Dermot Whelan is a radio and TV presenter and a public speaker. He’s a certified master of wisdom and meditation teacher and a stand-up comedian. He’s perhaps best known for co-presenting the hugely popular Dermot & Dave Show on Today FM but he’s had a rich and varied career.

Dermot describes his career path as more of “a bizarre trail through a forest”. As a kid, he was interested in the media, but he was passionate about ancient Egypt and Greece, so he went to Trinity College Dublin to study archaeology at third level. He soon discovered archaeology wasn’t precisely as he imagined, and after graduating, he started working as an assistant director for TV and film. He drifted into radio in his late 20s when he discovered the creativity behind it. Stand-up comedy came as a side to his radio job, but it soon evolved more than he expected. The stress and anxiety he felt before comedy shows turned into panic attacks. That was when he realized he needed to make a change and went towards a wellness path.

“To be honest, I just needed to find something that would help me manage stress better than a pint of Guinness. So meditation opened that door for me. And I found it was far healthier and way cheaper.”