And then when I stopped playing football and I went to the college, I lost this. And I'm from North Dublin, not from a especially wealthy family, middle class family, unapologetically. And I went into UCD, which was typically a lot more upper class from my degree. And I went in and I was definitely self-conscious about what I was wearing. And I was definitely self-conscious about speaking up in class in case I said the wrong thing or because my accent didn't sound like everyone else. I was self-conscious about expressing opinions. I was worried that my opinions weren't correct, whatever that was. And, you know, thinking back, this is quite rational. Now with the benefit of hindsight and some time on my hands to look back and research some of this stuff, this concept of fitting in and we all try and do it. And it's actually quite, you know, it's quite innate. It's quite built into us because for thousands of years societies we've been built around the idea of tribes and herds and communities. So that human instinct is to fit in. And that worked amazing for thousands of years because that concept of fitting in, it protected us. If you look at any of the David Attenborough stuff, who were like the gazelles that get picked off in the wild? So the ones that get separated from the herd, because when you're separated from the herd, you're weak. And that's what it was like for a long time. You didn't want to separate yourself from the herd because you'd be picked off. But now this new culture of fitting in is different Because the idea of fit-in now is, it's very artificial, it's manufactured and fit-in is, it's maintenance of the status quo. And the status quo goes to serve a 1% that goes to suppress free thought, goes to suppress independent expression. And if you're a reader of any philosophy, like Nietzsche, the great philosopher, and he speaks about the herd animal, something eager to play is sickly in mediocre. And that's what it becomes when we fit in with the herd, when we're a part of that now and we're afraid to express opinions for fear of others, judging those opinions, we become that sickly mediocre, we become that nine to five drone who's just not happy in themselves, who's not contributing to society, who's just ultimately not living that as I speak about on this podcast all the time, life is a daring adventure and nothing at all. And I lost that for a long time. I lost that thing that my dad gave me at an early age, this idea that you're never as good as they say and you're never as bad as they say. I lost that indifference and I started to care what people taught me. And I can't remember the tournament point, but I remember some point around my final year in Kings Inn and Law School. And I just re stumbled on that in an old diary. I've always dioried for years and I remember stumbling on that again, you're never as good as they say and you're never as bad as they say. And I actually just stopped giving a fuck. I decided that instead of spending energy worrying about what other people taught about, how I dressed, what other people taught about, how I expressed myself, my opinions, that I was gonna use that same energy that I was given to them, that fuel, that oxygen that I was given to them, and I was gonna use it to create a life that was adventurous, that was filled of happiness, that was on my own terms. So I decided to just, we call it a complete opportunity switch. vehicle A and I decided you know what I'm moving into vehicle B. Vehicle A was very much the fast track going to law school, getting the job, getting the card I probably called in the Ford for the mortgage I called in the Ford and filling the house with material stuff and I thought that's not for me. That's when you spend your day all day you wake up in the morning you have breakfast you get your work closed ready you go to work you come home you commute home in traffic you get food ready you watch some mind-numbing Netflix TV. There's no bandwidth left for independent off for there's no bandwidth left for criticizing for figuring out what's right and what's wrong with society and imagining a different better version of society a different better version of yourself on a micro level you just don't have bandwidth left on an early stage in my journey i've said i can't do that this vehicle doesn't work for me i need a vehicle where it allows me to have bandwidth so i moved into my own lane And this is not to say that my lane is right for everyone.
But the problem in the order lane that I was in, it was always been pitched against orders, against their standards. And you can have a right and wrong when you're pitched against an objective standard from someone else. But when I switched into my own lane, there's no right or wrong. It's my own lane. I make my own, it's my own journey. It's my own, it's my own chance to, you know, to find my own past and figure out what I want to do. And that's the reason that I've been able to do things like this podcast on the YouTube video and this was kind of prompt, this whole rant, I love to do one rant podcast a week, don't I? I'm kind of, when I sit down to think about podcast days, I'm like, I'm the only one rant, I'm the only one soapbox. I set up a media company a couple of years ago and I subsequently sold it, but I called the media company soapbox and I love that idea because it was once a precursor to this podcast was the A1 Show and it was a live Facebook show We had a lot of fun with it and a lot of traction with it over two years, but ultimately it never got that sustainability and that's why I push that Patreon so hard on this platform because it might seem like this podcast is gonna be around forever But I've done this dance with the A1 show and it needs to get to that sustainable level Or else the new shiny thing comes across and I love the podcast and I don't want to lose it but when When we were thinking about a name for the the social media company. I was around the time when I was doing the A1 Show and what I love the A1 Show was. It was my soapbox. I could say whatever I wanted. Very much like this podcast and the old idea of a soapbox being something you turned upside down in the market square and you gave yourself the slightly elevated position. And you pitched your ideas to the whole community and they listened or they didn't listen. But it was your little soapbox and although the forum and the medium has changed now, his podcast is my little soapbox again. And when you're on soapboxes like this, like the A1 show, like YouTube, you can't worry about what others think. And when you're in that old lane that I was in where you're preoccupied and spending all your energy wondering and worrying about what people are thinking of you, you can't have this creativity to say, what am I going to talk about today? How am I going to express these opinions? Who is this podcast aimed to touch? Because that's what I want to do with each podcast. It's, I'm almost thinking of one person. I'm like, can I touch this person with this podcast, with this idea and make them change the direction they're on? And I have someone in mind again for this podcast today. But when you're worried about what others think all the time, you can't get this stuff done. After every podcast, after every YouTube video I do, after even a lot of Instagram posts I put out, you'll get haters, you'll get this negativity that comes back. It's a minority, but it's always a vocal minority of people. You can't say that, you can't do that, that opinion is wrong. But what you get when you're in your own lane, it's just this absolute, I don't give a fuck what you say. Because I need to get this opinion out, I know who this is for. And I will balance that with, I don't care what 99.9% of people say, but there's 0.1% of people, and I call them my compass, and I really do care what they say. And they're my family, my girlfriend, the number of close friends, and I really care, like if they're saying to me, Oh, you know, you're off the mark on that. That's out of order. That's wrong. I'll definitely take that on board. And that steers me. That gives me the direction. But the haters, the trolls, like I heard that good one. And Michael Jordan's not in your YouTube comments because people have time for that negativity. They're not the creative ones. And, you know, why I think this is an important podcast and why I think it's an important message for a lot of people is.