The Short Version
I’m Liam Gooding and I’m an author, actor, model, life coach and entrepreneur.
While my previous career was in as a software entrepreneur (9 years, 4 companies), I decided to take a break from the tech industry and instead, pursue my passion to help the millions of men who live a life they are not fulfilled with.
I study fitness (particularly bodybuilding, powerlifting and strongman), nutrition and psychology (particularly mental health, effects of testosterone/estrogen, therapy) and I share my learnings along with my own personal anecdotal experience.
Through my blog, books and videos, I aim to educate, inspire and motivate men (and some women!) to unleash a stronger and more primal side of themselves. This creates healthier and happier fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.
Links
How The Book Happened (2016)
I was born Liam Sean Gooding, in 1987 in the North of England, UK. The youngest of 4 into a freshly divorced family, I was raised almost entirely by my father.
A natural geek as a child, I always tended towards microscopes and electronics kits while my friends played football or rode bikes. My geeky image was solidified by my glasses and buck teeth.
While physically very tall as a young boy, I never carried any muscle and always tended towards being slightly overweight. Unfortunately, without much in the way of confidence, charisma or athletic physique, dating or romance didn’t really feature in my early life at all.
As a ‘straight A’ student, I was offered places on Astrophysics courses at multiple UK Universities and did the traditional ‘Academic Path’. However, instead of studying to become a scientist, I used my time at University to learn about 3 things: How to make friends, How to make money, and How to begin to understand women!
After 4 years, I left University as the owner of a successful Software Development Agency, a 6 pack, and a beautiful ‘trophy fiancée’.
Over the next few years, I built and sold multiple small companies in the software space, building a promising track record in business and even doing the “silicon valley startup” thing for a while!
But, I was destined to lose it all: the house, the money, the fiancée, even the 6 pack.
I became crippled by mental health issues, my physical health had severely deteriorated, and I had managed my personal finances into the ground where bankruptcy seemed like my only logical lifeline.
I left San Francisco leaving my failed multi-million dollar company behind, and unable to stomach returning to my home country, I flew straight onto Madrid, Spain. A place where I knew no-one but had never been before, it seemed as good a place as any to figure out ‘what went wrong?’.
The next few months are a blur, but eventually I found myself sitting on a beach in Barcelona, with just enough money left for a flight back to the UK, and around £50,000 in outstanding credit cards and short-term loans (all demanding a payment).
I was pretty fucked.
I did what most people have done – I wallowed. I got drunk. I took anti-depressants like they were candy. I partied hard. Eventually I partied a little too hard.
And then one day I woke up in a strange apartment, surrounded by sleeping bodies, and I didn’t recognise anyone. I didn’t recognise the girls sleeping naked in the bed with me (but still, #wining), I didn’t recognise where I was, and I didn’t recognise who I was.
I felt like I was watching myself in a pretty shit movie. And if nothing changed, the credits would be rolling soon..
The next day I moved out of my AirBnb and I moved to somewhere else in the city away from the parties. I deleted all of my nightlife contacts and girls from Whatsapp. And I joined a gym.
As simple as that – I joined a gym.
Anchoring myself on that daily workout was how I gave up the partying (and the substances that went along with it), I gave up the anti-depressants and painkillers I was self-prescribing, and I finally started eating real food again.
After a few days, I started to keep a training journal. I’d write notes about my workout that day, notes about the people I spoke to today and notes about the men I observed in Barcelona. I started to really notice people and I began analysing situations and scenarios as if I wasn’t there myself – merely an observer in a white lab coat on the sidelines.
I was trying to figure out what made a man, a man. Or at least, what separated the guys who seemed happy and like they were having fun from the men who seemed to be struggling, as I once had.
I wanted to know how I could get that fire back again. I wanted to create a formula for how I could come back for Round 2 at life.
Soon these notes became essays that I would rework and re-edit as I had new ideas. And then one day, someone suggested I turn these notes into a book – purely as a project to give me something to focus on.
Over the next few months, any minute that I wasn’t training in the gym, I was writing at the Beach Garden Cafe – I literally sat 10 feet away from the Mediterranean ocean while working on my book. With a constant supply of coffee, bravas and mojitos (which Guilio the manager hardly ever let me pay for!), I wrote my first book: How To Become A Modern Viking.
At the same time, I had genuinely started to feel level again. I setup a few job interviews in London with old contacts and decided to return to the tech industry and take a salary to start paying down my now enormous debts.
As my book went live on Amazon, I began saying goodbye to friends and took a few days off to say goodbye to Barcelona.
…and then my book became a #1 New Release on Amazon.
Hardly the New York Times Bestseller List and the sales wouldn’t have meant much in a traditional publishing deal, but as I watched those early sales pass 1,000 copies, making it better selling than 90% of all non-fiction books published that year, I realised I needed to explore this further and see if there was a genuine way I could help more guys out this way.
While the early book sales alone were definitely not going to get me out of debt in the same way that a tech salary would, it was enough hope to give this new career/life a shot, at least for a few months.
So fuck it – I became an Author.
Fast forward a few months and I’m living in London. Adulting. And still managing to pay my rent and food (and keep my debts at bay) with my income as an author.
I started to get interest for small modelling and acting roles. Why not. Then I became a bouncer, eventually a Head Doorman of a prestigious South London venue. Why not.
It took me a while to find a serious cause worth fighting for again, and that cause was given to me by my new (and doing fantastic!) company Nordic Botanics.
It’s been a crazy journey. At only 28 32 I feel like I’ve experienced a lot in life – maybe too much. But what keeps me going every day now is knowing that I am helping thousands of people live happier and healthier lives.
Through my own mistakes, I lost all of my wealth and most of my tribe. I was alone.
Now I’m the Brother who’s there for others when they feel the same way.
