This is me.
I’m Sean, author of the Sober On A Drunk Planet series and books about finding the courage to change your life.
Mine has taken a few turns. I’m a former financial adviser whose own finances ended in bankruptcy through drug and gambling debt. Explaining to my boss that I couldn’t afford the petrol to get to work and advise other people on their money was an awkward conversation. The irony hasn’t left me.
Thailand, Australia and South Africa all feature in the story, along with death threats, an attempted kidnapping and, eventually, rehab. Moving countries turned out to be easier than sorting myself out.
After getting sober, I realised the corporate world no longer served me, so I left to run a golf travel business. Then Covid arrived. A business built around people going places suddenly had one fairly significant problem.
Two years sober, I found myself broke again and living on £323 a month in benefits. Apparently, sobriety hadn't come with financial immunity. I trained in counselling, qualified as a personal trainer and created Addicted2life to help people build stronger minds and bodies.
Somewhere along the way, I saved up, bought a publishing course and wrote my first book. Over 150,000 books sold worldwide later, writing is now my full-time job. Quite a turnaround for someone whose meeting minutes regularly came back covered in red corrections when I worked in finance.
I write about things I’ve lived through, drawing on my training and what I’ve learned helping others make changes of their own. There’s humour, because making a mess of your life and coming out the other side doesn’t mean you have to deliver a heroic motivational speech about it. Some of it I can laugh about now. Some of it might help you. And I’m still figuring plenty of it out myself.
You won’t find me waking up at 4am to go for a run. I hate running. I love lifting weights and making half-arsed attempts at reformer Pilates, where all six feet and 112kg of me gets a lesson in humility. At home, I have two very fluffy Siberian cats, Twiglet and Luna, who are frankly adorable.
I briefly turned professional at golf before discovering how expensive it was. Apparently, the financial adviser in me had already retired. Reading this back, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether he ever started. For the record, I was much better with other people’s money.
I still dream of winning the British Open one day, even when my scores are screaming, “You can’t even win a monthly medal.”
Golf continues to be my ultimate humbler.
Life away from the desk.
At home, much of the supervision is handled by Twiglet and Luna, two Siberian cats who have yet to show much respect for deadlines.
Author credentials.
Member of The Society of Authors and author of the Sober On A Drunk Planet series, with more than 150,000 copies sold worldwide.
