Drifting, Choosing, and Building Something That Fits with Paul McCarron

Leaders don't fail. They drift. They build careers that look solid on paper, keep moving forward, and still feel like something's off. Today's conversation is about what happens when you stop drifting, take ownership of the choices in front of you, and build something that actually fits who you are. If you've ever looked at your career and thought, How did I end up here? This episode will definitely land. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge podcast. I'm Claire Hayek. This is the podcast for leaders who carry real responsibility and want to stay sharp, grounded, and effective under pressure. In today's episode, we're talking about drifting, self-reflection, and what it actually takes to pivot without blowing up your life. We'll look at how identity, pressure, and choice shape leadership decisions and why clarity often comes later than we expect. My guest today is Paul McCarron, founder of Demohelp. Paul grew up in rural Ireland, built a career across sales, marketing, construction, and music, and spent years working inside large multinational companies before stepping into entrepreneurship. His story is not about a straight line or a perfect plan. It's about drifting, noticing the moment when drift becomes costly, and choosing to build something more aligned professionally and personally. Paul, welcome.

Thanks very much, Claire. Thanks for having me.

Well, very happy to have you here. I have so many questions for you. I'm gonna have to try to manage the time here. So much to talk about. So, you've used the word drift a few times when we talked about this and we discussed the episode. And So why don't we start with this? Take me back to that period, that drift period, if you want to say. What did drifting look like for you?

It's a pretty hard question to answer, to be honest. I think it's probably the result of me being the youngest of 7 kids. And I was quite the distance between my next brothers, like 8 years. So they were all very close to each other. And then bit of a gap, and then there is me. So I always kind of just went with the flow of things, and I think that kind of drifted into my personality, if you want, that I tended to kind of not step up when I always wanted to and stuff like that. So I think like in school and college, you know, I was finishing my first degree, I still didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. I went in thinking I was coming out as a lawyer, and, you know, By year 3, I was there thinking, not so sure law's for me, maybe go somewhere some other way.

Right.

And yeah, I kind of fell into it. And one of my best mates, he was doing a master's in marketing. So I thought, yeah, why not? So I went and I did that, but again, kind of drifted into it. So like life is a little bit about going with the flow, but also like, I think at a point then you need to kind of grab it by the neck and the scruff of the neck and take it where you want to go then. Right. It took me a while to get to that point, but I got there eventually.

Well, this is why we're talking about this because it's quite interesting. And I think a lot of our listeners probably can relate to this. I think a lot of probably share your story in a way. And the idea of talking about this today is to just normalize it because sometimes there's not one way to do something where there's not one way towards success. So we want to unpack this today. So what was going through your head? What were you telling yourself at the time? Was it just like, oh, I'm just going to try this. I'm just going to try that. Oh, I, you know, I'm not in a rush. Or was it like, oh my God, I got to get my act together. I don't know what to do. So I'm just going to choose something. I mean, what was really happening?

It was kind of like, yeah, I need to get— I need to choose what the next step is. And it was coming at me pretty quick. So I just kind of went, yeah, that looks okay. I'll go do that. So, and that kind of was a little bit like my early career as well, was I fell into it.

Right.

And then I ran with it. And then I got to a point where then I went, oh, I kind of need to do something. So I fell into something else and then, and so on and so on. So it, you know, I'm all for going with the flow with life, but I think as well, if you have a kind of a plan or a goal to get there, I think it's, you know, that there helps you sort of your North Star, if you want, so that you have somewhere to focus. And it doesn't matter if you do this big squiggle or anything like that there to get to it. But as long as you kind of have a focus, I think there's no right or wrong how to get there.

And so, was there— I mean, I want to zoom in more, right? So, was there a moment where you realized that drifting wasn't working for you, that it was costing you something? Was there like a moment? Yeah, I'm just curious.

Yeah, like there was no kind of like, you know, light bulb moment that really hit me or anything. I got there, but it was, you know, it was a feeling I'd been having for a while. Um, like I was quite successful in sales at that stage. I was in construction at the time selling power tools. I was very good at it. I could hit my quota before I even got out of bed most mornings, like, you know, because I had it set up that way.

It was easy for you.

Yeah, it was easy and, uh, comfortable and everything else, but I wasn't really fulfilled. I was— I had a lot of wasted time. I had a lot of kind of just, yeah, just not comfortable, not, not fulfilling, I suppose is the right word for it. And, uh, and it took me kind of looking around at a few, uh, a few of my close friends and stuff like that there, what they were doing in their lives and, and things. Sometimes I was ahead of them. I had a few friends much, uh, very far ahead of me as well. But it was a kind of like a mixture of that. And I said, well, right, am I content? Not really. Would I be content over there? I don't know, but it's worth a try, like, you know, kind of, kind of thing. So it was more I, I wanted, um, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I knew I wasn't happy by just kind of going with the flow anymore. And that's where I kind of went, okay, let's, let's Let's take a bit of stock on where I'm at, what I'm good at, where, you know, where I see gaps that I can start sort of upskilling and stuff like that. And then tick them off, start putting a plan together to tick them off.

So basically, it started to feel uncomfortable. You start feeling that discomfort. And from what I hear you saying, and that's actually when we look at brain science, when we look at how the brain works, and a lot of us know this, that the brain looks for comfort and what's familiar. And it wants to keep us moving along those paths that feel known, right? Because, you know, we've been wiring and firing those neural pathways probably for a long time. So the path of least resistance, right? So the brain will keep us there even when these comfort zones or familiarities are no longer good for us or right for us. And what I see over and over is that people expect expect just all of a sudden the light bulb, right, to show up. You know, it's like, oh, this is not working for me anymore. And they expect this to show up first before, you know, we choose and maybe change directions. But the interesting thing here is that clarity usually arrives after discomfort.

Yeah.

And it comes once something feels misaligned enough or heavy enough that you're forced To pay attention and go, hello, I gotta stop here. What am I doing? And that's when basically the fog starts to lift. It's interesting because the discomfort is that trigger and interrupts that pattern, slows us down just enough to notice what isn't working anymore. And this is when everything kind of like, you stop and reflect and go, okay, I'm realizing something here.

Yeah.

And, you know, nobody wakes up one day and go, oh, I can see it now. Yeah, it takes something, you know, And that's exactly it.

And like, you look like I'm lucky enough that I grew up before social media really kind of took off. I got the very tail end of it when I was like 18 and 19 and 20 and stuff. It was just starting at that point. And I'm really glad I did because I look at like the young people today and they're constantly getting hammered about what success looks like, you know, what you should be achieving.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you've got all these people, you know, get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I go to the gym. I do all this. That would kill me. I'm not built for that. Like, there's, I just, there's no way I could do that there. But that's what, you know, everything's been hammered. Like, that's what you have to do to be successful. And it's bullshit. Like, everybody's different.

Absolutely right. I couldn't agree more. And actually, a lot of the times when I'm talking to clients, I'm talking to teams, to leaders. There's so much pressure on that morning routine. It's literally— I make a joke about it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not against morning routines and I'm sure you're not. And people, if that helps you and serves you, great. But if that morning routine is actually putting stress and pressure on yourself, how is that going to serve you? It's actually putting you in survival or fight or flight mode. Your brain is not really performing properly. It's not giving you the energy. It's actually sucking your energy out. But because I have to be that way in order for me to be successful. And the interesting part is, and neuroscience shows it and research shows, is that a lot of people think big about how to have that discipline or to be successful. It's like this thing, you know? But it's the little things that you do, little resets that you do, how you, your positivity, your mindset, how you switch from— or handle pressure, how you're able to bring yourself back into your prefrontal cortex and out of the hijack of the amygdala, which is where the stress happens. And when we get into fight or flight, these little resets that put you back in your CEO, your brain CEO, the prefrontal cortex is how— is like these. If you do these all day long, I mean, that replaces your morning routine. Put your morning routine on hold forever.

Yeah, it's the—

it's that resilience and being able— understanding how your brain works and how you react and being able to put yourself back in focus and in center and calm authority. That should be your go-to as opposed to this big thing that we make it like so unattainable and hard. So much pressure, right?

Routines are great and all, but what happens if you miss Like, does that ruin your entire week? Does it ruin your entire day? Like, the guilt is real.

Absolutely.

You know, like, and that guilt could be, you know, anything from, well, I didn't prospect. Okay, so prospect later. Or, you know, oh, I didn't, you know, I didn't do any strategy today. You know, whatever it might be that was like, is part of your routine, great to have it. But don't become a slave to it because stuff happens and you need to be able to go back. You need to go with the flow, but you want to make sure that you're controlling where that flow is going.

Exactly. As opposed to it controlling you. This is really insightful, Paul. Here's a question for you. So a lot of people think in order to reinvent yourself, you need to burn everything down to the ground. I hear that a lot. Your story shows Another way. So what helped you move forward without that panic, reinventing everything? What was that driving force? What was that thing that kept you going? If you would choose a couple of things, I don't want to say one because sometimes it's not as easy as one thing, right?

It isn't, but it kind of is at the same time. For me anyway, it was surrounding myself with people that were where I aspired to be. And I surrounded myself with them. I had a look at what they were doing. Now, I mightn't like the way they were doing it, so I might look at it a different way, but I was still trying to get to the same goal. So again, it was kind of like making sure I was surrounded by good people, like my friends, my close friends since, uh, like I've got mates since I was 4 that I still hang out with, you know. But, uh, amazing. probably 2 of the most influential people that I have, I met in college. And they've always driven me, like, you know, one of them's crazy successful for any kind of way that you look at it. And he's always been very aspirational, but he's always been very grounded in how he got there and why he got there. And I've asked him a few times, and it's very telling as well, like, you know, what he thinks. Now, given I think he's a little bit humble, and he's one of those people that I was pretty convinced you give him money, he'll make a load of money back for you, you know. So he was always going to be successful. But again, it was all about like not getting too overwhelmed by the small details. Just know where you want to go and then you'll figure it out how to get there.

Right.

And sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward. And, you know, that's kind of what happened to me with, with my career was that I I realized, okay, I probably had to take a slight step back. It was more sideways step to get what I needed, which was bigger contracts and different things, experience with that. Then, I surrounded myself, well, who's going to be able to give me the best thing? So, I picked the company not on what they were selling or what they were doing. I picked it on who was managing me. And that poor guy ended up my manager 3 times over 2 different companies. Interesting. Look at that.

From what I get, what you're saying, so you kept— what you kept is your network, your people that you chose to surround, who you chose to surround yourself with.

Yeah, and expanded that as well.

Right. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of other things you kept, but what did you let go of?

What I let go was, it was probably the comfort jumping into an industry that I knew nothing about. coming out of an industry, okay, I jumped into that originally knowing nothing about it, but I had been in there quite a long time at that point. I was an expert within that space. So leaving that comfort was a bit of a jolt, you know, like I had people coming up to me asking questions and I was the one with the questions that I had to get answered. You know, I felt very green, you know, when I made that step. But again, It's surrounding yourself by people, the right people going in the right direction, pulling in the same direction as you want to be.

Right. You know, so we're talking about DemoHall here, right?

Not yet. No.

So DemoHall is your company now.

It is. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, it came about from watching buyers and sellers struggle in the same patterns over and over again, if I get this right. So, What were you seeing that made you say, you know what, there has to be a better way? So what was the motivator there?

Again, DemoHall. I'm co-founder of DemoHall. And again, one of my co-founders is one of these guys that I hitched my hitch to and stuck with. Like, we've been working together now for 7 years now. And together, we're I bring things that he doesn't, and he very much brings things that I don't. And I think we work very well together. Like, any feedback he gives me, I absolutely take it, but he's also very open to taking the feedback as well. So Glenn is a huge driving force behind DemoHall, but he's not one of these superstar CEO kind of founders or anything like that.

Right.

He's very open to talking and getting the direction together. So He was very important, but we were working together, seeing really issues with what was out in the market for sales tools, driving buyers down particular areas, hiding information from them, you know, just annoying the modern buyer who basically the days of gatekeeping information are gone. The ChatGPTs of the world have put paid to that.

Right.

And if you don't sort of help the buyer with how they want to do, they're going to find the information out somehow. It mightn't be the right information. That's the problem. And that's where we kind of discovered, say, okay, there's nothing out in the market that's actually taking the buyer's perspective.

Right.

But then also enabling like sort of sales to trust the process as well, because us salespeople like to hold on for information. We like to silo it. We don't think anybody else can do it as well as we can.

Right.

All that stuff. So, it was all about taking that melting pot, if you want, and putting it together. And that led us to DemoHao.

Okay, really interesting. So, I want to pick your brain on something. So, when leaders are facing uncertainty, disruption, I mean, speaking of AI and everything else that's happening in the world and how quickly it's moving, or just when they're facing— when somebody's facing change, right? What do you wish these leaders Understood sooner?

That they don't always have to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, they probably shouldn't be, because if you are, you haven't hired properly, you know. So don't be afraid. Like, knowing your limitations, knowing your weaknesses— that's a strength, knowing your weaknesses.

Absolutely.

So you can go and, you can go and find somebody that complements them and has that that difference of opinion. So yeah, if you find yourself the smartest person in the room, find yourself a new room.

Yeah, definitely. I hear that a lot actually. And what I see, I think a lot of leaders realize this, but they find it a bit difficult to apply. Because typically, and I don't want to put all leaders in one box. And by the way, when I talk about leaders, and if anybody's listening here or watching us right now, The definition of leader is very wide in this show. I'm not talking about C-suite only— execs, managers, VPs, directors. It's not about a title. Leadership is a trait. It's somebody that takes ownership, that inspires, that leads themselves well before they're able to even lead others.

Right.

So, you don't have to be in a high position, exec position to call yourself a leader. And a lot of people think leaders, you know, it's like, I'm not gonna call myself a leader. You know, it's so arrogant. No, if you're not leading yourself, who are you leading? So in a way, I don't care what title you have. If you're listening to this, you're a leader because as human beings, we need to lead ourselves before we can lead anything else around or manage anything around us. And by the way, it's not even in the work. Yeah, at work. It could be also in a personal setting or parenting or family friendships.

So there's different ways. Right. Different ways of doing it as well. You don't have to be— I'm gonna throw in a sports, you know, that shouting sort of aggressive captain that's on the field.

Like, you know, exactly.

You don't necessarily have to be that because some of the best leaders were the ones that maybe didn't talk a lot, but they showed how to do it.

That's the calm authority that I'm always talking about. And that's something you build and you train. Some people have it naturally, but I'll be honest with you, most people don't. And it's something you train. Leadership can be taught, literally. I mean, in a way, I hate to say taught, but really trained because it's all about the brain and how you train your brain. But my point with that is that you want to surround yourself. If you're the smartest one in the room, on what you said earlier, I totally agree with that. The only thing that I find that sometimes leaders struggle with is having smarter people in the room because there's this element of control that they feel that if they're not, they can't control the room. And it's, I think, 2 separate things that a lot of people and a lot of leaders mistake. And I'm really happy you brought this up because we need to normalize this. This is how we grow. This is how we're better. We can't be good at everything. Otherwise, might as well just work with me, myself, and I. Why have a team around you or partners and stakeholders, right?

Yeah. And I agree. And a lot of the time where leaders don't feel comfortable because they feel they're losing that control, it's probably because they don't feel confident within themselves. They've got this kind of, you know, outward sort of persona, and then they can't be wrong. They can't seem to be wrong. And That's the wrong way to look at it. Like, the smartest people that I know are the ones that, you know, they have ideas, right? But they're not rooted in beliefs because beliefs are very difficult to change. But if they get presented with the right information, they'll go, yeah, okay, this is not the right way. And that's— I have seen companies spend millions and millions and millions because one of the leaders won't change their mind. Even though all the evidence is going against them.

That is a great point. And actually, that's a sabotage pattern. And again, it's easy to sit here and talk about that and go, yeah, that's not the way to do it. But what's happening in that person's brain or head or mind is that that was always their survival mechanism ever since they were probably 3 years old. And I'm not talking because they had to control everything because their life was out of control. You could be raised in an amazing setting, a great family where you had confidence and everything. still be a controller. But it's just that it's one of your strengths that eventually becomes something that is really slowing you down because now you're over-abusing that strength to the point that you don't even recognize when you do it. So again, we talked about safety and doing things over and over again until they become uncomfortable. And that's when you wake up. But this is basically the challenge most of the time that we see with leaders, Type E personalities.

Yeah.

That they struggle with is like, how do you not control? If I'm not controlling this, it's going to go to hell. But this is one of the things that these sabotage patterns that we work on, that I work a lot with clients to rewire because it's exactly what you said. This is what's really preventing you from coming up with this amazing idea or listening or leaving room for innovation and creativity. within your team. But that's a whole different conversation. And I always run out of time. I want to jump in. It's been just so pleasant. I'm loving this. And I truly hope whoever's listening is enjoying this as much as we are, Paul, right?

Absolutely.

All right. Let's jump into the rapid fire. So, these are very short 30-second answers.

Nothing's ever short with me, Claire. But I'll try. I'll do my best.

I'll bring you back if you go too far.

Okay.

But really just go with it.

Okay.

3 questions for you. First one, a book, conversation, an event, or an experience that changed how you think?

I'm going to go with an event and I'm going to go with an event that I attended. And I can remember it was a Celtic game friendly over in Australia. And I attended with one of my best mates over there. And it was the first time we'd actually had a chance to hang out for a long time. And that was really— I had, at that point, had been thinking I wasn't comfortable and I was thinking about changing, and he was like one of my valued advisors, if you want.

Right.

So it was a good chance to talk to him about it, about how he was doing and all that kind of stuff. And honestly, I think that game probably changed my life in terms of— I kind of came out of that night going with a hangover, in fairness, but once that cleared, then I was kind of going, okay, I know I have to, what I have to do now. And that was kind of change this comfortable role and go for something with a little bit more, uh, bit more—

Something clicked there that day, that night, that evening. That's very interesting. All right. So moving on, one habit that keeps you grounded.

I am going to go with a habit that I started doing after not doing it for a long, long time. I used to read books constantly and I stopped doing it for a long time. But now every day before I start my day, I will read 15 to 20 minutes. Now, I'm going to say something controversial here. I do not read business books. I make sure that it is absolutely nothing to do with business.

Okay.

It's a novel. I sit there, I'm enjoying it, I get lost in it. It just clears the mind. And when I don't do that for a couple of days, I notice my anxiety levels jump up. I'm a little bit more skittish. I'm a little bit more less grounded, shall we say.

There you go. Well, you found the thing that grounds you and nurtures you. And that's great. That's the most important part. The detail is the detail. All right. Last question. One thing you're still learning?

Everything.

I love the humility.

Yeah. Listen, I'm a non-technical tech founder. So, I am I am learning quite a bit every single day, but I would say the biggest learning challenges I have come from my little guy. He's 7 and—

Wow.

And I'm trying to figure out how do I give him the chances that my parents afforded to me without him getting any of my messiness or craziness sort of rolled into it. So yeah, that's probably the biggest learning that I'm doing at the minute.

That's amazing. Well, thanks for sharing all that with us. And I love the humility. What I really appreciate about Paul's story is how normal it is and how honest. I really, really enjoyed this. Remember, drifting isn't failure. Awareness is the turning point. And leadership starts when you decide to pay attention. And we've defined leadership here. So, if you missed what leadership is, do rewind. Back to that, maybe 5 minutes ago. Any final words quickly as we wrap up?

I just want to thank you for the opportunity. It was a really great chat. And yeah, hopefully there were some insights that people can maybe get a bit of clarity out of it.

Thank you so much, Paul, for actually agreeing to come on the podcast and sharing your story. Everybody listening, watching us, if this conversation resonated, do share it with someone who's navigating change. And always share the link in the description where you can reach out. There's a lot of insights. There's a lot of tools that I share. And if you're watching this on video, you see a QR code. So do scan it. There's a lot going on. There's always things coming up, popping up via this link. You'll see what's happening. Do reach out if you have any questions and remember to lead boldly. Stay human. Stop being so hard on yourself and turn every challenge into a gift because we're here to learn. There's only learning. Things are happening for you so we can grow and learn together. See you all next week. And Paul, wonderful having you.

Thanks so much.