I was seven years old when the rituals started. Touching things a certain number of times. Routines that had to be done exactly right, or something terrible would happen. I didn’t know it was OCD. I just knew my brain wouldn’t let me rest. So I did what so many young people do. I hid it, and I got very, very good at hiding it.
By my twenties, the mask was doing all the work. From the outside I looked fine. On the inside, OCD, anxiety, depression and undiagnosed ADHD were running the show. I lost a whole decade of my life, from 21 to 31, to masking. Ten years of smiling through it, holding it together and falling apart where nobody could see.
Then something shifted. I learnt to become comfortable feeling uncomfortable. Running gave me a way through, and Run4YourMind, my mental health support page, is where the whole journey began. A friend, Luke Staton, said something that changed everything: “It’s time to turn the lights on.” So I did. I stepped out of the dark and onto the stage, and decided to become the voice I needed when I was younger.
My first proper talk was for Microsoft. Then Burberry. Next minute, I was travelling across Canada, working with professional football teams in the Canadian Premier League and high performing tennis players with Tennis Canada. A Yorkshire lad from Sheffield who’d spent ten years hiding, now standing in front of elite athletes talking about the thing he’d hidden.
It hasn’t stopped there. I’ve delivered talks in the mountains in Italy, travelling with a ski trip company.
Then came a talk for the NHS. 350 nurses in a room. Afterwards, a playwright came up and asked if she could turn my story into a theatre production. Nine months later, LOOP was a touring play. It opened at Leeds Playhouse, and 1,200 people came to watch my life on stage. The story I’d spent a decade hiding was now being told to packed theatres.
Since then, I’ve delivered 600+ talks to 110+ businesses and 96,400+ young people across 200+ educational settings. I’ve worked with GSK, Virgin Media O2, Lloyds Bank, Royal Mail, Direct Line, Flutter UK&I and Hays, including 100 talks across 63 schools in just 20 days, from Newcastle to London, reaching 25,000 young people. I’ve taken mental health conversations onto construction sites, to the people who need them most and talk about them least.
Then there was Mr Kent. Everyone else managed my behaviour. He looked twice. He connected first, corrected second, and never gave up on me. He didn’t hand me a free pass. He handed me a chance. Every principle in Connect Before You Correct started in his classroom, because right now there are young people wearing the mask I wore, and one adult who looks twice can change their life.
In September 2026, on my 40th birthday, I launched that book alongside I Stand Connected for young people, in front of around 200 people in Sheffield. Today every keynote I deliver funds three assemblies in a school of your choice. Your booking helps take the mask off.
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Every young person has a story. Every story holds a purpose.
Every keynote booking funds three assembly talks in a school of the client's choice. Oly delivers them himself.
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