The Uneducated PT Podcast - 🎙️ Episode 103 – Conor Nolan: Naming the Struggle, Living the Fight

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

The Uneducated PT Podcast In this powerful episode, we sit down with Conor Nolan — author of Normal, mental health advocate, and powerlifter — to unpack the reality behind eating disorders, identity, and what it really means to “feel good enough.” Conor opens up about naming his anorexia “George,” the mental toll of constantly chasing more, and why the heroes we overlook — the ordinary, consistent people — might be the ones we need to honour most. We talk about:Why Conor gave his illness a name, and what “George” symbolisedThe brutal truth behind the line: “Nobody has ever taken their lives before because of a broken arm…”Redefining strength, success, and recoveryWhat it means to live in the moment — and when “the penny finally drops”The life sentence of recovery, and why Conor is fighting to help the next generation do betterWhether you're a coach, athlete, or someone navigating your own healing, this episode is a raw reminder that the fruits of labour often grow unseen — and that you're probably doing better than you think. Listen now — and let us know what landed.

Who is George? Oh yes, yes. This is a good one. So funny enough, I have to praise. There's a lady called Sheila Nocton, who I follow, and she's an advocate for anorexia. And she calls her as Janine. So her page, I don't know if it's called it anymore,

but she used to call her page like Sheila beats Janine. I thought that's a great idea giving it a name. And so I thought it could have come up in a name of my own. And when I was thinking of the name, I was like, what will I call it? and I don't know where this comes from so my sister who's 14 when she was younger she watched

a lot of peppa pig and George is the weak character and that and then where we live is not far from Enoskelet and from Anna and my mother used to get all the kids clothes in ASTA and the kids clothing brand in ASTA is George so the name George was stuck in my head so I'll call it George and then

that became like the day of my gift to the anarchic voice but it became this like informal thing and then among friends that's like how's George today be like, oh, he's ropy enough. So it just became, and I realized then it was so much easier. Once I put a name on it, it just, it separated me from him. And it was like, okay, on a bad day when Anorexia's acting up,

when anxiety is peaking, I know, okay, this isn't me, this is him. So it's like, I can point to that and go, okay, that thing is, it's not me, it's the problem. It's that thing that I call George. He's the problem. And then that's what gave me the idea then to make the videos and make him a character. And the funny thing was then, you know, every character. has to have a costume and I love me jersey's like, you know,

but I'm a, and I would wear any jersey, but as a Liverpool fan, the one jersey I would never wear in public is my United jersey. So I bought a my United jersey specifically for George. So in every video, George, that's George's Kish. That's his, that's his get-up.

You know, that's so funny because I was like, I kind of vaguely remember seeing you in a United Jersey and I was like, I could have sworn he's a Liverpool fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. for those of you who for the listeners because we've had a lot of kind of people subscribe over the last couple of weeks and so on and so forth so some people might not have heard the last

podcast that we did and obviously we had to cut that one short as well so can you can you tell the listeners a little bit about that about your anorexia and and and even just a little bit about your past of course so with for me the mental health journey started off very young. So I was diagnosed with anorex nervosa when I was 12. So like growing up, I loved to get football and I loved all this kind of cracking. And I got, you know, I love training and I love fitness. And so at a young age, in an attempt to be a better footballer, I got big into the running and the press ups and the sit-ups. I bought the wee fit when I was about 11 or 12. So I was a pro at that. That's the kind of thing I was doing. And it started off really positive.

You know, I have no clue about nutrition or no clue about what I was doing. But I wanted to be a better player and that was that and it went well but then as i got towards the end of primary school as it typical of anorexia periods of change can can set the whole thing off i became less concerned with with the playing well and the scoring goals and the pitch performance and i became more concerned with losing weight getting more steps funny now there was no fit bits back then but if i had one i would have been glued to it you know or there was no strab either get more steps in move more eat less and then with that came the incremental weight loss that came

on very very quickly and I'm very lucky I got the help I needed I was putting into counselling very quickly and I'm very lucky as well I got the weight back on quite quickly like anorexia is a lifelong affair but in terms of the being underweight that came and went for me quite quickly over the time I was 14 I was back to a

healthy weight but it's something that stays with you for life and I'm lucky that I haven't had too many major problems with food and body image in years since little bits more than the average person but by and large in comparison to when I first got the diagnosis my relationship with my body image has been has been brilliant but the thing that's got me is you know anxiety is a big byproduct of anorexia as is depression

and those are things I struggled with in my late teens in my early 20s so that was kind of a kind of a constant battle and then that's that's what's led me to the work that I do now it's all kind of come full circle really yeah and work that you do is obviously you go into colleges and you and you talk to students. And I know you go into secondary schools as well, sometimes as well. And you even touched on things like steps and Strava and obviously my fitness pal and stuff like that. And obviously they weren't things that you probably had access to when you were struggling with your issues.

Do you think that these things enhance the problem for people who are already struggling with these conditions? Yeah, because the problem because the problem with it is, is like, you know, take a Fitbit for an example, you know, you have your. your your your X amount of steps. So they, I was talking to, to Jennifer, what's her last time? It's a Jen Percy.

I think you had her on the, on the podcast before. Me and her were talking about this and we're, she described it brilliantly. She said that a, an eating disorder is like a cage that becomes tighter and tighter and tighter as time goes on because whatever amount of steps,

you know, you ran, you did today or in my case, whatever amount of miles I ran was the more sort of generic measurement. You had to go a little bit further tomorrow. And whatever amount of calories you had, you had to have a little bit less tomorrow. It didn't have to be a massive improvement,

but it always had to be, you were always making a new floor, you know, and it was always rising and rising, or decreasing in this case. So you were always pushing yourself into tighter constraints. And so the anorexic mind loves the measurement. It loves knowing, okay, today we had 50 calories less.

Today we went to quarter of a mile more. And so I do think, you know, the fit bits and the Strava, it's a great fitness tool. you're in that healthy mindset, but if you do have an eating disorder, it's one more measurement you can look at, you can go, ah, the anorexic mind can go, or George can say, great, we got 50 more steps than yesterday. We went quarter of a mile further on Strava, you know, so it's then, them little things, you know, so it's, it's, the more numbers and the more metrics you can point at, the more that George has to pull at. So yeah, it's, they're great

things for fitness in general, but not great with anorexic mind, I would say. And that's probably the most difficult, um, the most complex, um, problem within this is that like, it's like, okay, the tool isn't good or bad,

but in the right, in the wrong hands, it could be damaging. And I presume that, you know, when you're a teenager and if you're going through this and you don't really understand that these are the, the conditions or the issues that you're dealing with, you,

you don't see using these tools as a, as a problem probably. Yeah. And as you say there, like, it's not the tool it's the way you use it in the same way that like you know for 95% of us

alcohol isn't harmful it's a social thing it's a thing that brings it together but for the 5% or the 2% if you have an alcohol problem it can be detrimental so it's the exact same way it's it's not the thing itself

it's how it's used and you're right when you're in that frame of mind you're completely blinded to the downsides of what you're doing and these these tools are just bullets and the gun really

and you're just pulling the trigger you're not thinking of anything else really so is that why awareness is probably really important for this. Is that why you do the work that you're doing in terms of going around to schools and colleges? A hundred percent. Like I was talking to, there's a cousin of mine who suffers from anorexia as well and she's making great progress. She really is improving. And I was talking to her family and I said, one of the greatest signs of improvement in an anorexic person is the anorexic mind is very, very, is very rigorous in terms of routine.

And I remember like for me when I was at the peak of it, it's like, you know, I wasn't calorie counting per se but I had a rough idea of what I was eating and there was no such thing as going over it. So there was very set meals and there was no such thing as going outside of that. And so I say if someone's if someone's recovering from an eating disorder, a very, very good sign is if they start snacking or picking at bits of food because that means that they're not, they're not thinking about it. They're not laying it on a plate and going, what does this look like? They're moving back into that sort of intuitive eating kind of mind frames. So that's, that's, so for people to know, okay, that's a green flag.

The red flag is, you know, the never sitting down, always on the move, not clearing the plates, you know, these little things. So as you say, yeah, it's helping people know what to look out for and what are the warning signs and the signs of improvement. I was thinking there when you were talking about how you've taken something that you've struggled with throughout your teens and you've almost turned it into something that's your purpose. And I was even, I put a post up about this a while ago.

I can't seem to find it. But it was basically about like alchemising your pain or whatever it is. And like so you have the person who was skinny and now like, you know, gain the load of muscle and now they teach other people who are skinny how to, who are like, you know, hard gainers, how to build muscle or, you know, the person who was struggling with a relationship with food. Now they turn it into it. Now they're a relationship with food coach.

And I even spoke about my own journey in terms of like I talk a lot about social connection because for a lot of the time I felt almost disconnected from relationships. And I think it's funny how it's like the one thing that you're, that you struggle with throughout your life and you probably think that, oh, this is never, things are never going to get better. But then it ends up full circle being the thing that gives you the most purpose and meaning by helping others to overcome it.

There's two things that come to mind there. The first one is, I heard this, I can't remember where I heard this quote, but it was something along the lines of, the best career advice is you should take the thing that made you weird as a kid and make a career from it and I went okay right what made me weird as a kid was having an eating disorder and I never quit talking so that that has that has molded for me perfectly the other one is there's a fantastic book called the alchemist I can't remember the name of the author I think he's a Brazilian gentleman but it's a fantastic story and the gist of the story is it's a fictional story but the gist of it the moral of the parable if you will is the thing that you need has been in you all along and the funny thing is I read that book about about about a month.

So I'm in the notice period of my job. I'm going full time with the public speaking. But I read this book, I would say, about a fortnight before I handed in my notice. And it was like this sort of realization of, okay, no, you don't need to be a sovereign engineer. The thing you need to make a career for yourself is the thing that's been in you all along.

It's this message, it's this purpose. So absolutely, as you say, it's taking that thing and putting a positive spin on it. And another thing, I can't remember what the name of the concept is. Brené Brown talks all about vulnerability. I think she calls it like the Phoenix, rising from the ashes and how something that could be something that was detrimental or traumatic for you can be something that sort of brings you up and that you can make a purpose

out of yeah yeah i think it i think it makes so much sense i even think about it even in terms i think i was speaking to someone about this in terms of grief that they had just previously lost their mother and i was talking to them about and i was kind of not giving advice but just kind of um sitting with them in in their grief and stuff like that and i was like ah this is actually really nice. It was like a grief that I've experienced. I understand what their pain is and now I can just kind of sit with them and I was like there's even a like even the things that you think that are the things that you don't want to happen in your life. Like there's meaning and purpose to them. Yes, of course. But it's hard to it's hard to see that when you're kind of in the in the mud in essentially.

Yeah, it's funny because I remember like when my book first came out and I was on, I think it was news talk radio. was on and an interviewer asked me something along the lines of, you know, if you're, because I was in very good mental headspace at the time and she said, if your mental health went downhill again, how do you think you would handle it? And I remember like, you know, the naivity and smugness

of 21 year old me, I said something along the lines of, ah, if it ever bugs me again, I'll see it coming. And I often think like, it's as if God heard that and went, we'll see about that. Because in the next year, I went through a very rough patch with anxiety. So it's, it was so easy.

when I was in a good headspace to point at these things and go, this was traumatic, but I learned from it, it's fantastic. But a year later, when I was back in the pits of it, I was like, God,

this whole thing of living your purpose is a tad overrated. It was like a moment of like, if I was given the choice there and then to have an easier life, you know, but I'd be happier. I would have taken it in that moment. But it's only when you come through, you go,

yeah, no, you know what, every bad moment there was worth it because now it's something worthwhile. But it's much harder to feel that. when you're in the middle of it. You're like, yeah, do you know what? I'd rather just have a quiet life if I could be happy. There is that kind of moment.

But then you come out of it and you go, no, I wouldn't change the thing. It's trying to be balanced in the moment, isn't it? Because the good times don't always last, but then equally the bad times don't always last. And I know you're a big sports fan as well. And I know they speak about this in terms of, you know, when you're winning, you know, when you're winning, it's good, but don't get ahead of yourself.

And when you're losing, understand that, you know, this bad patch isn't going to last forever. but you just have to keep on doing the right things week in, week out, and eventually things will even out the way they're supposed to. Yeah, I think in some sense it's kind of the price you pay for a fulfilling life. Like I'm a massive Liverpool fan, and I watched the Stephen Gerard documentary. I think it's called Make a Stream time and time again,

and he talks about, he says, the highs of my career were the best moments of my life, but the lows were the worst days. So he compares the winning the Champions League in Istanbul versus that time he slipped against Chelsea, and he says, he says, you're talking about peaks of mountains and the bottom of the ocean in one career. And so it is.

It's that, again, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, these, these peaks and troughs in a sense. Mm. Why do you think it's so effective to almost name your your condition or and do you think, because I know I was talking

to Gerr who you know from the event and he ha he taught he calls he calls his demons Frank basically Frank yes yeah Frank is the man who always comes and calls him a piece of shit and whatever whatever else

why do you think it's so effective for for people to use that as a till. And do you think it's, do you think it's effective for like, you know, everyday people who, you know, obviously, because we all have this kind of negativity bias and this chatter in their head telling us that, you know, we're not doing enough for a loser.

We can't believe you don't have this. You don't have this. Look at your neighbour. He's doing so well. And, you know, why can't you be like that, them? And why can't you be as put together as them? And how come you don't have this car? And how come you don't have this house?

And, you know, I think we're constantly caught in this. comparison trap, especially with social media now. So like, I think people are harder than themselves than ever before or just probably notice other people doing well and with the highlight real and everything else. So do you think it would be, do you think it's an effective tool for everyday people as well? Yeah, because there's two things that come to mind here. So as you say, everyone has that inner negative voice and that's, I think, like as, as Gerr says, psychologist called that the inner critic. So everyone has that. With anorexia, the way I describe it is like, anorexia and the inner critic,

quite similar but the way I would describe anorexia is it's the inner critic on steroids. It's the inner critic on cocaine. It's just for the day. And I don't mean that in kind of a, I have it worse, but it's like, no. When I describe it to friends, they're like, Jesus Christ, that is fucking relentless. Like, there's no let up. And like, when I

if I'm having bad days, where I'm overthinking and I'll explain to friends what my thought process is, they're like, geez, that is. Like, you've gone from zero to 100, they're so quick and we don't understand how. So it is, it is, I suppose, that that extra mile. So, the reason I found it so beneficial was for years I kind of thought like oh there's something wrong

with me and then I began to realize as the cancer said to me she says anorex she's a connerexia is it is a disease she said and you have it you you aren't it but you have it and it's sort of there with you and that helped you realize okay we're not we're not glued together it's part of me and the thing that reached out for me was when I compared times in life where I was in a good headspace to when I was in a bad one. When I'm in a good headspace, I feel unstoppable. I feel like I can think at 100 miles an hour and that helps me be witty and be funny and all these things. But then when I'm in a bad headspace, I also think at 100 miles an hour, but it's negative. It's self-deprecating. And I'm like, okay, the fact that it's not always there indicates that me and myself and it

are separate. And by naming it, it allowed me to go, okay, you're there and I'm going to deal with you. I'm not locked in here with you. You're not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me. You're under my roof. I can't get rid of you, but I'm going to learn how to work with you and enable myself to live with you and not be controlled by you. And I just found that once in the last couple of years, once I started identifying it in that way, it didn't cure everything, but it just helped me sort of reason with it and go, okay, I have now, whenever I go from zero to hundred, whenever I go down these rabbit holes, I know that's you talking and not me. But for the for the inner critic thing,

I just say everyone has that negative voice, but I read this really interesting piece and it said, we all have this inner critic and we can't help but listen to it. And when you try to argue with the inner critic, it's very, very tough because we feel like it's a losing battle. And I heard this great technique where it was, when you argue with the inner critic, don't argue as yourself.

You have to imagine that you have a thing called your inner coach or your inner mentor. And that's arguing on your behalf. because it's it's easier to imagine someone else arguing for you and taking in what they're saying then imagine that you're doing the arguing and then I took that a step further and I thought

what if the inner coach had an accent? So I love doing impressions I thought what if the inner coach was Alpercino or fucking you know Liam Neeson it's like I will find you and I will shoot you up you know and then that that again like you laugh there but by adding that element of absurdity

to it you're sort of dumbing it down and you're taking the sting out of it. You know, so it's like, you know, if you can, whenever you're arguing on your behalf with inner critic, I put on an accent in my head, like Samuel Jackson, you know, this motherfucker it's doing everything you can, you know, or something like that.

And it just it just takes the sting out of it and then it, you know, so it's, but then again, that's a habit. You know, it's like I made a video about this recently about where if I found myself overthinking rather than lean into it or mull over it, I'd stop and

I'd say, right, Conner, if you lean into this thought, you're not going to be able to get rid of it for the next 15 minutes. So in the next 15 minutes, you're going to miss out on so much energy that you could be using in a productive manner. So by not giving this negative thought the time of day, I'm saying, okay, I'm not going to buy into this. You're getting your time back. So you're attaching, like I, you know, I value my time, I value my energy and I value the things I work on. So I'm putting this positive spin on, okay, not only am I stopping my overthinking in its tracks. I'm also taking that energy and I'm putting it back into something more useful. So I started constantly asking myself this question whenever I would begin to overthink, I'd say, right, Connor.

If you go down this rabbit hole now, you're going to tire yourself out, you're going to fry your head. That's going to interfere with how well you think in your next talk. It's going to interfere with how you write the next email. It's going to interfere with the next piece of content you make. And so when you're you're tying that motivation to something you care about, it makes it easier to go, okay, right, I'm going to enforce this habit. I'm going to, now it doesn't always work. I have days where I just go down rabbit holes and there's no stop on it.

It's not always going to be perfect. But you're building that habit over and over again. Like Jared said, telling Frank to fuck off. The first thing you do it, it's tough. But if you build up that habit, it will become easier over time. And is this all internal dialogue or have you used tools over time like journal, etc. to help with this? I have the journey.

and you know what? I'm so glad you mentioned to journal them because I find journal it's so helpful but I think like journaling is one of the pillars of the wellness space but I think especially among men it's the kind of thing that lads roll their eyes at and I would have been the same in the past and I think the way

the way you get men on board of journaling the way you get men on board with anything that they roll their eyes at is you have to give them a cool, manly application for it so I've done recently on this I'm a Matt's nerd all day long and I love watching videos about like gambling, poker strategy, trading, you name it. I have an interest in all

this kind of stuff. That's, that's my whole Matt's brain coming out. And in things like poker and things like day trading, again, two real bro-y examples here now we're going with. In both of those, they're very different, but they're similar in the sense that they are games of skilled, but they involve elements of chance. And 80% of being a great poker player or being a great day trader is, it's not technical knowledge, it's the psychology behind it. And you see it on TV all the time what happens to someone in a game of poker. There might be a great poker player,

but then they lose one hand and they lose the head. And the hill that every poker player dies on is I'll just get back to even. And every, you know, I'll get back to what I... I'll recoup my loss and I'll leave the table. And that's why Vegas is still running every gambler gets caught up on that. And the way that professional gamblers get around this

is they step away after lost and they go, okay, literally write down. What was I thinking in every step of this? Why did I enter... Why did I play this hand? or why did I enter this trade? What went wrong? What went right?

And you're literally journaling on what your thoughts were. And if it comes up that, okay, I was going off of emotions there rather than strategy, okay, don't do that again. So literally you have these gamblers, traders, poker players. They use journaling because 80% of that game is psychology. When we journal on our thoughts, it's the exact same process. We go, okay, you reflect on your day and you go, okay, where were the bad moments? Why did that happen?

did I entertain a thought that I shouldn't have? Did I start arguing with George where I could have just left it be? Did I lose an hour there where I could have saved my energy and done something more productive? So it's by reflecting then you go, okay, here's where I went wrong.

If I had taken a breath at this moment and maybe just gone for a run or done something more productive or got out of my head or did a bit of meditation, I could have avoided that spiral which then cost me half an hour. So it's that sort of

what journaling is, really it's it's mindful reflection and it's sort of it's reflecting on your day with a bit of purpose and seeing where did you go wrong where did you go right and I think it's it's such an important thing to do it's so there's that ad that ad for better help it was like your thoughts are so jumbled but then when you put them down on paper they're so neat and they make sense so I think journaling is extremely it has been so helpful for me with all that and I think more particularly more men have to give it a go and not sleep on it because it is it's helpful but it's it's very much slept on in the wellness kind of word among men definitely yeah 100% I started doing it a couple of years ago just out of

half of it because I was doing it with my online clients so as I would prompt the the questions up on the screen I would also be writing as well because I would give them like I would make them do it live with me because otherwise it wouldn't get done I was kind of giving them the accountability to do it but also giving me the accountability to it and like it even helped me like have a little bit more uh what's the words uh i had more intention throughout like my day and my week and my month and actually what i wanted to achieve and like i thought it was it was really really powerful but that's a really good point you make in terms of like making it sexy branding it like you know the the performance journal or or performance

strategy or i was just thinking that in my head it's like how could i get the how could i get the men's group that I have to do a little bit of going to journal and stuff like that. They think it's, I think it's the same even with therapy. It's like, people don't want to go to a therapist, but they might want to go to like a sports psychologist, somebody who's going to help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same

thing. It's your same thing. It's all, it's reframing. I know you're, you're a Rory Sutherland fan as well. He's a big man for that you reframe this. He was on a bit like, he's on a bit like, he's on a student loans in the UK and he goes, if you just call that a graduate tax, people have no problem, paying it. You know, but the, um,

you're right there you say yeah it's okay if you can like with the whole counseling thing as well like I worked well I'm in the process of leaving but like I work in the corporate world and the corporate world is so like competitive doggy dog this you know no time for wellness sleep under your desk all this shit and like I've given talks to my workplace and I say like for the people who want to be hyper successful or they want to be a partner in KPMG or they want all these things they're the people that would think ah wellness is a load of shit and a wellness hour or it's just an hour where I could be doing a bit more work,

you know, grind harder, grind harder. But like the one thing I've learned from counselling is going to a counsellor and going to therapy in general has made me a better employee in terms of the more I worked on my anxiety and the more I, not to sound blunt, but the more I cleared the shit out of here, the better I was able to think. Because the less times I would be sitting in work

and the less times my brain would wander off and the more I could focus on the task at hand. The way that anxiety gets you is, it'll present you with an. anxious thought and it'll be something that sort of triggers it, like, oh, that I'm not good enough or that I'm a bad person. And then you feel in that moment that you have to justify that you're not or you have to, you have to sort of self-preserve. If those thoughts aren't occurring as much with the help of therapy, you are then more focused. You can work hard

or work better. So it's that sort of irony that by buying into the wellness, you can actually help yourself climb this ladder and do all that hard grind kind of stuff. You know, it's not just for like cancer therapy or counseling whatever you want to call it it's not just for people who are struggling it's for anybody and it can help anybody operate quicker think better you know why do I become anxious in these situations how can I be a better speaker how can I perform better and again it's why again you have for sports psychologists and you have your Premier League footballers going to a cancer three times a week it's if you can't get this right well then your feet aren't going to follow so there are the as you say there are these glamorous examples but they're there for good

reason. Yeah. I, and yeah, I suppose that the goal that is really to try and get these kind of, you're, you're just selling it to these high achievers, these high performers that, yeah, this is going to make you even better versus, oh no, this is, you need to rest or whatever it is. I think, yeah, I think that's, I think that's the issue we that we still have definitely in terms of men's mental health, that it, it's, it doesn't sound sexy. It doesn't. No, of course. And that's when I'm talking, especially in an all-boys school. Yeah.

I really lean hard on the whole thing of like the gym and what I've done in powerlifting because, you know, I say to the lads, right, I bench pressed 150 kilos when I was 19, but I also went to therapy when I was 23. It, one doesn't make me less of a man than the other. I know what it's like to have big shoulders and overhead press 120 kilos,

but also be crippled with anxiety. And it doesn't make you less of a man, if anything, what made me feel my strongest was confronting the, demons head on and go on and talk about it. And there's an element of like, I have no problem, I have no problem being vulnerable

in front of an all male audience or online because there's a power of me that thinks, okay, I can point to my powerlifting career and go, there's some strong, there's some, that, there's some strong shit I did. So you can't tell me I'm a weak man because I've already, I've proved this to myself. I've proved it to you, proved it to everyone.

So I've proved, I'm helping prove to people that you can do these quote unquote strong things. but also break down and need help. So if that makes me a weak man, will so be it, because I've done these things that I know proved to me that I'm strong. And ironically, going and getting the help

from my mental health was harder than any of those fucking lifts ever was. So it's really getting through that through the young men that doesn't make you any less of a man if you need help. If anything, it's a sign of strength that you're willing to face those demons head on, that you're making the emotionally mature decision to work on your problems.

Because indirectly, then that that's going to make you a better boyfriend in the future, a better husband, a better father. So you're doing the thing that's not sexy, but you're doing the, or quote unquote, but you're doing the thing that's sensible, that's right for you and that indirectly will be right for your family and your future partner and so on. Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate that it has to be that way, but it kind of is when you're talking to young boys or young adults is that like you almost have to, you know, show dominance through. Yes. I do this. because otherwise, like, it's not going to get their attention. And I think Tyson Fury is probably the greatest example of this. But just going to say, exactly, world headway champion box for him talking about,

that was fantastic because it's like, right, when you cannot get a however cunt than this. And if he is talking about it, well, then we're all free to go. We're all free. You know, like in a way. Yeah. Yeah. He's the, the gypsy kings of the gypsy king. Yes.

Hi. Can go to therapy. I think we all could go to therapy. another quote from you is nobody has ever taken their lives before because of a broken arm yes explain that one for me yeah that was the video about the i put on my kind of gym videos together and it was it was like the thing i just said there you know this belief that wellness was for soft people and it was like this thing of okay well look here's all the fucking things i've lifted this doesn't this quote unquote doesn't make me soft but i'm the person that's broke down in therapy

I've cried, I've all these things and yeah, that quote was, I have found from talking to the older generation, like when you talk about youth suicides, there's this sort of thing of like, you know, older people now tend I think they almost think that young people take their lives for the crack or that they take

their lives because of one bad thing that happens. There was a young guy about three years ago he was this, I think he was playing minor football or under 21 football for Sligo. He was a very smart young man had everything going for him and took his own life. And like I remember an older person I was talking

that was like, ah, you know, almost like he was spoiled rotten. Like he had everything, but he still wanted more. And I thought, no, I thought, like if you think about it, you know, we're all afraid of dying. We are all petified of it. It's the reason why we're afraid of heights. It's the reason why we're afraid of open water and so on. So somewhere along the line, he's looked at his life,

which supposedly looks brilliant from the outside looking in. and he has come to the conclusion that dying is a better option. How, when you consider how afraid we are as humans of dying, how much must he be struggling that dying seems the more, the more, the more appealing option. And so, yeah, it was that thing of like, people don't take their own lives because of, it's very, well, it's very rare someone takes their own life

because of a physical problem, because we believe that all physical problems can be cured to some extent. It's one of the problems with mental illness or mental illness, or mental anguish, if you will, is there's no set stopping point. There's no, oh, I'll be out of a cast in three months, or I'll be back on my feet in six months. It's the ambiguity and the sort of never-ending element. And one of the things I've learned as an engineer is you can't just look at the problem.

You have to look at the root cause, you know, and in terms of health, you don't just look at the symptoms. You have to look at what the cause is. And like, suicide isn't the problem. Suicide is the symptom of the problem. And it's like, you know, people, will talk about when a young person takes their own life, especially the older generation, they say,

like, oh, it's so selfish that that family's ruined, their friends, lives are ruined. And it's like, yes, absolutely. It's an incredible tragedy. But that's the downstream impact. So the suicide is the event. The downstream impact is the devastated community. But no one thinks for a moment,

what was the upstream cause? What was the root cause of the problem? And for the young person that does, or any age that does that, it could be anxiety, it could be problems within family, could have been problems and relationships. Could be any number of things. But no one stops to look at that.

They go, oh, what a selfish person, you know. And like that with the wellness thing, it's ah, sure wellness is for soft people. The irony that we're berating people for taking their own lives, but then labeling them as soft for doing the wellness things and doing these things for their head. And so, yeah, it was that thing of like, when people get to that drastic level,

it's not pulled muscles and it's not sore shoulders that are doing it. it's what's going on up here and you know we need to have empathy for those who are going through that and not don't don't give them shit for looking after themselves and then and then

berating people who who take their own lies because because things went too far you know it's that sort of irony it's such a good point and I even just thinking about it in terms of physical pain versus you know mental pain and the different dynamics

and like you said it's like oh you know you know when you get an injury or you might be in a cast or you might be in pain for you know you're going to be in pain for even maybe three months six months nine months depending how horrific however horrific the accident accident is you know even people you know learning to walk again for the first time going through years of physio but they know they're going to go through and they're going to go through the pain because they see a light at the end of the tunnel because they know that there's yeah i can see progress of me moving moving again of me finally becoming pain free eventually but then but then we don't

see that way with mental health problems because obviously we don't treat them like that. Yeah, we look at them through a different lens and then you also have the issue of you know, you have your relapses. Like I remember like when I was going to counselling when I was first diagnosed of anorexia I came out of it thinking that I was cured

and then I learned later in life that like my cancer a different cancer explained to me she said Connor look you're trying to cure this thing but I'm afraid to tell you that you can't cure it you're living with this forever. And then I realized it's like, oh okay, I can not.

understand why I wasn't told that at 13. I wasn't told, oh, by the way, Connor, this is going to be with you forever. You could relapse potentially at any moment. Because if I had been told that when I was 13, I would have been like, oh, the thought of going through all that again at a moment's notice is too much. So I can see why I was left in the dark. But so like anyone with a mental illness, be it anxiety, be it, be it, be it depression or anything like that. It's, it's weight on you of knowing that this could always come back. And for me, one of the frightening things is I know that a big trigger with anorexia is periods of change. So whenever

I have an exciting transition in life, there's that weight over me of, okay, fuck, I know what happened the last time I had an exciting change, the anxiety spiked. Now, the good thing is now I'm on my guard and I know what I'm like out for and I know that I can always go back to therapy and I have these tools I can use

but there is that weight of I can relapse at any moment. And I know with injuries, yes, if someone tears their cruise shit, they're forever going to be wary of the left leg the right leg. But there are physical elements that you can cure completely, but the sad reality with mental health is that in often cases

you can't, it's going to be something that lies dormant it can pop back up and it can be this recurring thing of you have to keep looking after it. And I was talking to someone one day after a lecture and she said to me, she was an Italian girl and she said that she had a, I think she had MS and she asked me, she said,

you talk about your mental illness with so much acceptance. And she says, she says, I'm really struggling to get to that level of acceptance with my MS. And my heart bled for it because I know with MS, the life expectancy is very, very low. And I said, look, I says, as dramatic as this sounds, the only way that I was able to accept my anorexia with a smile was the realization that there are people who are blind and deaf and in wheelchairs. And I kind of went, okay, this is my ailment. And I can't cure it, but at least I can work on it.

And it was only when that happened that I was able to accept it. And that gave her some kind of promise, but she was still struggling. but yeah it's that kind of thing of the flip side of the coin, the silver lining. It's forever going to be there, but at least I know I can work on it even though it does take an awful lot of effort. That self-acceptance is something

I think everyone struggles with in loads of different kind of ways, whether it is an illness or a condition or even just, you know, how they look or, you know, their body features and then people kind of go to war with themselves because of the cards that they were dealt. Yeah, and that's one of the things I think we're going to see a lot of now is, you know, we see a rise now in the last 10 years of people,

we'll say, quote, unquote, getting work done. So you've got the hair transplants. You've got to get the teeth done all these things. And one of the, and I have no problem with that at all. Because, again, I believe, like, I got braces last year, and I feel fantastic after, you know, that's brilliant. But the one of the problems with that is, is for some people, it's never done. you know, it's never perfect.

And I was actually, I was at a body-wise event, anorexia awareness spent a couple weeks ago, and I was talking to some of the people there about, you know, especially for women, you've got the Botox now and you've got the filler and the plastic surgery. And it's becoming, like the problem is, it's, again, getting work done is fine,

but it's, it's never perfect. There's always something more. There's always something else can be touched up. And then you've got these people, these companies, they're getting, particularly women, they're getting them in at a very young age. And they now have, of lifetime customers and all this kind of stuff.

There's two dynamics to that. There's, okay, there's internally you might not feel good enough, but then there's the external pressure of being bombarded by these multinational companies who are thrown as that you're saying, oh, you need to look like this. If you get this done, then you're going to look sexy. Then you're going to be accepted. Then, you know, people are going to find you beautiful. And it's like, you know, you don't really stand the chance as a young woman in that regard.

And especially, yeah, and especially when we, we spoke. about earlier about kind of the comparison trap like when you take that into account now with social media how you know the the 0.001% of you know Greek gods and beautiful women get you know thrown in front of your screen constantly and then you're constantly comparing yourself to that like how is anyone ever going to feel good enough of course and you know but the only good side of it is is um i was talking in that conversation was having a couple of weeks ago there were some of the girls were saying that there was an an article written about how

a lot of actresses, actors and actresses who have had a lot of work done, they can't get roles in sort of period drama. So if it's a film about the 19th or 18th century, they can't get that role because they don't look like someone from that era. They look, you know, no one had Botox in the 1800s. And then there's, there's actors and actresses who now, they're not, they're not getting work because

they've had so much work done, they can't express emotion. You know, they can't cry, they can't smile. And I hate to see people, because obviously those people fell into that trap of thinking they need to get this work done. But the only good side of that is that's almost like an example to the young people who feel like they have to get this work done. It's like, okay, no, they got all that work done and it kind of fucked them over. So learn from their mistakes in a sense. And again, no problem of people doing what's right for them. It's when it gets harmful, when it gets excessive is the issue.

And also as well, like, though these sort of beauty practices aren't around very long. we don't have a lot of data on what's the long term effects of it. We don't know what does the body long term. And like for me personally, I got braces there last year and I don't think I'm going to get any other, like I don't have a great airline, but I say right, if it does get any worse, I'll shave it off. I, my one hope for myself is I'll just,

I'll try an age as naturally and gracefully as I can and try and accept it because I know if I do one thing, if I go to Turkey, I'll be over and fucking back every month for something else. You know, I know my, self if I go down that rabbit hole I'll not come back up it so I fucking pray for young people in that sense that that they can

find that sort of self acceptance and self-worth within rather than having to look externally for it because once that train starts it's very hard to stop it do you think it's a self-worth issue I think there's an element of like myself not only going to be talking about

this he said like you know a lot of people think that when they lose weight everything's going to be great but then they lose the weight lose the body fat and realize, oh, actually, there's more going on within. And it's kind of a meme that goes around the gym world. It's like, oh, I thought I'd get jacked and be happy. But it's like, no, I got jacked. And I'm just a bigger version of myself that's still anxious and still can't talk to girls or whatever.

You know, and I experience that myself. So it's, there is, there's a lot, there's a lot much deeper stuff going on. And, like, how I realized that myself was when I was younger, the thought of losing muscle or losing strength was diabolical. Like, oh, my God. the thought of the thought of one day lying on a bench and going, this is my bench press PD for life and I'm not hitting this ever again. That was like, I remember saying to one of my friends when I was 20, I was like, the day that I get a bad injury and I can't do powerlifting again,

take me out the back and shoot me because I have nothing else to give. But like the irony that at that moment in time, I had already had the idea to write a book. So I had so much else to offer to the world than just my strength. But that in my head, that was the one thing that made me quote unquote good enough. And for me, a great sign of healing in the last maybe year is I don't compete in powerlifting anymore. I still go to the gym, but I don't, I don't go to the gym as ferocious as I used to. I'm much more relaxing about it.

I'm not as strong as I used to be and I accept that. And when I look in the mirror, I'm not built like I used to be, but I look in the mirror and I go, I have other focuses in life now. I have my public speaking business. I have my content creation. I'm putting my areas into other, I'm putting my energy into other areas and I'm happy with that. And it was such a moment of healing to go, I never thought I could look in the mirror, see a sort of physical regression and still be happy. So, but that came from realizing that I don't have to place all myself,

worked on my bench press, I can place it in other areas. I can place it on how I am as a public speaker and all these. Because again, nothing wrong with taking self-esteem from being good at things or from being passionate, but be very careful that you don't put all your eggs in one basket in a sense. Yeah, and I think I see that with with my own members who I work with. They tried to pigeonhole themselves into, you know, all their self-worth and success is based around, you know, one single metric.

And that metric is, you know, have I lost weight this week? Not looking at, you know, all the other things is like, oh, you've faced your fear of walking into the gym for the first time even though you were really anxious about it. You know, you're now part of a community where you're training with other people and you've, you know, you're in a better mood when you leave and you're more patient and more kind with your kids and your partner. and you know, you're physically stronger and you're physically fitter and you're healthier on every kind of, you know, aspect. But then I'm not, you're not going to look at any of them other things.

All you're going to look at is, have I lost weight this week? And like, you know, there's a short term, there's a short term gain to that where if you're in a big cut, focusing on the scale rate, oh, that's fantastic, and I'm reaching my goal, reach my goal.

But then once the cuts over and you're back to maintenance, you don't have that kick anymore. And it's, you know, it's like, oh, God, now, you know, again, so you've measured everything against the one metric. And it's, it's this kind of thing of like, you know, I forgot where I was going with this. With the, from changing, changing the metrics to have, to be, have more opportunity to be successful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yes, yeah. It was just, I read this thing once. It was like, there has been so many cases where an eating disorder starts from a brilliant weight loss journey. So someone who might have been a bit, you know, a bit slightly overweight. They lose weight and they're focusing on the scale weight going down and people are complimenting them going, oh, you look great. Their doctors telling them, oh, you're healthier now because you've actually, you're, you're, you've gone from the overweight to the healthy weight category. And then it fucking keeps going because they were like, oh, self-worth equals weight lost. I got to fucking keep going here.

And it's just thing of lower scale way it makes you happy. And I was joking. I was talking to some Vosci Mulligan's clients last week. I was saying I learned the hard way at the very, very extreme of it. When I was at my lowest weight with anorexia, I got to the final, final turning point when I was completely like a skeleton where I went

ah so it's not a it's not a continuous lower scale it makes you happier now if I had learned that less than five kilos earlier it would have been great but I finally learned it you know so it is that thing of yeah if you're constantly measuring it on one thing and then that one thing stops because you're at your

maintenance weight or you're maybe going back into a bulk then that's when the problem arises so it's it's there can be there can be a short term burst of brilliant oh this is great and the area is oh fuck, okay, we pigeonhole ourselves there. And they say that happens in business as well.

You know, any company that focuses on the earnings for the next quarter and doesn't think long term, then companies never survive. So it's funny how that similar thought process is applicable in so many areas. Yeah. I think it's one of them lessons that everyone knows but has to learn for themselves.

Yeah, and that's the misfortune of like for myself when I was competing when I would say 20 or 21, people saying to me, be mindful of injuries, get enough sleep, eat right now. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up, I'm fucking invincible. I can get three hours sleep and drink vodka and I can come in here to PB. And you can do that for about a year and then it stops working. And then now I'm the old sense in the gym saying to 16 year olds, lads, you have one pair of elbows, one pair of knees.

And I have enough fucking tendonitis to know that if you go too quick at your age, you're going to miss out on so much progress. Because they're like, oh, like young lads, when the front lobe is not developed, it's a disaster. how can I get my how can I get a 10 kilo PB by next week? I'm like, if you can get a 10 kilo PB in the next 18 months you'll be doing fucking phenomenal

and it's that sort of I want it now which our generation is killed with that's what's going to ruin your elbows ruin your joints and it's going to fuck you up and they're shaking young lads with the throat going

people told me this I didn't fucking listen please listen to me and don't make the mistake I made because it's the ironic the ironic truth that if I had not trained as intensely

and got a bit more sleep I could have actually progressed. By not wanting to progress faster, I would have progressed faster. And it's that ironic truth. That's the paradox. I say that to clients is like, by not focus on weight loss,

you'll probably achieve weight loss because, you know, you'll just, it'll be a byproduct of all the, all the good things that you're doing. Like, oh, yeah, I got, I got the sleep earlier and, oh, yeah, I got all my meals in

and I'm routine and I'm training and I feel great. Speaking on your, your powerlifting career, I just wanted to go through a quote of yours as well. So three years ago, I squatted for the first time, and I didn't appreciate the moment a fraction of what I should have. I ended the year eight in the 80s

qualifying for nationals, but it just wouldn't stick. I kept looking higher, kept looking forward, kept thinking of the next kilo, the next session, the next competition, never living in the moment.

Do you think this is a trap that people fall into is that like they're so fixated on pursuing the goal that they don't actually take time to enjoy the process of it? 100%. And like,

because for me again going back to that self-work thing when I was competing it was this sense of until I wear the Ireland singlet I'm not good enough until that day happens I'm not good enough

and like you know I qualified for the All-Irans three times and not once when I received that email did I ever go fucking yes and I was looking at other competitors

of mine ecstatic to be going to the All-Ilands and I was thinking yeah I'm happy with this but until I wear the Ireland jersey, this is no good. And it's only when I stopped competing, I looked back and went, I wish I had savoured every second on the platform. I wished I had savoured every warm-up, every rep because I didn't give myself the credit that I deserved at the time. And all the people

were congratulating me and giving the credit was coming in, but you're blind to it because your tunnel vision done. If I don't get for this one thing. But it's ironic. It's ironic. In some sense, I'm glad I never got to the level of international because I actually wonder if I had, if I had, And if I had for the first time in my life ticked the box of being good enough, would that have taken away from my drive to do this work or all the things. So everything happens for a reason, you know, that kind of way. But it was like I couldn't enjoy it because it was that self-esteem thing of I'm not good enough until this moment. And if I could go back now and talk to my younger self, I'd be like, this is not many people will ever squat this amount of weight. Please enjoy it.

You know, I look back to when I did do my heaviest deadlift. know at the time it was going to be my lifetime P.B. And I should have been like, I need to savor this. I need to be thankful in this moment that thank God I'm able-bodied enough to do this. And now that I'm a bit older and wiser, I'm able to point to those things and say to younger people, be very grateful for every chance you get to compete to, because again, not everyone is able-bodied enough to do it and healthy enough to do it. And so I'm glad now that I have the gratitude and the self-awareness to go, yeah, I should appreciate every little victory that I get. in life in any area.

Yeah. And it sometimes like I didn't know what is that quote. It's a great quote. It's like be careful of getting everything you ever wished for or something like that. Something better. Yes. What is it? Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

It was something like that. Yeah. Or something like that. And I was thinking about that in terms of like you might you could have probably won it and spiraled even more. Because I just thinking about like even the gold medal syndrome like Michael Phelps winning, you know, all them gold medals in the Olympics. and spiraled into depression. And it's like because, you know, people have the mindset, okay, once I achieve this.

Yeah. Monumental experience, this thing that I've been working my whole life towards and then I finally get it and then, huh, it's over. Now what? All right. Oh my God. It hasn't, it hasn't solved all of my problems. It's funny.

Like, I, come back to that thing, that book, The Alchemist said about, you know, the thing you need has been inside you from all along. I, when I was in, during COVID, during the very first lockdown, so I would have been in my third year of college. I made this like

Snapchat private story and I added like friends from college, friends from home, people I worked with there's about 50 people out and I just said I'm going to treat this

as like a comedy sketch blog kind of thing. So I would do silly things like I would do home workouts I'd be lifting the couch or I'd be doing film reviews or this and I'd just be doing like one time I put on a suit

and I like did like a news segment and like friends of mine said it was fucking hilarious and then the thing with Snapchat is obviously you have your friends with someone to then see their story so people would be sending me their friends ushams going add this person they want to be on the private story to think you're hilarious so the private story eventually grew to like 120 people and friends might be like why don't you put this stuff like on instagram or put it online and i was like no because some of this stuff is not politically correct it's not very like PC if i put this out i might never get a job kind of thing but i remember being so happy making that content and people you know after COVID kind of calm down a bit and you meet people in pubs. They'd be like friends of mine were saying to me, Jesus lad, that you were so funny and that pulled me through COVID.

You know, I really enjoyed that stuff. And when I started making content on Instagram about mental health, I, the one thing that was missing from my content, which did come across in, say,

podcast like this or in talks, the content was missing the humor. Like I have no problem making people laugh during a talk, but the content was missing that. And I was finding making the content, it was a, chore rather than an enjoyment. And I said to tear on my business partner.

I said, I don't know what's going wrong. I don't seem to be growing on social media. It's not moving. Like what's happening. I was almost in tears. And he said, Connor, you haven't found your niche. And when you find your niche, you'll be away with it. And then I realized, oh my God, my niche is being funny and being lighthearted.

And I was like, oh, so the thing I've been doing on a private story five years ago, that's the thing I need to do on Instagram, but slightly more, not as unfiltered. but you know the same kind of principle and then when I started doing that I no longer cared about likes and comments and followers because I was simply enjoying it and I realized okay and there was one of those moments of like

I'm not happy here because I've hit a destination or I've hit a number I'm happy just doing the thing that I'm doing and that's such a great lesson of if you're always thinking of the destination you'll never fucking get there you have to enjoy every step of what you're doing yeah and that actually really ties into

what happened to me so my story was I decided that right I was going to you know start doing fitness content and nutrition content and I was gonna make sure that you know I was a big name in the fitness industry people knew who my name I was gonna go viral I was gonna get all these followers and for like five years I posted every single day I put out information every day I'd put out videos every day I would obviously I was getting better better at building the craft of of of creating content and I actually really really enjoyed it I enjoyed it more when I had 4,000 followers and then

after five years I got finally one viral video that made my account explode and it was like just a simple like 15 second video wasn't it wasn't even a good video compared to some yeah great ones that I did and I got and I achieved and I got up to 100,000 followers and I was like oh my god this is great this is amazing that lasted maybe a week of excitement yeah and then after that I was like oh my god I've worked for the last five years every single day shown up online for this feeling and this feeling is absolutely like it's nothing and then like I had like this kind of big like identity a crisis where I was like oh my god have I made a mistake here and I hadn't made a mistake I enjoy creating content I enjoy talking about nutrition and training and all that stuff

but the trap I fell into was thinking that I needed to go from 4,000 followers to 100,000 followers to you know be worthy or to and know what I'm talking about or when like I already knew what I was talking about there was no difference between the day before I went viral and the day after I went viral in terms of my skills in terms of my knowledge in terms of my experience and I think people fall into that trap and that's when I started to kind of pull back on on trying to go kind of or trying to build the Instagram account as much as possible because I was like I want something less that's playing for it for the algorithm and something that's more about substance.

And that's when I started to do the podcasts more and I started to write more and substack. And I was like, okay, I'm going to do something. If I want to post on social media, I'll post on social media, but I'm not playing towards the algorithm. I'm just going to talk about things that I enjoy. And that's actually when I found my niche because I was talking about nutrition and I was talking about training, which obviously I'm passionate about. Obviously, I enjoy.

But my niche is actually the social connection, the social health side of things. And I never would have found that if I continued to play for the algorithm and I continued to try and get more and more followers or like because I figured out how to go viral basically. I figured out that this is this is how it works. And I could have continued to go down that path. And then it would have been like, you know, the person was like I just need to, you know, it was like I just need to get the next competition. I just need to live an extra kilo and then I'll be happy and then I'll have. So like for you, a million would have been next and that would have been. Exactly.

Oh no, 100, actually 100,000 isn't worth it. It has to be 200,000. Oh, no, it has to be 300,000. And it's just going to be this endless cycle. And I was like, and I found that quote, it's like true failure isn't falling short. It's reaching everything you ever wanted and still feeling empty. That was. Oh, I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. As you say there, it's like, you know, you said about the day before and the day after you in fire, you weren't any better as a coach. You weren't any more honest. But it's like, for a moment, you're like, oh, okay, I can point. to this thing, the thing being the 100K followers, I can point to that and go, that makes me a great coach, whereas the thing that made you a great coach

was what you were doing all along. It was the school of fitness. It was the impact you were having. And, you know, and that's, I really struggled with that myself. It was like, you know, whenever I would fall into that thing of, oh, not enough views on the followers, I would look back at the messages I got from people and I go, okay,

that's what I started doing this for. I didn't start this for likes, comments, views, etc. It was to get messages like that from people who say, Connor, Jesus, I really enjoy that video. it really helped me or whatever. Like it's and it's and the problem is those things aren't tangible. You can't point to them and go,

oh, I have this. Whereas the number of followers is handy. It's go, oh, there's a big fucking fat number. I can point into that and go, that makes me something. Yeah. Whereas inside you're like,

is, you're fucking empty, you know, so it is, it's that weird. But again, as you say, you get there and then you realize.

And I think the quicker people can learn that. And by listening to these conversations, they realize, okay, don't shoot for that. Shoot for the thing that gives me that, as you say, that feeling of substance day by day,

you know and it's so funny because i'd been preaching that the whole time just in different aspects i was preaching that in terms of oh you won't get the 60 kg and then suddenly feel happy or have self-worth or anything like that like all these other you have all these other metrics that that that prove that you're doing great but i couldn't take that own advice for myself in terms of you know building a social media following and i think other people do it in different ways like oh i need to make this amount of money this month and then you know then i'll be happier or then I'll have self-worth or then I'll be somebody

and I think we constantly fall into it and I'm trying not to fall into that in terms of even the podcast now because I'm looking at the number sometimes I'm like oh I've got more downloads this week and I've got more downloads this month oh and the podcast is growing maybe when I get to this amount of downloads

then you know the podcast will be something but like the podcast already is something because I'm having meaningful conversations with people and like yeah I the process is how I feel after jumping off a call like this having a conversation with someone who I find interesting. And I'm like, yeah, that should, I have to remind myself like that, that should be the success. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the success that you want to achieve. Because then you can be successful every single day because you can have conversations every day versus, oh, I need to get million downloads before I'm successful.

You, you remember there's a post you probably a while ago and it was like, yeah, you're on about like this thing of, you know, that a person trainer said, oh, I want to get, I want to build this. massive gym and have 10k month coming in and then I'll have met it and then the old the old wise man says and what will you do then it's like oh well well then I'll well then I'll be happy then I can I can train my clients in the morning and I can go for swim in the afternoon and all this crack and then the oldest man says and what do you do right now and then your man laid out his day and he was already doing the things that he wanted to do and like it's funny for me like similar to like you like you said there about the number of followers when I came out of college I had this I had this salary goal in my head I wanted to like when I was in college I was I was worked part time and I fucking hate it not having money. I was very lucky. I had a scholarship and things like that, but I hated the sort of week to week and couldn't afford a car and these things. I was like, oh, when I go to college and I have a salary, I'll be so happy. And I was briefly. And I said, right, I had this salary goal. I came out of college at 22 and I said, right, but the time I'm 24, 25, I want to make

X amount of money a year. And I went to this company, did this graduate program, the company I'm in now, got to that salary goal. And there was that week of, yes, I feel, I never forget it. We had to do these assignments as part of our graduate program and I submitted my last one, whatever's on a Monday. And I got the email saying, yeah, you've passed. Well done. And on the Tuesday, I just, I had burnt myself out that last week of work that I just, I was pure sick and I was sick as a dog, I took the day off work and I was watching the Peter Crouch documentary. And I sat there going, I fucking met it. I have, this salary at 24, I've fucking met it.

I feel phenomenal. Felt phenomenal for a week. And then I went, God, how long I can be a senior developer and then I can be maybe 20 grand more and that went straight for that and I was just like you know and I just thought right I'm hoping to go back now and do a PhD

and when you do a PhD if you get funded the salary you'd be on would be half of what I'm making as a software engineer if not less and I thought do you know what I could sit with my supervisor and my students as a PhD candidate on half the money

and you know what that would feel more like making it than the software engineering ever did because that would be doing the work that I love. And I just pictured it with so much happiness going, God, I can't wait to do the thing that I love and make, make, even if I meant nothing doing it, I can't wait to do the thing that I love because I've spent four years working in an investment bank. And although parts were interesting, by the end, I realized, oh my God, this is, there's nothing in this except the paycheck. And I actually fucking hate it. And all I wanted from this was the feeling of progress of moving up

the ladder. And Kelly, Felon talks with this about you're 30 years of age and realize you're climbing the wrong fucking ladder. And I'm so glad I learned that at 26 and not 36 to go, okay, I can get off this fucking ladder and start climbing the right one. So it is, we get lured into these down these wrong paths of

oh, this, it's like fucking cocaine, it's like, oh, this one thing, I'll feel great then. And then you get there and go, oh, never mind. So I'm glad I've learned that lesson now and I know what's the right path to go. Yeah, and I think it gets difficult for people because even like the longer you invest time into a certain career path and even if that career part isn't the the one that you want um like it oh i've i went to

college to do this i spent this amount of years to get this promotion now i'm on i'm on this wage and like even if you're even if you're not lovely it's very difficult then to be like okay i'm going to go do this other thing um i can't remember what the next name of that fallacy is. I think it's, some cost. When you spend so much time in it. So it's like, even if you're miserable, it's like, oh, but I've spent so much time in it. So like, I'll just continue to be miserable.

Yeah. And again, it's so funny. It's like it's the sun cost fallacy. It's, that's the thing in poker where you don't want to leave the table because you're down. It's the same reason why people don't want to leave a six year long relationship that's struggling because like, oh, I've invested six years with this person, I have to keep going. But it's funny. Like my friend, my business partner, like, he, he did the thing of following the path he wanted. He did a degree in commerce and could have walked into a job in the big four, anything like that. And he said, no, I don't want to do that.

I love sport. So he did a master's in sports, sports and business. And he's now doing a PhD in, it's like multi-club ownership and soccer. And he loves what he's doing. And he said to me, like, he said, look, he said, come here. He says, look, you're a waste of time doing this soccer engineering crack. You have to, you have to work in full-time in mental health. You know this in your heart

and I say, I know I know, I know, but I says, look, it's that Irish thing of I have a steady job with a pension. God bless us, I can't walk away from that. He says, look, he says, the penny's going to drop for you someday, you're going to have to walk away from this. And then around April this year,

I says, yeah, no, I think you're right. I'm going to have to walk away, but I don't know how. And he goes, if you want a bad enough, you'll do it. So I originally said the end of the year would be when I would leave. And then what tip me over the edge was I went to Finland there in June for this,

it was like with the European Union meeting other people doing similar mental health projects and stuff like that. And was on a high from this week of meeting these great people and like-minded people. And came home feeling so great. And then I went back to work. And that fucking holiday blues and back-to-work depression was just so monumental. And I went, I'll never forget thinking, I'll never forget thinking. It was on this call, this Zoom call.

We were talking about something that had broken. And I just thought to myself, there's fucking giraffes out in Africa right now with more interest in this work than I have. and that was the moment. And funny enough, I went down to Dublin on the Wednesday. I was giving a talk to one of Tyrann's classes. We were out for a pint the night before. And I hadn't told him yet that I had this epiphany.

And he said to me, he says, that I've been thinking about you all week when you're a fillet. If you don't leave that job, I'm going to beat the fucking head of you. And Tiran's a big man. And I just thought, I could take him on. But I'll not chance.

And I said, well, funny you say it. I've actually thought, yes, I actually am going to hand the notice in because you're right. The penny is finally dropped. but it was funny like you know

I always I had always said in talks about the importance of following your heart and that's what I did write in my book but I was still in the job I hated

and it took like and it's and it goes show how the people around you will influence you in positive ways like Tiernan had been Tiernan was doing

the thing he wanted to do and if I didn't have him in my life and if I couldn't look at him and go okay it's worked for him well then I might not have taken the leap myself so I'm so lucky I had

someone like that but yeah once the penny dropped it was like oh my God I should have done this a year earlier. Do you know, that kind of thing? And I think it reminds me of that saying, I don't know if it's Tim Ferriss or it's maybe it's

Tony Robbins, but it's like the pain of change versus the pain is staying the same. And it's like when the pain of staying the same gets too much, like it kind of, it just drives you into action. And it's like you going back after that bank holiday and being like, like that feeling of being here is, you know, it's. it's stronger than ever to leave and it kind of just ignites you into action.

I think that's the same with most people even in like a weight loss journey to use that example. It's like they catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror one day and they're like it didn't they didn't just get there overnight. It was like probably years of habits creeping up on them but they get that glimpse in the mirror or they see a photo or they get a health scare and it's like that pain of staying the same finding became stronger than that pain of change. And so they're like, you know, as uncomfortable as it might be, as scared as I might be,

I have to do this. It's a fantastic point because it's a bit like what, we mentioned Tyson Fury there earlier. He talks about like he became world champion. And again, it was this thing he wanted. And then he realized, oh, it didn't make me happy. And he talks about like, you know, he became a bit dependent on alcohol and he was living with no purpose.

And I think the story he said was, he was going to a Halloween party, him and the wife. And he was dressed up as a skeleton or whatever. And he said, I was going out for the night to get absolutely, I can't do it. I'm going to get fucked up. be the way he talks and he said he just remembers like standing with a drink in his hand and

he said to the wife he said I'm geez I'm not I'm a shell of the man I used to be and starting tomorrow I'm going to change and then he got back into box and he became world champion again which was phenomenal but it was that thing of you know he was living that life of he was creeping up on him and they just took one day looking

in the mirror going oh my god I've been going wrong here I need to get my get myself back on track and I need to get my life back and and as you say yeah it's that and that's one of the reasons why people find it hard to leave a job is it's shit but but the money's coming in

and it's just enough and they call it the corporate America trap it's like ah you might hate the job but you're well paid and the pension it'll just keep you there

just enough and then unless you have that breakdown point yeah yeah and there's also the flip side of this and I want to bring in something else that you said because I think it's so true

and it's something like we're saying this from from a privileged position almost because we have the opportunity to go and chase after things that we want to do And it's like, you know, it is difficult for people to leave their jobs and go for for things that they really, that provide loads of meaning and purpose for them. And sometimes that meaning and purpose for them is and just providing for the family and and slogging it out in that nine to five.

And something you said was I really, really enjoyed this. It was real heroes aren't just footballers, Olympians and movie stars. It's the older generations that went before us who worked the same job for 40 years to provide for their family. and I just thought that was like very very insightful it's like I think it shows like we are very privileged and that you know you know your values can be you know just looking after your family looking after the people around you and getting purpose from that it doesn't always have to be I have to be the CEO or I have to be the star athlete or I have to you know be the name that everybody knows yeah if I just plug in the charger here

yeah it's it's um yeah yeah so i made that video and you know what part of the reason i made that video was um i was talking to my mother about the whole thing of leaving the job and my mother is 47 yeah and she's working the hc for i think 25 years now and like my mother and father did that you know they've both you know i'm i'm the eldest of four and we've gave us a great life and when i when i said to my mother about thinking about leaving she was so on board she was like she's a connor do it now before it's too late because she goes it's a lot of easier to go back now than it is in five years time when you might want to...

Son cost fallacy. Exactly. She goes in five years time you might have a mortgage or you might have met someone and you're getting married or whatever. She said, do it now and she says, because Connor, my mother always wanted to be a teacher or my mother always wanted to own a bookshop. And if I ever have money, I'll be... That's what the one thing I would try and do for her is buy her a bookshop. So if I ever won the loto. But she said to me, she's a Connor,

I know what I always wanted to do and I can never go and do it. She says, please, please. And it just, it gave me so much respect for you know, it wasn't a thing 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago to replace your 9 to 5 with a side hustle. You know, it's not that any of us now are any smarter than our parents or grandparents.

We just, a lot of us just have more opportunities. And I look at my grandfather in particular, you know, like my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side, you know, my grandfather was a sole earner in a house with five kids and he worked in plumbing and gas all his life. He's still working. And, you know, rare five kids really well,

paid for a mortgage, did all that, you know. and I look at him like a hero because he's still going he's 66 or 60 morey sorry 69 he's still working still going and you know like I look at that and go I could never have done that I'm only four years in a disorder and I fucking pulled the throat I'm 40 you know I go away oh I'm fucking retired now

you know it's like people people who went before us didn't have the chance to follow a dream or that kind of thing and they just fucking slogged on and I admire that so so much. And the way again, going back to a sporting analogy, it's like, you know, the winner of the Ballandoor is always a striker.

It's never, the last defender to win the Ballandoor was in 2006, the last goalkeeper was in the 1960s. It's always the Messi Ronaldo, it's always a number 10, it's always a front man. And the footballing analogy I always use is someone has to play a number six. Someone has to sit behind the midfield and play in front of the

defence. And that player is often the heart of a team, they're often the most important player, but they never get the credit. And it's a very, very sacrificial or a position of great sacrifice. It's like, you know you won't get the credit, but someone has to play there. And that's literally the way I look at it is,

you know, a lot of our parents, a lot of our grandparents, they played the number six. They were never in the headlines. They were never, you know, they were never the gold scorers, but they did what was needed and no one fucking clapped for them. And that's, again, it's like, they couldn't post their wins,

they couldn't get likes and comments. Literally no one fucking clap for them. them like I counted up of the day I'm 26 I've been on the radio 11 times and I'm very blessed for that and I've given God knows how many talks around the country and I've had I don't I cannot count the number of rounds

of applause I've had in life my mother and my grandparents or my father have never had that but they've worked so hard and it was that sort of humble realization of it doesn't make me any better I just happened to have a chance they didn't have and I think a lot of people a lot of young people

have to realize that another another quote that comes to mind there. Jordan Peterson, I know he's an Adamus. He's a bit of a, I think he's a great psychologist, but he's a bit of a gobshite in general. Like, people have that have turned on him. He talks about things he doesn't know enough about. It's the expert fallacy, I think.

But I, I'd be a fan of Jordan now, but I understand exactly what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. No, I, I, there's some of his interviews I love. Because when he's talking about psychology, I'm like, I actually love him. When he's talking to young man, he's brilliant. Yeah, yeah, but then when he's talking about Global Warman, I'm like, Jordan, sit down, shush, shush, shush. or he talks about the carnivore diet as well

Yeah, oh, go to fuck, exactly. But I won't. But I still like him, so I can separate the man from the idea. Yeah, again, it's separating art from artists. I agree with the air completely. But he had a great quote once. He said, a lot of people don't have careers, they have jobs. And he says a lot of people, they will clock in, clock out.

They're never going to get the chance to progress. And I think so many young people have to, excuse me, have to realize that because, you know, more and more Irish people now are becoming engineers and lawyers and doctors and these sort of higher-end careers if you will and that so many people didn't have the chance to do that 20, 30, 40 years ago and that's one of the reasons why I found it hard to leave my job is even though I knew what I wanted to do I felt very grateful that I had a career that offered progression and funny enough the thing that the thing that helped me make my decision was I got overlooked for promotion in the company

I worked for twice and I realized okay if I'm going to sit here and get overlooked I'd rather be doing the thing that I want to do. But it was that element of like, if you have a career where you can progress and if you have a career where you can see a route forward, that is something to be grateful for because a lot of people, you know, in the generations before us, would have worked jobs where it was clock in, clock out, and you're never going to pay a rise, never got any of that. And so there's an element of perspective there that I think young people need to realize, myself included. I think everyone does. And this is why I don't believe in the self-made man or anything like that. It's like, people want to, people want to,

after they achieve what they achieve, then they kind of have the blinkers on. They're like, I did all this to get to where I'm at. And they don't really, in retrospect, think about how, you know, like you said, they might have had, you know, a mum and dad who worked tireless hours and, you know, not jobs that didn't really praise them. And, you know, it afforded you the opportunity to go to school, go to college and to you even pursue a creative career because there is that little bit of security behind you from you know parents who who who who just you know worked and graft and you know i think that's i think

that's why it was so accurate about um you know these are the type the the unsung hero as he said the number six i think that's that's really good um i wanted to reach a a quote as well that i that i just thought of when you were speaking about going for you know going for the thing that you really want because, you know, like, why wouldn't you? And it was Jim Carrey's quote when he said, you can fail at what you, and I think it was his, we got it from his dad as well. Yeah, his father was, his father was an accountant and he got sacked.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, he goes, you can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love. And I think that's just a really good reframe for people who are, who are scared of taking that step as well. For the people in our position who are privileged who, you know, might have a, you know, a safe job and, and but want to do something more creative, want to,

you know, follow their, their passions, whatever it is. It's like, yeah, you can have a safe job, but like, a story like that really goes to show you that, like, yeah, you can, you can fail at what you, what you don't want. So you might as well go for what you do want because no one really knows what's around the corner anyway. Exactly. And it's like that thing of, if you fail at what you do want to do, you'll certainly have a lot less resentment for it. If you fail a thing you don't want to do, you'll think, well, I fucking play the safe route, and I did the thing I didn't want to do because it was the thing that I was supposed to do and meant it to do. And now I fucking failed.

And that's how people have, I would imagine, midlife crisis go off the fucking rails. That's a great point. Yeah, so much regret has built up. But if you do the thing you want to do and you fail, again, going back to football analogies, I fucking love Klopp and he's in Liverpool. I love the, oh, he was gas. I love, like, his interviews, he's very, very funny. But he was asked about there was that time the year that Liverpool won the champion.

Champions League and it was the return leg against Barcelona at Anfield with 3-0 down and everyone had them written off and I have myself and my brother I think I mentioned this in the last podcast with you myself and my brother have watched that entire game through and through because I get goosebumps still even talking about it and when Trump went not Trump sorry when when when clop was asked before imagine Trump fucking mansion people would be great we're going to win we're going to win clop being asked before the game what are you going to do 3-0 down against barcelona what are you going to do. And I think he said something like, if we fail, we will fail in the

most beautiful way possible. And I fucking love that. It was like, that's such a good call. Yeah, we're not going to try and cheat our way through here. We're going to play the game. And if we win, it'll be great. But if we fail, well, we'll have gone down swinging. And I fucking love, I think so much of life is, you know,

nothing more. We're all going, we're all going down someday. We're all, we're all, we're not going to live forever. We're all going to go down somewhere. Did you ever? Did you ever watch that show house on Netflix? No, I don't do so. I. I started watching it there only yesterday because I saw clips coming up on Instagram instead of watching it.

It's like a more serious slightly more serious version of scrubs and the main doctrineer he's very fucking he's very kind of like he hates his job but he's really really good and he says one of the patient system

I want to die with dignity and he goes no one dies with dignity it's never pretty but you can live with dignity and I thought that was so deep it was you know no matter how you go at whatever age

it's never going to be great it's never going to be ideal so you may as well fucking go down swinging. You may as well live in a way that's, it may as well live in a way that whenever you do go, please God, touch wood, it's not, no day soon. You can go, well, fuck it, we give it our all. We went down swinging.

And I think that's the best thing we can all do is just living a way that whenever the deathbed does come, hopefully way way down the line, we can go to her deathbed going, well, you know what, we fucking, we played our, we played our 90 minutes there, we played well, and there's nothing more we can ask for. I think that's the best we can do. What do you think that looks like for you in your life?

right now. I know you're, I know it's, it's, you're probably, you're probably swinging now because you're, you're, you're taking the leap and doing what you want to do. Um, even, even going further than that, what, what does it look like for you? Like, how can you look back on your life and say, you know, well, I played the 90 minutes. I, I went for it. I think it's, it's, as you say, we don't know what's around the corner. And like, I have found that like little opportunities have, funny enough since I, since I, since I handed in my notice, I've noticed little opportunities popping up that weren't there before, which as my friend here and said, you're, you're getting rewarded now for making the right step.

So I don't know exactly what it's going to be. I know I want to do a PhD in, like I want to be a mental health advocate in general, but my, I do want my PhD and my primary area of study to be eating disorders because that is my area of expertise, if you will. I think I just want to keep doing what I'm doing.

Keep going into schools. There will come a point where at the moment now I'm the young guy going into schools and that helps get my message across. There will come a point in the future, maybe 20 years time where I've lost that kind of, I'm the young man, and then I might be talking in companies or whatever the case may be.

But for me, the ideal life looks like, keep doing what I'm doing. It looks like I do hope to write a second book about anorexia more specifically and maybe do some work in academia. But for me, the rest of the 90 minutes is every bit of work I do is mental health related. Do you know your man, you remember that guy, Steve Harvey? He was on family, the family feud guy. So a lot of people don't know is he was a stand-up comic for years long before he did the family feud. and he took about he quit his job when he was 27 and now he was married with two kids so that wasn't a great move was a little bit selfish but but he uh you know and he had no plan at all he actually ended up homeless but the way he tells the story he said he went to a open my open my stand up comedy night and he won and he cried after because he said he said all my life wanted to be on tv and i realized this is the thing that could get me there he says i've always been funny but i've never actually thought of doing stand up this is going to be my thing quits his job at the following day.

And he always says in his talks, he says, I have done nothing since October 8th, 1985, except tell jokes. And all I've done all my life now is tell jokes. And so for me, it's going to be, I fucking left my job when I was 26. And all I've done since I was do the work that I love. And that's,

that for me is the pinnacle of it. Just keep doing what I'm doing. And because I know I can offer more to people doing this than I can behind a computer screen writing code. So I think it's just keep doing what I'm doing. so I don't know exactly what it looks like but it looks like more of this is the way I would put it. I was trying to think

if there's a great one from Ricky Jervais as well because I think he was obviously working in an office up until his, I think he was 45 or 48 or something like that and I think they let him go or he quit or whatever

and then he, or they were giving him in a package where he's like getting paid for a year and he was like, you know what? If there's any time to do it's now to give it a go and then he ends up making like one of the most famous successful tv programs uh of all time and i i think that's that's a kind of good way to think of it as well as like uh you know eat no matter what age you are like there's so many there's so many different examples of that of people at any age just kind of you know going for the thing that they're

passionate about the thing that they're create their that gives them you know their creative brain starts to go into overdrive like we spoke about the kind of alchemizing your pain and turning that into kind of passion and it's like because I think there's a lot of people who are like oh well I don't feel passionate about anything or I don't know what my niche is or you know I I don't know what I would do other than what I'm doing now even though I'm not fulfilled in what I'm doing now and I think it's like at any point in your life I think that can just appear for you and like that's what it appeared for me as well as like I didn't know what what I like obviously I was I was in the fitness and stuff like that and I followed that passion

but then going into the kind of social connection aspect of it was like ah that makes sense like I was always like I don't really know my niche I'm just going to talk about what I want to talk about kind of thing and I know yeah yeah yeah I was like then that that is my niche and I think once you find that it's like yeah I know I know it's like just keep doing what you want to do because right now that's that's filling a purpose year that's making you um you know you're content with what you're doing but I think they're also also has to be like an element of okay I'm gonna take the leap and I'm going to do the thing that scares me and for you could be kind of leaving the safe job or for someone else it could be something similar as well and I think like most of the the things that are gonna be good on the other side is is taking the leap and and leading into them fairs. Yeah and it's funny we say about you never know when your thing will appear like I always tell the story in talks like I lean to that with the young audience I say look not

every idea that everyone has would be gold-dust. I've had many as a silly idea. Like everyone's wrong because, oh, we should open a pub or we should do whatever. You know, they're not all going to be good. But I always say to young people, if you have an idea that, like, like lights your heart on fire. And I always go back to, you know, you never know what it'll come. My idea to write a book, which indirectly made me a public speaker, came in a nightclub

in Gawley one night. And I was absolutely fucking hammered when the idea came to me. And it was just this moment of, this is the thing I'm going to do. Like, before that, my whole thing was, I want to be a world champion powerlifter. and that's all I'm ever going to do and that's all I care about but when I had the idea to write the book it was like

there's something in this I have no clue but this this is something and you know I always say like I say J.K. Rowling had our idea for write Harry Potter on a train one day and my idea came in a nightclub seven vodka's deep but it's

you never know when a spark of inspiration will come your way and it does take that sort of fearful leap to really sort of get across that bridge yeah where can people go if they want to keep up with the work that you do

So best places, so Instagram is Conor C-N-O-R underscore N7. My website then is normal mental well-being.com And yeah, they're the two best place. Instagram primarily, yeah. And where can people, like what do you have coming up in terms of talks, in terms of like if people wanted to go listen to you live, if they wanted to get your book, where can they go? Oh, well, actually, good thing you mention that.

So the book is on Amazon and the link for that's on the website as well. the book is called normal. It's available worldwide on Amazon. I actually have a webinar tomorrow week on the 7th of August. Actually, the link for that's up on my story. And next time I'm speaking live, I think it's Jers event, which you're speaking at as well, below in Limerick, the 27th of September. Yeah, that's the main stuff planned for the moment. And what's the live webinar on?

It's a run through really of the talk that I give in schools and colleges. It's kind of my whole story from start to finish. and then kind of because my content is like little mental health lessons here and there but the webinar is kind of the whole story together in one chunk. It's kind of chronological order and how the different lessons have come to me over time. So it's kind of, it's inside of the kind of talk I would be given in schools or colleges or companies, that kind of thing. All right, brilliant.

All right, Connor, I appreciate you, mate. Until the next time. Thank you for having me. Thanks a million.