Be Naive

I truly believe that life is full of those moments where we stand befuddled, hands upon hips, asking ourselves, “How the hell did I end up here?”. For myself and Tiernan, nothing could be more accurate.

Something that I include in every single talk we give, is the story of how I had the idea to write my first book. I believe JK Rowling had the brilliant idea for Harry Potter on a train one day, my origin of thought is a tad less elegant, you might say. It was a blurry night in December 2018, in a nightclub in Galway. I’m a numbers man through and through, and I believe that the data never lies. If PaddyPower caught wind of the inebriated conversation that I had with my friend that night, my grand proclamation that I was going to attempt to become an author, you would have easily banked yourself a nice 10,000/1 outside bet on the chances of my success. Leicester’s famous premier league win was a sure thing in comparison.

But Tiernan and I have learned that only the smallest domino need fall in order to get an idea off the ground. We owe so much of our public speaking progress to the lovely Fiona Sheridan of the University of Galway, who gave us our first public speaking shot, in an open mic session as part of her class in October 2019. We have since returned to that same lecture hall every year to tell our story, we see it as our home ground (Anfield for me, Stamford Bridge for Tiernan, this has caused many an argument. We’ve had many Gerrard/Lampard debates throughout our college years, arguing into the wee hours of the morning). Little did we know on that day in 2019 that speaking in front of 400 people would become almost an everyday occurrence (and would no longer require the two pints we had before the lecture to settle our nerves).

I believe that there are many people, more intelligent than ourselves, who would not have attempted to embark on this journey like we have. They would have weighed up their options, noticed quite clearly that the odds were not in their favour, and chose to focus on something with a higher expected value for success. However, myself and Tiernan didn’t have that scepticism. We acknowledged that it would be quite a difficult task, but we approached every hurdle with an attitude of, “if we fail, we fail”. We noticed the need for mental health awareness, and the confronting of the stigma surrounding it, especially for young men.

We owe a great deal of our success to the naivety that we had in those early days. We proudly say in every talk, that we were “just about stupid enough” to give this thing a good go.

Now, it must be said, not every idea will be gold dust. Lord knows, I’ve had my fair share of “flash in the pan” ideas that dwindled by the following morning, or at the end of my day-dream. However, if you find yourself ruminating about an idea quite regularly, something that sits with you at a red light, or occupies your mind in the quiet moments before you fall asleep – that, my friend, is the idea that you should follow. That’s the one that has some gravitas, that has a hold on your heart. That’s the idea that will make working into the wee hours of the morning and getting three hours sleep feel like a breeze (we do NOT recommend this, but you see where I’m going with this analogy). That’s the one to follow!

So, in a world where we are often made feel that we need to be the best at everything, that nothing short of perfect will do, I hope you can take solace in the fact that the best idea we have ever had, was possibly the stupidest and most far fetched!

To all our readers, have a great week,
All the love in the world,
Conor