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The Hard Road Will Take You Home: What the Special Forces Teaches Us About Innovation, Endeavour and Next Level Success
Elite Discipline meets Creative Effort.
Anthony 'Staz' Stazicker served an impressive 13 years of distinguished and decorated military service, ten within the Special Forces, before founding the multi-million pound technical clothing company ThruDark. Throughout his career in the Special Forces - featuring gunfights, door-kicking operations, and against-the-odds escapes - he learned hard lessons that would later provide crucial intelligence equally applicable to business, innovation and enterprise.
The Hard Road Will Take You Home provides a mission plan that distils the processes and tactics Staz gathered throughout his career and translates them into tools that can be used in any number of settings, and by individuals with a wide range of experience and backgrounds. It instils the psychological cues required to bring next level success to any mission. And it lays bare the levels of discipline required to maintain that next level success.
Introducing four concepts that make up the life of an elite operator - battle prep; techniques, tactics and procedures; teamwork and the lessons we should all consider when learning how to innovate, persevere and succeed - this book comes stacked with insight, easily applicable techniques and psychological processes gathered from Staz's time serving with the most resilient fighting force in the world.
As a creative resource, it's a weapon.
Anthony 'Staz' Stazicker served an impressive 13 years of distinguished and decorated military service, ten within the Special Forces, before founding the multi-million pound technical clothing company ThruDark. Throughout his career in the Special Forces - featuring gunfights, door-kicking operations, and against-the-odds escapes - he learned hard lessons that would later provide crucial intelligence equally applicable to business, innovation and enterprise.
The Hard Road Will Take You Home provides a mission plan that distils the processes and tactics Staz gathered throughout his career and translates them into tools that can be used in any number of settings, and by individuals with a wide range of experience and backgrounds. It instils the psychological cues required to bring next level success to any mission. And it lays bare the levels of discipline required to maintain that next level success.
Introducing four concepts that make up the life of an elite operator - battle prep; techniques, tactics and procedures; teamwork and the lessons we should all consider when learning how to innovate, persevere and succeed - this book comes stacked with insight, easily applicable techniques and psychological processes gathered from Staz's time serving with the most resilient fighting force in the world.
As a creative resource, it's a weapon.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 2, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 3, 2026
Having listened to Staz on Marc Rhodes's The Uncharted Podcast, I was already intrigued by his mindset, and I remembered his stint as the secret recruit on SAS: Who Dares Wins. Staz is the absolute definition of high performance: a promising football career cut short by a knee injury, followed by service as a Royal Marines Commando, selection into the Special Boat Service (SBS), a Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (CGM) for two combat incidents, co-founding the high-performance clothing brand ThruDark, and competing at a high level in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
The Hard Road Will Take You Home distils the principles forged across these intense environments. The structure works brilliantly: each section introduces a piece of military doctrine, illustrates it with a gripping operational anecdote from his service, and then applies it directly to business and real-world scenarios.
My only minor critique is that I would have loved to see an immediate action plan or habit-building framework at the end of each section. For readers who like to start "living" principles straight away, having practical steps to build them into daily routines would have given the takeaways even greater longevity. That said, it’s purely a personal preference—the advice itself is rock solid.
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable, well-written, and fun read. I’m definitely taking away a few core mindsets and phrases, and I’m even tempted to listen to the audiobook next to catch the guest discussions at the end of each chapter.
The Hard Road Will Take You Home distils the principles forged across these intense environments. The structure works brilliantly: each section introduces a piece of military doctrine, illustrates it with a gripping operational anecdote from his service, and then applies it directly to business and real-world scenarios.
My only minor critique is that I would have loved to see an immediate action plan or habit-building framework at the end of each section. For readers who like to start "living" principles straight away, having practical steps to build them into daily routines would have given the takeaways even greater longevity. That said, it’s purely a personal preference—the advice itself is rock solid.
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable, well-written, and fun read. I’m definitely taking away a few core mindsets and phrases, and I’m even tempted to listen to the audiobook next to catch the guest discussions at the end of each chapter.
May 6, 2025
Loved this one, a combination of intense and incredible stories from his SBS (Special Boat Service, not the same as SAS) days and how those learnings apply to his new business endeavour, which is a performance clothing brand.
It's not too surprising there is a lot of overlap between what it takes to succeed in the elite level of the military and in entrepreneurship: Grit, optimism, getting shit done and incredible colleagues and teamwork
It's not too surprising there is a lot of overlap between what it takes to succeed in the elite level of the military and in entrepreneurship: Grit, optimism, getting shit done and incredible colleagues and teamwork
August 22, 2025
Bit boring
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews