Marc Convey

[00:00:00] Hello listeners, this is a short announcement. On the 28th of November, David and I will

[00:00:08] have our first live podcast, our first live show in Brighton. We're opening the doors

[00:00:14] at 6.30. We have all the details in the show loads. So join us on the 28th of November

[00:00:21] from 6.30 in Brighton for our first ever Men Up Men Down live show. insights as a powerful speaker, promoting mental health, wellness, and chasing dreams despite obstacles. Mark is also an accomplished entrepreneur and creative professional, bringing his unique talents to various industries. Discover how his passion and expertise can help you achieve your goals. So that was very much scripted, as you probably would have noticed, but it's a great summary. Mark and I spoke a few weeks ago now, before the summer

[00:01:45] time of recording is just after the summer. It's literally the first of London, nothing really to write home about, but everything changed on the 31st of July 1992 when I suffered serious burn injuries while on on Holiday Island at my uncle's house. You know, pretty cliche kids, stupidly playing with matches in an area where there was some petrol around and a My mum was in the front of the ambulance. I was in the back. Were you sorry, were you conscious during all this time? No, no, no, no, I, you know, when I got into the, to the hospital in Castle Bar, you know, the, the, you know, the journey in the car in the back of my uncle's car was like

[00:04:20] pretty horrendous as you can imagine. And yeah, I find out

[00:04:23] about a new kind of pain at that'm not, you know, I don't want to rag on them too much. But you know, some some mistakes were made. But it was it was really, really tough time, you know, all my organs who are trying to give up one by one, because I think 38% of my body initially was was burned. So the biggest organ in my body was just was just open. And that

[00:05:42] put a lot of pressure on my heart, my kidneys, my liver.

[00:06:47] to. And it was only when I got to London and the Roehampton Burns unit that I realised that daily dressing change practice was way out of date and you don't need to do that

[00:06:53] anymore. So all of it was unnecessary. And my mum said to me that you would come back

[00:07:00] from into your hospital room and immediately be anxious about what was able to, I was well enough to, well, I mean, just about well enough to be able to get on a flight back to England. So I did that, but I still had to do a commercial flight, but I, you know, I got VIP treatment, you know, I got the ambulance all the way up to the bottom of the plane stairs, got

[00:08:20] back to London into a world-class burns unit with unbelievable professionals.

[00:08:26] But the reality was laid out very starkly for us. Some of them were just dressing changes, but because they were so extreme, they didn't want to put me through what I went through in Dublin, so they just put me under general anesthetic. But other ones were more skin grafts. There was bits of skin moving around because I couldn't close my eyes. So to be able to sleep, I used to have to roll my eyes back in my head. Again, with my mouth, they had to just take chunks of skin from under my arm

[00:09:43] just do all this.

[00:09:44] For 1992, it's I think definitely all those things. It's funny because I've, you know, as I embark on this kind of

[00:11:00] inspirational career, I'm also writing a book in the background.

[00:11:03] So in the last few months, I accident, that, you know, son, and I've got, you know, I'm one of four children that my mum have got, got three siblings, and she was like, son, if I had to choose one of my children to have gone through this, I would have chosen you. And then we laughed about it. So that's not a dark thing. And I think I was very lucky that, you know,

[00:12:21] I was a gritty kid, I was competitive, I was stubborn,

[00:12:26] but I also had this big personality And then, and then to see me and then see my recovery and see the ups and downs and seeing a 14 year old child have to day in day out happen to go through operations, you know, tons of physiotherapy rehab, and then and then trying to try and continue my life as well. You know, it was assumed that I would have to drop back a year. And, and I was just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is not going to happen.

[00:14:46] CSEs with my peers was a huge motivator for me and just, it gave me that target that I needed and that fed into everything else that I was doing. So even when you had these days

[00:14:52] and bad days and suddenly I told you I have another operation and you've got to do this

[00:14:56] and I always kept that target in my mind and that was like so empowering for me and got

[00:15:03] me through those tough times. Immediately, I said, I'd be good to see Brendan, one of my best friends, he lived two roads away. But I don't think he was prepared for the sight of me at that point. And he came around and I saw the look in his eyes straight away. And I heard that he then went home and just like bawled his eyes out because he'd never realized how bad it was. But no, very, very early on, it was like, no, I'm not going to shy away from anything.

[00:16:22] I'm not shying myself away.

[00:16:23] This is me.

[00:16:25] People are going to have to get used to it. of the mental health aspect was there, you know, especially sort of, you know, if we're talking 1992, it wasn't sort of such a common topic. I mean, I don't even know if sort of PTSD was would have been recognized then. The other question was, are you still in touch with a lot of the people or any other people that treated you? Yeah, that's the really, really good question. So I'm really

[00:17:43] glad you're gone to that because I'm becoming, Nope. No, I don't see it that way. No, no, no, please don't try and put that in my head. It's like, that's not who I am. Um,

[00:19:01] and then 15 minutes into an hour session, her walking out of the, from my friends. And that was all the therapy I needed. But I also do think I'm looking back again, I've accepted that I am a bit of an outlier. And my mom has also been doing some writing recently. I want her to contribute towards the stuff that I'm gonna put out because I said before,

[00:20:21] people don't suffer trauma in isolation.

[00:20:24] And we both read this amazing book recently

[00:20:27] by Henry Fraser. And, you know, I can see the final moments of this burning garage before I pass out. And I can just look at it objectively and it just doesn't stir anything up, which is why I think I'm now 30 over 30 years on feel like I need to use this. I need to use who I am as a platform that I can share hope that I can,

[00:21:42] that just because trauma happens to you, it doesn't have to turn into PTSD. anti labels and labels for the sake of labels because I feel like that they you can they can be weaponized you know against yourself or other people can weaponize against you or they can give you excuses not to to build up this resilience and it's so important that we're we're empathic and we're compassionate and we look at those things but it's important

[00:23:00] that we balance that up with trying to build up some grit and resilience within people

[00:23:04] because if we have those two things in balance then you're going to minus one. I'm like, what is going on here?

[00:24:20] So no, I didn't I didn't have any therapy at all.

[00:24:24] But you said that is unusual.

[00:24:27] Yeah, because you said you had physiotherapy. she went to war for me. And it's, I think that the kind of leadership qualities I've got were born out of those early periods where I felt like I needed to take some of the burden off her and I really took control of my own recovery and what was happening. And I hated it when people would talk about me

[00:25:42] when I was in the room, like I was a child

[00:25:44] and not to be listened to.

[00:25:46] And I was like, don't do that.

[00:25:47] And my mum backed me up on that. to add and to grow these character traits like beyond what they ever would have been without it. So if it happened when I was 23 or 24, I probably wouldn't have had that same level of resilience and ability to grow as a person. But yes, and she's found it very therapeutic, I think, recently, going through it. And as a lot of my other family members, you know, I did a three-week

[00:27:02] trip to Ireland, and I wanted to respectfully tell, adventure and forge my own path, excused upon, to just go out there and just create my own rules. It's like I had nothing to lose now. And no one was, you know, because I've become such a strong person, no one was going to tell me otherwise. So how did your life develop since? Yeah.

[00:28:20] So a couple of key moments before we kind of get onto it was then I

[00:28:25] managed to make it back to six-room college. I felt like that. Because then by that stage, my next target was,

[00:29:41] I need to get my independence back.

[00:29:43] And for me independence was going to university

[00:29:45] and moving away from home

[00:29:46] and being able to live on my own, and eventually like, all right then, okay, we'll support you. So I went to a local mixed sixth form college and just rocked up there still wearing my plastic mask and my two best mates left school with me and came to the college with me. So I had this incredible friendship group around me as well. And then by the end of that first term in my new college, my this all over body reaction. It was like every single hero body stood up and I was like, kids, you've done it. You've absolutely done it. And for me, that was massive. I just stood out never been so proud of myself. It was like, it's like I completed this, this this in a series of games I completed the first game. And I was like, I can't believe

[00:32:22] you've actually made it to university and you can and expand your mind. And then traveling became a massive love of mine through the 20s, through my 20s. And it just broadened my horizons. I fell in love with Southeast Asia more than any of said it's not about them, it's about me and that feeling of closing the door like to your parents. What was your mum? I mean, have you spoken to your mum about

[00:35:04] that moment because I can imagine that that would have been very

[00:35:08] contrasting reaction for her on the other side of the door? I was now ready to stop and look back. And I described it in another podcast as Forrest Gump and Tom Hanks when he's running across the country and he gets to a point and he stops and he turns around. And I felt like I stopped and I turned around and I started to look back properly for the first time at all the incredible things that I'd achieved

[00:36:21] and all the people that I've gathered

[00:36:23] along the way as well.

[00:36:25] And the first people you start to think about

[00:36:26] is those closest to you. now. Yeah. So did she feel like that you'd split up split up the band, you know, split up the team? Yeah, she's yeah, she did. Yeah. And it's yeah, I mean, by that point, she, you know, she started going back to work part time by the time I was in college. So. That was the only way that I was gonna get back on track. And it just had to be, it just had to be about me because there was no capacity for anything else. And there's fallout from that. And I've got siblings that I probably took a lot of resource away from them.

[00:39:00] And that's probably impacted them in certain ways.

[00:39:04] But there was just no other way.

[00:39:06] There was just no other choice. And that led to me writing about poker, going to tournaments and covering them. And then the industry exploded, exploded across Europe. And I was in the right place at the right time. So all of a sudden, for me kidding myself that this could have been a career path, suddenly it became a very, very realistic career path. And I spent the next 10, 12 years traveling around

[00:40:20] the world, writing about poker, and then the and hats, the cigars, the dark room in the back of a saloon, and the old school kind of rogue gamblers, and then the internet happens, and all of a sudden it became very much about data and statistical analysis and plugging leaks in your game

[00:41:43] and looking back and being able to analyze.

[00:41:45] So these online kids who first of all, rose as the glass got bigger, as the cream that rose to the top. And I still had aspirations of playing and winning that big amount, but it didn't happen. And more and more and more, my focus became just becoming like the best I could at the media side. And it still allowed me to be around the action and travel

[00:43:02] around the world staying four and five star hotels. There was

[00:43:06] so much money floating around the people, for the characters, it's probably not for poker tournaments was going because people could follow live blogs, they could watch live streams, but then video content because of smartphones and tablets was not in line with it. So I saw a gap. So with the backing of one of my other clients, Unibet,

[00:45:42] and this amazing guy who worked there called David Pomeroy,

[00:45:45] he was like, this is a thing, do it. to transfer my personal brand onto the brand of the company and to be able to oversee things because people are so used to me being there. But it was fun. I flew teams of people to Russia UK smart grant to do some digitalization and AR stuff with menus, and to try and cut down food waste. That went because I said you're never going to get it all the money's going to go to people trying to innovate our way out of you know, this situation we're

[00:48:20] in. So that was incredibly stressful kind of 2021 Christmas and New Year, I think to me, did Christmas with the family or whatever, and then I hibernated for a week. And I wasn't in a press state. But I'd always, I'd always found

[00:49:40] the answers like deep inside of myself, you know, from the very

[00:49:43] beginning. And I just needed to do. As I said earlier in the podcast, I disappeared off the whales, had some solitude time. I put some videos up, which my team asked me to do. First time I'd ever done it on LinkedIn, of just me walking around a woods or by waterfall or along the coastline, just sharing my thoughts. I just blew up anything compared to what I tried to put out.

[00:51:04] These amazing videos that we were producing,

[00:51:06] they'd get some traction good that it made me realize that I didn't actually want to be CEO of the company that I was helping to co-found.

[00:52:22] Yeah, I had to have some difficult conversations with one of my co-founders.

[00:53:27] and creating content, I just needed then to apply all that to myself and share my story with the world, you know, resilience, positivity, mindset, and get out there and be a motivational speaker.

[00:53:33] And I was finally at that place that I was rock solid.

[00:53:38] You know, I was going into the retreat and I'd seen my God, it's like 30 years. And suddenly this has happened to me. There was the pandemic, which I think has really shifted, you know, the world's focus towards us wanting to live a different way and how we need to look after the planet and ourselves. There's the shift in how open we are as men and the vulnerability

[00:55:04] and how much more we're sharing that even five years ago, me trying to do what I'm just ready to charge forward. Mark, midlife transition, I call it, I think often, because it is, you know, I had the sports car, I sold it again, but that's a different story. I got the tattoos, as people know, I only started three years ago, but yeah, it's that stage, I think, in our lives,

[00:56:22] plus the pandemic, I think, when we start realising

[00:56:25] what do we actually wanna do and we start questioning. But yeah, it sounds like you've got an amazing family. Anyway, folk jump in, jump in now, please. I felt the same. It's very engaging. So listening to you, it's just so inspiring. My suggestion would be let's do a part two. We often say that to our guests, but you're writing your

[00:57:44] book once you've written your book. Let's do a preview of your book or something like

[00:57:48] that. that comes to my mind is survivor, right? You're a real survivor, but it's not only physical, but it's mentally. And I think it's so fascinating to see that, and so good to see that, and so inspiring. And hence, I think your writing is a book, which obviously helps you in terms of their point of view, and it's a book from your mom as well. Maybe you can get your mom in as well,

[00:59:01] and I have a podcast together, and just talking about the experience to write this book. And

[01:00:05] You know, I need to clear out what my life was the last 30 years, you know, 40 years, and all the shit I've gone through. But I'm going to look forward and I want to make,

[01:00:10] you know, the second part of our life, you know, there's a part that really counts. You know,

[01:00:15] you mentioned a couple things, I think, balancing the universe, you know, I love that. And, and I,

[01:00:20] you know, I think a lot of people go through that. And so I think it's spot on.

[01:00:24] And when you plan to publish the book with that and then coming through it

[01:01:43] It might be a bit of admiration for people that start charities do causes fundraising off the back of trauma. And they're doing really good things in their areas from a place of pain. But they're also sometimes doing it to heal themselves. And

[01:03:04] I never wanted to do that. pointed it over to an imaginary person in the corner of the pub and I said, there's a person over there that's to the outside world

[01:04:25] looks perfect.

[01:04:25] You know, the Instagram cutty cooker perfect.

[01:04:29] Yeah.

[01:05:24] Adversities that we face through life, you know roadblocks mountains climb, whatever

[01:05:28] Can learn from my way of thinking and that's that's why I'm doing this

[01:05:35] well, so if someone wants to book you in for a speech or

[01:05:37] for well for

[01:05:43] Inspiring them. Yeah, how can they get hold of you? The best way is they contact me on LinkedIn and