How to Find Your Passion & Purpose in Life (& leave the rat race safely)

I’ve never felt normal. I always felt different.

As a young kid, all the way up until my early 20s when I eventually dove into self awareness & self development and everything started to make sense for me.

When I did the Myers Briggs personality test, I saw that I was an INFJ, one of the rarest of the personality types (roughly 2% of the world. Nicknamed “the Advocate” or “the “Counsellor”). The type most prone to feeling misunderstood and different. Ahhh…..that makes a lot of fucking sense!!! Something I wish I had known sooner.

I’ll leave you with some insights from the test. If you feel like this is describing you - you may be the same. Take the test, its free! You will learn something about yourself either way.

Reading this was so insightful at the time. I felt like someone was describing me better than I could have explained it myself. I felt heard. I felt seen.

I could pick out so many lines and write countless examples, but the one that stuck out the most and explained some of my earliest memories:

“Advocates are troubled by injustice”

Oh boy, I’ve felt this deep sense of responsibility to serve justice ever since I was a child. My earliest memory in life (had to have been under 4 - as we lived in Dublin still), was coming down the stairs crying to my mam as I found out that Jesus died for me. I didn’t ask him to! Why did he do that?! I don’t want someone to suffer for me!! That isn’t right. This isn't fair.

My next memory is crying watching the titanic - again, I just can’t comprehend why Leo couldn’t fit on the fucking raft!!!! There WAS SPACE KATE hahahaha seriously. I know its basically a meme now online - but it wasn’t funny to me as a kid. It bothered me. To this day I still can’t really watch movies with a rape scene or the likes, my stomach turns and I feel viscerally angry. I connect to the characters in the movie and it can become overwhelming sometimes. I find it hard to detach and not feel responsible.

So does it make sense now? How I left a safe pensionable well paid job to try and be a coach and help people get back their Physical Freedom?? People don’t understand it literally wasn’t a choice for me. It was a MORAL OBLIGATION. I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. I have to fight for what I believe in. If I win the war or die on my shield - that was my destiny either way. Not in that cubicle safe and secure.

I felt a moral obligation to stand up for what I believe in, to share it with the world. To be the voice for others afraid to speak up like the younger me. To be a leader to my past self who is sitting there wasting his potential and has so much to offer the world. Just like YOU do. Others may not see it in you, but I do. We all have something to offer from our unique personality/experience.

I nearly settled for my movement limitations and retired at 25, settled for a job & career I had no passion for, settled for squashing my inner voice & purpose to my shyness & introversion. But I didn't settle and it changed my life, and I want to do the same for you.

“It's a luxury to pursue what makes you happy. It's a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful.' - JBP

I had this bubbling under the surface from my earliest memories as a kid....but why did it take me until like 23 to start getting on the right path???

Why we Fail to Find our Purpose

Maybe you are like me - a deep sense that you need to follow whats true to you…….but it’s nowhere to be found.

Shock. That was me too. Why?

Because we are led down the wrong path through society yet again:

• Go to school

• Go to college

• Get a well paid career. A safe pensionable job

• Get married & a mortgage

• Retire at 65…….and only NOW……can you follow your passions and whats true to you

It’s all fucking backwards to me. Wait until I’m 65 YEARS OLD……until I can start to follow my passions?! My purpose?! I might be dead by then. Even if I'm alive - the best years of my life are behind me!!!

The whole concept of retirement I literally don’t agree with. Put my life on hold, work the best years of my life building SOMEONE ELSES DREAM/PURPOSE, line SOMEONE ELSES POCKETS, be SOMEONE I AM NOT……….all for what??? A gold watch at 65? Approval from my parents? To ‘fit in’ because I never feel like I do?

Nope. No fucking way. There are some hills you have to be prepared to die on in life and this was one of them. I still remember the day I had to have a conversation with my dad to tell him I was going to leave Facebook to pursue this coaching dream at the time (I had already left Facebook haha sorry dad, mam didn’t want me to tell you and worry you).

I tried to explain that I don’t agree with this whole model of retirement. That I don’t care about this ‘great job’ in Facebook, and the money, and the pension, the safety. I don’t care, I’m not happy. I need to pursue my passion & purpose.

…..it went around in circles. It always came back to the safety, the pension etc. I tried to explain that I don’t agree with that way of living but we just didn’t see eye to eye on it (we all know our parents just want us to be safe - its coming from a good place). But my Dad’s job is actually helping start up businesses launch, so he knows the harsh truth! that 95% of business aren’t around after 3 years or whatever it is.

We still didn’t agree after maybe an hour. Then dad went upstairs. I was like “is he packing my bags or what is he at?!” (Joke my dad is lovely. and my mam, very lucky). But he came down with a book on entrepreneurship, and that's when dad stopped resisting and started supporting my passion. And he has helped me so much with it to this day.

But I had thought very deeply on this. I had thought about the man I want to be, the life I want to live. I knew it would never happen, but IF my dad did come down with my bags and say “leave this house - you are no son of mine if you chase this dream”. I would have said I'm sorry to hear that, and I would have left.

People ask me “what do I need to pursue my purpose, and one of them is that. You need to be COMMITTED. YOU need to be your own fucking rock. Nobody could have deterred me from this. Not even my family who have my best interests at heart. As I said, I’m ready, prepared and at peace to die on this hill.

A great analogy on telling your loved ones about your passion/purpose:

It’s like growing a tree. If you tell them about it when you just planted the seed in the ground, they can just dig up the seed and throw it away. If you tell them about it when the tree has only grown a foot out of the ground, they can still stomp it out. Even if it's 2 feet up, they can still tear it down.

So what should you do?….

You only tell them when your tree is TOWERING OVER EVERYONE LIKE JACK AND THE FUCKING BEANSTALK. HERCULES HIMSELF COULDN’T PULL IT DOWN.

That’s where you need to be, and that’s where I was.

I’ve had so much help along the way, but I was prepared to do it with just me, myself & I.

When I was going into my final year in college, I knew the 9-5 life was fast approaching. So in final year I didn’t go in to college and just partied the whole year. Out 3/4 nights a week EVERY week. Blast of a year. Probably took a few years of my life with the amount of vodka I drank - but one of the best years ever. Drinking & partying? Completed it mate. Done with that part of my life.

Why did I do that? Because the impending doom of 40 years working in a job I didn’t like was towering over me. I was like fuck it I’m going to have the best year ever now, and I’ll cross that bridge when it comes.

Came home from a J1 that summer (more partying) in 4k of debt to my dad and friend.

So here I am at 24: - In chronic pain with my body - Weak mentally & physically

Shy and afraid to say what I think. Try to fit in. No passion or purpose in my life

...........and now I’m facing the hamster wheel of the 9-5……..

This was the moment I decided its time to be an adult now. No seriously. In this day and age we can live as a kid up into your 30s/40s/50s. You don’t have to take on responsibility, your parents will probably look after you if it came to it.

But at 24, I knew it was time to sort my fucking life out. Mentally, physically, career wise, financially…..EVERYTHING. And here we are 6 years later.

On the career, I started working but I was also googling “early retirement extreme” websites, and seeing how much I would have to save to retire at 40. No joke haha. I had no idea what my passion or purpose was, and I might never find it. So I had my back up plan. This was the light at the end of the tunnel for me. I could put up with these jobs if I knew I would eventually have my out, 20 years before everyone else.

I will be frugal and save my money now. I’ve done the partying, time to build my financial freedom over time I can ditch the job and live life on my own terms - even if I don’t have a passion to follow.

Sound familiar? I’m sure it does for a lot of you. Out into the working world with qualifications and experience in something we don’t really care about. And now you have pigeon holed yourself into that area - unless you go back to college and sacrifice another 4 years of your life doing it all again.

Checkmate son. Get on that ferris wheel like a good human and start running like the rest of us.

Why am I telling you this?

Becuase I don’t want it to be you! I don’t want you to look back at 60 filled with regret, an old man waiting to die. Resentful of your parents and anyone else you listened to.

I want you to go on the voyage of life with fire in your heart, chasing what you find meaningful. Being the change you want to see in the world. Living a life true to yourself with no regrets (this is the biggest RECORDED regret on people’s deathbed - google ‘top 5 regrets of the dying”). I wrote a different article on how understanding this changed the trajectory of my life - My biggest life lesson from my most painful regret

I want you to live your own immortal odyssey. Wherever it takes you

You don’t ‘find’ your passion & purpose, you CREATE IT

Read that 5 times and ETCH IT INTO YOUR BRAIN.

You DON’T ‘find’ your passion & purpose…….you CREATE IT.

Are you seeing the same trends yet? The same issues holding people back in most of life’s big problems?

• Chronic pains and injuries

• Not living a life true to themselves (don’t know their passion/purpose)

• Can’t find their ‘one true love’

They all are linked with the same foundation of illusion. The idea that you will just FIND it. That there is a QUICK FIX. The illusion that will have you chasing your tail and never find the answer.

You don’t just FIND these things one day. Constantly searching for it is part of what creates SEPERATION from it.

Understand there is NO ENDEDNESS…… only evolution.

You look for the safety of the comfort zone. If I just FIND my passion, my partner, my fix for my chronic pains, then everything will be ok. But it’s an illusion.

- A relationship is a LIFELONG process that evolves and changes over time

- Your passion is a LIFELONG process that evolves and changes over time

- Looking after your body is a LIFELONG PROCESS too

Do you see? You are focused on these imaginary goalposts that don’t even exist. A mirage of the mind. There is no END to these things, you don’t ‘find them’ and they stay like that forever, it’s just not how life works.

The reality is that you CREATE IT over time:

• You don’t ‘FIND’ your passion/purpose like a toy in a cereal box one day.

• The FIX to your chronic pains & injuries doesn’t arrive one night like a deliveroo

• The juliet to your romeo isn’t just out there waiting for you

Can you see? The flaw here is that we are conditioned by society to believe that the ANSWER IS OUTSIDE OF OURSEVLES. That it is OUTSIDE OF OUR CONTROL.

This is not true and massively disempowering. It’s the path to an unhappy life, constantly WAITING for something that it NEVER GOING TO ARRIVE.

• There is no ‘fix’ for chronic pains and injuries, you need to follow the process of education & coaching & priotising your body over TIME

• There is no one ‘perfect partner’ out there for you. There are many potential matches based on your template installed in your as a child of what love is to you. Every person that you end up in a relationship with ARE your ‘soulmate’. But just some are not your preference

• There is no ONE PURPOSE & PASSION out there for you to find…….you CREATE passion & purpose over time by understanding more about yourself and the impact you want to have on the world. And this passion/purpose will evolve and change over time as you change

Fucking mic drop.

Get out of this mentality that everything is outside of yourself. That you need saving, that you need to find X,Y,Z to be happy. THERE IS NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. It’s only the train coming to take you out at 65 when you have no passion/purpose, you didn’t find ‘the one’ and you are cripppled with chronic pain still looking for the fix.

Right, now that you have got clipped around the ear with the stick to knock you out of your delusions, I’ll give you some education. Education around the origins of passion, and how it’s nothing like this esoteric illusion we are sold in the mainstream

Passion = SUFFERING

Passion literally comes from the latin word “passio”, which means SUFFERING.

To have ‘passion’ for something, actually means that you are WILLING TO SUFFER FOR IT.

Oh how much sense this made to me once I came across this.

And it comes all the way back from “the passion of the christ”. Jesus had passion for us because he was WILLING TO SUFFER FOR US.

He put it all on the line. He didn’t just metaphorically ‘die on the hill’ for what he believed in, he PHYSICALLY DID. That is what passion is. Your willingness to suffer for what you believe in.

Not what you thought was it eh?

Not the fluffy, warm, view of your yacht in the harbour beside your mansion that you get once you ‘find your passion’.

This is the origin of passion, but the romanticism period changed its meaning. It was Shakespeare who first used the word ‘passion’ in terms of romance, and it took off from there and evolved into this distorted view we have today from disney etc showing us how the one will sweep us off our feet. How our dream job is out there waiting etc. It’s the quick fix hack we are all drawn to in any area of life (imagine if I could NOT do the work…..and get the result?! I mean who wouldn’t be drawn to that?!)….but that’s not reality. The sooner you wake up to this the better. If it sounds too good to be true....it usually is.

I realised why I had been successful to some degree when I was reading this book (The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the Benefits of an Unbalanced Life - great book). I was passionate about getting people their Physical Freedom back, because like I showed - I am willing to die on that hill. Willing to and have put it all on the line to make it happen. I am WILLING TO SUFFER FOR IT. Just like Jesus on the cross. This is my cross to bear. We each have our own.

But as you’ll see once you read ‘Turning it from dream to reality safely - the barbell strategy' further down…..you need to partner this passion/commitment to a smart strategy. Or else you will more than likely be in the 95% percent who are out of business in the first 3 years, and crawl back to the 9-5 with your tail between your legs. (Just realising this is my 3rd year in business - so we made it past that point anyway! Yeah BOI. Only getting started)

Why is this important to understand about passion???

Becuase you will be chasing your tail otherwise. Passion is being willing to suffer for something. An ideal, a vision, a purpose. It’s not ‘liking something’. It’s not ‘finding something interesting’. You think Jesus would die for us if he just ‘liked us’. Of course not.

By the way you are probably like “Mark I know you aren’t religious, why are you on about Jesus”. I am not religious. I don’t believe Jesus turned water to wine and rose from the dead. What do I believe? I believe that there was a very wise man named Jesus, who was an example of how to live and inspired countless people - and his ultimate sacrifice echoed throughout eternity, up to me and you today. But he was a human, just like me and you - but his stories got blown out of proportion like the biggest game of Chinese whispers know to man. Like Johnyy down in the pub who we know all adds arms and legs to the truth in his stories.

You don’t need to believe in the full story to admire Jesus and his passion, and be inspired by it. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater like I used to

And so this was one of the main reasons why I failed

Because I thought my passion & purpose would land on my lap……and of course it never did. I loved soccer and thought I might be a soccer player but that didn't happen. But anyway, even if I was I would be retired by 30s…..what then?! I had no passion & purpose, but now I knew it’s because I was going about it in the wrong way.

Just like mobility - I looked for the quick fix. I could see now I was doing this with my passion too. And also in relationships but thats a story for another day! haha. Maybe when I have a long term partner I’ll feel qualified to share my experiences there haha. Got the body sorted, the career, so all in good time eh?! haha

The Missing Piece to CREATING my passion

I followed Gary Vee for years. Some like him, some find him very annoying. I found him very inspiring for years as he's all about following what's true to you over the normal college, 9-5 job route. And that was resonating with me as I felt lost as outlined above. At home in 4k of debt and no progress in any area of life I wanted. No clue what my passion/purpose is

I came across his video where a college graduate was asking him “how do I find my passion”.

• Gary: what have you tried?

• College kid: ehh…..my college course (accounting we’ll say)

• Gary: and do you like it?

• college kid: no

• Gary: okkkkk……so what else have you tried?

• college kid: ……….ehh……nothing really?….

• Gary: so you have tried ONE THING….and didn’t like it…….and you are here crying to me that you haven’t found your passion??

• college kid:……ehh yeah I guess (realising how ridiculous and entitled that sounds)

• Gary: TRY MORE SHIT. You need to get out there and try more things!! You have tried literally one things and didn’t like it……how are you meant to know what you like if you don’t try other things?! you’re fricken 22 years old!! you are SO YOUNG. You could spend the next 8 years trying other things and you are still only 30. You have another 30/40 years to work. If you keep trying until 40, you still have another 20/30. YOU GOT TIME.

• college kid: ….yeah cool thanks man. (completely uplifted)

And I was like holy shit. I have literally tried 2 or 3 things…….and sitting here like that kid being like ”can’t find my passion”. Gary Vee gave me the reality check I needed. To snap me out of society induced entitlement. Thinking it will land on my lap like everything does these days with instant gratification.

I need to TRY MORE SHIT. That stuck with me to this day.

“TRY MORE SHIT. Do more of what you like. Do less of what you don’t. REPEAT”

That was Garys advice……..and so that’s what I did.

Trying more shit:

Information isn’t power, IMPLEMENTATION is.

So it was time to start putting this into action.

I decided that I am going to follow any sparks (aka try more shit), and then if I like it do more of it and see where it leads (do more of what you like), and if I don’t like it, then I’ll stop it and move onto the next thing (do less of what you don’t). And I am going to be RELENTLESS with it (aka REPEAT).

I knew I needed to play the long game here. To have patience. It’s a marathon not a sprint. I’m 24, I got all the time in the world.

So I think……what have I WANTED TO TRY BUT NEVER DID.

And what's pops up?

Jiu Jitsu. I did 3 MMA classes in college. Didn’t really like the boxing, but the stuff on the ground was pretty cool and fun. But with college life and drinking etc the priority, I never went back.

Ok cool, the Jiu Jitsu was a spark. So I looked up some Jiu Jitsu gyms in Dublin. A friend was going to one nearby so I ended up joining there. And within a few months I knew I would do this for life. That spark had turned into PASSION. There you go - Gary Vee must know something I thought haha. And now 5 years later I’m a purple belt in the same gym and train there 2/3 times a week (Brazier Jiu Jitsu, was Andre Ramos Jiu Jitsu when I joined). And will do Jiu Jitsu for life.

What else had I a spark for? The body. I was starting to take ownership of my 10 years of chronic pains & injuries. Because nobody could ‘fix’ me and the experts were telling me to settle and give up on it…..I decided to look into it myself.

And the more I looked into the human body, the more FASCINATED I BECAME. I still remember the moment where I had another ‘oh shit - this has turned into a passion too!’. I was in my sitting room at home googling things on the body and mobility and one led to the next, and to the next…….and I was there for hours. Time disappeared, it went into the night. I felt so I'm the moment, captivated by every word I was reading. (I know now this was the dopamine loop kicking in - I’ll do a newsletter on that someday). It’s only when I came out of this flow zone, that I knew yep, mobility training is another passion of mine. As it was immensely helping my life too, as I was able to overcome the chronic pains & injuries holding me back for so long.

Ok so we had 2 (Jiu Jitsu, and mobility). These things certainly didn’t happen overnight, and there were other things I followed that passion didn’t evolve for and I dropped. I’m just giving you the overview.

Lastly then through reading different books and following random people, I saw a book recommendation “the story of the human body” - by Daniel Lieberman (head of evolutionary biology at the time). And HO-LY- SHIITTTTTT. That book blew my fucking mind. Blew. My. Mind. I have never looked at the human body or the species the same way since, and its info from this book that underpins a lot of the education I give clients in the Physical Freedom 1:1 coaching program.

It’s a book on human evolutionary biology. Absolutely fascinating. How the body evolved over 6 millions years of evolution to where we are today. How most of the biggest issues in the world today are ‘mismatch diseases’, aka us humans living in a modern environment we are not adapted to live in at all.

Cardiovascular diseases (the biggest killer in the world), chronic back pain (the biggest chronic pain in the world), anxiety/depression………all these things were MAN-MADE. They never existed in the hunter-gatherer days.

I could see the whole bigger picture of why I was in chronic pain and the route out. I could see why so many things were happening and the way out for all of them. That book changed the trajectory of my life.

So now we had a 3rd passion: Evolutionary biology.

So we have mobility, evolutionary biology, and Jiu Jitsu.

The 3 things I wanted to ‘keep doing more of’ and ended up becoming passions.

And I was thinking what you are……..”yeah thats great and all…….but how do you make money off that? How do you make that a career?”.

I also wondered that, but Gary (and others) said you don’t worry about that starting off, it will only block you and send you down routes you think you HAVE to go (oh I should learn coding because that's taking off and there is money there etc…..even though you might have no passion for coding).

So I took that advice and tried to drop any expectation and plan around where this would lead. I had my 9-5, I had my savings plan to retire at 40ish if possible, and in the meantime I was trying loads of things and seeing what turned into passions.

I’m not where I want to be, but I’m ok. I’m at peace that I am finally doing something about it and moving in the right direction.

And then one day what happens??

I’m on instagram and I come accross a new profile - Dewey Nielsen. And I still remember the moment. I opened up his profile, and what do I see?

• His last post was the book THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY….by Daniel Lieberman

• He is a JIU JITSU BLACK BELT

• He is a MOBILITY COACH

……..I’m getting shivers now. I remember that feeling……………………wait a fucking minute?! This guy is doing ALL THE 3 THINGS I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT……….but wait, whats his job?! what’s his 9-5????

I scanned his whole page. Googled him. Looked him up………….he has no 9-5……

………this is WHAT HE DOES. He’s a fucking mobility coach and black belt in Jiu Jitsu and loves the human body with a passion and he gets fucking paid for it?!?!

He has a family! He looks like he’s got life sorted out. I wish I could live that life right now…….but if he’s doing it, why the fuck CAN’T I LIVE IT?!

And that right there - was all the proof I needed. All the random dots on this new journey of ‘trying new shit’….were starting to align.

It’s important to realise here that you can only see the obvious pattern when you LOOK BACK ON IT. Everyone is 20/20 in hindsight. But when you are in the journey it will look like chaos and that it’s going nowhere.

So what did I do? Signed up to the mobility course that Dewey is a course instructor on, and I went off to Liverpool by myself to it. I was the only one in the room who wasn’t a coach but I didn’t give a shit. You gotta start somewhere. I’ve got passion to burn for this. I got time. I’ll learn as I go. (One of my life realisations here - The starting points DON’T MATTER…..it’s your ATTITUDE & APPROACH that will determine your progress).

Jesus nearly 5 years ago now. Here’s me and Dewey below. He’s the one of the left who looks like a model for Calvin Klein haha

On the first day of that seminar, I arrived at the gym where it was on. We were all just standing around and then I saw fucking KSWISS. Someone else I followed on Instagram and was AMAZED by. He was like 6”3, 100kg plus……and he was doing the FRONT SPLITS, the MIDDLE SPLITS, doing crazy shit with his body. What an inspiration he was to me. I was just coming out of the chronic pains and injuries, but was weak and skinny, and wanted to be like KSWISS (Kevin).

I’m pretty introveted, but I FORCED myself to go over. You might not get this chance again Mark! …..so I ended up going over probably like a fan at a Justin Bieber concert haha. But to my surprise, he was so nice!! He was chatting to me for a while and let me be in his group for the course over the weekend.

I was asking him so many questions, delighted to just be in his company (he’s living the life I want, strong mobile body, a successful mobility coach helping change clients lives! A big name in France - has now coached elite famous soccer players, tennis players etc……and he's here talking to a skinny recruiter from Dublin who says he wants to be a coach haha. I was like a pig in shit).

He gave me all the time in the world. If you wonder why I give out so much free info and try to help everyone I can - its because I’ve been helped by so many people along the way selflessly. They went out of their way to help me succeed even thought they didn’t know me or owe me anything, and I want to do the same for you (you aren’t a success unless you are making others a success - a wise coachpig once told me. Another man who reached out randomly to support me on my journey, and now we are good friends!)

I still remember Kevin telling me he knows I will be a great coach, he can see the passion in me and you’ll kill it. I was so embarrassed that someone like him would say that to me. Embarassed but honored.

If you follow KSWISS you know he's all about team NO BULLSHIT. He says it as it is, for mobility and life. And I knew he meant what he said. He truly thinks I will be a great coach. It’s like Ronaldo coming down to your local 5 -a-side on a Tuesday evening and telling you that he thinks you have what it takes to make it as a soccer player. I felt like I could walk on water that day. It also taught me the impact someone’s words can have on you. One sentence he has probably long forgotten.......has stayed with me for life.

I was still scared to post anything as I was so shy and introverted and thought what will people think when I start posting mobility content out of nowhere.....when I literally don't post anything on my socials......but again fucking KSWISS. He told me I just have to DO IT. Nobody cares, and it will get easier as I go.

So of course what happens? I do like we all do......I left the seminar from walking on water.......and back to reality. I went back into my shell and didn't post. And what happens? Kswiss gets onto me on Instagram "where's that first post? I don't see it"........FUCK............"ehh I'll have it up by Sunday I swear!"........double FUCK hahaha. I am a man of my word. If I make a promise I will keep it. And at probably 11pm on Sunday night.....I made my first mobility post. A few weeks later, I got my first client..........and the rest is history. It all went from there.

So there we go. That’s how the journey got started!!! Tears going back through that as its been a random empowering journey!!! Never thought I’d be here but that's the beauty of it. You don’t know where it will take you. My passions are evolving and changing and I will move to other things in the future. That’s how it works

Following Your Own Path

When you are ‘trying to find your passion’…..you won't know where you will end up. You have to trust the process like I described.

As you have seen with my example, passion & purpose is not ‘found’. It’s CREATED OVER TIME when you ‘try more shit’ and follow the sparks, when you do more of what you like and less of what you don’t like. The passion & purpose is cultivated & created OVER TIME.

You can’t start with the end in mind if you don’t know what that end is. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you even start. Cultivate courage & trust in yourself that you will make the right decisions once you are on the path. Follow the crumbs of curiosity.

Trusting yourself is the way to keep moving forward and navigating the unknown. Don’t worry about ‘is this the right decision to follow this or not’. Understand that EVERY decision….is the right decision.

If you feel the spark and want to follow it then do - it’ll either turn into something or it won’t. Either way…..it was the RIGHT DECISION. It has taught you more about yourself and what you like/don’t like. That’s progress and a deeper understanding of yourself, which are checkpoints on your personal jounrey that will all make sense once you look back over it in years to come with that 20/20 hindsight vision.

Following your passion is only the starting point. Finding the intersection of meaning, fullfillment, sustainable profit, and a useful service to the world takes time. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle you don’t have the map for. It’s only looking back that you will see how it all fits together. Keep laying down pieces each day until you see the patterns. Brick by brick, you will build your future

Only afterwards did I find out that the path I took is similar to the Japanese concept called ‘Ikigai: a reason for being’. Which states that your passion/purpose or ‘reason for being’ is when:

• You do what you LOVE

• You do what the WORLD NEEDS

• You do what you are GOOD AT

• You do what you can be PAID FOR

This is why one of my north stars in life is to FOLLOW THE RESULTS. Becuase they usually all lead in the same direction, no matter what religion, ethnicity, tribe, country etc you are from.

Who cares if it came from Gary Vee or from a Japanese concept, we are all HUMANS. We all have the same needs and desires in life, whether you realise it or not. And one of them is a purpose, a mission, being your true self & sharing it to help others. We just pursue them in a DIFFERENT WAY. Some ways are just more destructive than others

You think a drug addict WANTS to be miserable? No, they are escaping their trauma. That moment on drugs is the only moment they can be numb and away from it all. They could have taken that route, or a route to healing and create purpose in helping other addicts overcome it and what they went through. You see how in one scenario he’s a HERO….and in the other scenario he’s a VILLIAN. But its the same HUMAN, just led down a certain path.

And as you can see in most people (including myself), usually your passion/purpose is linked to SOLVING YOUR OWN PROBLEMS. Solving the things that plagued your life. Why does this work? well because YOU are the TARGET MARKET. You have been through it and know the way out, so you can speak to the old you as you know exactly what it’s like. You know what they NEED.

And that’s why I talk about the topics I do:

1. Resilient Body - tools to get back your PHYSICAL FREEDOM

2. Anti-Fragile Mindset - the mindset to keep it

3. Live an Authentic Life - how to live true to yourself

How do I know so much about these areas? Because:

• I was fucked with chronic pains and injuries. I had to give up things I loved at 25

• I didn’t have the right mindset/perspective to overcome this, or anything else in life

• I lived life with a mask, lived the life others expected of me.

You can turn your mess into your MESSAGE.

You can turn the poison in your life into a TONIC FOR OTHERS

We all have our medicine to offer the world.

I write this in the hope that it brings yours out of you.

Turning it from dream to reality safely (Barbell Strategy)

Now that you have all the information and are getting out on the runway like a turbo jet, it’s not time to takeoff just yet.

I’m not here to give people a shot of inspiration, to see 100 of you take off and then crash and burn. I want you to do it in a SMART WAY. In a SAFE WAY. In a way that puts the ODDS IN YOUR FAVOUR.

In the mainstream we are sold the notion that ‘if you just go and follow your passion, if its meant to be it’ll work out”……eh…..no....it fucking won’t. This isn’t easy. The stats show it and I can attest to it.

If you think it’s all about ‘go hard or go home’….I guarantee you’ll be fucking sent home with your tail between your legs.

I get you're probably on a high, but it’s time to come down now and get your thinking cap on. If you're serious about this, it’ll take more than an inspirational TED talk from me to make you succeed. It’s not time to burn the boats just yet…..or at all in fact.

Burning the boats and just GOING FOR IT, is a TERRIBLE IDEA.

Why? 2 things:

1. You are setting yourself up for a life of ANXIETY & possible depression

• if your safety needs are purely balancing on the basis of you making a sale or not in your chosen product/service you offer…..you will be on a rollercoaster of emotions each day. Is that how you want to live your life?! Not for me anyway thanks

• and if you have bad times in business (which you most certainly will!!!), then you won’t feel good obviously and might be forced to go back to your 9-5 etc and admit defeat. And give up on it entirely from all the stress it caused you

2. It forces you to make BAD DECISIONS

• If you burned the boats and HAVE to make this work at all costs…..then you will make decisions you wouldn’t normally make

• For example, you want to act out of integrity & whats true to yourself and not fool people with marketing hacks promising the dream…..but now you need 2 sales or you can’t pay rent….so you decide to give in and do sleazy sales tactics that make you feel like shit. And over time you don’t like who you have become. Are you really winning? Nope

A much better strategy (and the one I have taken), is to be FINANCIALLY SECURE.

You don’t burn the boats, you park a boat in the harbour stacked full of gold so that you have peace and security if anything goes wrong. It solves the 2 issues above:

1. Much less anxiety as you have a good lump of savings and could last 12/18/24 months if you made ZERO money. So you are safe….but you still have some fire up your ass to not burn into your hard earned savings

2. You are not pushed into a corner and forced to make decisions you don’t want to. You can ACT FROM INTEGRITY. You can be the person you want to be, and build the business you want to build. One that you will be proud of now and looking back from the top of the mountain. At peace that you did it in the right way

Through FOLLOWING THE RESULTS, this is what I was doing in terms of making the transitions from my 9-5 to my passion full time. But its the same concept as ‘the Barbell Strategy’ in Nassim Talebs book (Think it was in ‘Anti-Fragile, could have been ‘Black Swan’ either. Both great books), and what they also encourage in ‘The Passion Paradox’ book I mentioned earlier.

I’ll explain it through the barbell analogy. Think of a barbell in the gym. You have it racked up to change the weight plates on it. The weight plates are on each side. If you just tried to take 5 weight places off one side and dump them on the other side, that would be UNSTABLE. the bar might fall over (this is burning the boats and just GOING FOR IT).

So what’s a SAFER WAY to do it? You move the plates over ONE AT A TIME from one side to the other. You do it slowly and safely so that its much more STABLE.

And so this is what we do in the transition from 9-5 to our passion. Your 9-5 will be 100% of your income starting off. You don’t just drop that 100 and quit, and then get like 10% of the income you need from your passion. It won’t last.

You need to slowly move the plates over, slowly tip the scales towards getting more income from your passion until it becomes enough for you to be SUSTAINABLE on it alone:

Example: Income percentage

- 100% (9-5 job) - 0% (passion)

- 90% (9-5 job) - 10% (passion)

- 75% (9-5 job) - 25% (passion)

- 50% (9-5 job) - 50% (passion)

- 30% (9-5 job) - 70% (passion)

- 10% (9-5 job) - 90% (passion)

- 0% (9-5 job) - 100% (passion)

You get the idea. The important thing to realise here is that THERE IS NO PERFECT MOMENT TO MAKE THE SWITCH. It will depend on so many factors:

• Your personality (aversion to risk/anxiety/depression etc)

• Your savings

• Your current situation (single vs family & kids etc)

So it really is individual to you, and you will need to plan out your own strategy based on this. And it’s also important to note that you don’t HAVE TO give up the 9-5 completely.

Brad and Steve who are successful authors and wrote the Passion Paradox…..they aren’t even doing their passion for 100% of their income. They both still do some consulting work to bring in a small portion of income, and the rest of it comes from their passion. But it's much more towards the lower end of the scale above.

It’s important to detach your ego from it. It doesn’t mean you ‘haven’t made it until you get 100% of your income from your passion’. Bolox. It’s your life, do it in the way you want that serves your life.

Design your own life that works best for you. Maybe that's keeping it 50/50! Who knows. Drop the ego and do what feels best for YOU, and nobody else. YOU are the one that has to live YOUR life, so don’t base it on what others do or tell you to do.

I’ll tell you what I did so you will see it in action:

• Worked in Facebook. Saving 2k a month at a later stage once I got a promotion

• Had a savings goal of 30k that I would be happy & secure to leave with

• Wanted to also have the income from the coaching business to be roughly meeting the rent & bills at the time (around 1-1.5k)

• So once I hit the 30k in savings and 1k ish a month from clients, I was ready to leave

You can see how I am set up SO MUCH BETTER FOR SUCCESS now…..than if I had no savings and just quit my job when I am only just starting out and making no money from the passion. It would have been a disaster.

Like I said - PUT THE ODDS IN YOUR FAVOUR.

When you sit down and ACTUALLY dig deep and analyse my options, you’ll see how there is no serious risk at all. Write out the best case and worst case scenario for yourself and you will see where you are at.

My Best case:

• I leave Facebook and my business takes off. Don’t even have to dig into my savings at all

• Doing something I love now and would do for free

• And my net worth is going up in the meantime setting me up for financial freedom and living the live I want to live.

• Barely any anxiety/worry, as I am financially secure and can operate from integrity & my values in business and be the person I want to be. Be the change I want to see in the world. Be proud & at peace with myself

• Setting me up to support a family/kids in future

My Worst case:

• I leave Facebook and a month after I leave it starts going downhil. The business crashes and burns

• I struggle to make it work and dig into my savings to pay rent and keep me afloat

• I am too stubborn to ask for help or admit defeat and burn through all the 30k

• I message my parents with my tail between my legs, and tell them I need to move home as I can’t pay rent (so I move home)

• Now from here I can either

A: Work on the business and do it better this time. Put all my effort & energy into it

B: Get a 9-5 job in recruitment again. I have Facebook for 2 years on my CV, I could get an interview in google, salesforce, indeed etc easy enough. I know this because thats literally my job haha. Instant interview with a few years in a good company (it’s hard to get in)

So I start to work on growing the business from scratch again either while making savings (if I get a 9-5 again), or else without a 9-5 and the business will grow quicker

Do you see??? WHAT RISK. What’s the worst that can happen??? I have to move home? I have to get another 9-5 job and do it again?? Wow, tough fucking life we have eh?

Less than 100 years ago if you were born in a certain place, at a certain time, I’d be storming the fucking beaches of Normandy. And now today, me having to move home and CHASE MY DREAM for a 2nd time is a tough life?!?! It’s an absolute PRIVALEGE that I EVEN HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY to chase my dream. Previous generation didn’t even HAVE this option.

It was all about survival for them. Physical survival from war. Then as they moved on it was working any job you could get to just be able to provide for your family. Do you think thoughts of ‘whats my passion’ even entered the equation?! Not a chance.

So when I went through it all in detail and LIVED in the worst case scenario…..I could see it was an ILLUSION. I took the bullets out of the gun. The WORST CASE SCERNARIO……is still a pretty good life in the grand scheme of things. And I would be still lucky to even be living that life. I am living in the most OPPORTUNISITC TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. I’m well aware of it, and you should be too

And as you can see, I was willing to SUFFER FOR IT…….which is what passion really is.

and there we go, we have come full circle. Lets wrap it there. Meant to write for 2 hours, but I’m writing 4 hours now and thats…….8,077 words hahah jaysus. Longest newsletter so far was like 5. But I had a lot to share here that I know will help you. And I had a blast doing it! In a coffee shop, headphones on, tunes flowing, and giving my medicine to those who need it. Grateful.

3 Actionable Takeaways:

1. Understand you CREATE passion & purpose

• You don’t ‘find’ it

• Constantly searching for it creates SEPERATION from it

• There is no endedness, only evolution

• You CREATE IT over time

2. Try more shit

• Follow the sparks and things that interest you

• Do more of what you like, less of what you don’t like

• REPEAT

• The opportunities are endless

3. Cultivate Your Passions

• Some will blossom into lifelong pursuits

• Some will die off like old flowers

• Life will give you the answers, you have to LIVE IT

Real Life Example:

One of my current clients Eoghan is interested to take this path and become a coach too. Like I tell all clients, I will help you as much or as little as you want! If you just want the education & coaching to get your physical freedom back that's cool. But if you want help with living an authentic life (which may or may not include turning passion into your career) then I'm happy to offer all the wisdom/insights I have there too from my own journey! I have helped a number of clients change careers. Love to see people going after what gives them purpose and meaning! Being the change they want to see in the world.

MY WEEK:

Education:

• Current Reading: The Denial of Death (didn't read any this week again)

• Podcasts

(The Koe Cast - The most profitable, fulfilling, and unsaturated niche as a one person business)

(Modern Wisdom Podcast #545: Chris Von Rueden - How did human leadership evolve?)

(Modern Wisdom Podcast #544: Dr Carole Hooven - What makes men and women different?)

Business:

This week's client testimonial! (Eoin O'Neill). Read the full review here

Personal:

Fun this week:

• Friday: Out on a wee date

• Saturday: My friend Ben's 30th birthday

Training:

• Jiu Jitsu: Playing with fire caught up with me on Thursday. I had an MRI a few weeks ago on my knees and I have a torn meniscus in both knees. Since I rehabbed them myself I feel good. Been back training and sparring the last month. You wouldn't even know I had any injury going against me. But doing a simple takedown drill, it went again. I did it about 15 times, no issue. On the 16th time and my knee twisted at a certain angle and gone again. Fell to the floor and I knew what had happened. Just sat there on the corner of the mat crying. I knew that was it for Jiu-Jitsu for the foreseeable future until I get the surgery. My back belt coach came over and helped lift me to the changing rooms. Could barely walk on it again and my roomate had to come and collect me. Few days later now and I can limp around on it. Fuck it, been here many times before and overcame it, and I'll do it again. "If you can't do what you want, do what you CAN". No Jiu Jitsu for the next 3-6 months means more time for upper body training! The obstacle is the way. Where others see a 'problem', you can see OPPORTUNITY. It's not easy but it's the most empowering route. You'll have to put me in the ground to stop me getting progress. That's where I am at now in terms of my mindset. You can be too

Strength: Started the 3 month one arm chin-up program from the start again! Volume/hypertrophy phase for the next 6 weeks, then into the high intensity/power block for the 6 weeks after that. Also got an upper push session and a lower session in this week (before the injury)

That's it! Hope this email was great inspiration to those who are looking to CREATE their passion, and turn it from passion into a meaningful career. It's not going to be easy, but nothing ever worth doing is. Is it plain sailing for me now? Nope. When people ask me about it, I hit them with the harsh truth, snap them out of the Hollywood dream illusion. But would I be doing ANYTHING ELSE in this world????? Not a fucking chance.

I'm right where I need to be, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm still on this hill, and I'm not fucking dead yet. I've planted my flag. I'm the one doing the killing now. And you can be too

Time to get ready and head over to this 30th. Enjoy some pints and good times with friends.

At the end of the day - all the 'personal' success will leave you empty inside if you have nobody to share it with, if you have no connections in life. I figured that out the hard way.

As you might have seen in the movie "into the wild", Christopher McCandless goes off by himself to follow whats true to him, but he lost sight of the bigger picture of life when chasing his passion....and only realised when it was too late. His dying words alone in an abandoned bus in Alaska were "happiness only real when shared".

It makes me happy to be able to share all I know with you.

Enjoy the weekend 🙂

Don’t Settle