Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
From School Teacher to Fitness Icon: What I Wish I Knew Before Quitting My Job | Brian Keane | E107
Thu, 22 May 2025
Brian Keane’s journey is a powerful example of embracing change and conquering fear. Originally a primary school teacher in London, Brian realized teaching wasn’t his true calling and made a bold leap into fitness, despite doubts from family and peers. With his mom’s support, he overcame numerous challenges to become a three-time bestselling author, certified strength and conditioning coach, and ultra-marathon runner. In this episode, Brian joins Ilana to share how he tackled fear, turned his career around, and undertook the most daring endurance challenges, including running through the Sahara Desert and the Arctic. Brian Keane is a bestselling author, online fitness coach, and nutritionist. He is the founder of Brian Keane Fitness, where he helps clients transform their bodies and mindset for the long term, and the host of The Brian Keane Podcast, one of Ireland and the UK’s top health podcasts. In this episode, Ilana and Brian will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:02) From Teaching to Full-Time Fitness (09:17) Crushing the Fear of Failure in Career Transitions (12:31) Navigating Burnout While Building a Fitness Career (18:22) Balancing Passion with Business Skills (23:40) The Power of Mindset in Achieving Success (30:57) The Framework for Building Sustainable Habits (35:39) How to Overcome Comparison and Stay Focused (43:12) Tackling Ultra Marathons and Extreme Challenges (52:00) Learning from Setbacks and Building Resilience (1:00:00) Embracing Change and Taking Action Brian Keane is a bestselling author, online fitness coach, and nutritionist. He is the founder of Brian Keane Fitness, where he helps clients transform their bodies and mindset for the long term, and the host of The Brian Keane Podcast, one of Ireland and the UK’s top health podcasts. As an ultra-endurance athlete, Brian has completed several challenging races, including six back-to-back marathons through the Sahara Desert, a 230 km race through the Arctic Circle, and has also led an expedition to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Connect with Brian: Brian’s Website: briankeanefitness.com Brian’s Instagram: instagram.com/brian_keane_fitness Resources Mentioned: Brian’s Book, The Fitness Mindset: Eat for Energy, Train for Tension, Manage Your Mindset, Reap the Results: https://www.amazon.com/Fitness-Mindset-tension-mindset-results/dp/1781332525 Brian’s Book, Rewriting Your Story: Seven Habits to Help You Reclaim Your Power, Let Go of Fear, and Change the Narratives That Hold You Back: https://www.amazon.co.uk/REWRITING-YOUR-STORY-RECLAIM-NARRATIVES/dp/B0DWB1ZSL3 Brian’s Book, Rewire Your Mindset: Own Your Thinking, Control Your Actions, Change Your Life: https://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Mindset-Thinking-Control/dp/1781334234 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business Paperback by Charles Duhigg: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299 Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training
Chapter 1: What inspired Brian Keane to transition from teaching to fitness?
You're not a tree. If you don't like where you are, you can move.
Brian Keene here is a 3X bestselling author, a certified strengths and condition coach, sport nutritionist, and the host of Brian Keene podcast.
I was a teacher doing something I didn't even like. I was like, if I was sweeping the floor in a gym, I'd be happier than I am doing what I'm doing now. So I spent the next year getting my qualifications and certifications. And when I was about to make the jump full time, one of my aunties was like, you're such an idiot. You're leaving a safe and secure job to go lift some weights in the gym.
When I released my first book, The Fitness Mindset, which spent 16 weeks on the Amazon bestseller list, that auntie messaged me and said, I always knew you'd be a success in fitness. When you give new information to people and there's more data, people change their opinion. For those who are caught in the story of, well, it's too late. I can't do that now.
The time is going to pass anyways, and you get to decide what you do. Behind every fear is a person you want to be. What's interesting is separating fear into its two categories. One...
Oh my God, if you want energy in today's episode, buckle up because it's going to be fire. So Brian Keene here is a 3X bestselling author, a certified strengths and condition coach, sport nutritionist, and the host of Brian Keene podcast. And when he's not working, you will find him running ultra marathons in like Arctic, the Sahara, all sort of crazy things.
But Brian, you actually have a classic Leap story because you started as a primary school teacher in London. So folks, if you are listening to this episode, you want to hear about somebody that did a complete 180, lean in. This is going to inspire you. Brian, thank you for being here.
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Chapter 2: How did Brian overcome the fear of failure during his career change?
An absolute pleasure, Lana. Thank you so much for having me.
So take us back in time. Let's rewind. You're studying and you're deciding to be a teacher. What happened there and why a teacher?
It's an interesting backstory because I did what happens to a lot of people. You normally have family members or friends who suggest a career to you, or there's a lot of people working in that space in your family and friend circle. And you think the next logical step is, well, this is what I know. This is what I'll do. And that's exactly what happened to me.
Chapter 3: What challenges did Brian face while building his fitness career?
I had a lot of family members and a lot of friends who were teachers. And the obvious path for me was, well, I may as well become a primary school teacher, an elementary school teacher. Never questioning, was this something I wanted to do? And I did a four year undergraduate degree in business. I did a postgraduate degree to become a teacher.
I went straight into my first teaching job because of the shortage of teachers in London. And Lana, I was in my first ever day of a year three classroom with 37 year old children in front of me. And I was about five, maybe 10 minutes into it when I thought, I don't want to be a teacher. It was that soon.
And the analogy that I've used on podcasts and books on my social media is that it felt like I was years climbing a ladder only to realize it was up against the wrong wall. It's a horrible feeling. Everyone, when I say that, will think of a time in their life when it's happened, a relationship, a weight loss journey, a business venture.
You know this from your history better than anybody and the guests even that you've spoken to where pivoting isn't the right word. It's a 180. It's a complete trajectory shift. But it took me, I was four years as a teacher, nearly four years. And two of those years, to cut a very long story short, was working as a personal trainer at the time in a gym and in the park in London.
And it came off the back of my first few months working as a teacher in London. And I hated my first job. I didn't want to be there. It felt very out of alignment with what I should be doing. And I came home that Christmas and my mum, who was and still is my biggest fan to this day, I was having a big sob story for myself, real victim mode. I was like, oh my God, I hate my life. I hate work.
I spend so much time, energy and money. Mom, what am I doing? I hate what I'm doing. And she said two things that I've never forgot. One was, you're not a tree. If you don't like where you are, you can move. And then she asked me, what would you do for free? And I never thought about that question. I just followed this path nearly on autopilot of a career.
And I thought to myself, what would I do for free? I was like, I'd work in a gym for free. Fitness is a massive part of my life. I played sport. I've been working out and lifting weights since I was 13 years of age. I was like, I would work at a gym for free. I was like, if I was sweeping the floor in a gym, I'd be happier than I am doing what I'm doing now.
And thankfully, the type A in me was like, right, what's after sweeping the floor in a gym? I was like, okay, fitness instructor, personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, sports nutritionist. So I spent the next year or so getting my qualifications and certifications. And for two years, I did both.
So did you already talk to people and they think you're crazy because why would you leave or why would you even attempt to leave such a confident, secured place as teaching? And by the way, you guys, it's comfortable. Like you have summers off. I mean, it is a comfortable thing too.
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Chapter 4: How can mindset influence success in a new career?
And it made me think, and it was really uncomfortable because I'm like, yes, I didn't like that she said it, although it was really useful and actually really good fire and fuel on the mornings when you didn't want to get up every day. And it was actually really helpful in terms of a reframe.
I'm going to do it to show her.
Yes, that's a very hot burning coal, you know, the old adage that fire can light up your house, but it can burn it down. So you need to be very, very careful what you attach your energy to. But I also thought there and then, while she's the only one that's actually said it, other people are thinking this. And that was a really uncomfortable change.
And thankfully, my mom at the time, still my anchor, my rock, she's so supportive and was like, look, just go and be happy. She always told me and my sister, if you're cleaning the street and you're happy, I don't care what you do. And I kept that as an anchor because it was weird. I started making more money as a personal trainer part time than I was making full time as a teacher.
So that should have been enough proof that there was something to this. And it also, for me, still to this day, I couldn't believe people were paying me to take them through personal training sessions in the gym. I don't do in-person personal training anymore, but even working with people in fitness, whereas you had to pay me to go to school. I knew on Friday it was the weekend.
I knew Sunday evening I was going back to work on Monday. And that didn't happen when I went into working in fitness. And it was such an interesting thing because at every stage, I always think of it, and the analogy I use is it's like legs on a table for confidence.
If you're setting up and doing a new journey, you know this, Alana, that at the beginning, you don't really have any legs to your confidence table. So it's very easy to knock it over.
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Chapter 5: What framework does Brian recommend for building sustainable habits?
But every time you set a small goal and you hit it, you add another leg to your table, or you set a big goal, a big, massive financial target or a marketing target, and you hit it and you're like, oh, big leg to the table. So if people
people question you then you're like well it's fine my confidence table is pretty sturdy I'm fine I can take these knocks from the outside but in the beginning you should be very careful of that and I think when people are trying to make that leap you have to be so mindful that in the early stages you don't have a lot of confidence or competence probably in the craft that you're choosing to do or the career you're choosing to go into you have to be really careful about who you spend time with my mother used to always tell me that if you lie down with dogs you get fleas
And you should be very careful that if there's people around you who are constantly chucking negativity at you, that's going to feed into you. That can't bounce off in the beginning. And that's something I know now that I definitely wish I had known 15 years ago.
And I love what you said, Brian, because I think to some extent that aunt or whatever, like what she expressed was what I would say to myself, right? And that's probably the hardest thing. It's not only that everybody else is thinking of it. I'm kind of thinking that. So to some extent, it's almost like this is the hardest wound that I'm trying to heal. And she just went slam right into it.
But I do want to talk a little bit about that transformation because fear can be numbing, Brian. And I want to recognize that because I think a lot of people, it looks so easy, but you don't see where they're actually going through to overcome that fear.
So walk me through a little bit, some of that fear, maybe the initial challenges, because heck, I can tell you, there were a lot of challenges when I started. So take me there for a second.
What's so interesting about what you just said too, Ilana, is that everybody will feel the fear, but after a certain point, you just get conditioned to feel the fear and do it anyways. It's a cliche, but it's true. But what I did in the early stages was a thought experiment, which is just basic risk assessment 101. What's the upside of the decision I'm making?
What's the downside of the decisions I'm making? And can I handle the downside? It's risk management 101. The upside for me for leaving teaching and doing this job that didn't feel like a job to me was I'm doing something that I'm getting paid for that I would do for free, that I feel a massive calling to, a massive passion to. I'm like, that's a big upside.
The downside for me was I can go back teaching. I have a qualification. I have four years of experience. I will be in the exact same position that I'm in now And then I ask, can I handle that downside? I'm like, of course I can handle that downside. It's a disproportionate benefit on the upside.
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Chapter 6: How did Brian tackle ultra marathons and extreme challenges?
When you give new information to people and there's more data, people change their opinion. Yet we carry their opinions and attach to them like our first born child. When in reality, people will say things and regularly forget that they've even said them. And when you give new information, people's opinions change. When you're working through perceived fear, what will people say?
What will people think? People are going to say and they're going to think what they're going to think and say at that moment in time. That's not in rock. That's not solid. That is very malleable and very likely to change. And it's not about dealing with the fear.
It's about having the courage and the strength to persevere with the thing you want to do, knowing that other people's opinions will change. And that fear, perceived fear that you had once upon a time is a little bit of fuel. It's a little bit of, I need to actually go and get this done. And I think understanding the nuance of that is really important in the early stages, especially.
Take us back in time. So you're doing this thing on the side, right? And you're at some point deciding to go all in. Walk us through the first initial days.
When I decided to go all in, it was ironically my ex-girlfriend at the time. I was living with my partner in London and she was a wonderful, still is a wonderful human being, not was, still is a wonderful human being. And I remember when we were having the conversation about potentially breaking up because we weren't going on the same path. We knew we weren't going to be together forever.
And she gave me a line that I've quoted regularly since. And she meant it about our relationships, but I actually took it to mean about my work. And she said that when we stop chasing the wrong things, we give the right things an opportunity to catch up. She meant that in context with the relationship. And it was true in that context as well. But I thought about it with my work.
I was like, I'm still half pregnant with teaching. I'm half my foot is in this door when I'm actually making more money as a personal trainer part-time. So there was evidence there that this was working. And I said, I need to go all in on this. So I gave myself a six month contract. safety net. I said, I'm going to move back to Ireland in the West of Ireland.
I moved back in at my mom and dad, which was very humbling at 26 years of age to move back in with your parents after having gone and worked and lived in London. And I was like, do you know what? I need to do this and give this a go. And my mom and dad let me stay with them. My sister gave me her old little Toyota Yaris.
One of those cars that when you close the door too hard, all four windows fall down. But It worked perfectly 98% of the time. It would get me to the gym. And nobody knew who I was. I came back in 2014 to the West of Ireland. I had no social media. I had no books. I had no podcast. I had no name or recognition. But what I did have was I was two years working as a personal trainer.
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Chapter 7: What lessons did Brian learn from setbacks and resilience?
So I had got good at my craft. because every master is once a disaster. Everyone's terrible when they start. So when I started in London, I wasn't very good. It took me a while to get better at my craft. Same as everything. You put the reps in, you get better. So I was already established as a decent personal trainer in terms of my craft.
And what happened was I said, I'll give myself a six month window. If I'm not making enough money to move out and live in six months, I'll go back on the teaching registry and I'll get a job in September. That was the promise I made to myself But what happened was because obviously I was very passionate about fitness.
So I spent all my waking hours reading books and reading blogs and listening to things that were all fitness based because I was obsessed with that topic. So I was getting all these different types of clients and getting great results with them. And then what started to happen was the other trainers in the gym, their clients started to see the results mine were getting.
A lot of them started to jump over to me. And then I was getting referrals from my current clients for family members and friends to the point that I had to bring other coaches underneath me to clear waiting lists. And that six months went from, I might have to go back teaching to how many trainers am I going to have to hire to actually potentially clear this waiting list? And
The beautiful thing about business, and you know this a lot, is no problem goes away. There's always problems. You just have better problems to handle and deal with. You know, having no money is a problem. Having too much money is a problem. I know which one I prefer to deal with. Having no clients is a problem. Having too many clients is a problem. Again, I know which one I want to deal with.
And it was that. And because of 2014 onwards, and it wasn't all... playing sailing, we spoke right before we went on air. It wasn't the four hour work week dream. It was the 60 to 80 hour work week and burning out and then trying. Yeah, the grind and the hustle. And it's interesting now because I have a very good life balance. My daughter is nearly 10.
She's going to be 10 at the end of this month. You know, I've got a partner who I love dearly. I've got my family that I see regularly. I've got loads of hobbies and I do my races and I still play sport for the social side. But I've got a business that's thriving over here that a lot of it is on automation at this point. I've got staff that cover a lot of the heavy lifting underneath.
I spend most of my time in my desire zone versus my drudgery zone, my zone of genius, as you'd say. And because I do that, it gives me a lot of energy and I stay very nourished and it allows me to stay very high energy. And that balance now, after more than a decade, now I've got that balance. But For three, four, five years, I didn't.
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Chapter 8: How important is embracing change in personal growth?
And it gets skewed sometimes online because we see the end results. We see the figurative after photo of somebody doing amazing in business and they miss that actually this cost of entry was 60-hour work weeks, 70-hour work weeks on occasion, borderline burnout, breakups.
not seeing your family when you wanted to, not being able to spend time with your loved ones because you were either too stressed or you were working. That's a very real thing. And sometimes it's a case of, well, what's the goal? What do I want to do in terms of my career, my business? And what's the timeline?
Because no one says you have to do this today or tomorrow or next week or next month or even next year. You can do small gradual steps as long as you're directionally correct. and moving towards the thing you want, the speed is up to you. I was 26 years of age. I had no child at this point. I had no anyone underneath me that needed to be supported financially. I was able to make this jump.
I was able to make this transition and go all in. Somebody else will have a different life scenario and they won't be able to do that. But that's not to say that you can't start getting your figurative ladder up against the right wall. Just how slowly or how fast you climb depends on your circumstance currently.
And your goals and what's your must-haves and how driven you are, because I think me and you are kind of a little fanatic. So that drives the time.
Understatement of the year there, Alana.
But take me there, Brian, because I think one of the things that a lot of people miss, and I want to challenge you here for a second, Even if you're really good at your craft, what they miss is when they want to start their own thing. They actually don't necessarily need to be good at the craft, but they need to be really good at sales and marketing and business and hiring.
It's like it's suddenly all these things that this is not why I started. I started because I'm passionate about being in the gym and now I'm hustling on getting ads and whatever podcast. So tag me there because I think this is so different.
I'm going to take us back in the time machine. When I was in London, after I got my qualifications, I went broke the first time by just not knowing how to get clients. I wasn't good at my craft and I didn't know how to get clients, but I still had a little bit of income coming in from teaching, so it was fine. The second time I went broke,
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