The French Foreign Legion was founded in 1831. Their spiritual home and old training centres are in the former colonial French North Africa although they now train mainly in Southern France. What made them the legendary force they were and still are? What success lessons can we learn from them?

Recently twelve volunteers chose to do four weeks basic training in Legion style in the Western Sahara desert. They were under the harsh but experienced and encouraging regime of three ex-legionnaires, Sergeant Chef Peter Hauser, Sergeant Glenn Ferguson and Corporal Richard Sutter

Their experiences were filmed by Channel 4 TV and can teach us much about motivation and success. I have also talked with Sergeant Glenn Ferguson and gained some more insights into what motivated him and the other legendary legionnaires.

He joined the Legion at the age of 19. He was motivated at first by fear of punishment and then by pride. He hated to fail at anything and could also appreciate the pride of an elite group. One of his favourite sayings is:

"You will never be the best if you constantly have to lower the bar so the weaker elements can join"

Throughout the program the three ex-legionnaires appeared keen for some of the volunteers to ring a bell as a symbol of their wish to leave the group. They wanted to weed out the weaker elements. Legionnaires with low standards can get their fellow legionnaires killed.

Elite groups do not have the time to tolerate the weak or half hearted. They only want members who are willing to give 100% effort. They would rather that 'losers' (people who are lazy and half-hearted) did not join. Another saying of Sergeant Glenn Ferguson puts this well:

"If you didn't come to be the best, then stay with the other losers"

In the modern world where everyone must be encouraged to join everything, this seems to be very old-fashioned and elitist but note that this saying does in fact make sense even today. It is not saying that you must be the best before you join up.

You must just want to be the best. This leaves room for the less talented so long as they have the right attitude. Any weakness will soon leave them as they endure the pain of the tough training regime of the Legion.

As the Sergeant commented to his suffering prot