In October 2022, I got excited. It was wonderful. A euphoric confidence in my ability to take over the world had completely enveloped me. "Louis, you're the fucking man" repeated the handsome little commentator in my head, over and over. "Yeah. I fucking am" I would reply without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. My family came to visit me in Spain to celebrate my 21st birthday. I hosted them in my apartment. MY parents, sleeping comfortably in MY apartment, meeting MY friends and exploring MY city... They finally saw, with their own eyes that my life wasn't a complete shit show. I was no longer the lost little kid who gallivanted around Mexico for a few months then came back with very long hair and an unwillingness to get the covid vaccine. I had become a man, fully capable of making my own decisions and making my own money. During their 4-day long visit, I signed three new clients for my agency. I pulled in €9,032.60 in revenue that month. €6,859 in profit. Not bad for a man living on less than €1,100 a month. Here's the problem... October 2022 was the best month of business I've ever had. Not only did I satisfy my immense cravings for my parents validation, but I also pulled in a rake of cash. To say that all this "success" got to my head would be a magnificent understatement. See, my motivation for running my business was heavily dependent on two things: 1. A desperate craving for my parents' validation 2. A fear of failure, resulting in me having to move back in with my parents At the end of October, both of those boxes were ticked. So what happened to my motivation? Poof. It pulled the most impressive disappearing act of all time. From March until October, I was waking up at 6am every day to meditate, running 45k a week, lifting weights, reading books, signing clients, keeping them happy, eating like a panda bear and abstaining from poisoning my body with alcohol and cigarettes. All that disciplined work led to me having a great month in October, I got what I deserved.

When I was 16, I would spend my days wandering around the streets of Dublin, approaching strangers. Hundreds of strangers each day. Why? I was a scratch card salesman. These scratch cards were supposedly raising funds to build a hospital in the West of Ireland for patients of M.E. This is the organisation's website. Yeah, I know... Sketchy. But at the time, I didn't think twice about it. I was making a 10% commission on each scratch card I sold... €0.30 a sale. The idea of being able to earn a commission-based payout while spending my time flirting with strangers really got me excited. I put in some serious work (both in the flirting and the selling department). I would sell anywhere from 50-80 scratch cards an hour (mostly to girls around my age). I worked 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Do the math, that's pretty good money for a 16 year old. At the end of each day, we'd all be given a wad of cash. The field manager would get a cut of each sale and so would the unshaven man back at the "office". I'm pretty sure that this hospital was never actually built. But that's not the point of this story. Honestly, I'm writing this because I feel bad. Not because I worked for a dodgy charity (no regrets). But because there's a universal, negative stigma around sales... My scratch card escapades certainly added to this negative stigma. Most people, when they think of sales, they think of dirty men with a gold tooth, a cheap suit, a smell of cigarettes and greasy hands. Maybe not the greasy hands part, but you know what I mean. The idea of the "sleazy car salesman" is the first thing that pops into most peoples mind. It's become very difficult to sell anything to anyone... Everyone just assumes they're being scammed. (Again, my scratch card selling did NOT help reduce this stigma) This is an awful shame because sales doesn't need to be sleazy, scammy or snakey. Sales is beautiful. It's nothing more than a transfer of emotion.

The ages between 13-16 were a tough time in my life. I was hanging out with a bad crowd… I smoked enough weed to put Snoop Dogg to shame, I drank like a fish and saw the entire rainbow of criminal activity. I’d constantly fight with my parents... To me, they were crazy for not letting me “live my life”. Thankfully, they fought back hard, and (metaphorically) slapped some sense into me. When I was 16, they sent me to a therapist that was part of an Irish organization that gave free therapy to kids with drug addictions. I was a stoner and these guys were used to dealing with fifteen year old's who were on heroin… Not to brag, but I must have been a breath of fresh air for them. Each week I peed in a cup and talked to my therapist Shane about my feelings. Unsurprisingly, at the time, my feelings were overwhelmingly negative. I didn’t see any purpose to life, I didn’t see much reason to do anything. My philosophy was “fuck it, nothing matters”. A couple of weeks into my escapades with Shane, he started to ask me about my future, what I wanted out my life. I had no clue what I wanted… I don’t even remember how I responded. But I do remember what he said to me next. “Louis, is it crazy to think that if you found something to care about, you’d be able to enjoy your life a little bit more?” Boom… That sentence hit me like a fucking train. I don’t know if it was the sobriety, the plastic chair I was sat on or if God had just fondled me. But I had a serious moment of realization. Then and there, in that office, rowing became the most important thing in the world to me. Overnight, I pulled myself from that dark abyss and cut off all of my “friends”. I stopped smoking, I quit the drink and I started eating more protein. Within 2 years I was training for the Irish team and racing overseas. You could say I got my shit together. What changed? How did I go from being a complete degenerate to an international athletic rockstar? (maybe an over exaggeration)