From 20 pints a day to running 3100 miles across America - with Tom Fitzsimons

From 20 pints a day to running 3100 miles across America - with Tom Fitzsimons

For Tom Fitzsimons, alcohol offered something he’d been searching for since childhood: belonging. After moving from Belfast to England and losing his father at just thirteen, he spent twenty years believing the world was against him, using drink, anger and violence to escape the grief and disconnection he didn’t know how to name. Then running gave him another way forward. Tom went from being unable to complete his first run without vomiting to completing the Marathon des Sables and then running 3,100 miles from San Francisco to New York in 100 days. But this isn’t simply a story about extraordinary endurance. It’s a raw, honest conversation about addiction, recovery and the stigma that remains long after someone becomes sober. It’s about the loneliness of changing your life, the people who hold belief in us before we can hold it for ourselves, and the quieter work of becoming that continues when the cheering stops. Tom also speaks movingly about the deaths that have shaped his life, his struggle to understand and express love, and the poetry that has become a new way to release what he once carried through running. Together, we explore: • Why belonging can sometimes lead us towards the very things that harm us • The difference between what we want and what we truly need • Why sobriety deserves to be noticed, honoured and celebrated • The stigma still attached to addiction and mental ill health • Learning to receive and express love when it hasn’t always felt safe • Why creativity isn’t reserved for people who already call themselves artists This is a conversation about survival, responsibility and second chances. But perhaps most of all, it’s about holding on to a passion for life, despite the sadness. To connect with Tom: LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-fitzsimons-opportunity/Instagram: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=659801018 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomfitz2014/ Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

At the threshold: introducing Season Two - with Sue Revell

There are moments when we know life cannot continue as it was. Sometimes the threshold is unmistakable: a death, a relationship breaking open, a truth we can no longer avoid. At other times, it arrives quietly, as the growing realisation that who we’ve been can’t carry us into whatever comes next. Season One of Life, Love & Legacy explored identity, visibility, alignment, kindness, truth and becoming more fully ourselves. Season Two takes us deeper. These conversations move through addiction and recovery, relationship rupture and repair, death and dying, grief, conflict, reconciliation, ceremony, ancestry, nature, community and transformation. They ask what we do when something must be faced, honoured, released or remade, and what may become possible when life changes us. In this short launch episode, I introduce the seven guests joining me this season: Tom Fitzsimons Motivational speaker, author, and former endurance athlete Lottie Moore Modern day medicine woman and guide Monica Douglas Conscious relationship mentor and minister Penny Boycott Celebrant, founder, community-builder and AMC Head of Learning Katie Costello Soul midwife, death educator and funeral celebrant Jo Berry CBE Peacebuilder, founder and international speaker Richard Tyler Soul therapist, poet, performer and Bard of Bath Seven very different people, each bringing lived experience, wisdom and deeply human questions to the threshold. Join me. For more information about my new programme Celebrate YOU! https://bookme.name/MissionUnstoppable/lite/celebrate-you-tell-me-more Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

More than what we leave behind: the Season One lessons - with Sue Revell

What if legacy is less about how we’re remembered and more about how we’re living now? In this Season One finale, I’m looking back at seven conversations that explored identity, visibility, self-worth, kindness, success, truth and the courage to live more fully as ourselves. What began as an experiment in creating a different kind of conversation became something much deeper. Again and again, the subject of love led us back to the relationship we have with ourselves: how we see ourselves, trust ourselves, express ourselves and stop abandoning ourselves in order to belong. I revisit the central ideas from each guest conversation and its accompanying Insights episode, including what it means to be born pre-approved, the quiet cost of hiding who we are, the fine line between achievement and self-abandonment, and the courage to believe things can be different. This episode is both a reflection on Season One and an invitation to return to the conversations that may be calling you now. Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

Rebels, rulebreakers and the courage to believe things can be different - with Sue Revell

Some truths were never really ours. We inherited them, absorbed them, repeated them, and somewhere along the way we began treating them as fact. In this solo Insights episode, I’m reflecting on my conversation with brand strategist, writer and ideas person Matt Thomas, and exploring the themes that stayed with me: truth, rebellion, language, ideas and becoming. Not rebellion as noise, ego or some sort of performance. The deeper kind that begins when we question the accepted path, the rules of the room, and the stories we’ve been told about who we are allowed to be. Drawing on Matt’s reflections on rebels, rulebreakers, punk, creativity, class, belonging and self-doubt, I explore how the things that held us back may also have driven us forward, and why we need more curiosity and compassion for the parts of ourselves we’re tempted to reject. I also reflect on why, as a coach, I love disrupting people’s thinking, and why language really matters when we are talking about truth. The words we use can honour what matters, or quietly make it smaller. This episode is an invitation to question the truths, scripts and language you may have accepted without realising, and to ask what might become possible if you allowed yourself, even quietly, to rebel. Because sometimes the most important legacy we create begins with a simple refusal: I don’t believe it has to be this way. HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: * The difference between rebellion and disruption for performance * How inherited truths become mistaken for reality * Why coaching can interrupt the thoughts that keep us small * The messy relationship between what holds us back and what drives us forward * Why language matters when we are trying to live truthfully * Ideas as invitations to see, speak, make and become differently Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]

The pursuit of truth: rebellion or responsibility? - with Matt Thomas

Maybe you were never here to fit the market, follow the script, or become more acceptable. Maybe part of your work is to disturb what’s become too comfortable, challenge what’s now too familiar, and tell the truth that keeps being quietly avoided. In this episode of Life, Love & Legacy, I’m talking to Matt Thomas, brand strategist, speaker, and former award-winning business journalist, whose work helps experts, founders and organisations move beyond safe, samey positioning and become impossible to ignore in crowded markets. But beneath the branding lies something much deeper. Matt’s work is rooted in a lifelong pursuit of truth. The truth beneath the performance. The truth inside the story. The truth we often think but don’t say. From his early curiosity about why people behave as they do, to his love of rebels, rule-breakers, artists and ideas, Matt has built a body of work around helping people stop blending in and start becoming unmistakably themselves. And what emerges in this conversation is that truth-telling is not only an act of rebellion. Sometimes it is an act of responsibility. A responsibility to your work, your voice, your people, and the difference only you can make. Matt reflects on growing up in Birmingham, being shaped by working-class humour, love and loyalty, losing his father at 23, and the deeply human journey of becoming a father after fertility struggles. We also explore curiosity, class, creativity, grief, belonging, self-doubt and the quiet rebellion of refusing to become what the world expected. At the heart of this conversation is a question that applies to brand, identity, life and legacy: Are you brave enough to become true enough to be impossible to ignore? HIGHLIGHTS * Why the pursuit of truth has shaped Matt’s life, work and way of seeing people * How journalism, curiosity and brand strategy all connect through story * Why becoming “impossible to ignore” starts with becoming more unmistakably yourself * The creative power of rebels, rule-breakers, artists and people who refuse to fit the mould * Losing his father at 23, and how grief changed Matt’s understanding of life and meaning * Fertility, fatherhood and the moment his daughter’s birth became a release of love, relief and faith * Why great work often comes from slowing down, making properly, and refusing to settle Connect with Matt: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themattthomas_/ Website: https://www.mattthomas.co/about Connect with Sue: Website: https://www.suerevell.com [https://www.suerevell.com] Social Media Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.facebook.com/lifelovelegacy/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/ [https://www.instagram.com/suerevell_lifelovelegacy/] Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/suerevell.bsky.social] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell [http://www.linkedin.com/in/suerevell]