Smácht Philosophy Discipline Business Success
Discipline sounds harsh until you translate it to the Irish word “smácht”—meaning control, mastery, and the beautiful skill of managing your fishing technique.
Pádraic Ó Máille reveals how this Connemara word became a life-changing philosophy for terrified business owners surviving Ireland’s worst recession, evolving into mastermind groups running since 2011 with members still returning for one surprising reason: safety.
Discover why 98% of heart bypass patients revert to old habits without peer accountability, how Pádraic went from C-class to A-class through presentation skills, why his mother’s pre-speech phone call taught him about negative people, and the six questions transforming paralysing worry into actionable plans—including the business owner who smiled after finally knowing exactly what he owed
THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
- How the Smácht philosophy was born.
- Why mastermind groups provide irreplaceable benefits
- How physical fitness represents the #1 characteristic of successful business people.
- Why the six-question problem-solving framework transforms worry into action.
- How presentation skills differentiate successful entrepreneurs not by product quality but by communication ability.
GUEST DETAILS
Pádraic Ó Máille is Ireland’s most sought-after business mentor, acclaimed speaker, and founder of the Smácht philosophy—the proven discipline of success driving incredible achievements since 2011. His framework has helped extreme athletes conquer the Atlantic, high-level sports teams win national titles, and entrepreneurs secure the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. With over twenty years mentoring business owners through economic recessions, growth phases and personal challenges, Pádraic has worked with approximately 200 colleagues across 12+ Smácht mastermind groups operating since 2011, with many original members still participating today. Author of insightful books including The Midas Power, Pádraic’s unique approach combines Irish cultural wisdom (the Connemara word “smácht” meaning discipline, control and mastery) with practical psychology, physical fitness principles, and peer accountability structures. His mentoring philosophy emphasises five critical success characteristics: physical fitness, surrounding yourself with the right people, positive psychology, problem-solving frameworks, and presentation skills. Drawing on experiences from working with Fergal Quinn at SuperQuinn to supporting businesses through Ireland’s worst economic recession, Pádraic delivers transformative insights making success inevitable rather than hopeful.
Connect with Pádraic:
- Speaking Engagements: Available for corporate events, conferences and business training
- LinkedIn: Pádraic Ó Máille | LinkedIn
TRANSCRIPTION
Pádraic Ó Máille 0:00
I think when you ask the members, why do you keep coming back? It’s a safe place. That’s a surprising thing, but a safe place for business owners. You know, when we have problems, we can’t always go to our banks. We can’t even go to our accountants. You know,
DustPod 0:15
No unicorns, no brands, just hard working people who built their business from the ground up, sharing their experience so others can learn. Presented by Larissa Feeney from Kinore. This is real business conversations.
Larissa Feeney 0:33
Hello, My name is Larissa Feeney. I am CEO and founder at Kinore finance and business services. Our guest today is the ultimate accelerator for ambition. He’s the man behind the Smácht philosophy, the proven discipline of success that has been the driving force behind some incredible achievements. He’s not just talking theory. framework Pádraic’s frame work has helped extreme athletes conquer the Atlantic high level sports teams win national titles, and entrepreneurs secure the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. He’s one of Ireland’s most sought after business mentors, and the author of insightful books like the Midas power we’re going to discuss how to structure your efforts for exponential growth, the power you gain by committing to a mastermind group, and the practical steps needed to move from merely hoping for success, to making it absolutely inevitable. Please join me in welcoming the exceptional speaker and business strategist. Pádraic Ó Máille, welcome Pádraic. Good to be here. Larissa, I’m delighted to have you. How are you today? I’m great. Thank you, pork. I have so much to ask you, right? But I think I’d love to start first with smácht. If you wouldn’t tell me where the smácht philosophy came from. And what does it mean?
Pádraic Ó Máille 1:46
I think it was the fifth of February, 2011
Larissa Feeney 1:50
Well, that’s very exact. Yeah, there were
Pádraic Ó Máille 1:52
Really bad times. Larissa, you would have remembered them. We were coming out of the back of the worst economic recession that businesses had ever come across, and I had 12 really scarified business owners in a room in the castle oaks hotel in Castleconnell in Limerick. Remember it vividly. And I went around the room and I asked a question I’ll come back to later. I asked them what they were worried about. And almost every one of them said they were worried about survival. It was nothing about growing businesses or thriving. They were just worried about hanging out through this through this recession. And then I went around the table again, and I asked them, What was the one characteristic they thought they needed more than anything else to survive? And almost every person said discipline, and they would say discipline, and they would give me a dirty look. And I always remember it ended with a guy called Paulie O’Connell, not the rugby player. Paulie is. He’s MD at Crecora Mills in Limerick, brilliant, brilliant company. And Paulie gave me the filthy look after saying he needed discipline. I said, What’s the story? Paulie? He said, Pádraic, we know we need discipline. The only problem is we hate the sound of the word. And everybody, I kind of felt I was going to lose the dressing room. And Paulie said, he said, Look, he said, By any chance, would it be an Irish word for discipline? And there act, and there actually is, and it’s a beautiful it’s very much a Connemara word. smácht And my uncle would say my dad had died, literally, before I was born. But I had an uncle who used to take me fishing, and he was very good to me, fluent Irish speaker, and he arrived into my mum when I was about seven or eight. He said, If you give me Parekh for the weekend, I’ll put smácht on his fishing. And smácht does mean discipline, but it’s altogether a richer word than the English word. It also means control or mastery. And you’d have often heard me holler more to hurt these speaking about her Joe canning smácht there, and Leroy, he controlled the ball, or he mastered it. And everybody burst out laughing. And they said, Yeah, what we need to survive the recession is smock. And we laughed at it, but I said, Well, what sort of disciplines do you need? You know, do you need a Do you need a five year plan? And they said, Park, Park. We may not be in business in five weeks, maybe a monthly plan. And you know, that’s where we began. Larissa without any plan. Smocks was born that day, and the discipline we agreed was we would meet once a month for half day, the members would agree certain actions that they would take, and they would come back to the group, and they would discuss them and be a little bit accountable, or say where they had problems with it. And by the end of that year, including in Donegal, where you’re based out of I think we had 12 groups going around the country. It was, I was the busiest I ever was, and so many of those members are still with us. Would you believe ever since. 2020, 11. So that’s where smock came from.
Larissa Feeney 5:03
And would you have called it a mastermind at that time? Because today you will call it a mastermind.
Pádraic Ó Máille 5:07
I think, no, we did not, not at all, not at all that evolved every time we’d meet, we’d add to our little body of knowledge. In fact, the acronym smácht began to stand for S was for strategy. M was for dependent on the group, for measurement, a was for attitude, C was for cash or communications. H was for human beings, and T was either for the team, depending on the company or time. We had a little acronym for it, yeah, but no a mastermind. We discovered many years, I would say, maybe two years afterwards that there’s some really famous masterminds, that there have been masterminds crying out loud, the 12 Apostles, the disciples. They were ancient forms of masterminds. The vagabonds. Was a really famous American mastermind that included Henry Ford, Thomas, Edison Randolph, who was the president of the United States, Harvey firewall, who came up with the tires. These people met four times a year, mostly informally. They would meet for lunches or drinks. They went on holidays. In fact, there was the story of their car broke down. Now the cow went off the road. The four of them, this farmer arrived in a sort of a belted up car, and he was dragging them out. Somebody said, you know, that man there actually made the car, and that other man there, he designed the tires for the car, and that other man designed the lights. And the farmer looked at the MIDI long white beard, and he said, and I’m Santa Claus. They were actually the repeat. So Larissa, no, we did not call it a mastermind. I do now, I think at Napoleon Hill, there’s a book up behind me there, and in a wonderful book called Think and Grow Rich. And he said, Whenever two or more minds come together, a third better mind is formed and and we all know that. It’s so true. I mean, our mums would have said a problem shared is a problem half you know, you’re infinitely wiser, and I’ve seen you operate this way with your own team. You know you are so much better with a diversity of minds coming together. We did not call it that for at least two years. I’d say,
Larissa Feeney 7:15
if I have no exposure to masterminds, if I’ve never heard of the concept, why, as a business owner, would I join a mastermind? Because it costs money, and there’s loads of them around the country, and some cost a lot of money, right? And others not so much, right? But it is an investment in terms of money. It’s an investment in terms of time. So over all the years that you’ve been running them, what feedback have you got from business owners? Why do they keep coming back? What’s in it for them?
Pádraic Ó Máille 7:43
Yeah, it’s a great question. And and with every respect, Larissa, it’s a question I asked myself. And have asked, you know, ad nauseum, almost since 2011 I think when you ask the members, as I do every year, you know, why do you keep coming back? And these are really, really successful business people. The first one is, it’s a safe place. That’s a surprising thing, but a safe place for business owners. You know, when we have problems, we can’t always go to our banks. We can’t even go to our accountants. You know, very often we can’t take problems home with us. Do you know it’s a really powerful dynamic to have a peer group of like business people. I would never have said that originally, but I think it’s what most of my members say. The other thing, funnily enough, there’s another book behind me there called grow or die. It was written by a very famous American journalist, and he tracked people who had to, like myself, serious heart surgery. These were people who had bypassed surgery. I actually didn’t have that. But what he discovered was that when they were admitted for their bypass surgery, they were absolutely thrilled, and they said, Doctor, we will do anything never to have this happen again. Within two years, 98% of people who had bypassed surgery had reverted to their old habits, to their old fitness regimes, to their old diets, the 2% who actually succeeded in sticking with it were part of a mastermind group, and I think, far better than any other statistic, is that If you want to stick to your goals, have the accountability to go to a mastermind group so so one is the soft side. The other is the hard side. Accountability works, even though we may not like the word. I would say they’re the two greatest reasons. The third stuff I’d probably add on is the loneliness component. It’s lonely being in business on your own. I mean, I had a decision to make this morning and and I really had great difficulty with it. You know, I was awake early. I was trying to go through it. It was one I couldn’t care, because it was with a smart member, and I couldn’t go to my kind of smart groups on it. I would allow. Of five or six people to say, look, give me your opinion on this. Larissa, the other one was, I was fortunate to work with Fergal Quinn when he owned the super Quinn. He had 16 shops. When I worked with him, he was the most phenomenal entrepreneur, the most phenomenal person. But when I reflect on what was it that he did. He did focus groups on an ongoing basis. I mean, I worked in in his shop in Kilkenny, and first thing in the morning he would arrive down from Dublin. He would ride into the shop, and he would pack bags and pack customers bags, and he would do that from nine to 10. And what he was doing was actually listening. He was very subtly saying, well, Larissa, what do you like about this shop? And he’d listen and what are some things we could improve? And then at 10 o’clock, on the button, he would have a focus group with his staff, where or his team, as he called them, and he would feed back the feedback he had got that morning, and he would elicit their feedback. It was a focus group. He was using his head. And then every Tuesday morning, in those days, he had a formalized focus group with 14 customers. I remember them well, an old cassette tape recorder in the middle of a table, and these were customers, and he was literally just talking about what they liked and didn’t like about a shot. And a very interesting thing for some of your viewers, who might think this is just for business, many may not realize that rory’s cousin a Ruri Quinn, who actually was leader of the Labor Party and a very fine government minister, and Ruri did the exact same thing. Every month, he would have 810, 12 people in off the street, ie, ordinary people like ourselves, and he would ask them how they thought the country was being run, what could be done differently? Focus groups are, for my money, Larissa, they’re a wonderful investment. They really, really are.
Larissa Feeney 12:00
So the same applies. Then the same principles apply to the mastermind group, the discipline of coming together, of sharing. There’s a safety aspect as well, or element to it as well. Isn’t there? Like, there’s safety there, because you made the point. There’s things that you can’t share with your spouse, with your team, and if you don’t have Well, regardless, actually, of the size of your business, if you own it, then you’re largely on your own for a lot of the decisions, or some of the major decisions anyway. So having a safe space to share the challenges with and to hear other challenges, other people’s challenges as well, especially if you’re lucky enough to be in a group where there’s business owners who are further along on their journey than you are, then you’re really have an opportunity to learn and to leapfrog in terms of your growth. You probably see that a lot. Do you?
Pádraic Ó Máille 12:48
Yeah, absolutely. See that. And you know, the funny thing that’s evolved over the years, while they’re ostensibly business masterminds, yeah, and the purpose is, is to help people improve in their businesses, I would say Larissa, and you’ve been part of one for the last year almost. I would say a good 30% is involved in physical stroke, health things, people saying, like this week, I’m sure you’ve seen the WhatsApp groups. You know, breathing techniques, I’ve tried this, but a Yako breathing method. It’s really helped my energy. It’s helped me sleep at night. An awful lot of family things. One of the biggest things I’m proudest of, and you included, are people taking proactive holidays. I think you went into continent with your kids this year, you know. And so many people have talked about taking more quality time with their families. So that was a very pleasant surprise for me, I would say the business component was probably a third of it at this stage, if you were to reflect on the content of each smart session, yeah.
Larissa Feeney 13:47
And I do agree with you, and that was a surprise to me as well. I have to say that was a surprise, and I suppose it points to the reality that in order to grow the business, you have to grow yourself, and there’s an element of self care and well being there that it’s common to every individual, no matter what stage of business you know, that definitely surprised me, too. Pork, I’m really interested in you know, your experience that you’ve had. You’ve coached, obviously through SMC since 2011 but before that, for many, many years, you would have helped business owners and worked with business owners on their journey. There will be many listeners to this podcast who are at different stages of their own journey, and I know that many of them will want to know, what are the characteristics of a successful business person that you’ve seen, and I know that you’ll give examples of various business people that you worked with, but I’m really interested to learn, you know, what are The characteristics that we need to develop as business owners to reach our full potential. Larissa,
Pádraic Ó Máille 14:44
without a shadow of a doubt, I would say, the first attribute of all the great people that I’ve worked with. They all had exceptionally high energy levels. They were all very physically fit, and they worked extremely. Hard at it. We had a girl three weeks ago at a smock session, and she was late to us. She arrived in a hole in her mobile phone. I upgraded her about two weeks afterwards. Then I said, you know, you were a bit late for the smock session two weeks ago. We the smoke session every two weeks, and she said, My walk in the hills of Donegal in the morning with my good friend Alice, is non negotiable. That dear listeners, was Larissa Feeney, and she said it’s non negotiable even for smut. She really had a go at me, and I loved it. That’s a true story, isn’t it, Larissa,
Larissa Feeney 15:37
it is a true story, and it’s absolutely the truth that the walk comes first, and if I had to miss smacked or miss the walk, I would be missing smocked. And that is a non negotiable in my day. Yeah, yeah, it is.
Pádraic Ó Máille 15:48
And, you know, I go to one other, probably the most inspirational person I’ve worked with. I think you might have mentioned EY entrepreneurs of the year. Well, for me, pory co cages was a teacher before I even got to he taught me before we even got to work together. Well, I always remember I had Parikh. I was chairman of the Galway Oyster Festival, and I had him as my guest of honor. And there were events on the Friday night, the Saturday and the Sunday. And on the Friday night, we were in there, and he was the main man, and I went to pour him a glass of wine at the meal, and he said, No, no, no, no, Padraic. No, no, no, no, no, not having that. I says, Go on. You can. You’ll have one. You know, you’re the guest of honor. And he said, No. He said, I’ll have, I’ll have a few with you tomorrow night, but I’m running in the morning. And I said, Yeah, okay, but you can skip it this time. And it kind of got serious with me, and he looked me in the eye, and he said at the time, well, he was CEO of Air Aran. He was an extremely busy person and working in loads of business, and he’s a very giving person. He said, Every Sunday night, I sit down to plan and map out my week, and the first three things that go into my diary are when I get a chance to work out. And he didn’t spend a lot of time at it. It was about an hour. I did it many times with him, and he said, it so happens this week that the time that I could fit it in was, I think, seven o’clock on Saturday morning. And he said, No, I will not drink tonight if I have to. And no more than you. Larissa, it was a non negotiable. And always remember Warwick, and he’s told the story publicly. He owned Aaron, and there was a volcano up in Scandinavia, and his planes, and the planes are all run Northern Europe, they weren’t allowed fly for six weeks. And porridge company was effectively, he’d put it into examinership. It was in a really difficult time, as it broke. He arrived home to his wife, katjani, and he explained. He said, Look at this could be bad news. You know, if we can’t fly our planes, cash flow dries up and blah, blah, blah. And she said, What are you going as any good wife would say, what are you going to do about it? And without thinking much part, said, it’s the Thomas on marathon arrest, which is, which is Irish, where I’m going to run a marathon. He was in his late 30s at the time, he was 39 and she said, and what’s that gonna do? I was not gonna save your business. And he always said, he said, I realized in that really difficult time that I needed massive mental energy to actually survive. I’d never ran a marathon, but I knew if I started practicing for a marathon, it would up his energy. And thanks for the God the thing went off. After six weeks, he got back to business. He would later say that running that marathon probably saved his life, because he did actually have a heart attack later on. So you asked me, What are the characteristics of successful business people? Without a shadow of a doubt, I would say physical fitness, and I say that Larissa, because it really doesn’t cost a euro to get physically fit for your listeners today, you can begin the journey of physical fitness today. Really, really powerful. And I tell this story in almost all my talks. And I was in in Castle bar earlier this year, and I spoke to Creek free would be a Western Ireland based, brilliant organization for stroke victims and heart victims and and all the people I was talking to, they’d all come through really serious illness. So I finished my talk, and this very elderly man who had had a series he should have been dead 20 years ago, he says, Come with me. And he brought me up to the first floor in this wonderful complex in Castle bar. And he said, There it is. Then it was Andy Morton, the great male footballer and the current male manager. His gym, a state of the art gym, is up there. And outside the gym is a big, big, beautiful, kind of circular sign, and it says, movement changes everything. Movement changes everything. I believe that’s really true. If you’re feeling down, get out for a walk. Get out there. I would say to business people, get out and take a break at at the old elevenses, as my mother would call at lunchtime. If you go back to Fergal Quinn again, Fergal Quinn’s father. Always said, take the lift. Yeah. Hurdle would take a bus, and he would get off a stop before the shop that he was actually going to. So number one, without a shadow of a doubt, Larissa, physical exercise is one wonderful I
Larissa Feeney 20:13
love that, and I do agree with you. What’s number two? Well,
Pádraic Ó Máille 20:15
Number two is, these all begin with peas, and it’s as simple as people, okay, there’s a brilliant book there by a wonderful American. Sadly, he’s passed on a wonderful man called Jim Rohn. And Jim Rohn was the guy who came up with the phrase, you are the average of the five people you’re surrounded by most of the time, or you’re influenced by most of the time. I always remember reading that in one of those books, and it kind of grabbed me by the throat. Then, just to give the veracity on it, it was in a hotel in Limerick. I was staying the night. I was given a session the next day. And I tell this story, but it was my first big break in, kind of on the speaking circuit, and I was doing a job with Limerick Chamber of Commerce on the following morning, and I was so nervous. I was in my late 20s. I was new to it. I wasn’t married at the time. I’m an only child, and my only kind of blood relation was my mother. And at seven o’clock, I rang her, and she was a bit shocked, because I normally wouldn’t have rung at seven, and she said, what’s wrong? What’s wrong? You all right? I said, Yeah, man, I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine. And she said, where are you? And I said, I’m in Limerick. Said, What are you doing? I said, I’m giving a talk. Who are you giving the talk to? Oh, I said to some very senior business people in Limerick. And she says, she says, What are you giving the talk on? And I said, time management. Man, I’d actually been trained in time management. And she said, You giving a talk on time management? Should look at the state of your bedroom. It said, pits. And she says, How long do you have to talk for? And I said, Well, it’s from nine to one, and she was much quicker than I was, and she said, four hours. She said, What happens if you dry up? What happens if you forget your lines? What happens if they don’t like it? Negative after negative? And I have to be honest, Clarissa, I put the phone down on my mom, and I struggled in, and I managed to get through the four hours. And anyway, it went quite well. However, I knew I had a serious chat, and I got into the car and I drove to Galway. I had a chat with my mom, and I says, look at Matt like this. I said, I’m trying to make a career in the speaking industry, and I will never, ever, ever, ever ring you again prior to a gig, a working gig, and she got into a write off, and she says, Oh, my only son’s never going to speak to me again. I said, That’s not true. And funny, she only passed away. She was 93 when she passed away, and I, in the good days, would have done maybe 200 gigs a year, every single time, no matter if I was in America or Russia or wherever, I would ring her and say, look at it. It was brilliant, or it wasn’t. They didn’t like it, or they didn’t laugh at my jokes. But Larissa, I learned a huge point. I often ask people at my courses, why did my mom, who was a really positive person herself, she was a very formidable business lady, why did my mum put me down that day? And people in groups say, Oh, she was worried about you. Not at all, my mum. It shows you the power of the mind. When my mother heard I was speaking in front of 25 senior business people, she immediately put herself in my position. Does this make sense? And she had never done this, and she absolutely panicked, so she did. And unfortunately, Larissa no more than a mobile phone I can ring one of my kids in Sydney or Chicago. Beard transfers, yeah, my mom transferred her fear to me. And Rowan says in his book, you have three strategies with people. Number one is completely sever your relationship with negative people. I got to be awfully careful saying this. I don’t know the man, but I used to say to people in my courses, don’t listen to Joe Duffy. Don’t listen to Joe Duffy at three o’clock in the evening. And the reason why I never listened to him much, but it was all about problems. Does that make sense? And you know, it was kind of this ongoing fiction, and it was a really popular program. So sever your contacts. There are some people who will just bring you down. And I know we’re speaking largely to a business audience that includes customers. By the way, there are some customers that you can stand in your head and you won’t please them, and they’ll be yakking on whatever number two is, to do what I did with my mum, you need to limit your association with certain people. I limited my association with my mom until after I was finished the work and and it worked a dream. The third strategy, with respect to people, is there are some people you need to expand your association with. Yeah, I think podcasts like this give us an opportunity to listen and learn from other people who have enlightened minds or who have enlightened. Experiences in business. So that’s it. In terms of people, three great, great strategies I would add a few to that, and I do it on my flip chart at my gigs. So beware of the negative people. Obviously, get around positive people. Yeah, there’s another category, two categories I’d add to that, Larissa. One is get around funny people. Get around people who make you laugh, I will say, and the HR people have a novel go at me. I would say, if two people are really equal, give the job to the person with their sense of humor. And people say, Oh, that’s being too. I think sense of humor is brilliant, because there’s a society we’ve got awfully serious. Are you with me? Yeah, I think somebody who can make others laugh. You can imagine the power of somebody funny in a team environment. It’s brilliant get around funny people. And I was saying this in Athlone one day, oh God, gosh, you’ve got to be careful. But anyway, I was giving the speech in Athlone and this poor old Devon in the back row when a real West meet actually says, What happens if you don’t know anyone who’s funny, I says, oh god, how am I going to get out of this? But luckily, a guy beside him gave him the dig, and he said, I prescribed three hours of Father Ted. And you know something, Larissa, there are certain TD programs that can make you laugh and uplift you. Does that make sense? There are an awful lot of them that can bring you down. There’s my spiel on people.
Larissa Feeney 26:25
Yeah, no, I love it, and you’re absolutely right. And like the negativity that we can be surrounded with without even knowing, without even knowing that if you actually think about the people who you spend your day with, the people that you spend your week with, and you distill it down to the five people that’s around you most of the time, and think about the conversations you have and what you’re talking about, and that will tell you why you’re if your mindset isn’t the way it should be, there’s a possibility it’s because of what you’re listening to and the conversations that you’re having that can be difficult or easy, depending on the people that are negative, right? But one of the things that can counter that is something like a mastermind group, because even if you’re not naturally surrounded by the type of people that you need to be if you’re growing a business that can help, because sometimes what we find is our families adapt the similar approach as your mom did. They’re you know, they want you to be safe, and as you say, they feel it rather than you know they’re not you. So they don’t know what you feel, but they feel that they wouldn’t be able to do, therefore they can understand how, why you would be able to or want to. And that we feel this, especially as women pork, right? Because our mothers tell us, and our grandmothers tell us Sure, what would you want to be doing that for? Do you know? That’s what we hear a lot of you know, would you not just? Would you not just? So there’s that, there’s a fear. So if we’re surrounded by, or we have exposure to, not necessarily every day, but we have exposure to people who have done it, or who have even attempted to do it, or even talk about doing it, you know, who open up your mind to what’s possible. That can be massively, massively helpful. So people, yes, I agree with you in all areas, by the way, of your business and your life. Sorry,
Pádraic Ó Máille 28:08
Larissa, just you’ve reminded me there was I got into trouble once. I was doing a start your own business program in Ennis, and I always remember it. It was a really lively session, and without this group of people, and I got them really motivated about starting their business. And then at the end, I says, Look at, look at. I said, Please, if you don’t mind, don’t share. We got them to work through their new idea. And I said, don’t share it with your loved ones when you go home. And there was a lot of people says, Oh, I share everything with my partner, and we have no secrets. And the reason I used to suggest that was for exactly what you said, because they’re the ones who care the most about you. They don’t want to see you fail. They do all they said that won’t work, and don’t do that. You’re only going to set yourself up for a fall, not being deceptive. But I would always say, wait till you get really strong legs under your business before you start sharing at home.
Larissa Feeney 29:02
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay. Number three. So we physical fitness. Number one. We have people. Number two, and the third characteristic of highly successful business
Pádraic Ó Máille 29:10
People, yeah, in the old days, I used college attitude, and that was the A in smacht in the early days, but I changed it to P for psychology, okay? And it’s basically the way we think Larissa. And you know, you would certainly see that from smock. I think our self talk is absolutely huge. I don’t know the psychologists argue, but you know, 60,000 thoughts a day go between our head, most of them random. We’re not actually aware of them, and it’s right up behind me again. I was my early 20s, 22 lovely uncle called Paddy Gleason. And he left a book beside my bed, and it was called The Power of Positive Thinking by a man called Norman Vincent Peale. And I have to say, I’d been brought up in kind of the Catholic Ireland of the 60s and 70s, which was quite negative. Yeah. And. Certainly the religious component was my mother’s one was, you know, you’ll go to hell, definitely purgatory, if you don’t cop on it. You know, it was that almost kind of punitive type of religion. And I read this book, and this book gave a positive psychology, and it was very spiritual to this day. You know, phrases like, I can do all things through Christ to strengthen me. You know that was a completely different God to the one that I’ve been brought up with in Galway. Even phrases from the Bible like, What things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. Like talk about an abundance mantra, absolutely brilliant from the Bible, I could quote, you know, for I have not come that you should have fear, but of power and of love and abundance. You know, I My eyes were opened to positive psychology. It was probably what put me on the route of kind of speaking and mentoring, and I kind of felt if I could impart a bit of positive psychology, I could really help business people. And I do believe that, yeah, yeah.
Larissa Feeney 31:11
Did you say that was your uncle that gave you that book? Yeah, wow.
Pádraic Ó Máille 31:14
He denied that he gave it to me. He would say he left it inadvertently there. It had an absolutely exponential, 10x impact on my attitude, yeah, yeah. I put it out there. I once said the tricks, but the techniques I would use them with a lot of athletes, a lot of rugby players, but the tips and strategies that I often would use are three letters or two words, I am R, I A M, yeah, I am. I heard it first with Muhammad Ali, Michael Parkinson was interviewing, and Parkinson said, I don’t know if you were the greatest. He said, When you said you were the greatest, but Ali gave him a filthy look, and he said, I said I was the greatest, long before I ever was the greatest. And I love that. So my audience say to me again, but he was faking us. He was actually telling his mind a lie. And yes, he was. And I do think Larissa, there is, there is value in faking it. I really, really do. We’ve kind of got to see ourselves in the role or the position before it actually sometimes happens, yeah? And so that is why I do this exercise. I would have done it with you guys when we wake up in the morning, and this is an exercise all of your listeners can use monitor or track your actual attitude. Some mornings we’ll feel really energized. Yeah, other mornings we like today. I’ve had zooms all day. I kind of got upset. Oh, wow, wow. So I was inclined to have a negative I am. Does that make sense? I’m a little bit overwhelmed. I went back to a g1 there. Today, I get to make six great presentations today, including hopefully a great podcast with Larissa, you can switch your self talk instantly in the morning. The other great psychological component is gratitude, and you and I have often talked about this, you know, particularly at night. What are you grateful for? For the day? And no matter what a lousy day or horrible show we’ve gone through, there are always things you can be grateful for, and it’s extremely positive, powerful self doubt. So that’s my psychology, without getting hung up in the weeds of it. But it’s really, really important. Yeah,
Larissa Feeney 33:31
it’s good for yourself, but it’s also really good to understand, or to attempt to understand, people, the people that are around you, you know, the people in number two, I heard a politician. No, he wasn’t a politician. I heard a commentator say recently that, in his opinion, all politicians should do a degree in psychology so that they can understand people. And I would extend that to business. Maybe we don’t need to do a degree in psychology, but we do need to have an understanding of people and why they think the way they think, and why they behave the way they behave, and what are the reasons behind certain behaviors in our own lives and in our businesses. So yes, I agree with psychology, and I agree with the negative self talk and the positive self talk and the faking it till you’re making it a bit. Yeah, I do think that it’s important to visualize something. If you’re not quite there yet, if you can see yourself there, you’re on the path. Yeah, you know, that’s half the battle.
Pádraic Ó Máille 34:28
And on that one, Larissa, there’s another great book that I really recommend to your readers. It’s atomic habits by James clear. And right in the very early pages, he distinguishes between you and I. We Well, we come from a background of outcome based goals. As an accountant, you’re obviously want to get your help your clients get certain outcomes with their revenue and their profits and all of that. Most of my life, I was kind of working with people on outcome based goals. Clear, as James clear in his book, makes. A lovely distinction between outcome based goals and identity based goals. The simple example he gives is, I’ve been there myself. Is smoking, for anyone who’s ever tried to give up cigarettes, now listen to the two versions of the self talk, yeah, I have given up cigarettes. That is outcome based, yeah, whereas this one is I am a non smoker, that is identity based. I am non smoker. Now I absolutely see myself. I’ve been in all sorts of establishments after loads of drink, but I’m a non smoker. I believe it. It’s my identity. My kids believe that about me. I think it’s hugely, hugely powerful psychology. Lovely, lovely, even on another smug this morning, I heard it, yeah, what do you want to be more so than what do you want to do or have? Yeah, what type of person do you want to be? And you can go through the alphabet again. I want to be attractive. I want to be bold. I want to be courageous. I want to be daring. Go from a down to z and it’s very It’s fascinating how you can actually improve your self esteem and your self image.
Larissa Feeney 36:12
You actually asked me to do an exercise some time ago, probably close to two years ago now, where you said to me, you need to write down what Larissa looks like in the future, so you know how Larissa behaves, how Larissa shows up, even you know what Larissa dresses like, how she speaks, what she thinks, what she believes, and then you’re visualizing it, because you know you mightn’t see yourself as that person today. You could put a date on it or not, but it’s the future. It’s the future version of you, and then you you will work towards that. If you keep telling yourself that that’s the person you are, then that’s the person you will be. It absolutely makes sense to me. Yeah. And it does work. It really works.
Pádraic Ó Máille 36:52
It does work. I i can remember having particle cage in as a speaker at a smock session, a big smock more once, and he got, he got us all. We’re about 180 of us. I had to buy the the envelopes and the stamps, and he basically, he got everyone to write a letter to themselves, and I kept the letters and I posted them one year later. It was a future self vision. So this was the way they wanted to be so, but they wrote it in the present tense. So, yeah, I am very confident having grown sales by 28% this year, whatever it might be. And we still talk about that exercise in smock. It was actually putting smock on getting your your future self. It’s big, big talk in psychology circles at the moment, yeah, but really, really powerful, or is that is a great exercise?
Larissa Feeney 37:45
Okay, so that’s three physical fitness people and psychology. Do you have a fourth? I do. This
Pádraic Ó Máille 37:50
is a real negative one. I’ve had five of them. Okay, real negative. Okay, yeah, my colleagues in the coaching industry never mentioned that word Padraic, problems. But I love problems, I really do. And I think once again, you know, and I’m conscious of the age of your three lads, I think this should be thought absolutely certainly at secondary school level. We’re thought all sorts of stuff on Maths and English and Science and Biology. We’re thought precious little about confronting and solving problems. Brilliant book written back in the probably the 70s, the road less traveled by a psychiatrist called Scott Peck. Michael Scott Peck, and I can remember it’s been recommended to me. And I remember looking at the first line, and the first line was, life is difficult. I said, Good god, I’m not going to read 300 pages of a book this negative, but in the next sentence, Peck goes on to say, once you confront the fact that life is difficult and accept it, you can begin moving on. So you can what he actually does say on that first page again, is the solution to life’s problems. Is one word. It’s actually discipline. Had Scott Peck been brought up in Ireland, he would have known that that was actually smocked. Yeah, I have over the years, Larissa, I won’t say I developed it, but I read a wonderful book by Dale Carnegie called now he was the one who wrote how to win friends and influence people, and that’s a cracker. Another great book, yeah, but, but he wrote one that wasn’t as well known, called How to Stop Worrying and start living now. The examples are so dated at the moment, but the principles are enduring and timeless. He’d a brilliant business. He had, I think I have the book there, yeah. I mean the art of public speaking as a young man. What I mean by young man in his late 20s, he opened up schools all over America teaching public speaking. He was on an absolute winner, and then the great recession hit, the Great Depression, and all the schools were closed, and he ended up owing a fortune, and he ended up sick in hospital, a doctor confronted. Them. He said, look at Mr. Carnegie. It’s like this, if you don’t learn how to deal with worry, you will be dead in one year. And Carnegie said, Yeah, but you’re a medic. You know nothing about business. You know nothing about own so much money and no way back. And the doctor shared with him, he shared with them these simple questions. He said, what you’ve got to do, Mr. Carnegie, is, you got to get your notebook, you got to get your buyer, and you got to write down exactly. One, what are you worried about? Number one, what are you worried about? And don’t do it in your head. Don’t do it with me. Write it out in detail, okay. Number two is, what are the facts behind your worry? That’s hugely important. It’s a job your organization would do really well with people. Is unearthing the facts really, really important, because I can remember back to the depression years. The guy came into me one week and like that. I asked him that. I said, you know, what are you worried about? He said, What am I worried about? Negative equity? He says, I happen to do what I owe. And I turned professional. I says, Okay, come back to me next week and I’ll talk to you again when you know exactly what you owe. And he arrived in with a smile on his face the next week, and he says, I owe an awful lot more than I thought. And I said, What are you smiling about? Well, he says, I didn’t know last week, I know now there’s actually it’s cathartic in itself to confront it. The third question, the first four questions I’m going to give you are negative. The third question is, what is the worst case scenario? And I can remember asking this man. I said, What is the worst case scenario? He said, The worst case scenario is the bank might close everything on me. And he says, I will lose my house on the hill. He’s one of the most phenomenal houses on the Hill in Galway. And I asked him the fourth question. I said, Can you live with this? Could you live with this? And he said, I was brought up in a terrorist house. I didn’t know any better, I would have no problem going back to a terrorist house. He said, I don’t know, however, about my wife or children, and he knew he could go back there. Does that make sense in his head? He had confronted the brutal facts. He knew he could go back there. So those are the four negatively disposed questions, the two crackers, the two Game Changers are. I asked him, number five, what can you do about it? Like Gatti said, I can go to every financial institution I know. I can put it on the table. This is the story. This is my plan. This is what you’ll get back from it. And he came up with about 20 other things he could do. There were certain properties he could offload. There were certain other things he could do. And I said, final question number six, what will you do about it? He said, before this day is over, I will have rang every financial institution I know, and I will have leveled up with them. I’m not saying it solved the problem there and then and there. Larissa, but that man walked out of my office with a pawn. Does that make sense? Yeah, that man walked out of my office having confronted the brutal fact he was actually able to confront his wife and family that night. Here’s the story. I don’t think they’re going to take the house however they may, and it may well mean we go back to a terrorist house. And if we do, we do and we’ll stay there for a year or two years, and we’ll get out of it again, and I can, I can assure you, I often tell the man that story, and he absolutely came out of it. So problems are good problems, you know, right? There’s a guy called Ryan Holiday who’s written a book the obstacle is the way. And what he’s really saying is, the obstacles are problems. They’re there to show you the way so they are stop trying to dodge them or get around them, go straight into them and confront them.
Larissa Feeney 43:47
And I say a lot, you know that, you know we need to know what the problem is. If we know what the problem is, we can come up with a plan to fix it. That’s the you know, that’s the reality. And it’s not until you identify what the problem is that you can understand how to get to the other side of it. Or you can put in place a plan, and then you can bring people together to figure out what the solution is. But yeah, you’re right. You’re right. Okay, so, and what’s number five?
Pádraic Ó Máille 44:11
Number five was, it’s presentation skills, okay? And I’ll tell you why you asked me about successful people, the difference between somebody with a great idea or a great product or a great service is not how good the product or the idea or service is, it’s how well they present it, and great, great successful people, they have worked on their presentation skills. And I got a personal story. I call it my 2c to six a story. My mom tour at Brett decided to send me to boarding school when I was 11. Well, when I did the entrance exam, when I was at 11, and she sent me down to the Cistercians in ROSS gray. And the idea was I was an only kid. My dad was dead, and it would give me an independence and it was a really. Prior decision. The only problem was there was an entrance exam to do in those days in Roscrea, they took 60 people, so I think maybe 80 set the exam, and didn’t I make the cut. I actually got accepted to Roscrea, and I was absolutely over the moon, and I had a little break. The first night, I met two lads, one from Galway, and his cousin, Colm O’Connor, and Jim O’Connor Colin was from Galway. So all of a sudden I had a little peer, I had two friends, and it helped us get through the worst night in a boarding school, which is that opening night. And I actually enjoyed it hugely, because I met two really sound guys, and everything was going swimmingly until after breakfast the next day. So we went for breakfast, and the fun was good, and everyone was nice to us because we were new. And Father Peter, who was the president, Father Peter Garvey said, he said, Now go out and see which class you’ve been assigned to. Anyway, I was out, and I wasn’t really looking, and Jim says, Oh, wow, I’m I’m in the A class. Colin said, Jay, I didn’t make that he said, but I’m in the B class. I says, Anyone see my name up there as I’m in the A class or the B class, you know? And I was actually in the C class. It was at 12 years of age, a seminal moment in my life, and I always remember it was great fun. The guys in the C class, we thought we were just we were the biggest dossers in the school, and we were the prefects thought we were the dossiers, and they rewarded us. Sadly, so did the teachers think we were the dossiers? Yeah. And they treated us accordingly. In other words, we had to be managed, as opposed to being taught or educated. And I can remember thinking after about a week, Larissa, I got to make a decision here. Yeah, I got to get out of it. And I went to that same man, father, Peter Garvey, beautiful, wonderful man. And I says, Father, Peter, I want to get out of the C class. And he kind of laughed. He says, Parikh, where do you want to go? I says, the B class will do me fine. I want to be in with my friend collar in the B class. And very kindly, he said, Parikh, we didn’t pull the names out of the hat to get into the A, B or C classes. They were actually determined based on your results from the entrance exam. And Parikh, you came 55th out of 60 in the entrance exam. And the way it transpired was, I think I was in the C class. Very much on merit. He said, anyway, I walked out and I was devastated. But here’s probably where smocks was sown. I went back in for two other days, and I said, Come on, Father, give me a go. Please do I may. I’ll really work hard if I get into the B class. And he didn’t give in to me, to his credit. About two days afterwards, he called me and he said, porrick, would you cry out for Irish debating on Saturday morning? Now, bear, this was kind of the day off, and I suspect father, well, he said, Just let’s see how good you’d be at Irish. Now, it was a little bit of luck Larissa, because I had good Irish, yeah. Okay. And anyway, nobody from the C class, or indeed, the B class, tried out for Irish debating on the Saturday, but all the guys in the A class did. And I always remember he’s a great friend of mine to this day, brown Bonn O’Rourke, or Brendan O’Rourke, was the Irish teacher, and he didn’t know me because he was teaching the A class, the B class, but he said, You’re the guy from the C class. I’ve heard about you. And he gave me a motion. He gave everyone a motion. We were given 30 minutes to prepare it, and it was Neil unra gone and smacked. Neil and RA gone and smacked. There’s no success without discipline. Now that’s not a great motion for a 12 year old kid to get but I was so hungry to make an impression that I spoke like a person inspired in a half an hour. And in fairness, Father Peter had said it to Brendan. He said, occasionally academic results can go skew ways. Yeah, give this a fella and see Is he worth his chance in the B class? I got moved up to the B class. It was the quickest move ever. Larissa, I was moved up within about two and a half weeks. Yeah. Fortunately, Brendan taught Irish debating, and I got on the debating team. I got on the junior debating team in my first year. Long story short, I ended up in the A class. I ended up getting super results in Irish and English, and it had nothing to do with intelligence. IQ, as we were always told, yeah, it had to do with the fact that I got in with a bunch of people who enjoyed debating and presenting. I got 1000 times more experience at that than most of my colleagues, or certainly in other schools. It is by far and away in business the greatest skill set that we can have. So I would put presentation skills. You look at the superb people, and they work so, so refined, literally on their presentation skills says, I making a total muck of that.
Larissa Feeney 49:57
But no, no, you’re absolutely right. And you said. To the beginning. It’s not necessarily those that are the best at what they do, but it’s those that are the best. To tell you that they’re the best that they can be. It’s so it’s marketing. It’s essentially how you market your business, how you market yourself, the business brand. It’s personal brand. Today, in this world of social media that we live in, that’s essentially what you’re talking about. Whenever you say, presentation, yes, is the getting up and talking, of course, but they go hand in hand, and the lesson around the importance of marketing is one that all business owners learn early, or they should learn early, the importance of investing in brand, investing in marketing, and knowing where your customers are and what they want to hear, and putting yourself in front of your customers, which is what you did as a 12 year old child, you put yourself in front of those people who made the decision about your future, and that’s what you did, and that’s what we as business owners have to do all the time. It’s a hard one, though, if you’re not that way inclined. Anyway,
Pádraic Ó Máille 50:53
yeah, and I have a solution on that, Larissa. Oh, and it’s, it’s not my idea. It was Dale Carnegie’s idea. Carnegie started teaching basic communication skills, yeah, what he discovered was that, yeah, people’s technical abilities improved as a result of it. What absolutely amazed him was their confidence level went through the roof, yeah, when people had to come together to make a presentation in front of a group. Yes, it’s a little bit scary. Yes, it’s a little bit overwhelming, but your confidence Absolutely, it absolutely shines. I was lucky in my early 20s to be part of a an organization called Junior Chamber Ireland. I subsequently became a Senator of JCS International, and what they did was exactly what happened me in ROSS Gray, they had debates, and we would debate. So Galway would debate Dublin and Leonard Kenny. And Leonard Kenny had a great chapter, core Limerick. We went all over the country. We won some. We lost them, but I’ll tell you not alone. Did our technical ability improve, but our confidence went through the roof. I saw people coming in seriously, I kid you not, with pronounced stammers. Yeah, and we always supported them. And they would get up, they’d make a presentation. People knew they had a stammer, but by God did they love them. They absolutely it transformed their lives. And I’m going to revert in 2026 to bringing when I thought about it, it’s a mastermind group. Yeah, I’m going to bring groups of eight to 10 people together to actually present on business topics. Yeah, it’s twofold. It’s one the technical, but mostly it’s about the confidence, and it’s the polish you get from doing it over and over and over and over again, it’s the it’s the $10,000 one.
Larissa Feeney 52:44
Yeah, no, no, I love it. I love it. Okay, so just to summarize, then, the five attributes or characteristics of successful people that you have seen in all of your many years of mentoring them and coaching them and joining them on their journey are commitment to physical fitness, commitment to understanding that you have to be surrounded by the best of people, or that the mindsets of the people that surround that you surround yourself with impact your mindset and will have an impact on the results that you see in your business and indeed, in life. The importance of psychology, the importance of problems, which is a great one. I do like that, okay, because you are right. You know, we all have problems. Life is difficult, and it’s not that it’s difficult, it’s how you deal with this that makes a difference, presentation skills or marketing yourself, your business, your brand. I love it. Now. You have given us loads of content and value there pork. Thank you. I have one final question, because you’ve given so many examples of great books, and indeed, you’re, I can see all the books behind you, and you’re a great man for giving recommendations on books. If I was to go away and download one book right now, what’s the book I should download?
Pádraic Ó Máille 53:54
Yeah, and, you know, and I’m not dodging your question, and I will give you an answer. A lot depends on what you’re facing in your life for your business at the time, you know, I would say the most profound influence on me was Norman Vincent Peale’s book, because it helped me deal with psychology. Now, I won’t go over the books that I’ve dealt with. I’m going to go back to a cracking book here, and it’s a book by Spencer Johnson called Who Moved My Cheese. It’s a parable. It’s a little parable about two mice and two kind of grown up people. All of a sudden they were all living really comfortably, and they were they had as much cheese as they wanted, until one morning they discovered there was no cheese. And the two mice said, Okay, cheese is gone. Let’s go looking for more cheese, whereas the other two people were analytical and said, Who took our cheese and they got a little bit belligerent and they got a little bit upset, and it’s a beautiful parable in the sense that we need always to be changing. Larissa, yeah, just do not assume that your cheese will be there forever. It’s a beautiful little you’ll read the book in less than 60 mm. That’s Who Moved My Cheese by Dr, Who Moved My Cheese by Dr? Spencer Johnson, and it’s a beautiful book for every business to read. It’s really encouraging, but it comes with a stark message, yeah, you gotta be always looking for huge cheese.
Larissa Feeney 55:15
Love it. I absolutely love it. , Pádraic Ó Máille the acclaimed speaker business mentor and founder of the smacht philosophy. Thank you for sharing the discipline of success with us.
DustPod 55:25
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