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In Your Corner is a raw and honest podcast about rebuilding, resilience, and real growth. Hosted by Keith Dixon, a health and fitness coach with 25 years of experience, this podcast is for anyone who's fighting to rebuild themselves - whether you're navigating a breakup, losing your identity, struggling with purpose, or just trying to keep moving forward when life gets hard.
Keith shares his own journey from running a thriving gym for ten years to losing everything - his business, his relationship, and finding himself homeless in a men's shelter. But this isn't just a story about rock bottom. It's about the mindset, structure, and resilience that pulled him back up, brick by brick.
Each episode brings open, real conversations about identity, confidence, self-respect, boundaries, fatherhood, and taking action on new habits and direction. Whether you're looking for straight talk or anyone rebuilding their life, you'll find genuine support here - mentally, physically, and emotionally.
This podcast isn't about perfection, status, or validation. It's about presence, peace, and showing up for yourself and the people who matter. Because no matter where you are right now or what you're carrying, Keith is in your corner.
New episodes every second Wednesday at 8am.
Subscribe and let's get to work.
00:00:15:20 - 00:00:45:20
Unknown
Guys, welcome back to the podcast In Your Corner. First of all, I just want to say thank you for the feedback from the first episode. Short, sweet, nice and brief. Just an introduction and I am very grateful and really appreciate everyone already following, subscribing and hopefully listening back in here and now again. I know this one here and now is the funny time.
00:00:45:20 - 00:01:19:14
Unknown
That little space between Christmas and New Year's. December is gone. Well, some people already disappeared in December, but am. It's a time where motivation has dropped off. Energy is a little bit flat, but, I just want to make sure that everyone knows this next episode. Now, it's not for a January reset, not for the January rebuild starting over.
00:01:19:16 - 00:01:44:13
Unknown
It's not going to be about New Year's resolutions or magic detoxes, and it's not as I don't take anything as a punishment for Christmas. Christmas as far as enjoying what our friends or our family and making the most of that time off. This episode, moving forward here, just really want it to be about how we hold ourselves together.
00:01:44:15 - 00:02:08:17
Unknown
Just when that motivation fades, things go drop off and things are a little bit flat. Starting back in January and the one thing that always, always found just keeps me together, keeps my sanity is simply routine, routine and structure.
00:02:08:19 - 00:02:36:15
Unknown
Routine and structured is something that I've had for years. Obviously with my gym background and working into health and fitness industry and what we really know is in January now, it's just things creeping back to life, things coming back together. The traffic is building up everywhere. It again, the the emails start flowing in. Work starts building up. We're waiting for the schools now to reopen.
00:02:36:17 - 00:03:00:19
Unknown
And that's when I think routines really get back in. So you can to summertime isn't there. We just always we we can't wait for the schools to get back. And we say I'll get back to that, then I'll get back to it. Then. But as I said, some people then at this time of year will just feel a little bit disconnected, a little bit behind.
00:03:00:21 - 00:03:26:24
Unknown
They might see people moving forward, grab and live getting on with things, and they're just feeling that little bit lost that little bit flat. You see a lot of pressure on social media, especially about big fresh starts all, as I said, the big resolutions kicking on into the new year, where it is your nervous system, our own nervous systems.
00:03:27:01 - 00:03:40:07
Unknown
We don't want big, raw, fresh starts. Our nervous system simply craves regulation, safety and stability.
00:03:40:09 - 00:04:07:20
Unknown
So you will see the hustle and bustle of life on the outward. What really matters where your real strength lies is what's going on on the inside. I've spent so much time in the last few years doing more in our work dropping the mask, the ego, dropping. What people are seeing on social media are seeing on the outside of things.
00:04:07:22 - 00:04:37:16
Unknown
So that's steadiness. That's the real strength. That's the real stability. And it's how steady, how stable you feel on the inside. There was a time I one of my lowest points. And it's even I actually spoke about a truer today on one of my social media accounts. And even to think about it, it's, it's actually still quite raw.
00:04:37:17 - 00:04:38:18
Unknown
You still get it.
00:04:38:18 - 00:04:47:01
Unknown
is in the hostels and demand shelter, and Dublin City Center is actually, the key is they're so busy all around.
00:04:47:01 - 00:05:07:14
Unknown
Sitting there in that damp room, just looking out the window, it was one of those wet, cold, gray evenings in Dublin and like January. But leaf kicking off, you're looking out that window and life is in full swing.
00:05:07:16 - 00:05:45:12
Unknown
Dublin city center full chaos out. So you that glass busses flying up and down, cyclists flying around and getting lashed on from the rain and people just running around, rushing around in chaos and frenzy. And I'm sitting there looking through that glass and actually just froze in that moment, frozen in time, thinking life is going on out there and I'm stuck in here, stuck in that moment thinking, then how did I get here?
00:05:45:14 - 00:06:07:18
Unknown
How did this happen? You feel that emptiness, that hollowness and even confusion. There. Total sadness feel and that shame of sitting there. And to be honest, and those moments of anger, real, real anger.
00:06:07:21 - 00:06:33:21
Unknown
It actually reminds me of grief. You know, we all know that feeling of when someone has died or someone has passed away close to us are belong to us, and we feel that nothing is happening around us for those couple of days. But the whole world is moving around. Traffic is beeping, shops are still open, everyone's laughing and joking and you're there and angry and hurt.
00:06:33:23 - 00:06:37:08
Unknown
Your world is collapsed.
00:06:37:10 - 00:07:00:16
Unknown
Life just keeps going. But in like a moment of grief, you feel left behind. You feel just stuck there looking at all this going on around, looking at all the outside. It was hard to sit there in those moments. And yeah, but the biggest thing I learned was to sit in them, to accept them and to sit still.
00:07:00:18 - 00:07:38:13
Unknown
I think it's hard for any man, any person, to just sit still in their thoughts. But in those thoughts, words came into my head and they've ring and still are ringing back in me now. You're here because of choices, because of your decisions, because of things you did, things you didn't do. And when you're sitting there thinking like that, you can go two ways for you.
00:07:38:15 - 00:07:54:05
Unknown
You keep going down that slope. The heart gets bigger or you step up. You take responsibility, you take action, you take steps to move forward and you own. You own that shit.
00:07:54:05 - 00:08:05:19
Unknown
So it wasn't the world's fault. It wasn't anybody else's fault. It was my fault, my responsibility, my pain, my hurt. And only I could change it only.
00:08:05:19 - 00:08:30:15
Unknown
Or you could move it forward. And that's what stuck with me then. That life was so crazy outside that window. And I've always wanted to move my life on again or forward again. Or you had to take control of it, or you had to take control of the situation. There was going to be no magic wand, no magic moment, no big breakthrough.
00:08:30:17 - 00:08:33:20
Unknown
It was just me.
00:08:33:22 - 00:08:38:16
Unknown
My alarm clock, because I had to set up for it. And like I always did.
00:08:38:19 - 00:09:03:00
Unknown
I was building up a new practice in the gym, so I clients to get in, show up for, had my own movement to get back to my own training, to get into looking after my own food, things I've done for years, things I've done for the past 20 years of working in the health and fitness industry. And that was it.
00:09:03:02 - 00:09:35:22
Unknown
To simplicity of back to structure, back to routine. It wasn't. Not until it wasn't fancy. Simplicity works as I still talk to clients today are coaching today, simplicity works the board and board and basics. And it's funny because it's been different phases through my life where people have called me barred and because of structure, because of routine. Now I don't live like a monk.
00:09:35:24 - 00:10:07:09
Unknown
I don't live on chicken board or lettuce. Love pizza, and all you want me to do is love a little whiskey. So boring. It's just your routine, your structure and bored. And to me is perfectly fine if that's the way it's going to be. But that's what moved me forward. That's what gave me stability. Again, that's safety. And a big thing was just rebuilding trust in myself.
00:10:07:11 - 00:10:33:09
Unknown
That's what gave me momentum. That's what gave me back belief. When feeling solo. It wasn't just some magic switch overnight. It didn't just happen overnight. It took time. It took doing it day in day. You as part. And as that sounds. And believe me, there was many a time when that alarm was going off. I didn't want to get up out of bed.
00:10:33:11 - 00:10:59:19
Unknown
Even in that room. Even lying there in that cold steel bunk bed, the spring sticking in your back, those. That duvet. The duvet is one of those, you know, the little tin flimsy one barely covering anything, a little rip in it. All the old laundry, obviously, that they just used in the hostel. But a even some days you just didn't want to get up from the.
00:10:59:21 - 00:11:28:05
Unknown
But it is like I have for the last 15 years, the last 20 years for 5 a.m. alarms, early morning shifts, long nights, locking up in gyms. See, that's the gym world. That's, the way the gym hours are. Nobody wants to train an annoying to five or 10 to 5 during the day. Everybody wants to train, you know, the early morning, late nights are weekends.
00:11:28:07 - 00:11:35:06
Unknown
That's where my structure has always been. That's where my routine has always come.
00:11:35:08 - 00:11:48:04
Unknown
But that structure, that routine, always gave me freedom.
00:11:48:06 - 00:12:13:15
Unknown
So as much as I controlled my hours, I always knew what my hours were going to be. I was able to create my own freedom, my own space. And I even hit home just last week, I went to Zachary, my youngest boy. He's 12 now. I went to his school play, so he's in sixth class and primary school.
00:12:13:17 - 00:12:40:14
Unknown
So it just hit me. Then as I was sitting there to his play. That's his last time now in primary school, his last little show. And Joshua is 17, Zachary is 12. Throughout all of their primary schools, I've been to every single play, every single show. They've done in all their sports days. Been our older, our football, our school teams, anything.
00:12:40:14 - 00:13:05:12
Unknown
We've been there for the obviously there's no medal that's not for award or recognition. I actually just felt really, really proud of myself in that moment that I was able to do the for both boys, and it's been the same with our, like our own soccer club, strong football teams that there. And I've always been able to bring them training.
00:13:05:12 - 00:13:27:24
Unknown
I've always been able to bring them to their matches. That's just what matters most to me. That means more than anything else and that was from my routine. We structure freedom and space at great. But it wasn't just the school days. It wasn't just our sports teams.
00:13:27:24 - 00:13:58:10
Unknown
See, for years since the boys were young, we've always I've always made sure it's been. One of the main things I've stuck to is no matter what time with the boys comes first, making memories, creating moments. And whether it was days, a day, trips somewhere, whether it was nights away, weekends away into the likes of all the Dublin games that some adored and games anything like that.
00:13:58:12 - 00:14:22:14
Unknown
Even the little holidays we've been on ourselves didn't always have to be something fancy though as well. So many times, so many wet, mucky days. Just simply down the park, kicking a ball around, going off for a walk or hike, a swim, sorting. But always are we. So the boys came for us. We created our memories, create our moments.
00:14:22:16 - 00:14:50:05
Unknown
And I've always taken photographs and I find it amazing. And now look at them. Look back at them. All right? From our born to the present day, I've always printed off the photographs and the pictures. I have those created on memory walls all around the house. Now. And obviously as the boys are getting older now, their needs and wants from me as a fighter and just as a man as well, are different.
00:14:50:05 - 00:15:02:24
Unknown
They are changing, they are involved. And so just that presence was so valuable and I see it even more felt it even more. The other day after Zachary's school play.
00:15:02:24 - 00:15:15:24
Unknown
We'll know that time in my life have I felt that kind of happiness, that sense of pride. And it came from someone really close to me, talking to me.
00:15:16:01 - 00:15:37:09
Unknown
A couple of years ago, he got very sick. Someone really close. Someone I'd always just call up to. We'd be very open and frank. Our conversations with each other, we really leaned on each other and into each other. And he was a fighter exactly like me. Pure workaholic, pure workaholic.
00:15:37:18 - 00:16:00:17
Unknown
And he got sick. He became sick. It was going to be terminal and I mean, we're just having one of our chats on a normal day is. And he said he always, in fairness, complimented me on the way it was with the boys. And he he said, oh, you understand. You see it even more now. Obviously being sick, hitting hard.
00:16:00:19 - 00:16:30:05
Unknown
And he said, I see why all the noise itself saying, oh, so many events and eating the boys came first. I see it, I understand it now. And for he said, all these money, success and achievements, he simply wished that he had done more with his own kids. Just more time, more presence there, his own children. That's it.
00:16:30:05 - 00:16:51:00
Unknown
Doyen man talking to you, saying those words so that it's like telling, you know, anyone out there with their kids. It's not about money, success, achievements. It's your presence. They want your time creating those moments, creating those memories, presence, folks presence.
00:16:51:00 - 00:16:56:21
Unknown
Not our Foil components that I've always found with my own routine. Our structure.
00:16:56:21 - 00:17:04:18
Unknown
Simply that trust in my self belief and confidence.
00:17:04:20 - 00:17:31:15
Unknown
So many people I will speak say from the gym background, I think if someone sets their alarm and they're going to come and train at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. and then you don't do it, okay once or twice for an MVP, just that eating well, that becomes a habit. If that becomes regular, that's you not sticking to your word, to your self.
00:17:31:17 - 00:17:52:05
Unknown
That chips away at it. You end up. You can't believe your own words. You don't believe in yourself. You don't trust yourself. That's only going to chip away at your own self. Respect your own self worth.
00:17:52:07 - 00:18:29:17
Unknown
Routine structure builds to your commitment to something you're sticking to. Your word. You're following true. Your basic structure keeps that follow true. And that's where confidence will come from. Not from the hype, not from who's watching or your audience are. It's what you do with your actions, your words, and your follow. True. We all have it in us to keep the tanks, keep the structure.
00:18:29:19 - 00:18:57:21
Unknown
So if you're going into January now and you're don't make big, outlandish promises, start small, start simple. Just stick to your own word that will lift you in so many different ways, because sometimes it's not about building a new version or finding a new version of yourself. It's simply stripping away the bullshit around it, dropping the mast. Ego's.
00:18:57:21 - 00:19:34:20
Unknown
Wherever is cutting the excuses, just stick to your own words. You'll build up your self-worth, your self-respect, your confidence. Reminds me of the artist Michelangelo, not tutorial the artist and does a quote attributed to him. It's about the statue of David, and he always said it wasn't about the statue. He simply saw an angel in that marble, and he carved away and chipped away to unveil that angel.
00:19:34:22 - 00:20:01:00
Unknown
And that's what we need to do with ourselves. We always look at what we want to add on, what we want to take on and build up. Where is most of us? A lot of us need to strip away. That's what I've done for myself in the last, especially the last two years. Gone really in on the deep work, stripping away things, cotton away things, build them back up from the inside.
00:20:01:02 - 00:20:32:06
Unknown
And that's how the confidence is. Joy. Our new so that's why I think 2026 can be a great year for us all together. And if you're struggling with anything now, feeling low, feeling a bit broken or your day just to stick to your word, say you're going to do something, do it. Follow through because you're not broken. You don't need a new version of yourself.
00:20:32:08 - 00:20:42:06
Unknown
You don't need to go crazy on so many different things. Maybe just simply sit down, sit still.
00:20:42:08 - 00:20:57:22
Unknown
Look at things that you can loose, stripped things away. Coatings out. Cut the fat. Build from the inside out. Looking ahead now.
00:20:57:24 - 00:21:27:15
Unknown
The next episode of this podcast, I think we'll build forward our into that steadiness. But I want to look at it from a different lens, going to speak about the masks we wear. Eagle and Hoid and behind the smile. Want to keep this podcast just on a steady ground? That raw, honest, real, safe space never want to sound out and just preaching down to anybody.
00:21:27:20 - 00:21:39:22
Unknown
That's not what I'm here for. That's not what I'm about. Just remember. Happy New Year to everybody. I know I'm here in your corner. Thanks very much.