Made In Chaos with Ryan Curtis

He Grew Up in the Flats With a Fishing Rod Made From a Tree Branch. He Went On to Race at the North Pole, Across Antarctica and Through the Sahara. John O’Regan’s Extraordinary Life.

John O’Regan is one of Ireland’s most accomplished endurance athletes, an ultrarunner who has competed in some of the most extreme races on the planet: the North Pole Marathon, Antarctica, the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara, the Yukon, the Spartathlon, and a run to Everest Base Camp. He’s also spent years guiding a blind runner, Mark, through many of these same brutal environments.

Ryan sits down with John for a genuinely inspiring, story-rich conversation about survival, endurance, mindset, and what a life lived at the edges actually teaches you.

What we get into:

• Growing up in the Dublin flats, fishing with a branch, and the escape the outdoors gave him
• Writing a letter to survival expert Ray Mears in 1988, and how it changed his life
• Why the most important thing you can carry anywhere is knowledge, not kit
• The Dunning-Kruger moment: going over thinking he knew it all, and getting humbled fast
• The Sahara, the North Pole, the Yukon, Antarctica, and what each one demanded
• Lending his spare snowshoes to explorer Ranulph Fiennes at the North Pole
• Years guiding Mark, a blind runner, through deserts, ice and the Himalayas
• The hardest thing he’s ever done: the race into Everest Base Camp
• The accident in the desert, the first-aid kit lesson, and “cheating the system”
• What 24-hour races teach you about rationing energy and the mind
• The beginner’s mindset, and why “how you do anything is how you do everything”
• Why there’s no finish line, and why we get old when we stop doing things

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who’ve turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

After Years Walking With Couples, a Relationship Coach on What Most People Get Wrong, How to Fight Well, and Why the Grass Is Greener Where You Water It.

Lisa McFarland is a relationship coach who has spent years helping couples move from disconnection back to closeness, and who went on her own marriage journey over a decade ago before doing this work. In this warm, funny and genuinely useful conversation, she breaks down why relationships drift, how to argue without damage, and the small daily habits that keep love alive.

Ryan sits down with Lisa for a conversation that anyone in a relationship, or wanting one, will take something from.

What we get into:

• Why relationships take conscious effort once the honeymoon chemicals fade
• The "mental load," and the conversation couples need to have about it
• Why 80% of arguments are never actually resolved, and what to do instead
• Attachment styles, and why we're sometimes drawn to chaos over security
• How to do "healthy conflict," and the ten-minute rule that stops fights escalating
• Why "I'm sorry you feel that way" is not an apology
• Why you should never make the big decisions at 10 at night
• Why men and women often need connection in different orders
• The daily micro-habits: the six-second kiss, the daily hug, the drip-drip of care
• Love languages, responsive desire, and why good intimacy starts long before the bedroom
• Loving someone versus being in love, and why that moves up and down
• The one thing that predicts whether a couple will still be happy in 20 years

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

Ireland's Best-Known Financial Advisor on What We Get Wrong About Money, and Why You're Probably Doing Better Than Social Media Tells You.

Paul Merriman, better known as Ask Paul, is one of Ireland's most recognisable financial advisors and CEO of Fairstone Ireland. In this conversation he cuts through the noise, the viral "skip your coffee" advice, the pressure to be a millionaire by sixty, the panic about pensions, and gives a refreshingly honest, jargon-free take on money in Ireland.

Ryan sits down with Paul for a genuinely useful conversation about planning, property, pensions, investing and why the best investment most people can make is in themselves.

What we get into:

• Why we don't plan enough, and the one habit that quietly changes everything
• Financial literacy in Ireland versus the US, and why we're actually good savers
• Good debt versus bad debt, and what wiped the country out in 2008
• Why he pushes back on the "cut out the coffee" advice, and when a "money diet" does make sense
• The housing crisis, developers, planning, and why there's no will to fix it
• Why you're probably doing better with money than social media makes you feel
• The real biggest asset most people have, and it isn't their bank balance
• Pensions, tax relief, ETFs and why there's no one-size-fits-all answer
• Deemed disposal, the savings account changes coming, and the noise around both
• Why investing in yourself beats an ETF in your twenties
• Looking wealthy versus being wealthy, lifestyle creep and "Die With Zero"
• After 20 years, the one thing he's determined not to get wrong in his own life

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

This conversation is general information, not personal financial advice. For advice specific to your situation, speak to a qualified financial advisor.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

A Professional Poker Player on Risk, Luck, Reading People and Why You Can Make the Perfect Decision and Still Lose.

Chris Dowling has spent well over a decade making a living at the poker table, from local card rooms in Ireland to the high-stakes rooms of Las Vegas. But this conversation is about far more than cards. It is about how to think clearly under pressure, how to read people, how to manage risk and emotion, and how to keep making good decisions when the outcome is out of your hands.

Ryan sits down with Chris for a genuinely fascinating look inside the mind of a professional, and the mental habits that apply to anyone's life, whether you have ever played a hand or not.

What we get into:

• How Chris went from the electrical trade to professional poker after the recession
• The three levels of poker, and where the real money and the real pros actually are
• Why films get poker completely wrong, and how cheating really works
• Why poker is not gambling, and the maths that makes the house always win
• Reading people: what you can actually tell from how someone acts, dresses and bets
• Game theory, exploiting mistakes, and the rock paper scissors trick that explains it all
• Why the best players randomise their decisions using their watch
• Going on tilt, and how the same emotional spiral shows up everywhere in life
• Why most people badly misunderstand luck and probability
• What separates a calculated risk from being reckless, and when to walk away
• How experience, not talent, lets the best stay calm playing for millions
• The single most useful thing poker can teach you about decisions in real life

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

He Built One of Dublin's Best-Known Businesses While Addiction Nearly Took Everything. Rob Connolly on Success, Grief, Recovery and the Brother He Lost.

Rob Connolly is the founder of The Ink Factory, one of the most recognisable tattoo studios in Ireland, and a serial entrepreneur since his teens. But behind the businesses is a life shaped by addiction from the age of twelve, the loss of his brother John to suicide, and a long, honest reckoning with what success is really worth.

Ryan sits down with Rob for one of the most open and moving conversations Made in Chaos has had, about building a life while battling addiction, the loss that changed everything, and why he believes there is always a way back.

What we get into:

• Getting into business as teenagers, from nightclubs to The Ink Factory
• Why he built The Ink Factory around community, not just tattoos
• Growing up in an addicted household and using from the age of twelve
• How success became the perfect place to hide an addiction
• Mistaking net worth for self-worth, and the hole that no business could fill
• Losing his brother John to suicide, and the years of grief that followed
• The conversation with Ryan that helped Rob reconnect with his brother in time
• Why there is always a way back, no matter how far down
• The John Connolly Foundation and the mental health work it funds
• The loneliness and identity crisis facing young men in Ireland
• Why Ireland's mental health system too often fails people until crisis point

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

If anything in this episode affects you, support is available in Ireland. Samaritans are free, 24/7, on 116 123. Pieta (suicide and self-harm support) is on 1800 247 247, or text HELP to 51444. The HSE Drugs and Alcohol Helpline is on 1800 459 459.

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

He's an Irish Traveller Who Speaks Five Languages, Reads Nietzsche in German, and Is Reviving a Dying Language. Lucas Connors on Culture, Community and Everything Settled Ireland Gets Wrong.

When most people hear the word "Traveller," a set of assumptions follows. Lucas Connors spends this episode gently, brilliantly taking those assumptions apart. He's a jiu-jitsu black belt, a linguist reviving the Shelta language, a voracious reader of philosophy, and one of the most thoughtful guests Made in Chaos has had.

Ryan sits down with Lucas for a warm, funny, genuinely eye-opening conversation about Traveller culture, identity, prejudice, community and curiosity.

What we get into:

• Why Lucas says he doesn't really believe in bigotry — and his remarkable approach to changing prejudiced minds
• What settled Ireland gets most wrong about Travellers, starting with the fact that it's an ethnicity
• The Traveller sense of community — walk in, no knock, the company is the reward
• Shelta (or Gammon): the Traveller language, where it came from, and how Lucas is reviving it
• Why so many young Travellers grow up believing they're "only simple" — and how that belief is passed down
• How his mother refused to let him set his sights low
• Curiosity as a superpower: from the Bible and the Quran to Jung, Freud and Nietzsche
• Why he reads Nietzsche in German — and journaling as a tool for thinking
• My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, reality TV, and how stereotypes get manufactured and sold
• The generation of educated young Travellers changing the culture from within
• Jiu-jitsu, "culchie strength," and the mindset of never staying down
• Lucas turns the tables and interviews Ryan about the accident, gratitude, and living fully

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar — Ireland's highest rated tattoo studio. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

He Went From Addiction, Violence and a Seven-and-a-Half Year Prison Sentence to Studying the Very Behaviour That Destroyed His Life. Bob Cullen on Violence, Class and Whether People Can Really Change.

Bob Cullen grew up in Blanchardstown as, by his own account, a shy and sensitive kid — and became a violent, addicted young man who ended up serving over seven years in prison. What makes his story extraordinary is what he did next: he studied criminology from his cell, and is now finishing a master's, trying to understand exactly what turns an ordinary child into a violent criminal.

Ryan — who shares a lot of common ground with Bob — sits down for a genuinely thought-provoking, at times challenging conversation that pushes back on both sides.

What we get into:

• What actually turns an ordinary kid into a violent criminal
• Why Bob believes violence is a "pathogen" you catch through proximity
• Masculinity, patriarchy, and how young men build status when they have nothing
• Why he argues the harsher a system punishes, the more crime it creates
• The difference between explaining your actions and excusing them
• Systemic vs street crime: why a bike shed can cost more than people go to prison for stealing
• Why the same few postcodes fill every prison in the country
• Addiction, two suicide attempts, and the moment he decided to stop
• Prison abolition — what it actually means, and the pushback he gets
• Delusional self-confidence, luck, and the doors that have to open
• Routine, discipline, neurodivergence, and how structure saved him
• The one lesson he learned the hard way: the love you need has to come from you

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

If anything in this episode affects you, support is available in Ireland. Samaritans are free, 24/7, on 116 123. Pieta (suicide and self-harm support) is on 1800 247 247, or text HELP to 51444. The HSE Drugs & Alcohol Helpline is on 1800 459 459.

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar — Ireland's highest rated tattoo studio. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

Doctors Told Him He Might Never Fight Again. Now He's One of the Best Fighters Ireland Has Ever Produced. Paul Hughes on Injuries, the Usman Fights, PEDs and the Real Cost of Winning.

Paul Hughes is one of the biggest names in Irish MMA — a former Cage Warriors world champion who's twice gone five rounds with Usman Nurmagomedov for a world title, and beaten some of the best fighters on the planet. But the road here nearly ended before it started: multiple hand fractures early in his career had doctors telling him he might have to retire.

Ryan — who's trained alongside Paul at Fight Academy Ireland — sits down with him for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about belief, sacrifice, and the parts of the fight game nobody sees.

What we get into:

• Where his almost abnormal competitiveness actually comes from
• The brutal reality of cutting weight, and why it's the hardest part of the sport
• Delusional self-belief, "proof," and how confidence is really built
• Four hand fractures, surgery, and two years out at 19 — and what got him through
• The "filter": why every level weeds more people out, and how he uses that mindset
• Why "success is just who's willing to suffer more" — and the real cost of winning
• The two Usman fights, and how good Usman Nurmagomedov actually is
• The untold story: fighting the second Usman fight on a badly broken body
• Why he views MMA as "kill or be killed" in the cage, and pure respect after
• Fighter pay, fighter welfare, and why so many leave the sport with nothing
• The PED problem in MMA, out-of-competition testing, and why he's speaking out
• Why he chose PFL over the UFC — and has no regrets
• What he wants to do when fighting's over

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar — Ireland's highest rated tattoo studio. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

She Was Sober for 16 Years. Then She Lost It All, and at 53 Rebuilt Her Brain From Scratch. Angela Carney on Hypnosis, Addiction and the Subconscious Mind.

Angela Carney got sober in her early thirties and stayed sober for 16 years while building a successful business from nothing. Then her mother died, the pressure mounted, and a "harmless" habit reopened a door she thought was closed for good. What followed was years of cross-addiction, the loss of her business, and a rock-bottom moment at 53 where she sat down and Googled four words: "Can I fix my brain?"

What she found, neuroplasticity, the theta brainwave state, and the power of the subconscious mind, became the foundation of her recovery and her work today as a hypnotherapist helping others beat addiction.

Ryan sits down with Angela for a genuinely fascinating conversation about how the mind actually works.

What we get into:

• How someone relapses after 16 years sober and what "cross-addiction" really means
• Why your dopamine system never forgets, and how addiction hijacks the reward pathway
• The conscious mind is 5% of you your subconscious runs the other 95%
• Why you can consciously want to stop and still be unable to
• Neuroplasticity: why your brain can change at any age, not just before 25
• The theta brainwave state, and how the first 7 years quietly shape your whole life
• The night Angela felt overwhelming joy in the middle of withdrawal, and what it taught her
• Why advertising is a form of legal hypnosis, from Pringles to Nike
• Why the subconscious doesn't hear the word "don't", and how to talk to it instead
• Self-pity versus self-compassion, "mood hoovers," and training your brain toward the positive
• Ryan's own visualisation story after his accident, and where it overlaps with Angela's
• Her message to anyone who's tried to stop ten times and thinks this is just who they are

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

If anything in this episode affects you, support is available in Ireland. The HSE Drugs & Alcohol Helpline is free and confidential on 1800 459 459, and Samaritans are available 24/7 on 116 123.

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar — Ireland's highest rated tattoo studio. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory

He Grew Up in the Flats Obsessed With Money. Now He Runs 55 Properties Across Four Countries — Without Owning a Single One.

Adam McEnroe grew up in Dolphin's Barn, obsessed with money from the age of four — selling toys off the step, hustling card games, always looking for the next way up. What he didn't have was anyone around him who'd built real success, or the belief that someone from his area could. This episode is the story of how he built one anyway.

Ryan sits down with Adam for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about money, mindset, business and the reality behind the highlight reel.

What we get into:

• Growing up money-obsessed in the flats, and what poverty really looked like
• Why "the poorer the area, the bigger the brand" — and the trap of going broke to look rich
• The boss and mentor who gave him one-on-one business lessons and changed everything
• How he discovered the rent-to-rent Airbnb model everyone laughed at
• The day he found out he was having a son and his mam had cancer — and why it lit the fire
• Building the business from Dubai, the early losses, and getting scammed out of thousands
• Airbnb and the housing crisis: genuine cause or easy scapegoat?
• Why he believes most people buy houses for the wrong reasons
• The reality of business nobody sees: the losses, the pressure, the day-to-day grind
• Endurance, hardship and why not everyone is cut out for business
• Taking accountability, ego, and what religion taught him about handling hard times

Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos exists to platform guests who've turned adversity into hard-earned wisdom worth sharing.

Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis

🖊️ Sponsored by The Ink Factory, Temple Bar — Ireland's highest rated tattoo studio. theinkfactory.ie | @theinkfactory