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At some point in our lives we all get scared – of making the wrong decision, of not being a good parent, or that everyone will figure out we’re just making it up as we go.
I’ve spent years helping leaders work through fear, stress, and uncertainty. Now I’m making a podcast about how they face their fears and come out stronger.
It’s for founders, leaders, and business owners who feel like they’re constantly fighting uphill and not finding the balance they need to be effective at work and present at home.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:00:00 I'm Sally Ann Marie and welcome to Fearless Forward, the podcast that asks leaders how they face their fears. Today I'm in conversation with someone whose life exemplifies courage. His story is one of thriving against all the odds. 33 years ago, at the age of 14, Mark Conway suffered burns so horrific that he barely survived them. Years of painful treatment followed, starting with over 30 operations in less than four years and the prospect of being, at the very least, physically scarred for life. But Mark made a pivotal decision to take responsibility for his own recovery and not to allow trauma to define his future. With massive support from his family, friends and many others, Mark got well enough to go back to school and on to university. He moved forward step by step. He rebuilt not just his body, but his sense of who he could become. Driven by his strong belief that if you make the effort to develop the inner resources to face what has happened, you can survive any hardship and forge a new path.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:01:07 And that's what he did. For 15 years, he traveled the world doing something he loved. He became a reporter and journalist for poker tournaments and later a video producer with his own company. Over time, he realized that his real gifts were his presence and his story. Today, Mark inspires others through his writing, campaigning, and public speaking to find their own strength in adversity and to use this as a springboard for growth. And right now, he's finding the space he needs to write his first book. I'm turning the gifts of my own story, he says, into something that might help others to discover theirs. In our conversation, we explore what it means to overcome setbacks, face and uncertain future without anxiety, and work with our fears to build resilience. So, Mark, tell us there you were, a young boy, aged 14, playing with your mates. What happened?
Marc Conway 00:02:13 I was actually playing with my cousin in Ireland as a 14 years old, and I joined my first cousin, Brendan, and a friend of his at the back of his house, and they were playing with caps and matches.
Marc Conway 00:02:26 So just, you know, rapping caps, that you were putting a cap gun around some coins and throwing them to the ground or some matches and it creates a little bang. So they made bangers. I guess my cousin's friend left to go home, and we were left to us with a box of matches and the rain. There was a big electrical storm in. So this was in the west of Ireland on holiday, where most of my family are from. And we ventured inside to get cover from the rain into the garage that was adjacent to his house and just made some some silly decisions. You know, just trying to get this box of matches to flare up with the use of a bit of petrol and adolescent mistakes. And it's very, very cliche, unfortunately. To kick off this conversation with and but the petrol crown caught fire and it fell over and created a wall of flames in front of me in between myself and my cousin. Luckily, he was able to back out of the only doors that you could get in and out of the garage.
Marc Conway 00:03:27 And I think I went into panic mode for a long time. I thought that the flames came up a lot quicker than they did. And the reality is, I found out from another cousin who was upstairs in my house and raised the alarm that I probably had more time to get out than I realized. So that's something I've had to come to terms with in the last few years, when really going back into my story and trying to find out all the details of it. I froze in that moment and in that moment when freezing. I think really that was the bit of fear was we're going to get into trouble here. And I think the fear itself wasn't necessarily a primal fear of thinking I'm about to die here. It was more, oh my God, like, we're in a world of trouble. And you know, that's where a 14 year old minds go to. And having those thoughts go through in my mind. Then it was too late by the time to do anything, and the heat and the smoke meant that I passed out onto the garage floor.
Marc Conway 00:04:25 And then obviously it was huge panic outside and around me and my immediate family who were there, my mum and my little sister and my extended family are in the house. The alarm was raised and it was a battle to try and get them out. They couldn't get hold of the emergency services. This was Rural Island in 1992 and no one was even picking up. It could well be that there was already some other incidences going on with this huge electrical storm that was covering the country. And yeah, for a while, you know, they were thoughts within some of my family that they might not even find a body, let alone find me alive. And all in that time I'm lying on the floor, not on flames, thankfully. Just the you know, all the damage that you see, that you might see from many photos in your mind. It's just from pure heat. And I went into a crazy near-death experience that I won't go into, like loads of details for here. And it's something that I've not tried to make too much sense of.
Marc Conway 00:05:21 You know, I did hear voices of people that I thought might be ancestors passed. I heard my uncle's voice. He was very much alive and outside. Who was the one encouraging me to come back? Because I still had great things to do, whereas the other voices I heard were almost like guiding me towards them and saying, if you do want to come with us, it will be fine. Now, I don't know if there is an afterlife. I don't know if this is chemicals going on in my brain. That's something that I'm never going to be able to prove, so I don't spend much time dwelling on it. What I do take from that experience is that I made the choice to live in that moment, and as soon as I made that choice to live, bang, I was awake. Suddenly, bang! I was on my feet. And this is burning building all around me. And but my singular focus is on this small little shattered window, which is one of the last things I remember my cousin Brendon doing when he was running around the outside of the garage.
Marc Conway 00:06:15 He smashed it with his wrist, obviously trying to find a way to get me in, and I don't know if it was adrenaline or divine intervention or whatever, but it felt like two great hands just grabs me around the waist and my buttocks and just picked me up and just threw me through this window. So I went, propelling through this small little window, got one tiny little cut on my ankle and rolled onto the dirt outside. And then I could hear, he's out. He's out. And from my cousins and my uncle Mason, really being a secondary school teacher who'd actually just that year had health and safety training and what to do if one of your students suffered severe burns. You know, very good timing for that health and safety course. Made some critical decisions that that later gave me the 3 to 4% chance that I had of surviving. He was told that if he hadn't done those things, then I probably wouldn't have even made it to the first hospital or the second hospital. So I was bundled into the back of his car with my mum alongside me, which was, you know, probably the most horrendous journey of all three of our lives.
Marc Conway 00:07:21 The next big fear came in for me that again, I was maybe just worried about getting in trouble, or maybe I was fearful that I was about to check out, and I was just really worried that my cousin was going to get in trouble for not having a hand in anything in my life. So it became a chant almost in the back of that car of just don't like Brendon, don't blame Brendon, don't blame Brendon. And I think that kept me conscious actually, and stopped me blacking out because the pain is that you can't imagine, because no one can imagine. It was beyond anything that's possible for anyone, and thankfully, that no one has an imagination to be able to go to that place. And at one point, and I don't remember this, but this is what my mom told me within the last couple of years, since I've been going back over my story and writing about it, that I asked several times to allow them to let me tell you, because the pain was too much.
Marc Conway 00:08:15 But anyway, my uncle drove like a madman and through, you know, lightning storms and rain and the wrong side of the road and just did everything he could to get me to the local hospital, which was 10 or 11 miles away, I think, and they spent 2 or 3 hours stabilizing me. But then they needed to get me to Saint James's Hospital in Dublin, because that was the only grounds unit in the country that was capable of dealing with my injuries. But at that time in Ireland, in 1992, there was no air ambulances that could operate overnight. So I was into the back of an ambulance for our journey across country flatlined twice on the way. So they were telling my mum in the front that they were just changing drips. So I was fighting for my life in the back and they managed to get to Dublin. They put me into a coma while all my organs were trying to give up on me one by one, because the skin is our biggest organ and 38% of my skin was burnt, so that was putting huge amounts of pressure on my internal organs.
Marc Conway 00:09:13 You know, I swelled up, apparently, you know, and had the size of a balloon, a big balloon, because my head's pretty big anyway. Yeah, they stabilised me, brought me out of the coma. Then someone didn't read my medical file that had big Red writing on it, saying that was severely allergic to penicillin and that was administered to me, and that nearly killed me. So to get back into a coma. So it was it was like, you know, I'm like, come on, people, I'm trying to do my best here. Can you not step up and help me out? But anyway, we got through that and that was the initial real impact in a trauma. That was kind of the accident, part of what happened, and then a long road to recovery after that.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:09:54 A long road to recovery and over 30 operations in the few years that followed. I mean that, again, that's incomprehensible to most of us.
Marc Conway 00:10:06 Yeah.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:10:07 I mean, it sounds like an absurd question, but I have to ask it.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:10:11 What do you remember about how you felt or how your feelings evolved if they did during that period?
Marc Conway 00:10:19 It's a really interesting one. And it's it has to be sort of conscious of, of what I remember and then how I then look back and analyze what's going on. So as you know, and we'll get more into this later. I'm writing the book that's part memoir and parts of narrative non-fiction and kind of philosophical, spiritually trying to make sense of it. And our memories work in strange ways. The memories from present day. I look back and how much they are the same as the memories at the time. I'm not sure, but I'm not too fussed about that because I'm trying to use the memories in a way that serve me and the people around me today. Okay, so I think the early stage is, and this is the section in my book that I'm calling the body section, whether or not that's just a working title for me or be a in the book, I don't know. But really the body takes over to start with.
Marc Conway 00:11:14 It's pure survival, right? It's every single day. I might not make it through the night. You know, I was given a 3 to 4% chance of survival. And obviously going through that many operations, there's risk as well. And there weren't just a lot of simple operations. There were complicated operations where I was donor and recipient at the same time. So you're always doubling up, you know, the, you know, slicing bits of skin from the back of your thighs. They're cutting out chunks of flesh to fill in areas where scars have contracted, hammering pins through your hands, like moving things around. So I was being augmented all the time, so they were nasty operations to have to go through. But yeah, to start with it was just survival and not making sense of it and not thinking too much. The first two months of my recovery were in Dublin and you know, I'm sure they did their best, but they were a very inexperienced band unit recently opened and according to the world class came, I got when I got back in London and some big mistakes were made, and there was an obvious lack of trust from my family to how I was being looked after, which really got a huge emphasis on getting me back to get the best treatment I had.
Marc Conway 00:12:27 Because especially with Byrne's time as your enemy and you have to act quickly because scar tissue, if you don't treat it really quickly, it can have a huge impact on how you look for the rest of your life. And once it settles, it's relentless in its want to tighten and to rise and to pull your body in all sorts of directions. So you've got to act quickly. So I had three operations over those weeks in Dublin, which were some not very good hand operations, which left me with a lot less mobility than I would have had for the rest of my life, and some skin grafts. And then when I got back to have gone on a commercial flight as well, there was no way they could get me on any other flight. So, you know, I'm still in a really bad way and then having to go on an ailing this flight. And luckily I've got the VIP treatment and was straight to the bottom steps of the ladder, but, you know, going up and sitting in the front.
Marc Conway 00:13:21 And that was my first exposure to people seeing me as well, because at that point I was in that, you know, I looked up at Wright State. Anyway, we got me back to Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton, which sadly is no longer there anymore, but it was probably one of the best units in the world that I could have been in at that point in time. But they were very, very quick to say, and especially to my mum, like Doctor John Clark was a pioneer in the field. Absolutely. Just genius. But one of these geniuses that kind of walks and straddles the line of madness as well in the very, very old school and super blunt, didn't mess around and said it, you know, as it was, he's in a right mess and we need to get cracking as quickly as possible. And then he challenged me there as well. You know, he maybe didn't say it quite as directly as he said it to my mum, but he said it in a way to say like, are you ready for this? Because we're really going to go for it.
Marc Conway 00:14:14 And he didn't necessarily give me all the details of what was about to come, but he wanted to cheer me up and it really worked for me. You know, his style of leadership and the sort of a character traits that I had, my stubbornness, my competitiveness, these things that became my superpower. It's almost like he intuitively tapped into who I was and knew that I could take it, and knew that I was someone that wanted information to a certain degree. But I'm very glad that he didn't tell me that between the end of September and Christmas time, I would have had another 17 operations. So yeah, my first week there was operation Monday operation and Wednesday Operation Friday. Then, you know, got a bit easier and it was two a week. But yeah, it was utterly relentless for that time.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:15:00 What an extraordinary individual. And how fortunate, if I can use that word in the circumstances that you were able to be his patient and both his, you know, technical skill and his manner that supported you, met you where you were, as you say, stubborn and competitive.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:15:22 I'd love to come back to that later. I imagine that's an influence in your life. But at that time, there you were in London, continuing the slow journey, rapid reactions, but slow journey of recovery. And I suppose all you could do was take it day by day. Is that how it felt?
Marc Conway 00:15:43 Yeah, absolutely. There were certain things that would drive one insane if we didn't take it day by day. In Dublin, every day, I had to endure two hours of dressing changes and they would wheel me down to this, this room. And it's this massive, like, huge steel bar. And you'd see them just pouring bricks of salt into this bath. And they took me in the platform and lay me down onto it. And every single day they would change every single bandage that they could. It was two hours of torture. And luckily they gave me into knocks. But actually they were a little bit too giving of medicine in Dublin because they gave me way too much morphine as well for a 14 year old and then had to cold turkey me so for four days during that three days, four days, three nights I had a cold turkey of morphine and my mum rarely left my bedside.
Marc Conway 00:16:36 So in the middle of all that and trying to survive, I was just hallucinating. Marching up and down corridors. Go having fevers, you know. At one point, I just thought I was in a Roman garden. That rock garden. And being fed grapes by a nurse. Really? It was just lemon swabs. And, yeah, my mom said it was horrific experience to me go through that. So it was another thing that they shouldn't have done. But obviously the pain was so great. They needed to manage it somehow, but they manage it much more effectively when I got into Roehampton. But yeah, going back to those dressing changes, my mum remembers, you know. So say you got nine till 11 in the morning and then we'll be back to my room and put you back in my bed or my chair. And my mum said immediately. I'd be massively anxious about what was coming in 22 hours time. I just couldn't get out of my brain in the face of that adversity. We just had to learn to become present.
Marc Conway 00:17:28 It was initially just a survival instinct. You know, this is the only way you can do. And you just start to to really focus on the small things and use that time and stories of of where wishing and humor, like humor, was massive and dark humor. And you know, another trait that I had and still have is that I've got this really cheeky personality and dark humor and quick wit, and that was probably the biggest asset that I had, because not only could you start to make the light of situations you, it helps you to build relationships with your caregivers in a way that makes their experience better. Looking after you and you build this deep connection. And humor was a big part of that. So the more we could flood our days with humor and distraction and being in the moment, the less I would feel about what was coming up. Yeah, and then bit by bit, you just get to cope with that and the anxiety level comes down. So some of the, you know, the hardest experiences were the biggest lifelong lessons were learned.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:18:35 Incredible. So in mundane terms, anxiety being the fear of an uncertain future, your fear of the next operation in 22 hours time, or the next pain that you were going to experience. And so the antidote was to bring yourself into the present, was to look for the opposite of fear. Joy, I suppose, through the humor, through the connection, through the relationships, and knowing that as you built that connection, inevitably the care improves. Not that it's technically any different. I don't suppose for one moment, but the relationship is so important, isn't it? Our attitude to healing and there's so much about this that has been researched well, I'm sure there's an awful lot that we would probably never understand about that. But our attitude to healing. What part do you I mean, you can't know, but I just love your sense of what part you feel your attitude played in your healing process.
Marc Conway 00:19:36 I think it was. Yeah, a huge part. A lot of people who come and know me and, you know, understand the story just from me telling it.
Marc Conway 00:19:45 A lot of them think it's like, well, you were born this way and, you know, you had everything that you needed to cope with this. And there's for sure there's an element of truth in this, right? You know, we've we've covered a stubborn, determined, competitive, curious, dark sense of humor. So all these things and within the right context became my superpowers. And, you know, ironically, there were things that were probably pre accident, especially a couple of years before accident were tools that I didn't, didn't know how to use and tools that were, that were getting me in trouble and tools that were almost, I think so much of that, so many of my attributes were turned up to 11 and I didn't know how to control them. And so within school or in class or maintaining relationships, and especially when you're 14 and hormonal as teenage boys can be. They were just too much. But then suddenly I'm in this context where I need everything to end up to 11.
Marc Conway 00:20:44 But that was only that was only half of it. The other half was being surrounded by people that recognized that they were the things that I needed to lean into. So to be empowered to lean into exactly who I was, you know, as best as you know yourself, at 14, as best as you know your true self. I didn't have the capacity to think or to try to pretend to be anything other than myself, because I was in survival mode. So I leaned into that, and they became the very things that then helped me really start taking more control over my own and recovery as well. That was a huge step forward for me and I didn't have it in Dublin. I felt like I was apart from 2 or 3 amazing characters. I felt like I was talked down to. It was very old school. It was. They were talked to the adults in the room rather than talk to me, and that just riled me up. So in a strange way. You know, mom and I, we look at because she was my primary care in there with me, the one that was there with me all the way through Dublin.
Marc Conway 00:21:50 It was almost like a foundation course that when we arrived in London, we knew what didn't work. And we knew what in certain ways, what we needed. And my mum needed to find allies to support her, knowing that the ones that were going to be potentially troublemakers, because there always are within multiple departments, the ones that are going to be there for you, that if you're not getting the care that you think your son need, you go after. So she became familial in that sense. And for me, it was I need to start taking more charge of this. Even though I'm only 14, I need to be involved in every conversation. Don't you talk to my parents before you talk to me. Talk to me. Give me the information. If I have information, I can work on my information. The unknown is killing me and everything needs to be there. And also realizing that there was an incredible strain on my immediate family and those around me. You know, this was the most seismic thing that happened in all of our lives.
Marc Conway 00:22:51 And, you know, we need to suffer trauma as much as this. You know, you're very suffer in isolation. And once my mum got back to England, she was burst out of this bubble of being in Dublin. It was just her life. It was just me in the hospital. Suddenly she's back in the UK and I'm one of four kids she's got, you know, she's got an 11 year old daughter at home who just started secondary school that she wasn't there for her first day. I had an older sister who was just entering the first year of university. Her mum wasn't there to take her to university. And her brother, you know, a year further on than that, I'm having to give up work. So financially, we're a working class family. And then my dad happened to be almost like the financial director. So as I describe it looking, I sort of became. And maybe not consciously. Again, this is me looking back and analyzing the evidence that I remember that it was like I became the CEO of my own recovery.
Marc Conway 00:23:42 And, you know, my mom became almost my managing director and, you know, dad, the financial director. And then other people had various roles. It was like a board of directors running things. And, and we were working with our clients or were we with the clients and I'm not sure, but, you know, our hospital carers, but, I obviously wasn't thinking that way at the time, but it's a way for me to understand, looking back now, the the roles that we paid and the impact it had on how successful my recovery was, because ultimately it really was.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:24:13 Yeah, I love that. CEO of my own recovery with my board of directors in support, unified listening to each other, all with the same aim in mind because you were a victim, but you did not behave like one. Opposite of that, right? You took charge. You stepped into the driving seat. If we can use that metaphor. So if I may be honored. Well, indeed. Let's just question that.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:24:42 Was there ever a moment where you felt you got beyond all of this in some way?
Marc Conway 00:24:49 Now I need some more information. So beyond a kind of fear, beyond the feeling that things we were doing, things well.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:24:55 Beyond this extended experience in the immediate aftermath of the tragic event in that garage that day and everything that got you to the point where you could move forward in life. If I can frame it that way, that kind of beyond, which isn't beyond beyond, but it's beyond that phase. Could I call it phase two if, again, not wishing to make it sound too trite at all, but just as a way of, you know. Was there a moment when you felt you were moving beyond at least that first part?
Marc Conway 00:25:36 Yeah, there absolutely was. And this is, I guess, in my book, I'm going to be calling that sort of the mind section. So even the body was very, very much involved and enjoying 30 plus operations. Once you move beyond survival and you allow your body just to take over, and it's almost like you drain your resources away from your brain and you just go with it and you endure.
Marc Conway 00:25:58 It gets to a point. And then when you're setting precedents within yourself, you're reaching these milestones. You're realizing that you're capable of more, you can endure more. You know, your your pain tolerance gets higher and you go through various levels of mental acceptance. And that's when I talked about starting to want to lead, you know, my own recovery. This is where my soul, my mind, whatever, like really sort of came to the forefront and Started thinking about a life beyond the four walls. The light that I was in. In this crazy. I mean, I talked about this with my mom, and we looked back at it like it's someone else's story. And even though we were like, all we were enduring. And so that's example. My right hand to his mate, which was my dominant hand, was so badly damaged that I couldn't right with it. And obviously, if you need to write to get through school. And I was supposedly just entering my first of my two GCSE years, so two real pivotal years.
Marc Conway 00:27:01 And mum had called school when I was in Dublin not knowing really how serious. And I, you know, she knew how serious it was, but not how long the recovery would be and just said make sure you keep space open for Mark's going to be back at school. Kind of saying it was a carrying on. Then once we got back to Roehampton in London, the narrative the word was without even really talking to me. Well, obviously he's not going back to school this year. He's definitely gonna have to fall back a year. I heard that, and I was like, I'm having none of that. So that really triggered something in me. Like really competitively. And I refused to accept it. I look back now and I was like I mean I'm having two three operations a week. This is, you know, well into the autumn or fall term. And here I was saying, I'm telling you now, I'm not dropping back at school year. And people around me were like, there's no way that you can go back to school this year.
Marc Conway 00:28:02 You know, you've got so much and you can't even write with your right hand. You're going to need to learn to write with your left hand. And there were so many obstacles in the way. And not only just from my side, but from the school side and the support side. And, you know, did they have the capacity to support me with the local counsel, get involved, all these different things. But I knew and this is one of the things consciously I knew back then. I knew that mentally that would break me. When you're a teenager and in school, everybody seems so much older than you. And the year below you seem so much younger than you and inferior to you. And the thought that I would be going back into the year below, and then watching all my peers and my friends the following year, 18 months later, over take their GCSEs without me, and then either potentially leave the school or go on to college or whatever it may be. And that made me not want to go on.
Marc Conway 00:28:56 So if there were ever thoughts that it might just be easier to check out, that was when those thoughts came in. So I knew her break me. But the thought of going back to school as well was unbelievably fearful as well. You know, I went to a very it was a strict Catholic, all boys sports dominated school. So you can imagine the kind of toxic masculinity and status that and the bullying that occurred in the school was like that. So it was a tough school.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:29:25 Yeah.
Marc Conway 00:29:26 But for me, it was. And actually, I only thought about this line 4:00 in the morning last night when I jet lagged and couldn't sleep. So going back to school was like choosing the second cheapest bottle of wine on the list, right? The cheapest bottle of wine you can never choose. It's the one you don't go for. You kind of. If you choose the next person, then you know you can kind of just about go with it. But actually knowing that there was so much fear in dropping back was probably the first time that I then used fear as an unbelievable motivator to drive forward and to impact change in my life.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:30:04 Yes.
Marc Conway 00:30:05 Because everything then was targeted about me getting back to school and then everything fell off that, you know, my ability to endure the operation, the incredibly painful physio, learning, having to do everything again, going to luckily there were hospital schools in those days until the funding got taken away. We can campaign for that a couple of years later and failed, unfortunately. But without that, I never would have made it back to that school year. So going in and when my left hand wasn't strapped up or Philippines, then I was in there every single day trying to hold a pencil or a pen with my left hand and trying to rewire my brain and trying to do everything I can. Learning how to use a computer. Meanwhile, you know, my mum and Ruth, the community nurse, were out there just bashing doors down, bashing heads together to make it happen. You know, once they realized that I was accepting nothing less and they probably realised that this was hugely important for my mental recovery.
Marc Conway 00:31:05 They just went to war for me. And to see that happen and do that, and the amount of effort that people were making for me is like, I can't let you down. So I was super motivated by setting these goals and these targets, but also I was very, very motivated by not letting people down. Yes. And realizing God, these people are just going above and beyond. And it's extraordinary what they're trying to do for me. I have to make sure that I'm at 100% every single day when I'm capable and driving forward and to make this happen.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:31:36 It really does work that way, doesn't it? You know, you were super clear about what you needed and wanted. They understood that they supported you 1,000%, and that in turn supports your capacity to do this thing. This goal that you've set yourself to meet it despite everything. And how hard that must have been. Yeah. The fear of falling behind. The fear of not having a normal in quotation marks. Life. Drove, you know, motivated.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:32:07 You was the sort of driver. And then the determination, the competitiveness, the stubbornness, the curiosity, all those qualities that, again, supported your capacity to meet that need. So you went back to school. You got the qualifications you needed. You went forward with your life. And as you came into adulthood, what choices did you make then?
Marc Conway 00:32:32 Decisions I made then were so that this really seismic moment when I made it to university. Because, you know, a lot of the other narratives that were floating around was, you know, would mock ever even be able to live an independent life again. That was fuel to me. You know, again, it's like hearing stuff like that and, you know, feeding into now I'm going to prove you wrong. So that was huge. So having to rewire my brain to use my hands and, you know, really I started to look at them as tools rather than hands. And you really don't realize that how many things that we do automatically, subconsciously that our brain is like wired to do to to pick up a glass, to open a door handle, to do your shoe laces, to use cutlery to pick up a pen too.
Marc Conway 00:33:17 And we're talking hundreds of things every single day, and everything will have to approach brand new and be conscious of every single thing I'm doing to allow the brain to rewire. It was like starting from scratch again, but hearing these people say that, you know, you might not be able to live independently again. Okay, well then I have to set some new goals and, you know, a new goal. Once, once I got back to school and somehow got my GCSEs. Got five of them. It's all I needed to move on. No one thought I could do the next big goal. The next big mountain to climb was getting to university. And university to me, and living independently was the end goal. That was everything. So everything was targeted towards that. And then I made that happen. But I also made a, you know, there was the physical side of things, but there was a huge mental side of things as well. So the physical side I've just covered just about rewiring the brain.
Marc Conway 00:34:10 You know, many people might think it's horrifically tragic and pity any 14 year old that has to suffer what I did. but it was also at a time where I was going through the, you know, probably the second biggest growth spurt of my life. And I was seriously neuroplasticity. So my brain had the ability to rewire and to create new software to match this new hardware that had been given suddenly. So there was all the physical side to that. And then me just spending hours in my bedroom practicing things away from prying eyes because I hated people looking at me, trying to struggle. And it was the thought of like, are they thinking that they want to help me? Should they step in? Shouldn't they step in? You know all that. So I'd spend hours away from people just practicing. But then the other side of it is, was the mental side of it and the ability to just. And this this is for anyone, you know, when you leave home and you go to university for the first time, you're not living with your parents.
Marc Conway 00:35:02 You're on your own without responsibility. You know, my two nieces are in their first year of university now and going through the ups and downs of that first term, and they've had very relatively normal, as we said in a speech my teenage loves compared to me. But when I went back to school, I was wrapped up in cotton wool like you wouldn't believe. You know, I was untouchable, which is great. You know, if anyone came near me or said anything, they were looking at getting expelled. So it was a super, super safe environment, but it wasn't real. So before I even took much exes, I came in one night to my my bed after school and declared that I want to leave John Fisher and my school. I want to go to the local sixth form college. And I was just like, that can't happen. You're not doing that. So we had another whole thing about everyone saying that that can't happen. And look at all the school have done for you and this and that.
Marc Conway 00:35:53 And already even before I'd gotten my GCSEs, because it was another miracle that I even passed. And it's like somehow I just got through them. So there could have been a chance I had to retake them anyway. But I was already planning the next stage before I had those results, and I convinced them and I said, well, I'm going to look at a college that night. You can come with me or not. And they were like, Okay, then. And just to give a bit more context, by this point I was wearing a clear plastic face splint as well, but I had to wear a 24 hours a day for two years, so it was like a sentence within a sentence, really. So if I didn't look scary enough, you put a plastic mask on someone and you know they're going to look a bit more intimidating. But then I convinced everyone the school were upset because by that point they were kind of, you know, holding me up in hero status and wanting to maybe get a little bit of that glory for themselves in terms of reputation as a school and not what we do for our students.
Marc Conway 00:36:47 But I was like, I'm off. And again, it was another very conscious decision at the time. There's a lot that I look back at and I'm seeing now through the eyes of the present that I remember that if I'm ever going to make it and to university and cope, then the step up from John Fisher Sixth Form College, within that super safe environment to university would have been too great. So I needed to challenge myself in that moment and leave and go to this thousand like local college, you know, a lot rougher than the school. Mixed genders as well. Very rough and ready, but a brilliant college as well for their results. And so they welcome me with open arms. And I rocked up there still wearing a splint. And I thought, right, okay, if I can go into this environment and I can cope with this environment, I can cope with the step of going to university, because at least by making the seismic changes to my scenario now, I still go home to my mum and dad every night.
Marc Conway 00:37:45 I can shut that door and I'm in a safe space. So whatever bumps there were along the way, whatever levels of acceptance of myself or in the eyes of others, whatever I needed to learn, I could learn in those two, three years there. And then I got to university, I got my A-levels, and I remember getting dropped off and standing in the said goodbye to my parents, shut the door, and I stood there in the hallway and I tell you, I just got this all over body feeling. It was like every single hair on my body was stood up. And then there was just even more electricity going through me. And I just instinctively just looked to the skies and she was just like, you've done it, kid. You've absolutely done it. Yeah, yeah. So in my mind, that was when the kind of official recovery period was over. All the operations behind me, I've got my independence. And that was up to me to make whatever it was of my life from there on.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:38:39 Yeah, like a real threshold. We talk about threshold stages of life, but that really was, wasn't it? It was everything that you'd fought for, worked hard for, prepared for. And it was a strategy, wasn't it? I mean, you knew where you wanted to go and you knew yourself well enough. Your capability is well enough to know what you needed to do to get there. Well, to be properly prepared for that very important stage of your life. And how did that go? Did it live up to your hopes and dreams?
Marc Conway 00:39:13 Yeah, I think it made them also. It was a kind of the second chance, the sense of perspective that you have and that I was trying to, you know, bury the previous five years in the past. It was more that I've got a choice now. I've got independence. I've got this whole world in front of me. And it began this era that I call, you know, my running into life era. And this isn't probably black and white and there's probably a little bit of, you know, gray area in between.
Marc Conway 00:39:42 But I wasn't trying to run away from my trauma and forget it. It was more that again maybe this is my competitor in this coming in and believer and balancing the universe or something. And it's like wow. If if there is any greater power out there, be a God universe, whatever it may be. And and me as a human has had to endure more in the last five years than most people would have probably need to endure in ten lifetimes, then surely I made some. I made some good stuff. Right? And some fun. Surely it's there. But there was this. And my mom always remembers from early on that she just found remarkable. It was that from the very first moment, I held my head up and I held my head up, and I looked into the world. I wasn't looking down at the ground. You know, I would look people in the faces. I would connect with them in certain ways. And, you know, at first I would stare them out until they stared away.
Marc Conway 00:40:34 And yet, how dare they. And and then one day, I actually smiled at this woman. I had a real worry on her face in the corridor. And I just smiled at her. And just the power of that smile just opened her up. And her fear and pity just went to like awe. And that was a hugely important lesson that I realized that the onus was on me. I had the power to create, and I had to learn how to create connections, really with people really quickly. And yeah, I was fearful that they were thinking something about me. There wasn't a choice, therefore it was on me to allow them in to show you openness and vulnerability, but also show strength and to tell them that is fine. And it's incredible what you can do with just the eyes and a smile without saying a word. So I kind of learned that, okay. And this is another area of kind of leading my own way forward. The onus is on me. So I got to university and the beginning of this running into life, and I thought I could sit back and just think and, you know, feel pity for myself and think, well, if there is any kind of backlash out there, they need to bring it to me.
Marc Conway 00:41:39 I was like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like I'm going to go and get mine. And not in a selfish, self-centered way that at the cost of anyone else. Because, you know, all my experiences has just had, helped me evolve all these areas of compassion and empathy and understanding and a level of emotional intelligence that I didn't have the words for back then that we're, you know, much more within our kind of modern day vocabulary now. Yeah, for me, it was just no one's going to have it on the plate for me, but the opportunities are out there. I seem to have my head up and looking around and be way more conscious than other people around me. So you spot these opportunities. It's you know, a lot of people have got some only later in life and didn't know this period of my life, just, you know, call me a lucky bastard, you know? If luck does exist, then I got a lot of my bad luck out of the way within a very, very short period of time.
Marc Conway 00:42:31 So maybe if they are like, then fair play. But for me, these opportunities are there for everyone is just whether or not you're willing to reach out and grab them. Yeah. And I was like, I'm going to grab these opportunities every single opportunity until I've reconciled with what's happened to me, until I've evened up the score with the universe. And obviously there's setbacks and highs and lows because it wasn't that suddenly I was like Teflon and life didn't impact me. You know, I was still quite normal human being, just on a slightly altered path to everyone else. You know, I could see them alongside me, but I became a go getter. and that led to 25 years of wonderful experiences and adventures and connections and travels and following a very unconventional path. And God, I'm so thankful that I did that because of the conventional process. But I know so many people now middle aged that I've followed the so-called conventional path in the so-called Marcus to happiness or contentment or whatever you want to call it.
Marc Conway 00:43:28 And then they got to a point in their life and they're miserable and they're struggling and they're like that. I followed the rules. I did what I was supposed to do. None of those markers were available for me, so I had to forge my own path forward. And that was so empowering. And it's that, you know, the.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:43:43 Yes.
Marc Conway 00:43:44 To know that there's so much uncertainty in front of me just made me realize that, okay, well, then maybe I can go and select the stuff that actually makes a difference. Yes, rather than what anyone else thinks. You know, it's that real living from the inside out rather than outside in. And again, I didn't have those words at the time.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:44:02 But they came to you, didn't they? They came to you. Through a series of experiences that you've kindly shared from the small meeting or the apparently small meeting with the woman in the corridor of the school that you smiled, and it changed everything in that moment, and you realizing that the onus was on you.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:44:20 I think that was those of the words you used taking full responsibility for your life. So in this extreme adversity of that event, so many gifts, and I know that in the work you're doing now, and this is a relatively recent decision in your life, isn't it, in the last few years that you want to share your experience in a way that others can learn from? So some of these things that you've said I can't help feeling do apply to all of us in our life. What I'm hearing is don't expect things to come to you. Go out and find them. Decide what you want. Get clear about what matters. You can if you really want to make it happen. That's what I'm hearing, Mark. Is that how it feels?
Marc Conway 00:45:15 Yes, that's absolutely how it feels. And I just think the thing is this that's the most wonderful thing of the world, to realize that half of it is on you, or even more than half the visit on you. And so many of our frustrations that I see in other people are why are people there for them or what's going on with the world? All these things that we're wanting everybody else to change almost before, you know, we're willing to change ourselves.
Marc Conway 00:45:41 You know, the the Gandhi quote that's misquoted and then used it, it's, you know, be the change that you want to see in the world. But I just added another word to that. He's got to be the change you want to see in your world. Make it smaller. Stop thinking about the enormity of the world and the global problems you've got going on. Make your world a pond and turn yourself into that pebble and drop yourself and see that the ripples that create and you'll impact those around you. And but it's also the power of connection. And community is huge as well. And it's not about being surrounded by people who you want to serve you in a way that to make your life easier, you want people around you that will empower you. And you know, my recovery was I look back and it was almost a perfect storm and it would be hard to replicate, you know, the the incredible amount of things that had to be in place to turn my story and to want to try and play the tragedy.
Marc Conway 00:46:37 You know, the family unit. I had, the parents who came things so far forward in their community without ever expecting anything to be paid back. And then suddenly the worst thing possible almost happens. And everything that they did in the years before just came back in droves. And the community around you, you know, and I had people where I probably refused it as well, just because of my personality. Pity and sympathy. You know, they were cheques that I couldn't cash. You know, there were times when the people around me needed to lift me because I couldn't even stand. But then when I could stand, they were like, okay, now it's time to use your own legs. So having been understanding all that, such a critical age at 14 is just where most people can spend an entire life trying to understand it and make sense of it. It was just like the biggest gift. But if I try to forget it and bury that and not spend the last 2 or 3 years going into the deepest parts of my story, shining a light in the shadows that a lot of people would completely understand if I didn't want to do that, as you said, like along with the trauma of where the biggest gifts happen.
Marc Conway 00:47:49 So if we can find a safe way for me to use the best resource that we have in our own lived experiences, it's internal, it's free, it's accessible to you. If I can find a way to inspire people, by the way, that I process my story, to go back and process a story in a different way and in a safe way to make sure that you're doing it when you are still surrounded by people. If you do stumble, they need to pick you back up because it's not easy always going back and, you know, unearthing these traumas. But there's gold buried alongside those traumas and those gifts, and they're the things that you can take, and then you can bring those back into your present and those other things. They just become stories that live in your past, and they don't have to impact the person. So that's really where this has become more than a job for me, is becoming a vocation. And if I can use this extreme adversity not only to dull in my life and make me as relaxed and as contented and as connected as I've ever been, but also to be that pebble that drops in my own pond and create ripple effects to help those around me.
Marc Conway 00:48:54 And then if enough of us live on our own little ponds and drop pebbles. And our little ripples become waves, become tsunamis of change. So that's the now and the future that I really want to live.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:49:07 Yeah. And when you look to that future mark, which feels deeply inspiring, what does Fearless Forward mean to you?
Marc Conway 00:49:18 Fearless forward means using my past as fuel instead of as a cage. Writing my story, showing me that when you you look back with love, not fear, you unlock the gifts inside the hardest moments. The fear still turns up. But right now it's I walk forward, collided with risk with wisdom. For those moments gave me. So that's what Fearless forward means to me.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:49:47 Mark, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.
Marc Conway 00:49:50 Absolute pleasure.
Sally-Anne Marie 00:49:51 Very best wishes for the beautiful future ahead of you.
Marc Conway 00:49:54 Thank you so much for having me. And thank you. Brilliant work in this area.