“Dynamo Is Dead!” The Heartbreaking True Story Of Why Dynamo Vanished For Years!

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 make it go away that's why I Disappeared but it's not the only reason why he disappeared magic couldn't fix me Dynamo Illusionist magician extraordinaire are you watching closely was there a moment you look back on and say that was my rock bottom the sixth of November 2020 cuz that was the day and I tried to kill myself your wife found you unconscious in the dog bed Magic's always been the thing that has given me hope that I've used to overcome the bullying overcome the racist abuse and the lack of belief and it made me stand out in a different way dyn shout out to my homeboy Dynamo Everything You Touch Is turned into gold and you become the sensation and then in 2017 you stopped suddenly I got really sick I couldn't hold the cards anymore my body was deteriorating and then at that same time your grandmother had passed away who was your biggest supporter I'd also heard that you had a legal dispute which meant that you could no longer use the name dynamoe I had so many problems but I couldn't figure out 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 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 say Steven is there some magic you can show me right now what oh my God I've never shared this before but three years ago Dynamo walked up to me when I was at a Christmas party I'd never met him before and he whispered something in my ear that quite frankly stopped me in my tracks that I could not believe I 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 dark place he was engaged in a legal battle and he just lost the right to use his own name he could no longer call himself Dynamo he was no longer able or allowed to do magic and this stranger that had walked over to me at that Christmas party was suffering in a way that I've never seen before and just a 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 story he whispered in my ear at that Christmas party all those years ago where has Dynamo been what happened and what happens next and before this episode starts I want to make a deal with you about 58% of you that watch 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 subscribe button I promise you that we will keep making the show better in every single way and we have huge plans to turn this into more of a documentary style conversation where we work incredibly hard to bring in footage of the things we're talking about about to give you greater context and greater meaning so if you hit the Subscribe button I promise you that we will deliver an even greater version of this show I hope you choose to come along on this journey enjoy this [Music] episode Dynamo or should I say Stephen we're friends you can come wherever you like Stephen in researching your story I've been surprised inspired shocked but in many ways it's given me the context I think that was missing as to how a man like you committed their life to Magic for people that don't know your story your earliest years and the context back there in Bradford in 1980 two what is the context that we need to understand in order to understand you I think ultimately it's the OS that sometimes magic is found in the most unlikely places and I was a kid in a counselor state with no hopes no kind of not much family around me no real Direction and if anything I should never have amounted to anything so for me just trying to not be confined by my environment by my circumstance es is the magic I've been searching for all my life and hopefully I can use the magic I've now found to inspire others who might find themselves trapped in a similar position Bradford 1982 you you said you didn't have a lot of family around you what family did you have and not have around you I mean I was I just born so you know I can't remember exactly everything from literally 82 but from say 80 from 86 I believe that was when my dad went to jail so he wasn't around any longer um my 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 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 yeah she was pregnant at 16 okay was there racial issues in your childhood 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 it's a tribe um it's it's parts of it in Afghanistan parts of it in Pakistan it's kind of scattered around the world and you must have been what four years old when he went to prison yeah did you understand what that meant no no not at all I uh I remember him going out and then just never coming back it wasn't until I was a lot older but I kind of understood that he'd gone away and why he'd gone away and you know and I kind of it's weird like I was young enough that not 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 you know broken families so for me it became just a normal way of life I think if i' have been a bit older and had more chance to understand more and Miss more than it would have maybe been harder did you resent him at that age when you started to realize what you had lost in a father I think if I'm honest I resented him more as an adult as I got older like I resented him more when I first met him properly after you know like when I'm I'm he he came to uh Revolution wine bar in Bradford and this was when I was 19 years old and I'd started to make a little bit of a name for myself with my magic back then you know I'd um I'd I think I would applyed for like princess trust start upload and all that sort you know I was I was basically you know starting to go somewhere way that was positive in my life and I got called by the manager of Revolution saying oh there's a gentleman 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 really feel like I've got a dad so I'm like okay this is strange and 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 working because I was getting ready to do a set at the bar I perform Magic basically in Revolution bar and he came back a few days later and I mean he kind of looked like me so I kind of knew it was true you 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 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 saw that I was getting on my life and I'd got used to a life without him in it so I felt that it was best for me to not have him in my life and then when I met him it was so strange because he 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 friends want to help shift some stuff for me and when I say stuff I'm not talking about legal stuff and at that 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 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 been since you'd seen him at that moment this was when I was 19 so from 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 help him shift some drugs yeah not just drugs but yeah trying to figure out what else it could be if it's not okay he was into stuff lots of stuff you know um and you know that's that's the life some people choose you know what I mean like um I didn't know him enough to to to 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 sort of stuff doesn't necessarily ultimately make you a bad person it can be the circumstances that lead you into that World um but at the time in my life you know I'd been getting some incredible support from mappa Youth Center in Bradford I basically was surrounded by for the first time in my life positive role models from you know positive male role models and part of me hoped that when I saw my dad that he could be one of those but I think I was too far gone in the other direction and he was going in a different direction and it just wasn't meant to be and you know like I I think then I just became indifferent I just thought well you know what I've gone this far without a father so I don't really need one though resentment was that because you were still holding out hope that he was someone else or where where did the resentment come from in that moment you said that's when you resented him the most because I think he they he had in front of him an opportunity to connect with me and he saw a different opportunity in that moment he cared more about using you as a vehicle to sell drugs yeah are you still holding on to pain oh yeah 100% there's going to be parts of that but'll never be closed off because um sadly he's not alive anymore people 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 changes our perspective on them and the situation and often the the issue that held us apart when your mom came to you and told you that he had now passed away is there anything you look back on and go with that New Perspective now that he's gone and go you know what this would have been a probably a different or a better way of handl handing the situation is there any regrets there at all I can't really have regrets personally because the circumstance I was in was not of my making you know um I was told by by my grandma that and my auntie as well my aun M they they both would tell me passionately how much my Mom and Dad loved each other but there was also an element that they said it's 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 been dead because he was apparently very abusive and to your mother yeah did did you ever know this did you ever see this I was like I wasn't really I think it was more before I was born and then you know I think yeah I was too young to really understand it like my mom's told me about stuff more recently and you know my as I've been like you know uncovering things about myself like I've asked more questions what have you been trying to figure out about yourself a lot of things the last few years um the point in my existence ultimately if we go back to the the rest of the context there um from those early years what were you like socially in school and were you a did you like school um I like learning I like trying to understand things but did I like school I was scared of school why just because I used to get beat up all the time like it was school for me was painful but it wasn't the learning aspect of it it was getting to and from the lessons you know surviving the playground like that for me was difficult because I went to a school that was predominantly uh you know a more white school so let's say and you know I was getting to an age where my complexion started to show so it was obvious that I wasn't full 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 everybody you know by my mom by my nan by just anybody who was was close to my family at the time if anybody asks just say you're white you know it was kind of ingrained in where we lived to hear anything that is 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 the Estates I lived on they've done quite a few counselor States in badford depending on where my mom's boyfriends lived or girlfriends um at the time so so I remember there's Del estate and then there's Woodside estate and separating 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 kind of go to hang out and I wasn't one of the cool kids but like one time I got invited down there so I thought oh amazing you know I'm finally being accepted and when I got there they only 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 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 one of the most traumatizing experiences I'd felt at that time thankfully there was one guy on the estate Wayne jawi um 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 safety and yeah like stuff like that happened all the time though it wasn't like you know I can remember that 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 um you know I don't like going you know I don't like going into the sea that you know like getting into water in general is not my uh favorite thing you and me 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 remember it like it was yesterday so yeah so like that experience happened you know it happened on the way to school it happened after school you know so for me the the thought of going to school was always like a daunting notion there were certain teachers like Mrs wox you know like uh she's my English teacher and she was really nice and she was really nurturing and I didn't feel stupid in front of her because in a lot of the classes when you know when the teacher asking you to get involved I was so nervous of other people's opinions in the class that if I spoke up if I if I put my hand up to answer a question and it was wrong then that just was going to lead to more getting beaten up harder after school or you know more ridicule so I kind of kept myself to myself but at the same time I was just like this this like sad loner kid who would take the long way home so I didn't get beat up I remember speaking to Israel out of s who was the UFC world champion and him telling me a very similar story about taking the long way round school so that he would avoid the bullies on the playground and all of 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 he was he ultimately turns to fighting as a way to help him survive yeah I mean 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 turn to Magic as a way to help you to survive ultimately that's where it ended up but I didn't turn to magic magic kind of found me because it was never something I was into initially it was something that my grandpa used to do he do tricks here and there you know little like the sort of things you see a guy doing a pup you know nothing like super amazing but to me he was like kind of the main male role model in my life and he was always alive for the party you know and he seemed to have an answer to every single problem and one day when he was picking up from school like he saw a sort of 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 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 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 involved but he saw it kind of be quite bad one day and when he was walking home 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 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 says you know these things get they get me positive attention when I'm out on about when I share these things so maybe maybe try these and I was scared at school about trying them because I'm like thinking well I'm already seen as this weird of this Outcast like how is now you know is is sharing magic with people because magic wasn't like a cool thing thankfully it made me stand out in a different way and it deflected attention from me and there was definitely some people that you know shunned it didn't like it but there was enough people that thought it was interesting and you know kind of kind of cool that it got people off my back that was really where the magic began properly that's before that point it was you know it was something that I was using to deflect attention from the other areas of my life that I was trying to hide it's um it's quite remarkable how many times I've heard similar stories about someone finding a way to belong through a craft or through singing or through acting whatever it might be and then them committing their life to that it's almost like they become addicted to it in some way and it I guess the issue is when you ask yourself the question what am I now without it do I therefore not belong if I don't do magic yep I know that feeling all too well I'm sure we're going to come to that um about 13 years old in 5 you're diagnosed with crohn's disease which is very young I believe to be diagnosed with crohn's disease which is a lifelong disease um it's like a severe inflammation related to irritable bowel syndrome from what I understand yeah and it can be life-threatening as well yeah yeah um I've had a a few moments where i' had life like life threatening operations how does that change the picture at 13 years old with that diagnosis and what led up to that diagnosis well before the diagnosis this I'd got to you know my teenage years where you you know you kind of start to have changes right you go through puberty and I was definitely like a bit of a 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 smaller but they they were getting bigger and I just basically wasn't really kind of gr growing at the same rate and my mom started to take me to the hospital to get tests done to try and figure out you know what was up with me which I understand why my mom would do that but at the same time for a kid who feels like they don't belong to then be taken to hospital to have tests done on me to figure out what's wrong with me like suddenly I'm like well all right 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 know am I broken do you know what I mean so I mean there clearly there clearly was issues um and they found but I had Cron's disease and I guess now I feel that's quite is an incredibly good thing to have done the problem was back then there wasn't enough knowing about cronn as there is now right the doctors understand it a lot more they understand how to treat it and people are a lot more open to you know to it you know essentially it's an onus that affects your bowels which ultimately affects you know and and how your body digests things and that's not the sort of topics that you know are that easy to talk about um especially when you're you know a teenager going through your formative years you know is there a lot of pain associated with CR disease yeah yeah yeah stomach cramps um you know I mean 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 it's like having a a wound inside your tummy and it's like an open wound and every time you eat you're essentially 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 keep being inflamed and because it's inside you like you know your gut affects every part of your body you know so and then it has side effects which one of the one of the side effects is reactive arthritis which is what I suffer from where if my cronn flares up which can be brought on from simple things like just just everyday stress like Al to you don't have to just eat something for it to be bad like you can you can have a stressful day and it can you know give you a stomach ache which then can ultimately spread to the rest of your body and make you feel debilitated and that if you've got the active atis it means that all your joints start to seize up and ache um hence why sometimes 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 know for me when yeah when that happens it stops me from being able to perform the way that that I've kind of gone to love and that will then have knock on effects to the psychological yeah and every case of cons is different you know it affects people in different ways but but ultimately yeah imagine stomach having stomach ache just all the time and being scared to eat because you don't want to you know eat something and it it ruined it it wipe you out for the rest of the day so you um you go to this new six form College you end up dropping out of college because you decide you want to pursue magic full-time and then you go off to America where you stayed with your grandmother in America by the age of sort of 17 years old you have that operation for your Crohn's which removes 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 sort of gain a following for your performances online I think you know most of us saw that chapter of your life I believe most of us um through videos on social media stuff on TV and all of that and from there on it really looks like your career starts to take off because I I was looking through your biography and at 22 years old you receive an invitation to perform at the United States Super Bowl by 29 years old you have your own TV show called dynamo magician impossible and then that shows a Smash Hit wins all these Awards best entertainment program is that really in your view where things started to take off you're 29 years old 30 years old Everything You Touch has turned into gold and you become this kind of sensation I guess that depends on what you class as like what is success right because for me this the beginning of success where things started to take off was when I got my princesses trust business sty BL on 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 MH like before that point I thought one day I'm gonna have to grow up or one day I'm gonna have to get you know like a real job yeah what people say right yeah yeah you know I think right up until uh you know right up until like my Grandpa died and and 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 proper job now was that uh my Grandpa died in 2012 right and he he died in the middle of my second series of of magician impossible so he got to see some of his 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 on screen so I was that's probably some of my proudest moments but then my uh my nana um sadly she passed in the last couple of years um I don't think don't think anybody really knows about Manana passing um outside of you know my family and my friends um and for me like myo was my biggest supporter for everything but I know that she was always worried about me cuz she always thought that this magic thing wouldn't work out and she wanted me to 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 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 get you know get an education and in many respects you know the advice she was giving was you know was good advice but luckily things kind of turned out all right for the m in the magic I mean it turned out right's quite an understatement you were Magician of the Year multiple times the TV show magician impossible then won the TV Choice Awards his best entertainment show you ended that Dynamo's magician impossible show after its fourth season season I believe um and then you barked on your first live tour called seeing is believing and then in when you were 35 years old in 2017 you stopped that tour suddenly yeah I think the the tour kind of run its course uh we we do it we we did over like you know we we did a lot of countries and a lot of tickets and it was amazing you know I'm I like try and pushing the envelope with magic and with everything I do and I felt like that time on the road gave me time to have a lot of new ideas and I felt like I 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 shortly after that that I got really sick with my crons what happened got uh food poisoning and that gave me a a camply back to um food poisoning which basically is like probably the worst type of food poisoning you can get and that combined with my cones was a rep recipe for disaster so basically I was in hospital I I just remember it was like 10:00 and I was getting ready to go to bed and I went to the bathroom and I had this like horrible 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 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 away and then suddenly like blood was coming out of my mouth I was vomiting I was blood was coming out of both sides right that's yeah uh and I did know what to do like it would it wouldn't stop I was in so much pain um I was screaming my wife like and literally I got rush to hospital and they gave me you know they 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 pain like it and I just did not understand what it was like and what because of that it caused my crones to kind of even though i' had so much of my crones cut out already in previous operations it caused it to spread into a different part of my bowel and from that came the reactive arthritis because in the part of the ball they moved to had different side effects that I never had before MH like I remember like just getting these Sensations where I you know I'd got kind of over the you know a 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 know trying to get on with my life but I'd be holding my cards you know I'd be doing you know magic like things you know stuff that I do in my sleep right but suddenly I was getting like shooting pains in my joints and I was it 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 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 before and I suddenly felt like Mr Burns you know from The Simpsons MH you know like he seems really like fail and weak 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 mean and I couldn't understand it I felt like my body was deteriorating around me and so I went basically on medical trials for the next few years um and the thing is with medical trials is that when you try a new medicine you have to try it for three months before the doctors will write that off as not working and try on a new medication but there was times where 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 months you know my symptoms weren't getting better if anything they'd get worse and it you know it wasn't until we got to the ninth month where I started this medication called inflix M where you have to go to the hospital every few weeks and you get put on a drip for years there for like eight hours and they basically put his medicine inside you and that really had an incredible effect like that gave me a new lease of life I felt stronger I probably felt stronger than I'd felt before I was on it but then Co happened um it stopped my infliximab from working so suddenly I mean 2020 and I'm on medical trials again and I tried um you know I tried so many different medications and it's it was it wasn't till like the beginning of 2021 where I really got one that was really working 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 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 the reason why I uh kind of I guess disappeared for a while but it's not the only reason why he disappeared for a while yeah I think um everything that my body was going through everything that I was going through the pressures of you know trying you like wanting to do magic and the pressures of trying to sustain a career and they uped people's expectations um was almost an impossible task to do whilst I was trying to fix my body and ultimately you know I ended up in a situation where without magic without being able to do what I loved not knowing if I was ever going to be able to get it back made me think what's the point in my existence and I think my body was kind of imploding and so was my mind what was going on in your mind I didn't know what to do in my life didn't know what to do myself um there's a lot of things that I don't want to fully go into so but I'll try and you know be as give you as much as I can there was just so much noise in my head and I hated myself for feeling how I felt I hated the my where my body felt because of you know because of everything I was dealing with if I saw myself in a mirror in my house I hated what was looking back at me I hated it 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 away and yeah I don't know I didn't I didn't want to be alive because I didn't feel like the life I had take away all the the success and you know that side of things I wasn't I wasn't living because I wasn't able to do the thing I loved the most which was magic and it was it was a time in my life where I felt that magic couldn't fix me but Magic's always been the thing that has given me hope that I've kind of used to overcome the bullying overcome the self-doubt and the lack of belief from others and in and in in my own self and suddenly I'm in a position where I don't know what to do with myself and magic isn't going to fix it and I can't I can't until I'm fixed I can't do the thing that gives me a reason and gives me a purpose in performing magic I can't do that because I'm not mentally or physically capable how long did that that last I'm still dealing with it now to be honest like it it's difficult because I'm a magician right and to everybody else looking at me as a magician I'm someone who does the impossible I'm someone who kind of should be able to do anything but I'm a magician who C who felt like you know back then and you know and still at times now I'm a magician who feels like I can't do the first thing that a magician needs to do perform magic so then I'm just an impostor I can't live up to the expectations that people have of me and it's not that I I'm not the sort of person who like searches for validation from other people you know like I mean you know magic is not an art form that is seen as the coolest thing ever do you know I mean it's you know I'd have set myself up to fail if if you know by by 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 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 perceived as but Magic's the only thing that I'm good at and I think the way that I can manipulate my body and you know kind of have handle cards and do the things is a big part of what's made my magic unique and feel special and not been able to do that kills me am I right in thinking that at that same time your grandmother had passed away who was your biggest supporter your body was breaking down because of Crohns and your illness around that time as well and I'd also heard that you had had a legal dispute with your management which meant that you could no longer use your social media channels the name Dynamo etc etc and that had all happened in this concentrated period of your life there was there's a lot of stuff going on and yeah like you know I I think losing my nana ultimately was I think the thing that I guess the St that brought the camel back is EXP profession that you use because she's 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 strong for me and then with a lot of things going on in my life being my with my life being flipped upside down you know and then Manana go in as well it was just like man like you know the light like just felt like the world was out to get me and I kind of wanted the ground to just break open and just swallow me up if I was a fly on the wall in your house at that time what would I have seen a lot of stuff that I don't really want I would want anybody to see like I wasn't very nice to myself a lot of pain but also a lot of numbness and I felt that ironically actually I didn't feel like I felt so numb that I'd hurt myself to try and feel something self harming mhm does your does your partner know what's going on in your life inside your head during this period CU I because I have a I have a partner and I if I was in such a dark place where I was self Haring and doing some of the things you've described that banging my head against the mirror and I was in that sort of cycle of self hatred my partner I think my partner would would would know yeah she knew she she really didn't know the extent of it to begin with and I think also the the Lost side of things you know she obviously felt that herself so I think those things she's dealing with it dealing with her own grief at the same 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 you know what I mean um and we were kind of almost together in those moments you know we came together like you know but she she was the one who ultimately got me to go to therapy and to get the help and support that I needed really in this 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 November 2020 the 6th of November 2020 mhm almost three years ago today exactly almost why was that the hardest day because that was the day that I knew that she knew cuz she found me and I tried to kill myself she found you in the house mhm she found you unconscious yep in the dog bed what are you comfortable talking about I mean I'm not super comfortable at life generally so you know just talking this is the first time I've kind of done an interview that's not been with a therapist in since 2020 so you know I I I trust you you've you know we've you've been a bit of a you've been a help for me over the last few years so I guess you obvious respectful then I respect what you'll do with what I say will be done way there's two things there's two things I want you to feel comfortable about whatever you say but also after this conversation if there's anything 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 world but I I want to um I think the the question that I like that I think is of most value is understanding how someone gets to that point i' I've actually spent quite a long time speaking to Simon gunning who's the CEO of calm campaign against living miserably yeah um and he's done a really great job of helping me to understand suicidality as a topic but also when I have a public platform like this where I speak on this these subject matters occasionally about what elements of that are useful for people that are in that mindset now and what he's shared with me is part of it is people understanding that some how someone gets there but also understanding how they go from there and they rise out of that situation what was what was on your mind when that led you up to that moment I felt but I had so many problems but I couldn't figure out how to even solve one of them and the problems weren't just affecting me they were affecting my household they were affecting you know just my family's life and a big part of my thought if I'm dead then my problems will affect these other people in my life and they will be all right cuz I felt like ultimately I was the problem it was quite a simple kind of that that was it it was like okay if I'm not here then everybody else might be happier and they can get on with their lives and you know like that was it your wife found finds you that day in the dog bed and then she calls an ambulance she called Edward despot who's my doctor he's he's my my gastrologist my Crone specialist and then I remember well she was on the phone to him when I kind of came around and she was just crying and that's will you ask me a moment where it feels like it was the worst I'd probably hurt myself worse on previous occasions but I'd never been found by the one person in this life whose opinion I genuinely care about and no matter what I do now in the future there's nothing I can do that can erase what she saw and that's the thing I'm the most ashamed of because in the moment I felt like I was trying to maybe do something that would take all the problems I thought I was facing and remove them from everybody else's world but I'd not actually thought about what these people would feel if I wasn't here you know what I mean MH so that's the shame that I feel for that I don't feel ashamed for feeling the way I did but I feel ashamed that my wife kind of saw that like it's it's just embarrassing is it she's the person I'm supposed to be strong for you know she's person who relies on me I'm you know I'm the I'm 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 like I'm supposed to be there to be strong for her and I couldn't even be strong for myself can I ask you a question in that when someone is in that situ situation as you were psychologically what do you think those around them can do to support that person or do you think there's very little those around I'm trying to really understand how to support someone you know in my life that would be in such a such a mindset I mean I guess what my wife did like not not just you naturally you would call someone for help like a doctor or something like that but I mean even though I still feel it and I can't necessarily speak on her behalf but she didn't make me feel ashamed she loves you doesn't she yeah it's one of the greatest gifts isn't it to have someone in your life like that that you know just loves you through thick and thin from the ex from the experience and how she's been even up till now you know how she dealt with it and dealt with me and I think it's the first time outside Mano outside of family who you know they have to do it it's unconditional right um because their family their blood but it's the first time that I have actually felt the love of somebody else like because we've been married a long time before then but you know you you just never know what someone's going to act like when really hits the fun and they see you naked yeah and I was exposed I was you can't get any more exposed than than what I felt and she became the rock she she gave me a love but I've never had to to deal with it and you know it's yeah is something that I didn't necessarily maybe know I needed in my life until that moment and that ultimately is kept me alive around this time there's a dispute with your management what are you able to tell me about that because I know it's a legal dispute so there's things that probably can't talk about but I think it's important context to understand what you're going through in this moment as it relates to your sense of purpose and identity and all those things what are you able to tell me I think I was at a time in my life where I felt lost and I knew if I you know stayed doing things exactly the same way that I'd always done them then you're only going to get kind of the same results right you know if I'm if I'm feeling suicidal faults and I'm feeling kind of like worthless then the only way to break that cycle is to have a fresh start it's needed to break away from everything and ultimately you know you've started many 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 know go your separate ways at times um so that happens in business um and I think there was a lot of work needed to be done on myself and just had to take time away from that like um yeah I can't really uh tou on it too 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 happened but the consequence of what happened so because I've noticed you've not been posting on social media in a while for example so I assumed that one of the consequences of this separation with your management was you've not you've not been able to use your social media accounts and we've not seen you on the internet as much is that a correct assumption I don't feel like I've wanted to kind of post things because I felt like my life isn't been worth sharing so you know whilst I've been trying to fix myself I I didn't feel comfortable kind of sharing in those moments and kind of just let the lawyers do what they do and figure that stuff out because I'm I'm 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 world where I can deal with the pressure of Life ultimately all I wanted to do which is you know what's led me to hear with you today is get to a place in my life where I could share magic again and even if my arthritis and my Crone stopped me doing it in the way I used to I had to find a new way to share it and there's certain things in the past that I've had to go through negative experiences you know positive experiences But ultimately I've had to go through those things to learn and grow from them and some things I've had to leave behind and um speaking of things you've left behind are you still Dynamo Palm is always Dynamo yeah of course like but the thing is I've battled with knowing who they almost like there's been a battle between me and myself because the lines are so blurred or were so blurred between you know the Steven that you know and the Dynamo it you know the the greater World kind of knows so then like it's just been it's been a lot of confusion right in simple terms it's been a lot of confusion because Dynamo is the part of me that feels like it can do anything but Steven's the flawed human being that realizes and knows that he can't and it's a conflict and then when my body's falling apart my life's falling apart I'm losing everything in my life outside of magic but I love then I'm just an empty shell and that's the sort of feeling that makes you think like what is the point why am I here like I am worthless to this world if I can't share the only thing that I feel I'm good at people will be sat thinking why can't you share it because partly for some reasons that you know are outside of my control legal related reasons some yeah and yeah sure um you know and then partly because mentally I wasn't free like I need to be free in my head to create material to create the magic I share but all that was in my head is horrible things is things that I can't shut off I can't turn off the noise so then there's no space for magic to find its way weing so I I guess it'd be like the equivalent to writer block like magic writer block like I don't if that's a 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 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 to turn off loud music with lyrics in it or else I can't my brain can't focus on both so I was almost imagining being in a room with really loud music playing and then me trying to think and right and I just wouldn't be able to yeah like like my body was not allowing me to 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 well and I was doing good but then like mentally like I wasn't in a fit state to do magic you know and because of things that was going on behind the scenes I also it was really complicated you know um even getting work and then naturally with that you know it's going to come Financial pressures which is the last thing you need when you've also dealing with everything else so ultimately I had too many horrible thoughts in my mind to try I had too many problems to solve to even think about magic but then me not thinking about magic you just then that's just that's a dis pressing notion because that's so much of your purpose and meaning and joy and yeah and it's not just tricks it's not you know I'm not when I talk about magic in this sense like there's the there's the card tricks there's the things that people see right but for me magic is a feeling it's something you experience in your body when you witness something that you can't explain or when you see something that feels impossible but feels like unobtainable right putting a smile on someone's face is a magical thing and that's what I've spent my life doing But the irony is I was in a position where I couldn't put a smile on my own face so how am I meant to do that for anybody else if I can't you know if I can't do the the simplest thing for 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 despot who's my cosmotologist right and then he he um put my wife in touch with with a therapist um called Edward Sim and I had some sessions with him initially but this type of therapy can be quite expensive yeah so like I got 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 more stressed in the process because I just couldn't afford the therapy but Edward Sim um he showed me a kindness that I've kind of been you know but I haven't seen in a long time especially at that time like he contacted my wife um and just said listen I want to help him him um I'll do it for free and he's been he's been looking after me ever since and you know like for free yeah wow I mean I've you 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 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 never be able to to be pay him for what he's done for me but like yeah I mean he introduced me to so many different things like stuff that I like I use this thing called Sonic Reset Therapy don't know if you know about it it's this like noise that you listen to I listen to it twice a day for 20 minutes and it it it's definitely become something that calms me down and helps me sleep at 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 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 about negative experiences or think about positive experiences that like think about goals you want to achieve or think about things you want to you know get past and just let them come into your mind at the Forefront and yeah it's really strange like it just has a real caling effect we'll try 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 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 one of the things that he suggested to me which at the time when he suggested it it was such a weird thing is he he recommended that I read the Alcoholics Anonymous book now I say it's a strange thing for him to recommend for me because I've never drunk alcohol in my life I've never done drugs other than what the doctors prescribed for me for my cron so I've literally been tall forever do you know what I mean so like I just naively assumed that you know this is a book to help someone who is an alcoholic yeah I've actually I've got I still carry my copy that's yours this is my copy um and in researching your story 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 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 from it um you know essentially it's broken up into 12 steps and each chapter each step is a lot of people's like short stories of how they overcome different phases of addiction or trauma ultimately it's trauma but it's in the in the AL book obviously it's specifically kind of aimed at you know Addiction in that sense and as you hear all the stories it's very easy to replace the alcoholic side of it in this book and put your own trauma or grief that you're trying to deal with in that place and it's like a blueprint like literally people are telling you how they overcome a certain thing and might 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 kind of written maybe from like a spiritual perspective you know I'm not particularly religious like um but ultimately it's about trying to get you to beli in something greater than yourself to help you find your 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 how to get back to that place without dealing with all these things I was dealing with you know like and I've kind of you know gone through the 12-step book but I've kind of gone through my own 12-step kind of recovery like going through the different emotional phases that I've been trying to overcome you know and some of those involved like you know going back looking at my past you 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 was definitely there's definitely been a lot of resentment towards my mom um over the years um because when my dad went away like you know as my mom you know my mom's L you know living a different life life without him you know naturally she's going to get to a stage where she wants a new boyfriend a new a new partner she wants her life of her own right but there's quite a few of those men that came into her life that were horrible to me you know big part of that was because I was a mixed R kid and we lived in a you know quite a racist area so you know a a lot of the men you know didn't want me they wanted my mom cuz my mom 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 tell me or they and they they'd do things that showed me that they didn't want me I I I pretty much moved in with my grandparents when I was 15 like because the the men in my mom's life just I wanted my mom to be happy but that came up the sacrifice of my own 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 like I lost my woman in the process so there's been resentment it's not being like surf on the surface resentment like you know i' still see my m at Christmases and but we never really had that the bond that I thought we should have had um but kind of one of the things I got 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 I've actually got to understand her better and this is this is the wrong word but because ultimately she doesn't need forgiveness cuz knowing her story she hasn't done things wrong in you know she hasn't purposely done things wrong for me to go I forgive you right but there was knowing what she'd been through it's it's in these conversations that I've learned about some of the physical abuse 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 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 you know which uh you know you can't blame someone for like I mean I've come to learn from doing this podcast and speaking to a lot of psychologists that specialize on love that we often seek out the form of love that we grew up on and sometimes that's an abusive form of love so many psychologists that have spoken to have alluded to this but a few have said this quite directly that if you were at a very young age had an sort of a toxic um attachment with maybe a figure in your life there's a chance that you'll then grow up and seek out toxic attachments um in the cycle that you've described we we tend to think that we you know we tend to think that if we've been in a toxic situation when we were younger for example that will'll then seek out really really healthy situations because we know what bad looks like but in fact I've been told that it's often the opposite that we go back to the cycle of love that we were familiar with familiarity seems to be the key word yeah people find safety and familiarity yeah even if that familiarity isn't actually safe I yeah I I can feel that this book this very small book There's Something About This these ideas that seem to reach people when they're in their toughest moments step number one we admitted we were powerless that our lives had become unmanageable step two we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity have you had to admit you were powerless and have you started to believe in a power greater than yourself oh definitely um I mean I've felt powerless for years like I know that I'm not in control like my owness as devil me for so long but just when it 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 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 speak but but yeah I think I think that I've always looked [Music] for the Magic in the wrong place and what I mean by that is that I've always looked for the magic in me to help me out of whatever situation I was in and what this book opened up my mind to the idea of is the Magic in other people as you know because I've been sent thousands of messages these conversation cards sell out exceptionally quick so here's the 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 one hour before anybody else they're in limited Supply so if you really do want to get your hands on them please do add your name to the waiting list in the description below and you can find that waiting list at Theon conversation cards.com but I'll also include it in the description below wherever you're listening to this episode as you know whoop are a sponsor of this podcast which came about from me being the 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 this thing on my wrist right here if you're watching me that not only tracks your health 247 but also guides you to improve it it's probably the perfect gift for the person who has everything or is impossible to buy for which is what my friends say to me because it's the kind of gift that keeps on giving offering realtime benefits for their health and their Wellness forever so if you're on the hunt for the perfect present for a loved one or a team member or even for you this festive season I would highly highly recommend checking out whoop and they very kindly offered our community here under the D CEO a special discount just for you but keep this to yourself if you head over to join. whoop.com CEO you can get that discount let me know who you get one for and how they get on you have a TV show coming out tonight which is really your grand return to the public stage and that TV show is called Dynamo is dead and it's appearing on sky tonight which is very very exciting and I guess this links to what you just said about finding the Magic in others right yeah yeah why are you doing this what is it I just need to get magic back in my life because that's the thing that I live for and over the last few years when I've been working on myself seeing a different type of magic seeing the Magic in other people is what's given me that spark back and the magic I've been seeing it's not Dynamo magic you know it's something different it's something that I'm feeling and I'm finally feeling it again in fact feel like I'm feeling it for the first time like Edward Sim my therapist he's a very successful therapist he doesn't need to offer me therapy for free but he wanted to share some of his magic and that started to rewire my mind to realize whoa like there's some amazing people out there who can you know who they can change lives they're changing mind you know when I saw you three years ago and we shared a candid conversation you know about some of the things I was feeling at the time you first off listened to 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 with me and then not only did you listen but you you kind of helped in a small way and that was magic you know I don't know if anybody knows who's watching 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 in a different way than maybe they used to seeing you definitely but like your story you know like I think one of the things I realized for a lot of people from places like where I'm from speaking to a therapist seems like the last thing you would feel 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 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 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 us I wanted to show people from where I'm from that it's okay to ask for help it's okay to be broken it's okay to not know the answers and I'm not too proud to go out there and search for the answers for people you know like and I've gone around the world using the you know the platform that I have you know I I've obviously as Dynamo um the name opens doors so but opening doors just for myself is pointless because it's only feeding my own ego I realized that if I could use that platform to speak to individuals candidly about dealing with any type of trauma dealing with not feeling good enough dealing with all the things that I felt that made me not want to be be alive anymore then maybe that can save someone else's life and I know it's a grand grandio mission statement I don't take it lightly I don't you know I like I can I'm barely saving my own life for the minute to you know so I 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 it does that that is exactly what it does and they're lives that you never really get to see but just even in Sharing how you felt and how you've risen from that this is exactly what Simon gunning told me it does save people's lives and in this new chapter of your life following this show tonight 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 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 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 need a little bit of escapism and they need a little bit of Wonder and they need their imagination to be stretched and what is real and what is possible and what is impossible it is now and you know that you know that's what people need now and that means we need you now I had the idea obviously to make this show when we first started speaking but when my n died I I realized then that the Dynamo as we know it needed to die with her and that the only way to fully have closure on that part of my life was if I actually bury myself alive and tonight after the show plays out live on Sky I'm going to be doing that you're going to bury yourself alive MH in order to kill off the Dynamo identity yeah and yeah I I mean I haven't I haven't put myself in that hole yet right so you know what will happen after that point is hard to really kind of summarize because there's only been a few times in my life where I've done like crazy like you know endurance Feats like this and something in you changes when you do them you know it's a incredibly scary thought but since I've thought about it you know since the 7th of May 2021 I thought it's the only way to move forward with my life and yeah tonight after the show finishes you'll be able to see it live but it's not for me it's it's not like a stun it's not an it's not about escaping it's a cleansing for me and I feel like it will be one of the most incredible scary things I've ever done but the thing I've learned over the last few years is that I've got to stop being scared and just start living my life I'm I'm both terrified and excited in equal measure to watch the show tonight I had no idea you were burying yourself alive so that's terrifying but I understand your rationale um and I'm very excited to see what happens Stephen I would like to see some magic if possible is there some magic 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 um Jack could you bring the team downstairs what you guys do here at doac I am a video editor with nice I'm head of trailers for the podcast there's some good trailers as well thank you uh I'm head of the bookings 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 best shuffling you've ever seen I mean it's it's not bad it's not the worst usually it's when you thr the table and you just do all that standard edition yeah I mix these over as well 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 we'll just try this so take one out Stephen there we go you mind me there we go thank 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 the people at home can remember them too yeah cool I'm going to I'm going to look up now yeah yeah I'll take this one first it's one two three four I'll give him a uh give him a shle I'll do one of those for you okay that is so cool oh my God so the first card um that's one king of diamonds that's mine your card if I name your card out loud four of Spades four of Spades if I just take this and just snap like that we get the four yeah so um then two I think got and then for Stevens instead of finding it I'll just I'll make all the other cards disappear what oh my God where they G where they gone when when you look under your pillow tonight yeah they won't be there oh my god wow that is unreal Mega crazy don't did bring a SP cars just in case yeah how many packs of cards do you have uh I mean I'm trying to figure it out trying to cut down the two PS of bear oh yeah yeah take one thank you and then um stepen have you got a pen y can you write your name on the face of the car oh my God on on on this side 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 these on telly getting a few things I'm going to need perfect have you signed it as well y yeah great place it right there first down yeah did you show the camera no maybe show the camera real quick yeah that's what it be perfect so it's about halfway down I've got a pound coin mhm you want to check it oh I confirm it's a real pound C and I got a little piece of paper I'm going to place this in fact um you can see you can see clearly that the cards it's it's in the Middle where you plac it that's that's not the card yeah not on the top oh my God but that's going to be it isn't that the bottom to the coin Burns through the pack like through it didn't go all the way through the pack you see it stopped on one card take a look you take a look you no oh my days my hands are shaking your hands are sh wild Jem yeah have you ever had a time in your life where you feel people have got close to you but then they've almost like loaded you into a false sense of security so that they can almost like manipulate you and like pull your heartstrings do you know what I mean have you ever had that oh uh didn't realize this was a diio no um yeah I guess I could say maybe okay someone okay cool don't have to be a person I think but just like time where you've experienced that way manipulation yeah so put your hand on my chest and I want you to start to describe the types of emotions you'd feel when you went through that sort of thing insecurity lack of confidence um stupid stupid okay and then I just want you to name a color red rad okay so imagine these feelings were attached to a heartstring a heartstring would be red right you can you can feel that pressure right yeah slowly I'm just going to pull down my top where your hand is that was red string what see that oh my God you can you see that right coming out your chest oh my days just so I touch it yeah 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 yeah take it oh God what take pull it yeah slowly pull it out my chest oh it's a bit tight oh oh oh my you put it on his AR string can you feel feel this mhm okay oh sorry more yeah is it going to come out P it all the way yeah my God oh my God this is freaking more how long is this heart string long oh that's your sticky who for me magic is about taking something that kind of doesn't exist like a like a little a little spark in your mind yeah and then somehow being able to bring it to life I spent the last few years not feeling like I had the magic in me that I really wanted to share but there was always that fire somewhere deep inside of me dying to get out so can you take the lighter here we go again and can you put your hands together like this for me light the lighter cuz I'm going to take fire I'm from fire you get ice oh my God what face oh that's actual 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 for you I put together what I call the hule Steven bundle which is a selection of my favorite products from hu including the Black Edition salted caramel flavor which is super high in protein and has 17 servings per container my favorite heel bottle here which comes with my bundle and also the brand new and very exciting hu Complete Nutrition bars this is chocolate camera you can see from the empty box in front of me that I've eaten most of them right me and my team here if you leave these on the counter for 5 seconds they'll go I'm going to say something I've never said when hu first made their bar many many years ago I tried it and I didn't like it so I've never talked about it on this podcast they've spent roughly the last two to three years making a brand new bar which I absolutely love and that's why I now talk about it because it's a product that I eat if you want to order them yourself and get started on your hu Journey the link is in the description below in this podcast episode wherever you're listening to it there'll be a Steven's bundle link and check it out do you need a podcast to listen to next we've disc discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode we've done so I've linked that episode in the description below I know you'll enjoy [Music] it

Channel: The Diary Of A CEO

Views: 1,823,071

Keywords: The Diary Of A CEO, steven bartlett steve bartlett, podcast, the diary of a CEO podcast, life lessons, CEO

Id: TTzgD6Tn9DY

Length: 98min 11sec (5891 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2023