George Gallagher

Full transcript: George Gallagher on London Real

0:00 I am here with George Gallagher, recent graduate of the Life Accelerator. Tell us about you, where you’re from, what do you do? Thank you, it’s really great to be here. I’m 24 years old, I’m from a bit outside London, near Reading, and at the moment I’m a management consultant with one of the big four accountancy firms.

0:27 And how I got into that, I did a physics degree at university, and then decided actually, after four years of learning about space and all these complex equations, that that wasn’t what I wanted to do. There wasn’t enough people interaction in that field, and really I thought it’d be interesting to learn about business, so I took this job as a consultant.

0:53 And after a year and a half of that I found I learnt so much in that time, so much about business and about myself, and I’ve never worked so hard and enjoyed it so much. At school and university I coasted a bit, I found it easy to just kind of do well, and this really pushed me, and so I really loved doing that and learning so much.

1:18 And then I sort of realised that this is, that growth that I was seeing in that area of career, I wanted that for my personal life as well. I’ve been pursuing kind of self development for a while. And I was seeing so much improvement at work, and not in my personal life. That’s kind of what encouraged me to take the plunge with the Life Accelerator, and it’s, yeah, really been amazing.

1:46 Okay, I remember your video you did down by Tower Bridge, right? Yes, exactly. We have all sorts of different people in this course, but you have a pretty unique story. You’re young. You’re obviously finding success in your life, and a lot of times people then, they don’t look for other success. So I think it’s really interesting that you’re like, okay, this is going well, let me see if I can do that in all aspects. Yes. Which is interesting. Why London Real?

2:10 Why London Real? Well, I found London Real by accident. It was my bad habits of procrastinating a little bit. Instead of revising for exams, ’cause I knew that I didn’t have to do that much, I would just be doing research on the internet, and I was watching various people like Elliott Hulse and then stumbled across London Real. Watched a few episodes, then went away from it again, and then rediscovered it not that long ago.

2:41 And got back into it and was really loving the message, and the guests, and I could see your evolution from watching older episodes and then watching newer episodes. And then I saw the Life Accelerator and just thought, right, I need to go for this. This seems perfect for where I am, because I know you had an engineering background, and I was kind of like, that’s a little bit like me.

3:07 And I could see your journey from being in very, very corporate environment and then coming out of that. And at the time I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to stay with what I was doing. So I just thought, right, I’m gonna go for this and take the plunge. You said after the course if you’re not satisfied you can get your money back.

3:31 I was like, right, well if it’s rubbish, I’m going to be there saying, “I want it back,” but it’s the opposite. I feel like I would have, knowing now, I would have paid more. Yeah, ’cause you’re there in December, I mean, it’s a reasonable investment. What made you like say, “Okay, I’m just gonna go for it”?

3:48 Yeah, I just thought, actually thinking about it, I’ve got some cash lying around and I’d been thinking, do I want to invest this in something. And I thought, I think it was Mark Cuban, billionaire investor. He said keep cash, don’t invest it, because he gets this amazing night’s sleep, because he’s not worrying about all this money doing different things and could it go up or could it go down.

4:20 And the interest rates are awful at the moment, and I just thought, “Why not invest in myself?” because that’s the most important thing I’ve got. You can invest in something that makes your money make more money, but then you’ve just got more money, and if you don’t know what to do with it, or if you’re doing the wrong things with it, then it’s completely a waste of time. So I decided to take that and invest it in myself. Wise words. Yeah, thank you.

4:44 All right, you join us, Jan. 3rd comes around and you start. Module 1, Facebook group, 60 people from around the world, first call. What are your first impressions of the course? Yeah, ’cause I joined it really for me, I hadn’t appreciated the benefit that I would have from the group. I saw the idea of the accountability, I thought was great, but I hadn’t really conceptualised it. That there would be this amazing group of people who were coming on the journey with me.

5:15 And I mean people pay thousands for MBAs largely because of the network you get, and being in the green room just now talking to some of these people from other parts of the world, and I’ve watched all their videos and feel like I kind of know them, and now we finally get to meet. And it’s just amazing to have this support group of these like-minded people. But I joined, yeah, January third.

5:39 I got my intro video out the way before Christmas. One of the first ones, thought I’d go for it, and then had a really long extended New Year’s celebrations with my friends in a mansion in the countryside, came back and then was like, “Oh, this is gonna be a lot of work to do this,” and I procrastinated a little bit on getting my second video out, and then I got into the swing of it, and really went for it with all the exercises and was kind of diligently going for it.

6:12 Actually, interestingly, thinking about it afterwards, and I’ve been continuing to reflect, and that’s something I found really valuable, was those four questions you asked. “What are you afraid of?” “What are you putting off ’cause it’s uncomfortable?” “What’s your purpose?” “What would a high performance person do?” And I was reflecting on those more and more.

6:32 And Alex Biggs, one of the other graduates, his review at the end of it, he was saying, “I’m going to show you who I am,” and I realised that I really need to do that more, and I hadn’t done that as much on the course. I’d kinda played my style that I’ve been doing for a while, which is kind of being a bit too measured, a bit too reserved. It all came down to a fear of social embarrassment really.

7:02 And that you would put your authentic self out there, and get rejected, and then that would be uncomfortable. So I was playing it safe, and I found that I was always, when meeting new groups, I would be too quiet, because I didn’t want to make a bad impression, but actually being quiet is an impression in itself, and I felt I even did that on this course. I was diligent and followed all the steps, and got great results, but I wasn’t broadcasting myself authentically.

7:35 So I’ve set some rules. Actually one I applied last night, which was if I’m at an event and they ask for volunteers, I’m the first hand up. Say, “Who wants to come do the Wim Hof on stage?” I was like, “Yes, that’s me.” Yeah. Right. That’s great. And then I regretted afterwards not actually, at any point in the night, getting the microphone and saying something and projecting myself more.

7:59 But on the walk here I actually filmed, I owed you the last four questions video, I hadn’t done that. So I filmed it on the way here over Tower Bridge, so kind of harking back to my first video, but I was surrounded by all these people walking, and just talking about what I’m afraid of really loudly in front of all these people that I was walking past. Yeah, good. It felt pretty good. Very powerful. Yeah.

8:23 Yeah, I still say my affirmations out loud, and now I actually force myself to say them louder when someone walks by me. Yeah. Well, the worst one is when they overtake me, and I’m like, “Okay, so now they’re gonna hear all them.” Yeah. Yeah, you can hear them just over your shoulder, and I’ve been doing it too, saying them out loud, and it’s very weird. Or when I’m just behind someone, and they start looking round at you, and you’re like, “Yeah.” I look them in the eye now. So you can show them who you are. I’m doing this, yeah, exactly.

8:49 What was your big “aha” moment on the course, where you’re like, “Okay, wow, something’s happening here”? I’m stringing something together, where you notice something change? Yeah, at very early on, the mindset. I’ve wanted to meditate for a while. I’ve known the benefits of it, but never been able to find the time to just sit there. I realise actually it’s a false economy, because by taking that time I save so much time.

9:15 ‘Cause I’m quite calm and measured, I don’t meditate to stop me being angry or anything like that, but really for me it’s to quieten the fog and the distraction in my mind, and by taking that time I gain more time in the day ’cause I’m more focused. But the low media diet combined with the daily meditation gave me so much more time and space and focus, that I found that really profound. I was already doing the gratitude, but those two combined were really powerful.

9:46 And then actually the diet, I had quite a healthy based diet, and then I would just mess it up when I was on busy projects by snacking on sugary rubbish, but my base diet was okay, and I kind of went into, you said at the beginning “trust the process,” and I was kind of thinking with the diet that I would say, “Oh, I don’t want to do that, gluten free is a fad or something like that,” but I said, “Okay, I’ll trust it, I’ll just do it all.”

10:12 And it’s actually changed my relationship with food. Particularly the earth grown nutrients idea, and now there were particular vegetables that I was fussy about when I was younger. Don’t like tomatoes, don’t like cucumber, don’t like sweet corn, and then this week, every week I’ve been having this salad from the canteen at the client I’m at, and it’s cucumber, there is tomato, there’s all these things that I used to hate, and I’m actually enjoying, really enjoying it, because it feels so vibrant and healthy to have that.

10:44 So it’s been a mindset shift from just being, I think before I was staying lean because I was applying willpower and discipline, and now it’s easy because I just enjoy eating those vegetables and all that stuff. Like making my own hummus. Eat it with raw celery and stars. I would have laughed at that. A year ago, thought that’s just vegetarian, what is that? There’s macho meat, that’s what it’s all about, lifting weights, and then I’d already had the paradigm shift with movement from watching that Ido Portal episodes.

11:19 Yeah, you busted out some crazy moves on those videos. Yeah! And I didn’t recognise you. I know. Yeah, you had the movement down, but it’s so simple, because if you are a calm person, to say, “I don’t need the meditation,” or if you have a great diet, to say, “Oh, I can eat the gluten,” or “I can eat the sugar, ’cause I’m pretty skinny.” Yeah. The whole point is that these are to get you to even more optimal level. Yeah.

11:38 So that you might get an extra five or 10% from these practices, and it’s a game changer. Exactly. And by eating great portions of healthy vegetables, all of a sudden you’re just jacked even higher up. Yeah. With energy. Yeah, that’s why I took it, because some people I know on the course at quite a low point in their life and they’ve seen these amazing transformations.

12:00 I was not in that place, I was kind of in a good place, but I wanted to take things to the next level, and I knew I couldn’t do that just by myself, and that’s why I really went for the course, was to take everything really up to a next level. Yeah, what’d you struggle with? What did I struggle with? The relationships was hard, I have to say. Phoning those people up was difficult, but very rewarding, I think.

12:28 The mentor exercise, actually, I realised that I was procrastinating on it. I suppose partly because it was the end of the course, and there wasn’t that accountability so much, because it was kind of like it’s over. But one thing I think was because I was in between, for quite a bit of the course, I was in between two different projects at work. So I was having a little bit of down time. It was a lot easier to stick to it.

12:57 Talking to one of the guys from Oz, who’s staying up at four in the morning to join the live calls. He said, “I found it so tough,” but I said, “That’s amazing, because you’ve still stuck to it, and now when you don’t have to do that it’s plain sailing.” Whereas I was the opposite, I found it easier on the course, and I know I’m gonna go into busy project environments.

13:18 And this week I just started a new project, and it was full pace, you’re with a team, longer hours, and then you’re living in a hotel with them and it’s totally full on, and people always say on these away projects that you put on a lot of weight, because you’ve got a hotel, and you’ve got the expenses for your dinner, and so you’re just eating in restaurants every night, and so you have the dessert, you drink as a team.

13:47 So I just found out, I knew it was coming, and I had to prepare for that, so I wrote down how am I going to maintain my meditation, how am I going to fit it in, how am I going to maintain my eating practice. Okay, well, just hard and fast. No drinking in the week. No dessert at the restaurant, no gluten, and just be really rigid with it.

14:11 People, when they see that, there’s a little bit of “Why aren’t you drinking?” or “Come join in,” and then they see that and they really, actually they appreciate it. They respect what you’re doing. So having planned for it, now that’s kind of the struggle. I didn’t struggle so much on the course, it was more, “Okay, I know I will have more obstacles to overcome.” So it’s going to be interesting to watch it play out over this year.

14:38 Yeah, well it’s good you’re putting that stuff into place, because as we saw on the course, it’s like everyone’s going to face resistance this year. And the question is, do you bounce back into the old you, that says, “Oh, I’m on the project, I’m in hotels, I’m supposed to drink with the team, otherwise I look like an outsider,” or are you just gonna set your standards and be who you know is gonna be the best you.

14:57 It’s going to make you perform much better during the day. And like you said, your team will actually respect you. Yes. Because they’ll be like, okay, that guy’s got his game on. Yeah. So it’s amazing how that stuff plays out. Yeah. New Year’s Eve, or the day before, we got a call with everybody. Yeah. Who is George gonna be on that day?

15:16 Yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to that being authentically me and projecting that much louder. Over the last year, looking back from New Year’s 2017, this is looking back over this year, I will have been doing things like ten vlogs in ten days. I’m gonna make myself do things like that, to really push myself to express myself, and I know I’ve got an affirmation that involves that.

15:45 And it says that will draw more admirers, it will also draw more critics, but I’m comfortable with that. So I think I’ll be expressing myself much more authentically and bravely, and actually pushing myself to do that. Then of course I will have spent the whole year with these habits, instilling them, making them rock solid, and they will have just taken me to a next level in terms of the movement, the weight loss, staying lean.

16:15 The relationships, cutting them down, prioritising the few, and then really spending that time, and that’s gonna be a key support for me. Okay. At the start of the course I said a big decision for me was, “Do I stay in this job or do I go do something else?” And that was something I wanted to work out, and having meditated on it, doing the… excuse me, doing the three hour walk that we had to do, and meditating on it all, I realised there’s maybe nine different areas of consulting within what I do.

16:47 And at the end of the scheme I’m on you pick one, and at the start I didn’t know which I was interested in, and getting to the start of this course I was like, “Do I want to keep doing this or do I want to do something else?” And I’ve now zoned in and said, “Okay, this is the one area I’m gonna focus on, promotion in the summer, that’s what I want to do, and I can definitely get at least another year of valuable growth.”

17:12 Because for me it’s the learning and the growing that really lights up my eyes, the fire in my eyes. Learning new stuff, developing myself, and I know at some point it will become comfortable, and then I’ll have to move on, but I feel really good that I’ve, now for the rest of the year I know exactly what I’m doing. What I’m gonna get out of it. Good, I don’t wanna hear another person that quit their job, so thank you. Thanks to me.

17:41 Say we walked out in the street and we happened to bump into, by Tower Bridge, the old George, what do you notice about him, the guy that didn’t take this course? The old George, well if you bumped into him in the street, he would probably kind of mumble “hello” as he was walking past, whereas the new George would see you coming and say, “Brian, how are you? How was that thing that you were doing last week that you told me about?”

18:07 So the old George would be less engaged, less energetic. I think I was just too calm and measured and placid and too much of a people pleaser, and being that nice guy and not really, you know, if you please everyone you don’t ever really get that amazing connection, and you also don’t get that strong negative impulse, but you don’t really excite anyone.

18:43 And I think I was just, I’d love it when I met with someone that was high energy, because then my energy went up with them, and I found that to be a much more comfortable state, but then it’s producing that from within, that energy, and I don’t think I had that before. Yeah, good. I think now it’s growing every day. Yeah, and I want to see a lot more of that coming up.

19:08 Someone’s watching this right now and they’re thinking, “I don’t know, I might take this course, I might not take this course.” What do you tell them? It depends where you’re at, but where I was at, it just seemed like exactly the right thing. I hesitated about the money particularly, but I just went for it.

19:30 I knew that there was the guarantee, that was kind of what, part of what did it was, “If it’s awful they said they’ll give me my money back.” Okay, I trust London Real as a brand and as a company, you’re not just some random person on the internet that’s gonna walk away with my money. I’d say just do it. It was the down payment, you might put another word in there, but it was that group, that accountability that I’ve just never seen on other online courses before, never seen it offered, and that was what really did it for me.

20:03 I bookmarked the time for the different live calls and things, that was the spreadsheet, and that just really kept me to task when I could easily have just not done it. I’ve been busy, I’ve got this and that going on, making excuses, and it was that accountability that really got me to do it, and that was what I valued most, I think, was just it made me do it.

20:30 So if you’re someone that’s got the right intentions, but struggling to make it happen, those habits stick. Then I’d say really go for it. And I shared my experiences in a review, and it got five thousand views on LinkedIn. Yeah, that’s crazy. And I wasn’t really expecting that, and I’ve had people, partners at the company I’m at, saying, “I want you to come and speak to my team about your experiences,” and “I want to hear about it,” and so it’s opening up all these things.

21:08 Wow, and that’s just you being authentic you. Exactly. And so that’s incredible. I feel this about you and I’m so glad you’ve recognised this about you. Yeah. And I think you probably got that through the meditation and the low media diet, because if you weren’t doing that stuff it’s easy to kind of go on in our lives, you can get very high on your own success.

21:29 And you can be like, no, no, I got this, I’m doing this, but to recognise that you need to be more of you, I think is great, because I see a lot of power inside you, George. I see a bad motherf***er, and I know sometimes, especially in the business you’re in, and the background you’re in from school, ’cause I was in the same ballpark. Yeah. It’s not always in your interest to pop outside of the statistical bell curve. Yeah.

21:56 At the same time you’re never gonna really make a big impression that way. You’re never gonna start a company that way, you’re never gonna make partner that way really, or make a big movement. You need to really be you and jump out, and I think people want that from you. So I would love to see you, and I think you’re gonna be shocked how much people resonate with you when you decide to just belt it out your chest and yell a little bit louder.

22:21 Yeah. You’ll find what’s probably happening right now, people are connecting with you about this blog post you wrote. Yeah. Well, that’s great, I’m so glad you’ve seen a little bit of a taste of that. Yeah, I’m definitely getting a taste for it, and I just want so much more of that. Good, well that’s a huge win, man, that makes me happy right there for the whole course. I see the way you move and things like that, and I was like, wow, that’s a special guy.

22:46 And you’re right, you didn’t broadcast yourself enough on this course, because I don’t remember hearing you “boom” and be like, “Oh, that’s who that guy is.” Yeah. So now hopefully you’re gonna show me who you are. I am. Like Nigel Benn. Yeah. And about Mr. Biggs, well imperth. Yeah. And then I can’t wait to hear you on this call and watch your progress the rest of the year, to hear about these monthly calls you’re gonna be on and everything you’re gonna kill.

23:09 Yeah. Thanks so much for being on this course, trusting us, giving back to the group as much as you did, and it’s been an honour having you. It’s been an absolute honour being here, so thank you so much. Cool man, thank you much, man.