How to Cultivate the Don’t Settle Attitude

Settling saves you the uncomfortable pain of failure & rejection in the short term.

That’s why most people settle.

But what they don’t realise, is that you are only setting yourself up to be hit with an avalanche of regret one day. Something much worse.

I’ll never forget the day it happened to me.

Sitting in the airport with an ex. Eating a meal waiting for our flight. I was maybe 24.

I stopped watching soccer when I settled & quit on my own dream of making it one day.

Never realising that part of it was because I couldn’t face what was reflected back at me through the screen: I gave up on myself.

But a soccer match was on in this airport restaurant. Cool, I’ll watch it.

And who do I see on the screen? Daryl Horgan. A lad I used to play with on the Emerging Talent Program in Castlebar for 2 years.

He made it. He’s living my dream.

I couldn’t explain what happened to me at the time. But in hindsight I see that I was forced to face the pain I had buried deep down for a long time.

The pain of settling.

I felt sick and couldn’t eat anymore. I felt overwhelmed. I wanted to go home.

I was ashamed of myself. At the first big roadblock I just gave up on myself and settled. I didn’t even try my best.

I never had regrets walking off the soccer pitch, as I gave my all until the final whistle.

But off the pitch, I couldn’t do the same.

I didn’t make the Ireland team after 2 years on the Emerging Talent Program. So close but yet so far. But I was still only 18 at the time.

Roy Keane didn’t make it early, Jamie Vardy didn’t. So many players missed the first boat to becoming a professional soccer player, but they didn’t settle and made it through other avenues.

Now, after cultivating the don’t settle attitude in my life, I back up my aspirations with my actions.

I don’t settle, I give it my all, and the cards fall as they may.

I am proud of myself regardless of the outcome. The most empowering, meaningful way to live in my experience.

Zero regrets. Zero guilt or shame. With self-respect, passion & purpose in abundance.

But back then I didn’t have this attitude. I was all fluff. Wishful thinking. I said things but didn’t back them up.

I talked about how I would defer my first year of college and move to England. Play in the lower leagues and try to get scouted.

What’s a year out of college anyway? It’ll be there when I get back. At least if I go and give it one full year, I’ll have no regrets then.

This is what I told some people close to me, but I did f**k all about it.

In that moment in the airport where all this past pain was brought up from my subconscious, my ex saw something was wrong and asked was I ok.

“………I’m fine”. I couldn’t say another word or I’d have burst into tears.

Like most men, I hid and buried it as much as I could. And just got on with life.

I wasn’t self-aware, I couldn’t handle my emotions, and I lived in this mental prison.

I guess some people just have what it takes, and I’m not one of them.

The Mental Freedom work changed my life here, and I see it all clearly now.

But when I gave up on my soccer dream back then, the don’t settle attitude I only had on the pitch now vanished completely.

I fell into the victim mentality life.

Victim Mentality

The victim mentality permeates our society.

It’s the default.

Go for your dreams?! Nah. Be realistic.

Have high standards and strive for the life you want? Discard the soul sucking 9-5 life to try and carve your own path of passion & purpose?

Pfff. Go to college. Get a real job.

Take up martial arts after your body is already in bits from trying to be a professional athlete?

Nah man, you crazy?! Your body can’t do that anymore. It’s over. Time to settle.

You know you’ll just be disappointed right?! Better to lower your expectations and fall in line. Who are you to think you can do that anyway?

It’s crabs in a bucket. And the crabs aren’t even aware.

They live the settling life, so they want you to as well. It makes them feel better.

Why should you be afraid of adhering to this settling society?

Because settling destroys your soul.

Settling is the graveyard for dreams and the fertile land for regret.

You become a shadow of who you know you could be.

The only way out is to start cultivating the don’t settle attitude.

The Don’t Settle Attitude 

“You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you settle for”

When I was in my own pain cave, in the height of my victim mentality, I learned life’s biggest lesson.

I thought I was a good person. I try to do the right thing. So why has my life turned out this way?!

Why couldn’t my dreams come true?

Why do I have to retire from sport at 25?! It’s been my whole life. That’s all I cared about.

Wtf am I meant to do now? Take up water polo with the elderly?! And pretend to be happy?

The hope for life I had, the exciting possibilities of the future, they are all gone.

I don’t want the normal life, I don’t fit in. It’s not for me. It never will be.

Why don’t bad things happen to rapists, murderers and terrorists instead?!

I’ve been stuck in these loops like we all have. Where we position ourselves as the victim of our own story that we have made up in our head.

My own physical freedom journey made me face the harsh truth. The one that sparked the don’t settle attitude within me, which has defined the last 8 years of my life.

“You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you settle for.”

That’s it. That’s life explained in one sentence.

It doesn’t matter if you deserve to be forced to retire from chronic pain & injury. What matters is are you going to settle for that?

F**k that, I’m coming back. That was my answer.

I knew that pain of giving up on my soccer career, I learned that one the hard way. I swore I would never make the same mistake again.

At at the second defining moment of my life, I made the right choice. The one I knew I wanted in my heart.

F**k the experts, I don’t want to settle. I’m gona come back or die trying.

This is the attitude you need to have if you want to regain your physical freedom. Or for anything else in life.

There are 3 steps to go from the victimhood mentality to the don’t settle attitude:

1) The Pain Cave
2) Extreme Ownership
3) Becoming the Hero

Let’s dive in.

1) The Pain Cave

For any change to occur, there needs to be a certain level of pain to motivate us to change.

That’s how we are evolutionarily wired:

  • When will you go hunt for food? When you have the pain of starvation
  • When will you change your unsocial behaviour? When the pain of violence/shame/humiliation from your village is too much for you

It’s the same in modern life today:

  • When will you look for a new job? When the pain of dealing with your boss becomes unbearable
  • When will you look for a new partner? When the pain of your current partner (or lonliness from the lack of one) is too much

We think pain is bad, but it’s good. It’s necessary.

Pain is the most potent catalyst to make changes in your life.

The pain cave is where the alchemy happens. Where the transformation starts to take place.

You may have been a different person before your own personal pain cave, but you will not be the same when you emerge.

Look at the before & after for clients in the Physical Freedom Program. Look at the pain they needed to make a change.

Jack always springs to my mind when I talk about this topic.

He went to many physios & consultants after a car accident. Diagnosed with bulging discs, osteoporosis & degenerative disc disease. And it scared the life out of him as everyone told him he was too young to have these issues.

When he couldn’t tie his shoes the day after games or get up to the printer at work, he was forced to settle and retire from Gaelic in his early 20s.

But this pain is what eventually enabled him to take ownership. It was the catalyst.

It ignited the path for Jack to take ownership of his body, and work on regaining physical freedom to get back playing championship football in Kerry.

2) Extreme Ownership

When you make it out of the pain cave, you will have a new realisation:

Everything in your life is down to you.

Instead of:

  • Blaming healthcare practitioners for not ‘fixing’ you
  • Blaming society for you being unhappy
  • Blaming your ex for all your problems

You start to look at the world differently now.

You take ownership of your life.

You take responsibility for your part in every experience.

And you start to realise that this is the route forward to changing your life.

How? Because:

  • Taking ownership -> taking control
  • Taking control -> can make changes
  • Making changes -> changes the outcome

When you extrapolate this out over time, it’s inevitable that your life will change for the better.

It also shows how not taking ownership ensures that your life will never change:

  • If you don’t take ownership -> you blame others & give them control
  • You have no have control -> you are a victim and can’t change
  • Can’t make changes now -> so the outcome won’t change

Reading “Extreme Ownership” from Jocko Willink instilled this perspective in me.

I saw how the victim mentality nearly ruined his military career.

A mission went sideways and Jocko was leading it. His subordinates didn’t follow orders, made mistakes, and now his head was on the chopping block.

He had to brief his boss on what happened. He was going to blame all who let him down. Pick out the culprits who cost him the mission. But this is where he had his epiphany.

I’m the leader, so I’m the one in charge. The buck stops with me.

Any fault of theirs is a fault of mine.
It’s a lack of leadership skills on my part.
I need to take ownership of this.

Instead of going in with his original victim mentality plan of blaming his team, he went in with:

  • Humility
  • An analysis of his shortcomings as a leader
  • A plan to rectify this and become better

To his surprise, he wasn’t fired.

Taking ownership didn’t just keep Jocko his job, but this new attitude enabled him to climb the ranks and become a decorated Navy Seal Veteran. Comanding Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq war.

Why should you care about war?

As Jocko says: war is just life amplified & intensified.

The life lessons we can skip over in life, can’t be avoided in war. You have to face them.

Jocko taught me that you are the leader of your own life, whether you like it or not. You are responsible for where you are in life. Always. 

Nobody is coming to save you, it’s down to you. Same in war, same for us civilians.

Taking extreme ownership of your life is the first point of changing it.

You are where you are now because of you and nobody else. Because of the decisions you have made up to now.

This can be one of the most painful things to hear and accept, but on the other side is the most liberating feeling you will experience.

If you take ownership of your past, you take ownership of your future.

Now you can start making new decisions.

Now you can start to become the hero of your own life.

3) Become the Hero

“When you find yourself in a room surrounded by your enemies, you should tell yourself, ‘I am not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me!’. This is the kind of mindset you should have if you want to succeed in life. Get rid of that victim mentality” – Bruce Lee

There are 3 archetypes we play out in life.

The victim, the villain, & the hero.

We start as the helpless victim.
Graduating to the villain.
Then if we mature enough, we become the hero.

I’ve been through all stages.

I lived the victim mentality life. Giving up on my hopes and dreams. On myself. On who I knew I could be.

I’ve took ownership and became the villain. A fuck the world mentality and putting myself above everything for the first time in my life.

A chip on my shoulder, fueled by suppressed anger & pain.

And I’ve come full circle to becoming the hero I always wanted to be.

Not settling & living true to myself. Being the change I want to see in the world.

Small gaining my way towards my potential, and inspiring & educating others to do the same.

You are in one of these 3 stages now.

Are you going to retreat or rise?

Retreat or Rise

“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me” – Batman

Realise all the possibilities in front of you with the right attitude.

Whether you are the victim, villain or hero is a choice, not a predetermined destiny.

You are choosing to be where you are.
(consciously or subconsciously)

Even if you think and talk like the hero, but are still playing the victim or villain.

I lived that batman quote through telling people I would chase my soccer dream but did nothing about it. And you are probably doing the same in your own way.

Becoming aware of this dynamic gives you the opportunity to make a change for the better.

You CHOOSE to be the hero. 

I used to always look at movie characters for inspiration. Ancient legends, modern warriors.

Who do I look at now too? Me.

I inspire myself. And that’s where you want to get too. That’s when you know you have becme the hero of your own life.

Some will hate, some will be inspired. But you know the real reward and when you are being the hero:

When you are proud of yourself.
When you have gained your own self-respect.
When you inspire the f**k out of younger you.

Seeing the impact not settling & living true to myself has to inspire others lights me up like nothing else.

I’ve been in many tides that have lifted me and still am.

My aim is to be the tide that lifts you.

If you cultivate the don’t settle attitude, you can become the hero of your own life in time.

I’ll believe in you until you can believe in yourself.

Don’t Settle,
Mark

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1) Physical Freedom Program:

  • My 1:1 coaching program on how to overcome chronic pain & injury, and reach your athletic potential
  • I have worked with 100s of clients, across 37 different sports/activities, over 3 separate continents. Covering injuries to all joints in the human body
  • Join those not settling for their movement limitations here

2) Mental Freedom Course

  • My self-awareness course that teaches you how to stop looping & suffering, and skillfully navigate your own mind
  • Most people are a slave to their subconscious, constantly playing out the same undesirable patterns in their life
  • Here you will understand why you are the way you are, and how to break free to become who you always wanted to be

3) Lifestyle Design University

  • From must €49, you can have the blueprint to design the life true to yourself
  • You will learn how to create a vision, how to use my self-development system, and how to move the levers to freedom which close the gap towards the life you want
  • Now you will avoid the biggest regret of humanity in the process: “not living a life true to myself, living the life others expected of me”

Diagnoses Are Not A Death Sentence

This conversation came up with a client this week.

The dreaded diagnosis.

When you are told what’s ‘wrong’ with your body. Delivered a cause for all your issues in a nice neat diagnosis shaped package.

These diagnoses usually end up becoming a death sentence.

That make us believe we can’t overcome chronic pain & injury and reach our athletic potential unless we ‘fix’ it.

Then we get stuck on the roundabout of injuries & average progress chasing fixes to different diagnoses for years.

And if the ‘fixes’ don’t work, then the journey is over. Your story stops here.

I’ve worked with hundreds of clients, and a lot of them have received certain ‘diagnosis’. The one that always pops into my mind when I talk about this topic is Jack.

A lad in his early 20’s who was in a car crash. Just feel how afraid he was, as he describes the healthcare route’s approach to helping him overcome chronic pain & injury to return to Gaelic:

“I had been struggling with injuries the previous 2 years after a car accident. I spent a lot of time on physio tables and meeting consultants trying to solve my issues but with no sustainable success. I was diagnosed with bulging discs, osteoporosis and degenerative disc disease and this scared the life out of me as everyone I spoke with said I was too young to have these issues”

You can read Jack’s inspiring journey of not settling, and regaining his Physical Freedom to play championship football in Kerry here. 

Just like I would have explained to Jack at the start, these diagnoses don’t have to be a death sentence. You don’t have to settle for that ending.

Diagnoses As A Death Sentence

Here’s how it usually goes:

We go to ‘experts’ and get ‘diagnosed’. We get told what’s ‘wrong’ with our bodies. And what we need to ‘fix’ it. Or that it can’t be fixed at all.

This leads us to believe that we are like a computer with broken parts. We just need this ‘fix’, and then we will be brand new. Or else we are f***ed.

Like humpty dumpty who fell off the wall. Glue him back together, or throw him away.

This right here IS the problem.

You are led to believe that your body is like a computer or a car that can be broken and fixed, but in reality this is not how your body works at all.

Diagnosis are just a snapshot in time of what someone ‘thinks’ is an issue with your body.

It’s like someone saying a photograph of your past will define your future.

But that’s not the case, because we are constantly changing as you will see in this newsletter.

These diagnosis lead to a distortion in your thinking which messes everything up going forward. And prevents you from getting on the road back to your Physical Freedom.

This false view of the body bestowed upon us by (a lot of) the healthcare ‘experts’, lead to a myriad of issues:

  • False beliefs about the human body (which keeps us in the dark about the truth, and hence we’ll always be fooled)
  • Nocebo effect (opposite of placebo – which links to increased pain levels)
  • Traps us in a prison where we are searching for the wrong answer (so we will never get the result we want)
  • Takes the locus of control away from us, and puts them in control (hence you need to rely on them forever to ‘fix’ you)

And where does this lead?

For me, it led to looking for the fix for my multiple diagnosis for 10 years, which never happened.

I would go to a different healthcare practitioner thinking they have the ‘fix’, to only be given a new diagnosis. Another thing ‘wrong’ with my body.

The goalposts kept moving. And the cycle went on and on. Like chasing down a mirage in the desert.

It took getting 5 different ‘diagnoses’ from 5 different ‘experts’, for the penny to drop for me.

I had told all 5 the EXACT same issues, but yet they all gave me a different diagnosis. It didn’t make any sense.

This is when I started thinking critically for the first time in my life with my body, instead of blindly following the ‘experts’.

If they really did know what was going on, then they would have all diagnosed me with the same thing wouldn’t they?!

But not even 2 of the 5 diagnoses were the same. It was like throwing darts at a dart board. The Russian roulette of quick fixes.

This was when I had a huge realisation which is very important to understand. It changed my body and life forever.

All anyone can tell you, is their opinion based on their education & experience.

That’s it. Me included.

It doesn’t matter if they have 10 doctorates or haven’t a single qualification, all anyone can give you is their opinion. Their hypothesis. Based on their education & experience.

Diagnosis aren’t divine answers of truth for your destiny, they are just opinions.

People have different education, and people have different experience. And through this combination they will have different opinions.

This explains how an osteopath gave me a different diagnosis than a physio (different education). And it also explains how 2 physio’s can still give me a different diagnosis (different experience).

The whole allure of the ‘experts’ was now shattered for me forever. I finally took them down off the pedestal society put them on.

I could see behind the veil now. The mirage was gone like a puff of smoke. And hopefully it is now for you too.

Then I went looking for better answers. One’s that actually made logical sense.

Like last week’s newsletter on how to not be fooled, I started from first principles.

Reasoning from first principles removes the impurities of assumptions and conventions.

(i.e lets you see through the bullshit and find the truth)

I took ownership of my body for the first time in my life, instead of outsourcing it to the experts.

I followed the results, over doctorates & degrees.

And this is when things finally started to change for me.

Through this new approach free of dogma and falsity, I ended up going to a mobility coach who had no ‘formal’ education on the human body. No doctorate on the wall.

He helped me more with my chronic back pain in 1 month, than 10 years down the healthcare route with the most ‘qualified’ people I could find.

I knew I was finally on the right path after so much pain & heartbreak. I felt it in my soul. And I had the results to prove it now.

From then on, I only follow the results.

Who actually cares if someone has 10 pieces of paper hanging on their wall or none? As long as they help you get the results you want?

So if we aren’t like a computer, like a car, like humpty dumpty. If we aren’t broken and then fixed, how does the human body work then?

Let’s get to the truth.

Your Body Is An Adaptable Organism

Humans don’t have ‘fixed’ states, we constantly adapt to whatever environment we are in:

  • If you start climbing hills, your body will adapt and become more cadiovascularly fit.
  • If you start lifting rocks outside or iron in the gym, your body will adapt and become stronger.
  • If you start sitting all day and push through injuries, your body will negatively adapt and become tight & stiff

We adapt to our environment and change in ways that make us more likely to survive.

This is how the human body works. Diving into evolutionary biology showed me this truth.

Humans have been here for around 6 million years. The species of humans that you, I, and the whole world are: is homo-sapiens.

There were others species of humans just like cats & dogs, but they all died off. For the last 200,000 years, there have only been us homo-sapiens.

Over all these 200,000 years, the human body has adapted to its environment.

That is what we are designed to do: to adapt to our environment to help us survive & reproduce and keep the species living on.

If we weren’t adaptable and constantly changing, then we simply wouldn’t be here.

Homo-sapiens would have become extinct like all the other species that have.

EVERYTHING we have now in terms of our body, was chosen through natural selection because it had an advantage in keeping us alive:

  • The shape of your nose
  • your eyebrows
  • the fact we walk on 2 feet
  • our ability to think abstractly
  • our cardiovascular endurance
  • our ability to sweat to cool down so we can endurance hunt animals that overheat with their fur

You could go through it all.

The point here is the human body is always adapting. It’s always changing.

It has been for the last 200,000 years, and it will be until our extinction.

The irony is that we think we ‘can’t change’ (i.e my hip mobility is terrible, I can’t change. I’ve always been tight and stiff etc).

But in reality, you are changing everyday.

It’s literally the opposite of what you are led to believe with these diagnoses.

Yes you may have a certain issues/injuries, but you will continue to change into the future. It’s not a dead end.

I always like to bring the high level theory down to the practical. And it comes down to 2 paths here.

1) You are either adapting & changing POSITIVELY
(i.e slowly becoming more mobile)

OR

2) You are adapting & changing NEGATIVELY
(i.e slowly becoming tighter and stiffer).

This is all happening slowly. Each and every day in the background. But you just don’t realise it.

It’s only after an accumulation of years/decades, that all these (negative) small gains have added up to the (negative) big gain.

And now you feel like the tin man looking for the fix.

But you are blind to the actual problem. The problem wasn’t ‘your’ body like you are told by the healthcare ‘experts’.

The problem was your lack of education on how your own body actually works.

You can’t stop the small gains. You can’t stop our body from adapting to our environment.

The small gains are constantly working either FOR or AGAINST you. You decide.

You can focus on what’s in your control. You can work on building a resilient body.

People who are unaware of what I have explained:

  • continue to sit most the day
  • with no focus on mobility
  • while hammering themselves with sport

….and end up adapting negatively, thinking they are broken.

People who are aware of what I have explained:

  • have movement snacks throughout the day
  • focus on a mobility plan for their movement limitations
  • check the ego and just do what they can until they prepare their body to handle the demands of their sport

….and end up adapting positively. Empowered by understanding the truth about the amazing adaptability of the human body.

Your Body Is Always On A Journey

Think of how your body adapts and changes every day like a car journey.

You HAVE to go on the journey. You can’t stop the car.

If you can’t stop the car, and you are forced to go on a journey, what can you do?

You can decide what direction the car goes. This is in your control.

Do you want to end up somewhere in 10 years that you hate?
(not able to do sports you love/unable to play with your kids)

Or do you want to arrive somewhere you love.
(regain physical freedom and keep it as you age)

I know you would pick option 2 there. But what are you probably doing?

Sleeping in the backseat of the car. Not even aware that you are on a journey.

The driver is on the route towards tin man city and you are in the backseat oblivious to the pain and suffering coming your way. You have no idea the destination you will arrive at.

It’s only when you get there 10 years later, that you realise your mistake. “Driver can you fix this and bring me back instantly please?!”

Doesn’t work that way. You can drive, but you can’t teleport to a different destination overnight.

Your past decisions got you here, but your future decisions can get you out of it.

Once you are educated on how your body works, you know better. You are empowered.

You wake up from your slumber of ignorance in the back seat. You tell the driver to pull the car over.

You kick that motherf***er out of the car like you’re playing GTA, and YOU take the wheel.

You are in control of the car journey. You are the captain now.
You decide where this car will end up in 1,2,5,10,20 years.
You decide how your body will adapt and change going forward.

It doesn’t matter how far you have drove in the wrong direction. I went 10 years in the wrong direction. Jack and most of my clients spent years/decades going in the wrong direction too.

All that matters is now.

That you make the decision to get on the right path.

As a previous business mentor told me – “every breath is a chance to start again”.

Your future self will thank you. Your future family will thank you.

Why do I make all this content?

Because I finally found the motorway to physical freedom, but I see so many people on the other side of the motorway towards tin man city. I feel for them.

They have no idea where they are heading. I try to tell people but they are blaring the same old tune so loud they can’t even hear me. Nothing I say will help them.

So I try to set up my own communication channels. I put out info on a radio station that each car can choose to listen to. And if they do, I can change their path and their life trajectory.

If they choose to listen and implement what I’m telling them, they can turn off the motorway to tin man city, and take the ramp towards physical freedom.

There are 6 lanes but not many cars. There’s room for us all but barely anyone knows about it.

They don’t even know their body is on a journey.

They think their diagnoses are a death sentence.

They are still out there looking for the ‘fix’.

Don’t Settle,
Mark

3 Different Ways I Can Help You

1) Physical Freedom Program

  • My 1:1 coaching program on how to overcome chronic pain & injury, and reach your athletic potential
  • I have worked with 100s of clients, across 37 different sports/activities, over 3 separate continents. Covering injuries to all joints in the human body
  • Join those not settling for their movement limitations here

2) Mental Freedom Course

  • My self-awareness course that teaches you how to stop looping & suffering, and skillfully navigate your own mind
  • Most people are a slave to their subconscious, constantly playing out the same undesirable patterns in their life
  • Here you will understand why you are the way you are, and how to break free to become who you always wanted to be

3) Lifestyle Design University

  • From must €49, you can have the blueprint to design the life true to yourself
  • You will learn how to create a vision, how to use my self-development system, and how to move the levers to freedom which close the gap towards the life you want
  • Now you will avoid the biggest regret of humanity in the process: “not living a life true to myself, living the life others expected of me”

How to Find Your Passion & Purpose

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.
 
Everything started to finally make sense for me then.
 
I first did the Myers Briggs personality test, and 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. Ok so I’m not alone! Something I wish I had known sooner.
 
Reading this and so much more was very insightful to me at the time. I felt like someone was describing me better than I could have explained it myself. I finally felt heard. I finally felt seen.
 
The line of “advocates are troubled by injustice” really hit home too. One of my earliest memories was crying to my mam when I found out Jesus died for me when I was around 4!
 
My life was like a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t make sense, but now pieces were finally starting to come together.
 
Years later when I finally did the Mental Freedom work (LINK), I got the bird eye view of the puzzle, and my whole life finally made sense. It changed my life forever.
 
For those who feel called, click that link and read about how you can do the same.
 
People wondered how I could leave my safe, pensionable, well paid job in Facebook to follow my passion & purpose of becoming a coach. To go on my mission to help people regain their physical freedom.
 
But they didn’t understand it literally wasn’t a choice for me, it was a moral obligation at that point in my life.
 
I couldn’t have lived with myself otherwise. I had to fight for what I believed in. That’s the only avenue that would let me live with no regrets.
 
Humans all run from fear, but we have different ones.
 
Most run from the fear of no money, safety or status. My biggest fear was not living true to myself.
 
This is actually the biggest recorded regret of humanity on their deathbeds. I just realised this earlier in life from giving up on my soccer career and living with that pain & regret.
 
I promised myself when the next passion rolled around, I would go all in. And I did.
 
But how did I find my passion and purpose in helping people overcome chronic pain & injury specifically?
 
I thought I would be a soccer player so I had never planned for anything else. Never envisioned myself being anything else.
 
And from being a shy, introverted, embarassed kid, the last thing I thought I would be doing is becoming a coach and sharing my life to try & inspire others!
 
I even remember an old friend from school seeing my IG page recently and being like wtf?! He said he never thought I’d be doing this. I replied me and you both! It’s funny how life goes.
 
But from looking back and doing deep dive reflections on my path, I have a blueprint to follow for those like the younger me.
 
Those who are unhappy with their life.
Those who know they are heading for regrets on their deathbed.
Those who don’t want to settle any longer.
Those who want more passion & purpose in their life.
 

The Blind Leading the Blind

 
If you are someone who has a deep sense that you need to follow your passion & purpose, you probably struggle to know what that is.
 
That was me too. Why?
 
Because we follow the path of those who aren’t optimising for passion & purpose.
 
The mainstream societal path ultimately optimises for safety:
  • Go to school
  • Go to college
  • Get a well paid career. A safe pensionable job
  • Get married & a mortgage
  • Retire at 65
And only then can you follow your passions and whats true to you. It’s unrealistic & dangerous to think otherwise.
 
That it the underlying belief of mainstream society.
 
So don’t be surprised anymore if you follow that route and aren’t filled with passion & purpose. It’s not optimising for that.
 
You are probably safe, so it served its purpose.
 
To me it’s backwards. I wanted to optimise for integrity & finding my passion & purpose.
 
So to imagine that I would postpone it all until I’m 65 years old, and waste the best years of my life for safety?! Nah fuck that. Not for me thanks.
 
I personally don’t agree with the retirement model as a way to live my life, and it wasn’t the path I was going to follow.
 
I will write a separate newsletter about how to build cast iron commitment. In your vision. In yourself.
 
But for this newsletter, we will stick with how I actually found my passion & purpose.
 
I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. I was stumbling forward as best I could.
 
But in hindsight, there are a few key things I would tell my younger self to give him clarity & accelerate his journey.
 

You Don’t ‘Find’ Passion & Purpose, You Cultivate It

 
Read that 5 times and etch it into your brain.
 
As this is the first roadblock that stops most people. One I struggled with for a long time too.
 
You don’t ‘find’ your passion & purpose, you cultivate 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 out there waiting for you.
 
The illusion that will keep you chasing your tail and never find the answer.
 
You don’t just find these things one day. Constantly searching for it is actually part of what creates separation from it.
 
Understand that there is no end, 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 & changes over time
– Your passion is a lifelong process that evolves & changes over time
– Looking after your body is a lifelong process that evolves & changes over time
 
You are focused on these imaginary goalposts that don’t even exist. A mirage of the mind.
 
The reality is that you cultivate passion & purpose 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
The flaw here is that we are conditioned by society to believe that the 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 is 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 passion & purpose out there for you to find. You cultivate 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 grow & learn more about yourself
Drop the illusion 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 that tunnel.
 
Now that we have faced the harsh truth, the path for true progress has opened up.
 
If you want to understand something, you need to define it.
 
The first step to finding your passion is actually understand what the word passion means. It’s origin in this world.
 
And you’ll see how it’s nothing like this esoteric illusion we are sold in the mainstream.
 
1) Passion = Suffering
 
Passion 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 learned this in a book called ‘The Passion Paradox’.
 
It originates 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.
 
Passion isn’t:
  • something you do when things are good
  • something fun that you drop when things get hard.
  • something you find this year and throw away next year
Passion is something you care enough about that you are willing to suffer for it through the ups and downs. Passion is something you stay committed to.
 
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.
 
Disney movies for example showing us how the one will sweep us off our feet. The knight in shining armour will save the day. How our dream job is out there waiting for us.
 
It’s the quick fix hack we are all drawn to in any area of life. The illusion humans can’t resist.
 
It’s the idea that we can get the results without doing the work, which is most people’s dream.
 
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. I was so ‘passionate’ about getting people their physical freedom back, because I was willing to die on that hill.
 
I left my safe, pensionable Facebook job saving 2k a month for this. I was 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.
 
I will write a newsletter on ‘how to turn your passion to your career’, as you need to do in with 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.
 
By the end of this year I’ll be 5 years in business. And we are just getting started.
 
2) Try More Shit
 
I followed Gary Vee for years when I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.
 
I found him very inspiring as he’s all about following what’s true to yourself over the normal college & 9-5 route.
 
That was resonating with me as I felt lost at 23 when I had just finished college and returned home from a J1:
  • With a broken body from chronic pain & injury
  • Hiding behind a mask not being my true self
  • In 4k of debt and no progress in any area of life I wanted
  • No clue of my passion/purpose after failing as a soccer player
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 thing 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)
 
That hit me like a right hook.
 
I was like holy shit, I have literally tried 2 or 3 things, and I’m sitting here like that kid being like ”I can’t find my passion”.
 
Gary Vee gave me the reality check I needed. The harsh truth that snapped me out of the society induced entitlement.
 
Thinking it will land on my lap like everything does these days with instant gratification.
 
I needed to try more shit.
 
If you have not found something you are passionate and willing to suffer for yet, you need to:
  • Try more shit
  • Do more of what you like
  • Do less of what you don’t
By following this very simple advice, it will close the doors to things you realise you don’t want to do anymore, and open ones to things you want to try.
 
That was Garys advice, so that’s what I did. I followed the results to see where it would take me.
 
Through this strategy, you will find over time that you will start to identify the sparks.
 
3) Follow The Sparks
 
One of the things I decided to try with my new approach was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
 
I had done 3 mixed martial arts classes in college. I remember thinking that I didn’t really like the boxing, but the stuff on the ground was pretty cool and fun.
 
With college life and drinking as the priority back then, I never went back after the 3 classes.
 
But through analysing the ‘shit’ I had tried in my life, I could see that Jiu-Jitsu was a small spark for sure. Cool, lets try it again and see if that spark turns into a flame or if it dies out.
 
I looked up some Jiu Jitsu gyms in Dublin and went into a few asking for information. A friend happened to be going to one near where I lived so I ended up joining there. (Brazier Jiu-Jitsu)
 
Within a few months I knew I would do this for life. That spark had turned into a passion.
 
I was willing to suffer on the mats to learn the skills physically & mentally that were improving my life.
 
Over 5 years later, I’m a purple belt in the same gym. I will do Jiu Jitsu for life. And I am in the process of helping with the coaching in the club.
 
What else had I a spark for? The human body.
 
There is a gap in the ‘starting Jiu-Jitsu again’ story to the purple belt. I had so much chronic pain during and after class that I had to stop. I took a full year out as a white belt to try and sort these issues.
 
It got so bad that I had to stop Jiu-Jitsu & the gym. Depressing as I had just found something I finally had passion for again after soccer, but now my body wasn’t capable of doing it.
 
At 25, it looked like my athletic pursuits could be over. For someone who has been an athlete all of my life up to that point, I just couldn’t comprehend this fate.
 
I couldn’t settle for that life. I’m afraid of the man I would become.
 
This was the origin of my physical freedom journey and the guywhodidntsettle story. (watch the documentary here).
 
I had 2 choices:
  • I could either become obsessed with the body and figure out a way back
  • Stay retired forever & filled with regret for the rest of my life
After having the pain of giving up on my soccer career in recent memory, and the thoughts of my life not involving sports & activities I love, the biggest passion of my life started.
 
This was it, the first time in my life that I committed to not settling.
 
The first time in my life as a man that I finally planted my flag and committed to it at all costs. No matter the obstacles, no matter the outcome.
 
All the experts & odds are against me, but IDGAF. I will get mobile or die tryin’.
 
And since you know what passion is now (willing to suffer for something), I couldn’t have been more passionate.
 
I still remember the moment where learning about the human body went from a necessary passion for me, to a passion I might pursue outside of myself to help others.
 
I was in my sitting room at home googling things on the body & mobility. One led to the next, and to the next. I was there for hours. I couldn’t tell you how long.
 
Time disappeared. It went into the night. I felt so in the moment, captivated by every word I was reading. It’s only when I came out of this flow zone, that I knew the body is another passion of mine.
 
Now you can see how ‘trying more shit’and ‘following the sparks’ led me to some passions.
 
Two of the many sparks I followed, had started to turn into small flames: Jiu-Jitsu & mobility training.
 
Through this process, I ended up with a final spark: evolutionary biology.
 
I read a book called ‘The Story of the Human Body” by Daniel Lieberman.
 
That book blew my mind and changed my life.
 
I had never looked at the human body or our species in the same way since. Information from this books underpins one of the education modules in the Physical Freedom Program (LINK)
 
It’s documents 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.
 
Now we had a 3rd passion: Evolutionary biology/psychology.
 
So my 3 sparks turned to flames over time were:
 
1) Jiu-Jitsu
2) Mobility training
3) Evolutionary biology/psychology
 
I remember thinking “yeah thats great and all, but how do I make money off this?! How do I make this my career?! It’s just random shit.
 
But in Gary Vee’s video, he had already addressed this point. He said you don’t worry about this starting off, as it will subconsciouly force you down avenues you think you have to go down to make money. Even thought it may not actually be a passion.
 
So I took that advice and tried to drop any expectation and plan around where this would lead.
 
I was working in my 9-5, I had my ‘early retirement extreme’ plan to retire at 40ish, and in the meantime I was cultivating my passions.
 
I’m not where I want to be, but I’m ok.
 
I finally took ownership of my life and was doing something about it. I was moving in the right direction. I was at peace.
 
And then one day what happens?
 
I’m on instagram and I come accross a new profile – Dewey Nielsen. 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
  • He is a Jiu-Jitsu black belt
  • He is a Mobility Coach
I’m getting shivers now remembering that feeling.
 
….”wait a fucking minute….this guy is doing all the 3 things I am passionate about! But what’s his job?! What’s his 9-5?!”
 
I scanned his whole page. Googled him. Looked him up. Did the research.
 
He had no 9-5.
This is what he does.
This IS his career.
This is his life.
 
If he’s doing it, why can’t I?!
 
And that’s what you should be thinking when you look at my life.
 
You can take a ‘why me’ or a ‘try me’ attitude in these situations.
 
And I was all try me after settling for so long beforehand.
 
That was all the proof I needed. All the random dots on this new journey of ‘trying new shit’ and ‘following the sparks’ were aligning.
 
It’s important to realise here that you can only see the obvious pattern when you look back on it.
 
Moving forward is like walking through fog. It will only be clear in hindsight the dots have aligned.
 
As Kierkegaard said: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
 
So what did I do? I backed up my aspirations with my actions.
 
I 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 had passion to burn for this now. I got time. I’ll learn as I go.
 
The starting points don’t matter, it’s your attitude & approach that determines your progress.
 
Jesus nearly 6 years ago now. Here’s me and Dewey below. He’s the one of the left who looks like a model for Calvin Klein.
 
 
Another life changing moment happened at that seminar. On the first day we were all standing around and I saw f**king Kswiss 15 feet from me.
 
Holy shit.
 
I had just followed him a few months ago on Instagram and was absolutely amazed by what he could do with his body.
 
He was like 6”3, 100kg plus, an animal, and he was doing the front & 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 Kevin.
 
I’m naturally pretty introverted, but I forced myself to go over.
 
You might not get this chance again Mark! I went over like a fan at a Justin Bieber concert probably. But to my surprise, he was very friendly & accommodating.
 
He was chatting to me for a while and let me be in his group for the course over the weekend.
 
A successful mobility coach, a big name in France who has coached elite famous soccer players, tennis players, and he’s here talking to a skinny recruiter from Dublin who says he wants to be a coach!
 
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 at one point Kevin telling me he knows I will be a great coach. That he can see the passion in me and I will kill it. He said I would be one of the best coaches.
 
I was so embarrassed that someone like him would say that to me. Embarrassed 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 thought 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 taught me the impact someone’s words can have on you.
 
One sentence he has probably long forgotten, has stayed with me for life.
 
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 make my first mobility post like I told Kswiss I would.
 
And what happens? Kswiss DM’s me on Instagram “where’s that first post? I don’t see it”.
 
Oh fuck. “I’ll have it up by Sunday I swear!”. Double fuck!!
 
I used to be all fluff, but I had committed to becoming a man of my word by then. If I make a promise I will keep it.
 
At around 11pm on that Sunday night, I made my first post.
 
A few weeks later, I got my first client, and the rest is history. It all snowballed from there.
 
So there we go. That’s how the journey got started!!!
 
What a random empowering journey it was. I never thought I’d be here, but that’s the beauty of it.
 
You don’t know life will take you. Your passions are constantly evolving and changing. I have moved onto coaching other things since the mobility. That’s how it works.
 
Nothing is set in stone, its a constant process of cultivating your passions.
 

Following Your Own Path (Ikigai)

 
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 this 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 a flame or it will die out.
 
Either way: it was the right decision. Because 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 crucial checkpoints on your own path that will all make sense once you look back over it in years to come. With that 20/20 hindsight vision.
 
When you find your passion(s), you can move to the next step if you want.
 
This is where you find the intersection of:
  • meaning
  • fulfillment
  • sustainable profit
  • a useful service to the world
It takes time. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle you don’t have the map for.
 
Keep laying down pieces each day until you see the patterns. Brick by brick, you will build your future.
 
I only realised afterwards 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 at the intersection of:
  • Doing what you love
  • Doing what you are good at
  • In something the world needs
  • In something 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.
 
I took random bits from wise men of the west to show how I found my passion & purpose in life, then I find out the men of the east had the same forumla!
 
Humans all have the same fundamental needs and desires in life, whether you realise it or not.
 
One of them is a life of passion & purpose. Being your true self on a missin helping others in things you love.
 
If humans have no passion or purpose, they stray towards pleasure. To meet our needs in more destructive ways.
 
Do you think a drug addict wants to be miserable? No, they are escaping something. 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 drug addiction.
 
You see how in one scenario he’s a hero, and in the other scenario he’s a villain. But its the same human, just led down different paths.
 
As you can see in most people (including myself): usually your passion/purpose is linked to solving your own problems. Solving the issues that plagued your life.
 
Why does this work? Because YOU are the target market. You have been through it and know the way out, so you can speak to people like the younger you as you know exactly what’s its like.
 
You know what they are going through, and what they need to hear.
 
How did I build a business coaching people in:
 
1) Physical Freedom
2) Mental Freedom
3) Lifestyle Design
 
It’s because for most of my life I struggled & settled for:
 
1) Chronic pain & injury  (Had to give up sports & activities I loved. Lost my Physical Freedom)
2) Social anxiety & not being my true self (Lived behind a mask. Imprisoned by my own mind. No Mental Freedom)
3) Stuck in 9-5s I had no passion & purpose for (Building someone else’s vision over my own. No Lifestyle Design blueprint)
 
At 23, I finally committed to building the life true to myself or die trying. For me, and nobody else.
 
But once I:
 
Regained my Physical Freedom and got back to sports I love.  Attained Mental Freedom and became who I knew I could be. Created the Lifestyle Design that I wanted.
 
My purpose since then is to inspire & educate others on the same path. Those who don’t want to settle for anything less than the life true to themselves. I quit my Facebook job in 2019 to pursue this full time and never looked back.
 
You can turn your mess into your message.
You can turn the poison from your life into a tonic for others.
We all have our medicine to offer the world.
 

If you are ready to cultivate your passion & purpose, join us in the Lifestyle Design University.

Don’t Settle,
Mark