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I can't turn off the noise and if I saw myself in a mirror I'd slam my head into the mirror and just keep slamming it to
00:00:05
make it go away that's why I Disappeared but it's not the only reason why he
00:00:10
disappeared magic couldn't fix me Dynamo Illusionist magician
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extraordinaire are you watching closely was there a moment you look back on and say that was my rock bottom the sixth of
00:00:23
November 2020 cuz that was the day and I tried to kill myself your wife found you
00:00:28
unconscious in the dog bed Magic's always been the thing that has given me hope that I've used to
00:00:35
overcome the bullying overcome the racist abuse and the lack of belief and it made me stand out in a different way
00:00:41
dyn shout out to my homeboy Dynamo Everything You Touch Is turned into gold and you become the sensation and then in
00:00:46
2017 you stopped suddenly I got really sick I couldn't hold the cards anymore my body was deteriorating and then at
00:00:54
that same time your grandmother had passed away who was your biggest supporter I'd also heard that you had a
00:01:00
legal dispute which meant that you could no longer use the name dynamoe I had so many problems but I couldn't figure out
00:01:07
how to even solve one of them I felt if I'm not here then everybody else might be happier I realized then the Dynamo as
00:01:14
we know it needed to die and I'm finally feeling it again now I just need to get magic back in my life Dynamo or should I
00:01:22
say Steven is there some magic you can show me right now what oh my God
00:01:31
I've never shared this before but three years ago Dynamo walked up to me when I
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was at a Christmas party I'd never met him before and he whispered something in
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my ear that quite frankly stopped me in my tracks that I could not believe I
00:01:46
knew Dynamo is this incredible online magician and what he said to me that day I was unable to forget he was in a dark
00:01:55
dark place he was engaged in a legal battle and he just lost the right to use
00:02:00
his own name he could no longer call himself Dynamo he was no longer able or allowed to do magic and this stranger
00:02:08
that had walked over to me at that Christmas party was suffering in a way that I've never seen before and just a
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week ago Dynamo text me and said it's finally time to tell my story and that is what you're going to hear today the
00:02:21
story he whispered in my ear at that Christmas party all those years ago where has Dynamo been what happened
00:02:30
and what happens next and before this episode starts I want to make a deal with you about 58% of you that watch
00:02:37
this podcast frequently haven't yet hit the Subscribe button if you enjoy what we do here here's the deal that I want to make with you if you hit that
00:02:44
subscribe button I promise you that we will keep making the show better in
00:02:49
every single way and we have huge plans to turn this into more of a documentary style conversation where we work
00:02:56
incredibly hard to bring in footage of the things we're talking about about to give you greater context and greater
00:03:01
meaning so if you hit the Subscribe button I promise you that we will deliver an even greater version of this
00:03:09
show I hope you choose to come along on this journey enjoy this [Music]
00:03:19
episode Dynamo or should I say Stephen
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we're friends you can come wherever you like Stephen in researching your story
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I've been surprised inspired shocked but in many ways it's given me the context I think
00:03:38
that was missing as to how a man like you committed their life to Magic for people that don't know your story your
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earliest years and the context back there in Bradford in 1980
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two what is the context that we need to understand in order to understand you I
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think ultimately it's the OS
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that sometimes magic is found in the most unlikely places and I was a kid in
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a counselor state with no hopes no kind of not much family around me no real
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Direction and if anything I should never have amounted to
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anything so for me just trying to not be
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confined by my environment by my circumstance es is the magic I've been searching for all my life and
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hopefully I can use the magic I've now found to inspire others who might find
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themselves trapped in a similar position Bradford 1982 you you said you didn't have a lot of family around
00:04:47
you what family did you have and not have around you I mean I was I just born
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so you know I can't remember exactly everything from literally 82 but from
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say 80 from 86 I believe that was when my dad went
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to jail so he wasn't around any longer um my
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mom was there but she she had me really young but she would have been about she'll have been about 20 then so a
00:05:21
young mom um losing you know losing her her partner who would have been raising me with her so your mom had you at 16
00:05:28
yeah she was pregnant at 16 okay was there racial issues in your childhood
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cuz I think you are you biracial yeah yeah my father's patan my mom's English okay patan I'm not familiar yeah it's a
00:05:42
it's a tribe um it's it's parts of it in Afghanistan parts of it in Pakistan it's
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kind of scattered around the world and you must have been what four years old when he went to prison yeah did you
00:05:54
understand what that meant no no not at all I uh I remember him going out and
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then just never coming back it wasn't until I was a lot older but I kind of understood that he'd gone
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away and why he'd gone away and you know and I kind of it's
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weird like I was young enough that not
00:06:21
having him around became a normal thing like not having a father you know I was on a counsel state where other people didn't have fathers around or mothers or
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you know broken families so for me it became just a normal way of life I
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think if i' have been a bit older and had more chance to understand more and Miss more than it would have maybe been
00:06:42
harder did you resent him at that age when you started to realize what you had
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lost in a father I think if I'm honest I resented him more as an adult as I got
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older like I resented him more when I first met him properly after
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you know like when I'm I'm he he came to uh Revolution wine bar in
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Bradford and this was when I was 19 years old and I'd started to make a
00:07:16
little bit of a name for myself with my magic back then you know I'd um I'd I
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think I would applyed for like princess trust start upload and all that sort you know I was I was basically you know
00:07:26
starting to go somewhere way that was positive in my
00:07:32
life and I got called by the manager of Revolution saying oh there's a gentleman
00:07:37
that says she's your dad has come to see you said oh I'm Dynamo's dad and I'm like that's weird because like I don't
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really feel like I've got a dad so I'm like okay this is strange and
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then I said oh well just tell them I'm busy right now but if he wants to come in in a couple of days time when I'm not
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working because I was getting ready to do a set at the bar I perform Magic basically in Revolution bar and he came
00:08:03
back a few days later and I mean he kind of looked like me so I kind of knew it was true you
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know I asked my mom about it and she explained you know but yeah he's he's not in jail anymore and he's been out
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and he's been asking about you I think he tried to call my mom a few times he'd call my Nana's phone as well and they'd always just kind of you know they they
00:08:22
saw that I was getting on my life and I'd got used to a life without him in it
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so I felt that it was best for me to not have him in my life and then when I met
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him it was so strange because he
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basically said that you've you've got a you know you see you've got a little crew around you do any of your your
00:08:49
friends want to help shift some stuff for me and when I say stuff I'm not talking about legal stuff and at that
00:08:56
point I was just like wow you know he's he's clearly not been reformed and I don't feel like he's the sort of person
00:09:02
I need in my life right now cuz I've spent a lot of my life trying to avoid this type of environment how long had it
00:09:09
been since you'd seen him at that moment this was when I was 19 so from
00:09:16
say four years old so you hadn't seen him for like 15 years and the first time he sees you he offers to he asks you to
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help him shift some drugs yeah not just drugs but yeah trying to figure out what else it
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could be if it's not okay he was into stuff lots of stuff
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you know um and you know that's that's the life some
00:09:41
people choose you know what I mean like um I didn't know him enough to to to
00:09:47
have a to be able to say whether he was a good man or a bad man because you know end of the day just because you do that
00:09:53
sort of stuff doesn't necessarily ultimately make you a bad person it can be the circumstances that lead you into
00:10:00
that World um but at the time in my life
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you know I'd been getting some incredible support from mappa Youth Center in Bradford I basically was
00:10:14
surrounded by for the first time in my life positive role models from you know
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positive male role models and part of me hoped that when I saw my dad that he
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could be one of those but I think I was too far gone in the
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other direction and he was going in a different direction and it just wasn't meant to be and you know like
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I I think then I just became indifferent I just thought well you know what I've
00:10:46
gone this far without a father so I don't really need one though
00:10:54
resentment was that because you were still holding out hope that he was someone else or where where did the
00:11:01
resentment come from in that moment you said that's when you resented him the most because I think he they he had in
00:11:07
front of him an opportunity to connect with me and he saw a different opportunity in that
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moment he cared more about using you as a vehicle to sell drugs
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yeah are you still holding on to pain oh yeah
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100% there's going to be parts of that but'll never be closed off because um sadly he's not alive anymore people
00:11:32
often say to me when I speak to them on this podcast about parents that they've lost that when we lose someone it often
00:11:39
changes our perspective on them and the situation and often the the issue that held us apart when your mom came to you
00:11:47
and told you that he had now passed away is there anything you look back on and go with that New Perspective now that
00:11:53
he's gone and go you know what this would have been a probably a different or a better way of handl handing the
00:11:59
situation is there any regrets there at all I can't really have regrets personally because the circumstance I
00:12:06
was in was not of my making you know um I was told by by my grandma that and my
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auntie as well my aun M they they both would tell me passionately how much my
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Mom and Dad loved each other but there was also an element that they said it's
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a good job that he went away because if he'd have not gone away it's highly likely that my mom and my me would have
00:12:33
been dead because he was apparently very abusive and to your mother
00:12:41
yeah did did you ever know this did you ever see this I was like I wasn't really
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I think it was more before I was born and then you know I think yeah I was too
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young to really understand it like my mom's told me about stuff more recently and you
00:13:00
know my as I've been like you know uncovering things about myself like I've
00:13:06
asked more questions what have you been trying to figure out about yourself a lot of things the last few
00:13:13
years um the point in my existence
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ultimately if we go back to the the rest of the context there um from those early years what were you like socially in
00:13:25
school and were you a did you like
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school um I like
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learning I like trying to understand things but did I like school I was
00:13:44
scared of school why just because I used to get beat up all the time like it was school for me was
00:13:54
painful but it wasn't the learning aspect of it it was getting to and from
00:14:00
the lessons you know surviving the playground like that for me was
00:14:06
difficult because I went to a school that was predominantly uh you know a
00:14:12
more white school so let's say and you know I was getting to an age
00:14:18
where my complexion started to show so it was obvious that I wasn't full
00:14:23
English so it was a lot harder to hide because I was told when I lived on the estate you know I was recommended by
00:14:30
everybody you know by my mom by my nan by just anybody who was was close to my
00:14:37
family at the time if anybody asks just say you're white you know it was kind of
00:14:42
ingrained in where we lived to hear anything that is
00:14:48
different I read about a story where someone threw you into a river oh yeah vam yeah yeah yeah that's um so one of
00:14:57
the Estates I lived on they've done quite a few counselor States in badford depending on where my mom's boyfriends
00:15:03
lived or girlfriends um at the time so so I
00:15:09
remember there's Del estate and then there's Woodside estate and separating
00:15:14
them is a big massive field and then in the middle of the field is a dam and it was where like all the cool kids would
00:15:20
kind of go to hang out and I wasn't one of the cool kids but like one time I got
00:15:28
invited down there so I thought oh amazing you know I'm finally being accepted and when I got there they only
00:15:34
invited me down there to kind of throw me in the dam they knew I couldn't swim I didn't I didn't have a an adult to
00:15:40
teach me how to swim till I didn't learn to swim till I was like you know 14 15 so they threw me in the dam and it was
00:15:48
one of the most traumatizing experiences I'd felt at that time thankfully there was one guy on the estate Wayne jawi um
00:15:56
who basically dived in and helped me out and you know he was a really good swimmer he could he could um get me to
00:16:03
safety and yeah like stuff like that happened all the time though it wasn't like you know I can remember that
00:16:10
because I couldn't swim and if you've ever experienced that Panic that you get when you you know when you feel like you're drowning that will stay with you
00:16:18
um you know I don't like going you know I don't like going into the sea that you
00:16:24
know like getting into water in general is not my uh favorite thing you and me
00:16:29
both I can't swim either so I remember the first time I nearly drowned and I remember the person that jumped in and saved me when I was a kid as well
00:16:35
remember it like it was yesterday so yeah so like that
00:16:40
experience happened you know it happened on the way to school it happened after school you know so for me the the
00:16:47
thought of going to school was always like a daunting notion there were certain teachers like
00:16:54
Mrs wox you know like uh she's my English teacher and she was really nice
00:17:00
and she was really nurturing and I didn't feel stupid in front of her because in a
00:17:08
lot of the classes when you know when the teacher asking you to get
00:17:14
involved I was so nervous of other people's opinions in the class that if I
00:17:19
spoke up if I if I put my hand up to answer a question and it was wrong then
00:17:24
that just was going to lead to more getting beaten up harder after school or you know more ridicule so I kind of kept
00:17:32
myself to myself but at the same time I was just like this this like sad loner
00:17:38
kid who would take the long way home so I didn't get beat up I remember speaking
00:17:43
to Israel out of s who was the UFC world champion and him telling me a very
00:17:50
similar story about taking the long way round school so that he would avoid the bullies on the playground and all of
00:17:57
those things again in his situation was heavily racially motivated he had was this kid that had flown to New Zealand from Africa he was the black kid and so
00:18:04
he was he ultimately turns to fighting as a way to help him survive yeah I mean
00:18:11
he's he's very good at it I've seen him he is amazing well I think about your story and I go in a way didn't did you
00:18:18
turn to Magic as a way to help you to survive ultimately that's where it ended
00:18:24
up but I didn't turn to magic magic kind of found me because it was never
00:18:32
something I was into initially it was something that my
00:18:37
grandpa used to do he do tricks here and there you know little like the sort of
00:18:42
things you see a guy doing a pup you know nothing like super amazing but to
00:18:48
me he was like kind of the main male role model in my life and he was always
00:18:55
alive for the party you know and he seemed to have an answer to every
00:19:00
single problem and one day when he was picking up from school like he saw a sort of
00:19:06
things that was happening to me and I never knew he'd saw this but you know he'd always get to the school playground
00:19:11
early so you know so he didn't want to be late for picking me up and often I'd walk out the door and straight away I'd
00:19:17
kind of get in a fight or get you know get caught up in something and he'd kind of stayed back and never really got
00:19:22
involved but he saw it kind of be quite bad one day and when he was walking home
00:19:28
is telling me he's going to like show me some things you know that might help me and I'm thinking oh yeah it's going to
00:19:34
be like Karate Kid you know Mr Miyagi you know like but it wasn't any of that stuff he he's he showed me magic and he
00:19:42
says you know these things get they get me positive attention when I'm out on
00:19:48
about when I share these things so maybe maybe try these and I was scared at school about trying
00:19:55
them because I'm like thinking well I'm already seen as this weird of this Outcast like how
00:20:01
is now you know is is sharing magic with people because magic wasn't like a cool thing
00:20:07
thankfully it made me stand out in a different way and it deflected attention
00:20:14
from me and there was definitely some people that you know shunned it didn't
00:20:21
like it but there was enough people that thought it was interesting and you know kind of kind of cool that it got
00:20:30
people off my back that was really where the magic began properly that's before
00:20:36
that point it was you know it was something
00:20:41
that I was using to deflect attention from the other areas of my life that I
00:20:48
was trying to hide it's um it's quite remarkable how many times I've heard
00:20:54
similar stories about someone finding a way to belong through a craft or through
00:21:01
singing or through acting whatever it might be and then them committing their life to that it's almost like they
00:21:07
become addicted to it in some way and it I guess the issue is when you ask yourself the question what am I now
00:21:14
without it do I therefore not belong if I don't do
00:21:19
magic yep I know that feeling all too well I'm sure we're going to come to
00:21:24
that um about 13 years old in 5 you're diagnosed with crohn's disease which is
00:21:30
very young I believe to be diagnosed with crohn's disease which is a lifelong disease um it's like a severe
00:21:37
inflammation related to irritable bowel syndrome from what I understand yeah and it can be life-threatening as well yeah
00:21:44
yeah um I've had a a few moments where i' had life like life threatening operations how does that change the
00:21:50
picture at 13 years old with that diagnosis and what led up to that diagnosis well before the diagnosis
00:22:00
this I'd got to you know my teenage years where you you know you kind of
00:22:06
start to have changes right you go through puberty and I was definitely like a bit of a
00:22:12
slow start I was still you know all the kids at school were getting bigger and I was getting smaller or I wasn't getting
00:22:17
smaller but they they were getting bigger and I just basically wasn't really kind of gr growing at the same
00:22:23
rate and my mom started to take me to the hospital to get tests done to try
00:22:29
and figure out you know what was up with me which I
00:22:36
understand why my mom would do that but at the same time for a kid who feels
00:22:43
like they don't belong to then be taken to hospital to have tests done on me to figure out
00:22:50
what's wrong with me like suddenly I'm like well all right
00:22:56
I don't belong and I've got something wrong with me I mean I me this is you know like what is the point in me you
00:23:02
know am I broken do you know what I mean so I mean there clearly there clearly
00:23:10
was issues um and they found but I had Cron's
00:23:15
disease and I guess now I feel that's quite is an incredibly good thing to
00:23:22
have done the problem was back then there wasn't enough knowing about
00:23:28
cronn as there is now right the doctors understand it a lot more they understand
00:23:34
how to treat it and people are a lot more open to you know to it you know
00:23:42
essentially it's an onus that affects your bowels which ultimately affects you
00:23:49
know and and how your body digests things and that's not the sort of topics
00:23:56
that you know are that easy to talk about um especially when you're you know a teenager going through your formative
00:24:01
years you know is there a lot of pain associated with CR disease yeah yeah yeah stomach cramps um you know I mean
00:24:10
if I don't take my medication I'm one at the moment I can struggle to walk or to even get out of bed really a day yeah
00:24:17
it's like having a a wound inside your
00:24:23
tummy and it's like an open wound and every time you eat you're essentially
00:24:29
it's like rubbing dirt into that open wound so it's never going to heal it's going to constantly keep getting infected and it's going to constantly
00:24:34
keep being inflamed and because it's inside you like you know your gut
00:24:41
affects every part of your body you know so and then it has side effects which one of
00:24:49
the one of the side effects is reactive arthritis which is what I suffer from where if my cronn flares up which can be
00:24:56
brought on from simple things like just just everyday stress like Al to you don't have to just eat something for it
00:25:01
to be bad like you can you can have a stressful day and it can you know give
00:25:06
you a stomach ache which then can ultimately spread to the rest of your body and make you feel debilitated and
00:25:12
that if you've got the active atis it means that all your joints start to seize up and ache um hence why sometimes
00:25:19
I struggle to walk and kind of function and you know you you kind of need your Mobility to be a good magician so you
00:25:26
know for me when yeah when that happens it stops me from being able to perform the way that that
00:25:33
I've kind of gone to love and that will then have knock on effects to the psychological yeah and every case of
00:25:40
cons is different you know it affects people in different ways but but ultimately yeah imagine stomach having
00:25:47
stomach ache just all the time and being scared to eat because you don't want to
00:25:53
you know eat something and it it ruined it it wipe you out for the rest of the day
00:25:59
so you um you go to this new six form College you end up dropping out of
00:26:04
college because you decide you want to pursue magic full-time and then you go off to America where you stayed with
00:26:11
your grandmother in America by the age of sort of 17 years old you have that operation for your Crohn's which removes
00:26:17
part of your stomach and then at sort of 20 years old you end up back in London and that's when you started to
00:26:24
sort of gain a following for your performances online I think you know most of us saw that chapter of your life
00:26:31
I believe most of us um through videos on social media stuff on TV and all of
00:26:37
that and from there on it really looks like your career starts to take off because I I was looking through your
00:26:44
biography and at 22 years old you receive an invitation to perform at the United States Super Bowl by 29 years old
00:26:50
you have your own TV show called dynamo magician impossible and then that shows a Smash Hit wins all these Awards best
00:26:58
entertainment program is that really in your view where things started to take off you're 29 years old 30 years old
00:27:04
Everything You Touch has turned into gold and you become this kind of
00:27:09
sensation I guess that depends on what you class as like what is success right
00:27:17
because for me this the beginning of success where
00:27:22
things started to take off was when I got my princesses trust business sty BL on
00:27:28
you were what when you were 16 or something or no I was a bit I wasit older it was um it was 2002 so you're 20
00:27:34
MH like before that point I thought one day I'm gonna have to grow up or one day I'm gonna have to
00:27:42
get you know like a real job yeah what people say right yeah yeah you know I
00:27:48
think right up until uh you know right up until like my Grandpa died and and
00:27:55
Man passed you know I think they were still thinking that I might get come up come home one day and say oh I've got a
00:28:01
proper job now was that uh my Grandpa died in 2012 right and he he died in the middle
00:28:09
of my second series of of magician impossible so he got to see some of his
00:28:19
like the way he nurtured me and helped me and shared that magic he got to see some of that magic get brought to life
00:28:24
on screen so I was that's probably some of my proudest moments but then my uh my
00:28:30
nana um sadly she passed in the last couple of years um I don't think don't
00:28:36
think anybody really knows about Manana passing um outside of you know my family and my friends um
00:28:43
and for me like myo was my biggest supporter for everything but I know that
00:28:52
she was always worried about me cuz she always thought that this magic thing wouldn't work out and she wanted me to
00:28:58
have something to fall back on you know when I dropped out of college to pursue magic as you know as that's just all I
00:29:04
wanted to do you know she was very worri she was she was the one trying to tell me that I should not fall out I need to
00:29:11
get you know get an education and in many respects you know the advice she was giving was you know was good
00:29:18
advice but luckily things kind of turned out all
00:29:25
right for the m in the magic I mean it turned out right's quite an understatement you were Magician of the
00:29:32
Year multiple times the TV show magician impossible then won the TV Choice Awards
00:29:37
his best entertainment show you ended that Dynamo's magician impossible show after its fourth season season I believe
00:29:44
um and then you barked on your first live tour called seeing is believing and then in when you were 35 years old in
00:29:50
2017 you stopped that tour suddenly yeah I think the the tour kind of run its
00:29:56
course uh we we do it we we did over like you know we we did a lot of
00:30:02
countries and a lot of tickets and it was amazing you know I'm I like try and
00:30:07
pushing the envelope with magic and with everything I do and I felt like that
00:30:13
time on the road gave me time to have a lot of new ideas and I felt like I
00:30:19
wanted to try and bring some of those ideas to life but some of those ideas had to get put on hold uh cuz it was
00:30:25
shortly after that that I got really sick with my crons what happened got uh food
00:30:32
poisoning and that gave me a a camply
00:30:37
back to um food poisoning which basically is like probably the worst type of food poisoning you can get and
00:30:43
that combined with my cones was a rep recipe for disaster so basically I was
00:30:49
in hospital I I just remember it was like 10:00 and I was
00:30:56
getting ready to go to bed and I went to the bathroom and I had this like horrible
00:31:02
feeling in my stomach but I've got cron so like I'm used to kind of having to numb these these feelings you know I'm
00:31:07
used to just thinking okay it's going to be uncomfortable for like half an hour an'll pass right and it wasn't going
00:31:15
away and then suddenly like blood was coming out of my mouth I was vomiting I was blood was
00:31:22
coming out of both sides right that's yeah uh and I did know what to do like
00:31:28
it would it wouldn't stop I was in so much pain um I was screaming my wife
00:31:33
like and literally I got rush to hospital and they gave me you know they
00:31:38
gave me all the medication to try you know they put me on the drip and morphine everything and nothing was getting rid of the pain I never felt a
00:31:44
pain like it and I just did not understand what it was like
00:31:50
and what because of that it caused my crones to kind of even though i' had so
00:31:58
much of my crones cut out already in previous operations it caused it to spread into a different part of my
00:32:05
bowel and from that came the reactive arthritis because
00:32:13
in the part of the ball they moved to had different side effects that I never had before MH like I remember like just
00:32:21
getting these Sensations where I you know I'd got kind of over the you know a
00:32:27
few months later I'm I'm over the like food poisoning element of it you know I'm I'm out of hospital I'm kind of you
00:32:34
know trying to get on with my life but I'd be holding my cards you know I'd be
00:32:40
doing you know magic like things you know stuff that I do in my sleep
00:32:46
right but suddenly I was getting like shooting pains in my joints and I was it
00:32:52
was like electric shocks I was I couldn't hold the cards anymore I was struggling to move you know I'd be in a
00:32:58
seat and I won't be able to get up because like my knees would be like like stuck and i' never had that experience
00:33:05
before and I suddenly felt like Mr Burns you know
00:33:10
from The Simpsons MH you know like he seems really like fail and weak
00:33:17
and I felt like I was you know I was I wasn't old I was like I feel like I should be in my Prime you know what I
00:33:23
mean and I couldn't understand it I felt like my body was deteriorating around me
00:33:30
and so I went basically on medical trials for the next few years um and the
00:33:39
thing is with medical trials is that when you try a new medicine you have to
00:33:45
try it for three months before the doctors will write that off as not
00:33:51
working and try on a new medication but there was times where
00:33:57
when I knew within the first two weeks it wasn't working but I had to go the full three months and in those three
00:34:03
months you know my symptoms weren't getting better if anything they'd get worse and it you know it wasn't until we
00:34:12
got to the ninth month where I started this medication
00:34:20
called inflix M where you have to go to the hospital every few weeks and you get
00:34:25
put on a drip for years there for like eight hours and they basically put his medicine inside you and that really had
00:34:32
an incredible effect like that gave me a new lease of life I felt stronger I probably felt stronger than I'd felt
00:34:38
before I was on it but then Co happened um it stopped my infliximab
00:34:45
from working so suddenly I mean
00:34:52
2020 and I'm on medical trials again and I tried um you know I tried so
00:35:01
many different medications and it's it was it wasn't till
00:35:07
like the beginning of 2021 where I really got one that was really working
00:35:15
properly um and even now I'm on that but it's still I still have like I have three days a week where I'm really bad
00:35:21
where my joints just don't really work that well um and my CNS my stomach feels bad but yeah that that was a big part of
00:35:29
the reason why I uh kind of I guess disappeared for a while but it's not the
00:35:35
only reason why he disappeared for a while yeah I think um everything
00:35:42
that my body was going through everything that I was going through the pressures of you
00:35:49
know trying you like wanting to do magic and the pressures of trying to sustain a career and they uped people's
00:35:56
expectations um was almost an impossible task to do
00:36:01
whilst I was trying to fix my body and
00:36:06
ultimately you know I ended up in a situation
00:36:15
where without magic without being able to do what I loved not knowing if I was ever going to be able to get it
00:36:23
back made me think what's the point in my existence and I
00:36:30
think my body was kind of imploding and
00:36:35
so was my mind what was going on in your mind I didn't know what to do in my life
00:36:43
didn't know what to do myself um there's a lot of things that I don't want to
00:36:48
fully go into so but I'll try and you know be as give you as much as I can
00:36:54
there was just so much noise in my head and I hated myself for feeling how I
00:37:01
felt I hated the my where my body felt because of you know because of everything I was dealing with if I saw
00:37:09
myself in a mirror in my house I hated what was looking back at me I hated it
00:37:15
so much that i' slam my head into the mirror and just keep slamming it so try and just either you know make it go
00:37:23
away and yeah I don't know I didn't I didn't want
00:37:29
to be alive because I didn't feel like the life I had take away all the the
00:37:35
success and you know that side of things I
00:37:41
wasn't I wasn't living because I wasn't able to do the thing I loved the most
00:37:47
which was magic and it
00:37:54
was it was a time in my life where I felt that
00:38:03
magic couldn't fix me but Magic's always been the thing
00:38:09
that has given me hope that I've kind of used to overcome the bullying
00:38:17
overcome the self-doubt and the lack of belief from others and in and in in my
00:38:23
own self and suddenly I'm in a position
00:38:30
where I don't know what to do with myself and magic isn't going to fix it
00:38:35
and I can't I can't until I'm fixed I can't do the thing that gives me a
00:38:41
reason and gives me a purpose in performing magic I can't do that
00:38:46
because I'm not mentally or physically capable how long did
00:38:54
that that last I'm still dealing with it now to be honest like it it's difficult
00:39:04
because I'm a magician right and to everybody
00:39:11
else looking at me as a magician I'm someone who does the
00:39:17
impossible I'm someone who kind of should be able to do
00:39:24
anything but I'm a
00:39:30
magician who C who felt like you know back then and you know and still at
00:39:36
times now I'm a magician who feels like I can't
00:39:43
do the first thing that a magician needs to do perform
00:39:50
magic so then I'm just an impostor
00:39:55
I can't live up to the
00:40:01
expectations that people have of me and it's not that
00:40:07
I I'm not the sort of person who like searches for validation from other people you know like I mean you know
00:40:14
magic is not an art form that is seen as the coolest thing ever do you know I
00:40:20
mean it's you know I'd have set myself up to fail if if you know by by
00:40:26
following f with magic um if I'd have been naive to that point do you know I mean I know that Magic's never been cool
00:40:32
right and you know I hope that in some small way I've helped to make it feel a bit cooler than maybe what it was
00:40:38
perceived as but Magic's the only thing that I'm good at
00:40:46
and I think the way that I can manipulate my
00:40:54
body and you know kind of have handle cards and do the things is a big part of
00:40:59
what's made my magic unique and feel special and not been able to do that
00:41:06
kills me am I right in thinking that at that same time your grandmother had passed
00:41:13
away who was your biggest supporter your body was breaking down because of Crohns and your illness around that time as
00:41:19
well and I'd also heard that you had had a legal dispute with your
00:41:24
management which meant that you could no longer use your social media channels the name Dynamo etc etc and that had all
00:41:32
happened in this concentrated period of your life there was there's a lot of stuff
00:41:39
going on and yeah like you know I I think losing my nana
00:41:48
ultimately was I think the thing that I guess the
00:41:54
St that brought the camel back is EXP profession that you use because she's
00:41:59
always been the backbone for me whenever I felt weak and there been a lot of times for a week my Nana has always been
00:42:07
strong for me and then with a lot of things going on in my
00:42:16
life being my with my life being flipped upside down you know and then Manana go in as
00:42:23
well it was just like man like you
00:42:29
know the light like just felt like the world was out to get me
00:42:34
and I kind of wanted the ground to just break open and just swallow me up if I
00:42:40
was a fly on the wall in your house at that time what would I have
00:42:46
seen a lot of stuff that I don't really want I would want anybody to see
00:42:55
like I wasn't very nice to
00:43:01
myself a lot of pain but also a lot of numbness and I
00:43:08
felt that ironically actually I didn't feel
00:43:15
like I felt so numb that I'd hurt myself to try and feel
00:43:23
something self harming mhm
00:43:31
does your does your partner know what's going on in your life inside your head
00:43:36
during this period CU I because I have a I have a partner and I if I was in such a dark
00:43:45
place where I was self Haring and doing some of the things you've described that
00:43:51
banging my head against the mirror and I was in that sort of cycle of self hatred my partner I think my partner would
00:43:59
would would know yeah she knew she she really didn't know
00:44:08
the extent of it to begin with and I think
00:44:13
also the the Lost side of things you know she obviously felt that herself so
00:44:20
I think those things she's dealing with it dealing with her own grief at the same
00:44:26
time so sometimes when you're dealing with grief you it's hard to see outside of your own grief to see other people's
00:44:32
you know what I mean um and we were kind of almost together in those moments you know we came together like you know
00:44:40
but she she was the one who ultimately got
00:44:47
me to go to therapy and to get the help and support that I needed really in this
00:44:53
chapter was there was there a moment you look back on and say that was that was my rock bottom mhm yep the 6th of
00:45:01
November 2020 the 6th of November 2020
00:45:08
mhm almost three years ago today exactly
00:45:14
almost why was that the hardest day because that was the day that I knew
00:45:21
that she knew cuz she found me
00:45:26
and I tried to kill myself she found you in the house
00:45:38
mhm she found you unconscious yep in the dog
00:45:46
bed what are you comfortable talking about I mean I'm not super comfortable
00:45:53
at life generally so you know just talking this is the first time I've kind
00:46:01
of done an interview that's not been with a
00:46:06
therapist in since 2020 so you know I I I trust you
00:46:14
you've you know we've you've been a bit of a you've been a help for me over the last few
00:46:22
years so I guess you obvious respectful then I respect what you'll do with what
00:46:29
I say will be done way there's two things there's two
00:46:34
things I want you to feel comfortable about whatever you say but also after this conversation if there's anything
00:46:39
you you're not comfortable with having said you can of course let me know and it won't be it won't be out there in the
00:46:46
world but I I want to um I think the the question that I like
00:46:52
that I think is of most value is understanding how someone gets to that
00:46:58
point i' I've actually spent quite a long time speaking to Simon gunning who's the CEO of calm campaign against
00:47:04
living miserably yeah um and he's done a really great job of helping me to understand suicidality as a topic but
00:47:12
also when I have a public platform like this where I speak on this these subject matters
00:47:17
occasionally about what elements of that are useful for people that are in that
00:47:22
mindset now and what he's shared with me is part of it
00:47:30
is people understanding that some how someone gets there but also understanding how they go from there and
00:47:37
they rise out of that situation what was what was on your
00:47:46
mind when that led you up to that moment I
00:47:54
felt but I had so
00:48:01
many problems but I couldn't figure out how
00:48:07
to even solve one of them and the problems weren't just
00:48:13
affecting me they were affecting my household they
00:48:20
were affecting you know just my family's life
00:48:30
and a big part of my thought if I'm
00:48:38
dead then my problems will affect these other people in my life and they will be
00:48:45
all right cuz I felt like
00:48:51
ultimately I was the problem
00:48:57
it was quite a simple kind of that that was it it was
00:49:03
like okay if I'm not
00:49:10
here then everybody else might be happier and they can get on with their lives
00:49:16
and you know like that was
00:49:23
it your wife found finds you that day in the dog bed and then she calls an
00:49:31
ambulance she called Edward despot who's my doctor he's he's my my gastrologist
00:49:38
my Crone specialist and then I remember well she
00:49:43
was on the phone to him when I kind of came around and she was just crying
00:49:49
and that's will you ask me a moment where it feels like it was
00:49:55
the worst I'd probably hurt myself worse on
00:50:03
previous occasions but I'd never been found by the one
00:50:10
person in this life whose opinion I genuinely care
00:50:16
about and no matter what I do now in the
00:50:22
future there's nothing I can do that can
00:50:27
erase what she saw and that's the thing I'm the most
00:50:34
ashamed of because in the moment I felt like I was trying to maybe do
00:50:40
something that would take all the problems I thought I
00:50:46
was facing and remove them from everybody else's
00:50:52
world but I'd not actually thought about what
00:51:01
these people would feel if I wasn't here you know what I mean MH so
00:51:08
that's the shame that I feel for that I don't feel ashamed for feeling the way I
00:51:16
did but I feel ashamed that my wife kind of saw that like
00:51:24
it's it's just embarrassing is it she's the person I'm supposed to be
00:51:30
strong for you know she's person who relies on me I'm you know I'm the I'm
00:51:36
the husband I'm not I don't mean that like I know we live in a modern world you know where you know you know it's but
00:51:42
like I'm supposed to be there to be strong for her and I couldn't even be
00:51:49
strong for myself can I ask you a question in that when someone is in that situ situation
00:51:55
as you were psychologically what do you think those around them can do to
00:52:03
support that person or do you think there's very
00:52:08
little those around I'm trying to really understand how to support someone you know in my life that would be in such a
00:52:15
such a mindset I mean I guess what my wife did
00:52:21
like not not just you naturally you would call someone for help like a doctor or something like that
00:52:29
but I mean even though I still feel it and I can't necessarily speak on her
00:52:38
behalf but
00:52:43
she didn't make me feel ashamed she loves you doesn't
00:52:50
she yeah
00:52:56
it's one of the greatest gifts isn't it to have someone in your life like that that you know just loves
00:53:02
you through thick and thin from the ex from the experience and
00:53:11
how she's been even up till now you know how she dealt with it and dealt with me
00:53:18
and I think it's the first time outside Mano outside of family who
00:53:27
you know they have to do it it's unconditional right um because their family their blood but it's the first
00:53:33
time that I have actually felt the love
00:53:38
of somebody else like because we've been married a long time before
00:53:45
then but you know you you just never know what someone's
00:53:52
going to act like when really hits the fun and they see you naked yeah
00:54:01
and I was exposed I was you can't get any more exposed than than what I
00:54:10
felt and she became the rock she she gave me a love but I've never had to to
00:54:18
deal with it and you know it's yeah
00:54:25
is something that I didn't necessarily maybe know I needed in my life until that moment and that ultimately is
00:54:34
kept me alive around this time there's a dispute with your
00:54:40
management what are you able to tell me about that because I know it's a legal dispute so there's things that probably
00:54:46
can't talk about but I think it's important context to understand what you're going through in this moment as
00:54:52
it relates to your sense of purpose and identity and all those things what are you able to tell me I
00:55:02
think I was at a time in my life
00:55:08
where I felt lost
00:55:14
and I knew if I you know stayed doing things exactly
00:55:23
the same way that I'd always done them then you're only going to get kind
00:55:30
of the same results right you know if I'm if I'm feeling suicidal faults and
00:55:37
I'm feeling kind of like worthless then the only way to break
00:55:44
that cycle is to have a fresh start it's needed
00:55:49
to break away from everything and ultimately you know you've started many
00:55:57
of businesses and you know I'm sure some of those have failed and some of those have you know you've had to have you
00:56:02
know go your separate ways at times um so that happens in business um and I
00:56:10
think there was a lot of work needed to be done on myself and just had to take time away
00:56:18
from that like um yeah I can't really uh tou on it too
00:56:26
much I'm trying to be extremely careful what I say it's all good I'm actually quite interested in the the not what
00:56:33
happened but the consequence of what happened so because I've noticed you've
00:56:38
not been posting on social media in a while for example so I
00:56:45
assumed that one of the consequences of this separation with your management was you've not you've not been able to use
00:56:52
your social media accounts and we've not seen you on the internet as much is that a correct
00:56:59
assumption I don't feel like I've wanted to kind of post things
00:57:07
because I felt like my life isn't been worth
00:57:13
sharing so you know whilst I've been trying to fix
00:57:21
myself I I didn't feel comfortable kind of sharing in those moments and kind of
00:57:28
just let the lawyers do what they do and figure that stuff out because I'm I'm
00:57:34
I'm too busy trying to figure out what's going on in my own head you know how to kind of just get to a place in this
00:57:43
world where I can deal with the pressure of
00:57:50
Life ultimately all I wanted to do which is
00:57:56
you know what's led me to hear with you today is get to a place in my life
00:58:02
where I could share magic again and even if my arthritis and my
00:58:10
Crone stopped me doing it in the way I used to I had to find a new way to share it
00:58:17
and there's certain things in the past
00:58:26
that I've had to go through negative experiences you know
00:58:32
positive experiences But ultimately I've had to go through those things to learn and
00:58:37
grow from them and some things I've had to leave behind and um speaking of things you've
00:58:44
left behind are you still
00:58:50
Dynamo Palm is always Dynamo yeah of course like
00:58:59
but the thing is I've battled with knowing who they
00:59:06
almost like there's been a battle between me and myself
00:59:13
because the lines are so blurred or were so blurred between you know the Steven
00:59:22
that you know and the Dynamo it you know the the greater World kind of
00:59:27
knows so then like it's just
00:59:35
been it's been a lot of confusion right in simple terms it's been a lot of
00:59:42
confusion because Dynamo is the part of me that
00:59:50
feels like it can do anything but
00:59:55
Steven's the flawed human being that realizes and knows that he
01:00:02
can't and it's a conflict and then when my body's falling
01:00:08
apart my life's falling apart I'm losing everything in my life outside of magic
01:00:13
but I love then I'm just an empty
01:00:21
shell and
01:00:26
that's the sort of feeling that makes you think like what
01:00:32
is the point why am I here like I am worthless to this
01:00:41
world if I can't share the only thing that I feel I'm good
01:00:48
at people will be sat thinking why can't you share it because
01:01:00
partly for some reasons that you know are outside of my
01:01:08
control legal related reasons some yeah and yeah
01:01:13
sure um you know and then
01:01:20
partly because
01:01:26
mentally I wasn't free like I need to be free in my head to create material to
01:01:34
create the magic I share but all that was in my head is horrible
01:01:43
things is things that I can't shut off I can't turn off the noise so then there's
01:01:51
no space for magic to find its way weing
01:01:57
so I I guess it'd be like the
01:02:03
equivalent to writer block like magic writer block like I don't if that's a
01:02:11
real thing but that's the only way I'm trying to Simply explain it the way that I heard it from what you just said about
01:02:17
the noise was I can't write if there's loud music playing with lots of lyrics in it so when I when I do writing I have
01:02:23
to turn off loud music with lyrics in it or else I can't my brain can't focus on both so I
01:02:29
was almost imagining being in a room with really loud music playing and then me trying to think and right and I just
01:02:34
wouldn't be able to yeah like like my body was not allowing me to
01:02:41
perform in the physical sense in the way that I want it to you know I was you know some of the medication was working
01:02:48
well and I was doing good but then like mentally like I wasn't in a fit state to
01:02:55
do magic you know and because of things that was going on
01:03:02
behind the scenes I also it was really complicated you know um even getting
01:03:10
work and then naturally with that you know it's
01:03:15
going to come Financial pressures which is the last thing you need when you've also dealing with everything
01:03:20
else so ultimately
01:03:26
I had too many horrible thoughts in my mind to try I had too many problems to
01:03:35
solve to even think about magic but then me not thinking about
01:03:43
magic you just then that's just that's a dis
01:03:48
pressing notion because that's so much of your purpose and meaning and joy and
01:03:53
yeah and it's not just tricks it's not you know I'm not when I talk about magic in
01:04:00
this sense like there's the there's the card tricks there's the things that people see right but for me
01:04:09
magic is a feeling it's something you experience in
01:04:15
your body when you witness something that you can't explain or when you see
01:04:20
something that feels impossible but feels like unobtainable right putting a smile on someone's face
01:04:27
is a magical thing and that's what I've spent my life doing But the irony is I was in a
01:04:36
position where I couldn't put a smile on my own face so how am I meant to do that for
01:04:43
anybody else if I can't you know if I can't do the the simplest thing for
01:04:49
myself and you go to therapy at this point you said yeah my wife was on on the phone when she found me to um to Ed
01:04:58
despot who's my cosmotologist right and then he he um put my wife in touch with
01:05:06
with a therapist um called Edward Sim and I had some sessions with him
01:05:15
initially but this type of therapy can be quite expensive yeah so like I got
01:05:20
like the first few bills and I was like I can't sustain this I need it but having to pay for therapy was making me
01:05:29
more stressed in the process because I just couldn't afford the therapy but Edward Sim
01:05:37
um he showed me a kindness that I've kind of been you know but I haven't seen
01:05:44
in a long time especially at that time like he contacted my wife um and just
01:05:52
said listen I want to help him him um I'll do it for free and he's been he's been looking
01:05:58
after me ever since and you know like for free yeah wow I mean I've you
01:06:06
know I've I've keep offering to pay now you know I'm in a slightly better place and but he refuses you know he um but
01:06:14
you know I think you know he's someone who I want in my life forever and you know I want I want to be able to repay I
01:06:23
never be able to to be pay him for what he's done for me but
01:06:29
like yeah I mean he introduced me to so many different things like stuff that I like
01:06:37
I use this thing called Sonic Reset Therapy don't know if you know about it
01:06:42
it's this like noise that you listen to I listen to it twice a day for 20
01:06:50
minutes and it it it's
01:06:56
definitely become something that calms me down and helps me sleep at
01:07:01
night um and then what do you think it's doing what is it doing for you it's just kind of resetting your mind in a way or
01:07:09
yeah I think that's I mean I think I guess that's the intention behind it as as I listen to it it tells me to think
01:07:16
about negative experiences or think about positive experiences that like think about goals you want to achieve or
01:07:22
think about things you want to you know get past and just let them come into your mind at the
01:07:28
Forefront and yeah it's really strange like it just has a real caling effect we'll try
01:07:35
and get a hold of it and we'll try and include it in the description below so yeah it's you know like it it's been
01:07:43
it's been helping me you know I'm sure it will help others um but you know there's lots of different things like
01:07:49
one of the things that he suggested to me which
01:07:54
at the time when he suggested it it was such a weird thing is he he recommended that I read
01:08:04
the Alcoholics Anonymous book now I say it's a strange thing for
01:08:09
him to recommend for me because I've never drunk alcohol in my life I've
01:08:15
never done drugs other than what the doctors prescribed for me for my cron so I've literally been tall forever
01:08:22
do you know what I mean so like I just naively assumed that you
01:08:27
know this is a book to help someone who is an alcoholic yeah I've actually I've got I
01:08:35
still carry my copy that's yours this is my copy um and in researching your story
01:08:41
I I realized the significance of this book so I just bought a copy of it yeah for people who have never read it um I
01:08:47
recommend reading it you don't have to be I'm a test you don't have to be an alcoholic to read it and gain something
01:08:52
from it um you know essentially it's broken up into 12 steps
01:09:01
and each chapter each step is a lot of
01:09:06
people's like short stories of how they overcome different phases of addiction
01:09:13
or trauma ultimately it's trauma but it's in the in the AL book obviously
01:09:18
it's specifically kind of aimed at you know Addiction in that sense and as you
01:09:25
hear all the stories it's very easy
01:09:31
to replace the alcoholic side of it in this book and put your own trauma or
01:09:39
grief that you're trying to deal with in that place and it's like a blueprint like
01:09:48
literally people are telling you how they overcome a certain thing and might
01:09:54
not work everything might not work for you as an individual but I took so much from this and you know it's it can it's
01:10:02
kind of written maybe from like a spiritual perspective you know I'm not
01:10:07
particularly religious like um but ultimately it's about trying to get you
01:10:14
to beli in something greater than yourself to help you find your
01:10:19
purpose and for me I've always known what that is it's it's been per it's been doing magic right but I didn't know
01:10:26
how to get back to that place without dealing with all these things I was dealing with you know like
01:10:35
and I've kind of you know gone through the 12-step book but
01:10:41
I've kind of gone through my own 12-step kind of
01:10:47
recovery like going through the different emotional phases that I've been trying to overcome
01:10:54
you know and some of those involved like you know going back looking at my past you
01:11:01
know looking at you know the situation of my dad you know looking at my mom you know like CU I think if I'm honest there
01:11:08
was definitely there's definitely been a lot of resentment towards my mom um over
01:11:14
the years um because when my dad went away like you
01:11:20
know as my mom you know my mom's L you know living a different life life without him you know naturally she's
01:11:26
going to get to a stage where she wants a new boyfriend a new a new partner she wants her life of her own
01:11:33
right but there's quite a few of those men that came into her life that were
01:11:39
horrible to me you know big part of that was because I was a mixed R kid and we
01:11:47
lived in a you know quite a racist area so you
01:11:52
know a a lot of the men you know didn't want me they wanted my mom cuz my mom
01:12:00
was lovely how did you know they didn't want you they would tell me they would tell you yeah they like yeah they just
01:12:07
tell me or they and they they'd do things that showed me that they didn't
01:12:14
want me I I I pretty much moved in with my grandparents when I was
01:12:19
15 like because the the men in my mom's
01:12:26
life just I wanted my mom to be happy but that came up the sacrifice of my own
01:12:32
happiness it me it meant that she'd be happy because she'd get the love maybe that she thought she needed but I felt
01:12:40
like I lost my woman in the process so there's been
01:12:46
resentment it's not being like surf on the surface resentment like you know i'
01:12:51
still see my m at Christmases and but we never really had that the bond that I thought we should have
01:12:58
had um but kind of one of the things I got
01:13:04
from from the book is I've had conversations with my M that I've never that I've been too scared to have and
01:13:10
I've actually got to understand her better
01:13:15
and this is this is the wrong word but because ultimately she doesn't need
01:13:21
forgiveness cuz knowing her story she hasn't done things wrong in you know she
01:13:26
hasn't purposely done things wrong for me to go I forgive you right but there
01:13:32
was knowing what she'd been through it's it's in these conversations that I've learned about some of the physical abuse
01:13:38
that my dad would do and that also the other partners of hers would given and I think she'd been trapped in a cycle of
01:13:46
you know not necessarily kind of picking the wrong partners and just kind of trying to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results
01:13:53
you know which uh you know you can't blame someone for
01:13:59
like I mean I've come to learn from doing this podcast and speaking to a lot of psychologists that specialize on love
01:14:04
that we often seek out the form of love that we grew up on and sometimes that's
01:14:10
an abusive form of love so many psychologists that have spoken to have alluded to this but a few have said this
01:14:16
quite directly that if you were at a very young age had an sort of a toxic um
01:14:22
attachment with maybe a figure in your life there's a chance that you'll then grow up and seek out toxic
01:14:29
attachments um in the cycle that you've described we we tend to think that we
01:14:35
you know we tend to think that if we've been
01:14:40
in a toxic situation when we were younger for example that will'll then seek out really really healthy
01:14:46
situations because we know what bad looks like but in fact I've been told that it's often the opposite that we go
01:14:51
back to the cycle of love that we were familiar with familiarity seems to be the key word yeah people find safety and
01:14:58
familiarity yeah even if that familiarity isn't actually safe I yeah I I can feel
01:15:07
that this book this very small book There's Something About This these ideas
01:15:14
that seem to reach people when they're in their toughest
01:15:20
moments step number one we admitted we were powerless that our lives had become
01:15:26
unmanageable step two we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to
01:15:34
sanity have you had to admit you were powerless and have you started to believe in a power greater than yourself
01:15:40
oh definitely um I mean I've felt powerless for years like I know
01:15:49
that I'm not in control like my owness as devil me for so long but just when it
01:15:56
always seemed to kind of pop up you know when when I'm kind of flying high when I feel like Untouchable then suddenly I
01:16:03
get a little reminder but you know I'm fallible I've got weaknesses you know and can't get above my station so to
01:16:10
speak but but yeah I
01:16:17
think I think that I've always looked
01:16:24
[Music] for the Magic in the wrong
01:16:29
place and what I mean by that is that I've always
01:16:35
looked for the magic in me to help me
01:16:40
out of whatever situation I was in and what this book opened up my mind
01:16:48
to the idea of is the Magic in other people as you
01:16:53
know because I've been sent thousands of messages these conversation cards sell out exceptionally quick so here's the
01:16:59
deal I'm going to make with you if you join the waiting list which is in the description below you will get sent access to buy these conversation cards
01:17:06
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01:17:11
to get your hands on them please do add your name to the waiting list in the description below and you can find that
01:17:17
waiting list at Theon conversation cards.com but I'll also include it in the description below wherever you're
01:17:23
listening to this episode as you know whoop are a sponsor of this podcast which came about from me being the
01:17:28
biggest fan of their product it's been an absolute game changer for my sleep for my recovery and for my overall well-being whoop is a wearable device
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01:17:48
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join. whoop.com CEO you can get that discount let me know who you get one for and how they
01:18:19
get on you have a TV show coming out tonight which is really your grand
01:18:25
return to the public stage and that TV show is called Dynamo is dead and it's
01:18:30
appearing on sky tonight which is very very exciting and I guess this links to what you just said about finding the
01:18:36
Magic in others right yeah yeah why are you doing this what is
01:18:41
it I just need to get magic back in my life because that's the thing that I
01:18:47
live for and over the last few years when I've been working on
01:18:55
myself seeing a different type of
01:19:01
magic seeing the Magic in other people is what's given me that spark
01:19:10
back and the magic I've been seeing it's not
01:19:15
Dynamo magic you know it's something different it's something that I'm feeling and I'm finally feeling it again
01:19:22
in fact feel like I'm feeling it for the first time
01:19:29
like Edward Sim my therapist he's a very successful
01:19:36
therapist he doesn't need to offer me therapy for free but he wanted to share some of his
01:19:43
magic and that started to rewire my mind to
01:19:50
realize whoa like there's some amazing people out there who can you know who
01:19:58
they can change lives they're changing mind you know when I saw you three years
01:20:04
ago and we shared a candid conversation you know about some of the things I was
01:20:10
feeling at the time you first off listened to
01:20:16
me and there was no cameras around it wasn't like this you know it was just you were you were present in the room
01:20:22
with me and then not only did you listen but
01:20:29
you you kind of helped in a small
01:20:35
way and that was magic you know I don't know if anybody knows who's watching
01:20:40
this but you are part of my new show don't if you told anybody yet um so you can also see you on the show tonight um
01:20:47
in a different way than maybe they used to seeing you definitely but like your story you know like
01:20:54
I think one of the things I realized for a lot of people from places like where I'm
01:21:05
from speaking to a therapist seems like the last thing you would feel
01:21:10
comfortable doing you know I'm from a counselor State we working class we're like you know you're told if You' got a
01:21:18
problem suck it up you know be a man you can't talk about your problems you know like you just got to get on with it you
01:21:25
know what's that expression that keep calm and carry on you know that's it was like it's kind of like instilled in
01:21:33
us I wanted to show people from where I'm
01:21:40
from that it's okay to ask for help it's okay to be
01:21:49
broken it's okay to not know the answers and
01:21:55
I'm not too proud to go out there and search for the
01:22:03
answers for people you know like and I've gone around the world
01:22:12
using the you know the platform that I have you know I I've obviously as
01:22:19
Dynamo um the name opens doors so but opening doors just for myself is
01:22:27
pointless because it's only feeding my own ego I realized that if I could use
01:22:34
that platform to speak to individuals
01:22:42
candidly about dealing with any type of trauma dealing with not feeling good
01:22:48
enough dealing with all the things that I felt that made me not want to be be alive
01:22:54
anymore then maybe that can save someone else's life and I know it's
01:23:01
a grand grandio mission statement I don't take it lightly I don't you know
01:23:06
I like I can I'm barely saving my own life for the minute to you know so I
01:23:14
don't want to like f it so loosely but you know that like I can save someone else's life no but that's exactly what
01:23:21
it does that that is exactly what it does and they're lives that you never really get to see but just even in
01:23:27
Sharing how you felt and how you've risen from that this is exactly what Simon gunning told me it does save
01:23:34
people's lives and in this new chapter of your life following this show tonight
01:23:39
called Dynamo is dead on Sky you're going to continue to do that and if there was ever a time and I think this
01:23:46
is why when you when you came up to me at that event many a year ago and started telling me a little bit about your story I think I probably said it to
01:23:53
you then but I'm not sure um if there's ever a time when people need that when they need a little bit of joy and they
01:23:59
need a little bit of escapism and they need a little bit of Wonder and they need their imagination to be stretched
01:24:04
and what is real and what is possible and what is impossible it is now and you
01:24:10
know that you know that's what people need now and that means we need you
01:24:16
now I had the idea obviously to make this show when we first started
01:24:21
speaking but when my n
01:24:27
died I I realized
01:24:33
then that the Dynamo as we know it needed to
01:24:39
die with her and
01:24:44
that the only way to fully have closure on that part of my
01:24:49
life was if I actually bury myself
01:24:56
alive and tonight after the show plays out live on
01:25:04
Sky I'm going to be doing that you're going to bury yourself alive MH in order to kill off the Dynamo
01:25:12
identity yeah and yeah I I mean I haven't I haven't put myself in that
01:25:18
hole yet right so you know
01:25:25
what will happen after that point is hard to really kind of
01:25:32
summarize because there's only been a few times in my life where I've done like crazy like
01:25:39
you know endurance Feats like this and something in you changes when you do
01:25:46
them you know it's a incredibly scary thought
01:25:56
but since I've thought about it you know since the 7th of
01:26:05
May 2021 I thought it's the only way to move
01:26:12
forward with my life and yeah
01:26:19
tonight after the show finishes you'll be able to see it
01:26:26
live but it's not for me it's it's not like a stun it's not an it's not about
01:26:34
escaping it's a cleansing for
01:26:41
me and I feel like it will be one of the
01:26:47
most incredible scary things I've ever done but the thing I've learned over the last
01:26:55
few years is that I've got to stop being scared and just start living my
01:27:02
life I'm I'm both terrified and excited in equal measure to watch the show
01:27:08
tonight I had no idea you were burying yourself alive so that's terrifying but I understand your rationale um and I'm
01:27:16
very excited to see what happens Stephen
01:27:22
I would like to see some magic if possible is there some magic
01:27:29
you can show me right now yeah do you want to get some of your friends in as well my team yeah my team are upstairs
01:27:36
um Jack could you bring the team downstairs what you guys do here at doac
01:27:41
I am a video editor with nice I'm head of trailers for the podcast there's some
01:27:47
good trailers as well thank you uh I'm head of the bookings
01:28:03
do you want to mix some you go for it go you go you want as well so we'll split them you can both yeah yeah is this the
01:28:09
best shuffling you've ever seen I mean it's it's not bad it's not the
01:28:15
worst usually it's when you thr the table and you just do all that standard edition yeah I mix these over as well
01:28:22
mix these in so I I'll mix these all together yeah yeah tell you what let's just have everybody pick one we just
01:28:27
we'll just try this so take one out Stephen there we go you mind me there we go thank
01:28:34
you don't let me see I I'll look down so I can't see him just remember them and maybe show them to the camera so that
01:28:41
the people at home can remember them too
01:28:46
yeah cool I'm going to I'm going to look up now yeah yeah I'll take this one first it's
01:28:54
one two three
01:29:02
four I'll give him a uh give him a
01:29:07
shle I'll do one of those for you
01:29:13
okay that is so cool oh my God so the first card
01:29:19
um that's one king of diamonds that's mine your card if I name your card out loud four
01:29:27
of Spades four of Spades if I just take this and just snap like that we get the
01:29:33
four yeah so um then two I
01:29:38
think got and then for Stevens instead of
01:29:44
finding it I'll just I'll make all the other cards
01:29:50
disappear what oh my God where they G where they gone when when you look under your pillow
01:29:56
tonight yeah they won't be there oh my god wow that is unreal
01:30:05
Mega crazy don't did bring a SP
01:30:10
cars just in case yeah how many packs of cards do you have uh I mean I'm trying
01:30:15
to figure it out trying to cut down the two PS of bear oh yeah yeah take one
01:30:22
thank you and then um stepen have you got a pen
01:30:27
y can you write your name on the face of the car oh my God on on on this side
01:30:33
yeah on the other side and if I pass it around so all of you can sign it yeah oh my God these ones I've seen
01:30:39
these on
01:30:50
telly getting a few things I'm going to need perfect have you signed it as well
01:30:57
y yeah great place it right there first down yeah did you show the camera no
01:31:04
maybe show the camera real quick yeah that's what it
01:31:10
be
01:31:15
perfect so it's about halfway down I've got a pound coin mhm you want
01:31:21
to check it oh I confirm it's a real pound C and I got a little piece of paper I'm
01:31:28
going to place this in fact um you can see you can see clearly that the cards
01:31:35
it's it's in the Middle where you plac it that's that's not the card yeah not on the
01:31:47
top oh my God
01:31:54
but that's going to be it isn't that the
01:32:00
bottom to the coin Burns through the pack like
01:32:12
through it didn't go all the way through the pack you see it stopped on one
01:32:19
card take a look you take a look
01:32:26
you no oh my days my hands are shaking your
01:32:32
hands are sh
01:32:39
wild Jem yeah have you ever had a time in your life
01:32:45
where you feel people have got close to you but
01:32:50
then they've almost like loaded you into a false sense of security so that they can almost like manipulate you and like
01:32:57
pull your heartstrings do you know what I mean have you ever had that oh uh didn't realize this was a
01:33:03
diio no um yeah I guess I could say maybe okay
01:33:09
someone okay cool don't have to be a person I think but just like time where you've experienced that way manipulation
01:33:15
yeah so put your hand on my chest and I want you to start to
01:33:23
describe the types of emotions you'd feel when you went through that sort of
01:33:29
thing insecurity lack of confidence
01:33:37
um stupid stupid okay and then I just want you to name a
01:33:46
color red rad okay so imagine these feelings were attached to a heartstring
01:33:54
a heartstring would be red right you can you can feel that pressure right
01:34:04
yeah slowly I'm just going to pull down my top where your hand
01:34:10
is that was red string what see that oh my God you can you see that right coming
01:34:17
out your chest oh my days just so I touch it yeah
01:34:24
check you can check it's my it's my it's coming out my chest like you can feel it on my chest yeah
01:34:29
yeah take it oh
01:34:35
God what take pull it yeah slowly pull it out my chest oh it's a bit
01:34:43
tight oh oh oh my you put it on his AR string can you
01:34:51
feel feel this mhm okay oh sorry more yeah is it going to
01:34:58
come out P it all the way yeah my
01:35:05
God oh my God this is freaking more how long is this heart
01:35:10
string long oh that's your
01:35:19
sticky who
01:35:29
for me magic is about taking something
01:35:36
that kind of doesn't exist like a like a little a little spark in your mind yeah
01:35:43
and then somehow being able to bring it to life I spent the last few
01:35:50
years not feeling like I had the magic in me that I really wanted to share but
01:35:56
there was always that fire somewhere deep inside of me dying to get
01:36:04
out so can you take the lighter here we go again and can you put
01:36:11
your hands together like this for me light the
01:36:16
lighter cuz I'm going to take fire
01:36:22
I'm from fire you get ice oh my God
01:36:34
what
01:36:40
face oh that's actual
01:36:47
ice as you guys know I'm a big fan of hu I'm an investor in the company and they sponsor this podcast and what I've done
01:36:53
for you I put together what I call the hule Steven bundle which is a selection of my favorite products from hu
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next we've disc discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode
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01:38:04
[Music]
01:38:09
it