issues with mental health, James began strength and conditioning coaching at a national league rugby team, where he learned the power of mentoring and development.
From this, James was asked to help establish the first ever British Army Parachute Jumping Instructors (APJI) Platoon at RAF Brize Norton. A task in which he relished, being able to apply the same mentoring techniques he had learned within a high performing rugby club, to the young parachute students. It would be at RAF Brize Norton that James also attended several courses in mental health, becoming an instructor, and would also break 2 Guinness world records in feats of endurance in rugby.
From this position as an Army Parachute Jumping Instructor, James wrote to the Army HQ, explaining the need for mentorship from credible and experienced soldiers in mental resilience and well being. The email was well received and in early 2018 James was moved from the parachute training school and was placed into Army health, whereby he would help the development and delivery of all mental resilience training, including to special forces and deploying to Estonia to deliver to the soldier’s posted there. James developed a very good understanding of how to effectively deliver what is a complicated subject to a wide range of different audiences and contexts.
In 2020, James formally terminated his contract with the British Army, now taking his brand of mental resilience and well being training, to a much wider audience, including the Paralympic Rowing Team and a number of other high performing individual’s and environments, developing his knowledge of psychology through both academic studies and the practical application of resilience.
In this episode James talks about:
His thoughts on what mental resilience is.
The development of the mental resilience coach role within the British Army.
How this programme has been disseminated throughout the British Army.
His methods to help build mental resilience.
Positive and Negative behaviors which add or detract from mental resilience.
How to be proactive as well as reactive on bad mental health days.
His 2 Guinness world records for the longest games of 7's and 10's rugby.
You can stay up to date with James via his instagram page @jameselliottofficial.
Keep up to date with James and his next Guinness world record attempt via the Horus 7s Instagram page.
Link to recommended books: The chimp paradox by Dr. Steven Peters and Behave by Robert Sapolsky