The SUMO Guy, aka English motivational speaker and UK Sunday Times best-selling author, Paul McGee, 56, has won over audiences in more than 40 countries by telling them that they are MAD. Or that they should Change their T-Shirt.

Meaning that they are Making A Difference. Or that they should take off their victim mentality.

SUMO, which stands for “Shut Up, Move On” (or “Stop, understand, get off autopilot”), is a philosophy that McGee has put into practice personally, leaving behind his rocky start to life.

Masked up at the end August, off to do his first live event since March 13. In the five months between, McGee has had Covid-19, finished his 12th book (it’s for teenagers, due out in October), started writing another, and spoken around the world virtually. Photo from The Sumo Guy’s Instagram.

Using deceptively simplistic sounding acronyms and phrases, McGee arms his audiences with powerful practical techniques to tackle blows to their personal or professional lives, and helps them embrace change.

Shedding light, giving hope

It has been 15 years since his first book expounding SUMO was published. Yet the ideas that relate to mental and emotional health and resilience have become increasingly relevant today. 

Last year, McGee’s publisher contacted him, asking if he could write a SUMO version for teenagers to address big issues they are facing.

“I wasn’t enthusiastic to begin with, because I thought, I write for adults. I don’t write for teenagers,” McGee told Salt&Light.

But after praying about it, McGee started working with an illustrator on what would be a visual book with illustrations and images to engage those who may not enjoy reading. 

“My prayer is clearly with every book I write, is that God will use it to impact and bless other people.”

For this one, his prayer is that “it would be relevant for young people and helping them to understand themselves and their emotions and how they think.

“The book may reach some young people who may be at the point of suicide or self-harming and thinking that there’s no way out. My prayer is that reading this book will get them some light and give them some hope.”

Yesss! The SUMO Secrets to Being a Positive, Confident Teenager is due out in October.

God in the room 

McGee’s own growing up years at home were tumultuous. 

One night, at age 17, he was forced to leave home. He was having a difficult time at home with his step-father and mother. 

“I didn’t know where to turn. I rang up my Christian friend,” said McGee.

McGee still remembers vividly the night he left home. “I remember my friend picking me up in his car from the end of my road. And I had a little suitcase.

“They actually happened to be having Bible study that night at his home.

“I remember writing in my diary that they prayed as if God was with them in the room. And there was this intimacy of faith that I had never known or experienced, and that spoke to me very powerfully as well.”

“I was just so aware of the presence of God. 

“I wouldn’t say it was an audible voice. But that night, the phrase that very much stirred in my soul was, ‘I am in control’.”

“And in the midst of all my chaos and confusion. I had this overwhelming sense of peace.

Growing up, McGee “had a belief in God. For me, it was never in doubt”. 

But when he was at school, “there was a friend who called himself a Christian. But his faith seemed very different to mine”, he said. And he started asking me if I’d like to go to a youth group.

“And to be perfectly honest, one of the reasons why I liked the youth group – it was full of girls. 

“Because I was new, and I was popular, it did my whole self-esteem good to go!”

But up till that night when he left home, “God was a distant father. He was out there somewhere, not a God who could be known intimately”.

But his relationship with God would change as he began to lean on God in all the crossroads of his life.

Battery charging

Within a year of graduating from university where he studied psychology, McGee was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.

“Imagine you go to bed at night and your phone is at 2%. You charge your phone. And then you wake up in the morning and it’s at 5%. So for three years, no matter how much I rested, I had so little energy,” he said.

It came to a point where he woke up feeling at 25%. “So I had enough energy to try and live life.”

But he didn’t know if he would have enough energy to hold down a full-time job or pass a medical for a job. So the way forward was for him to become self-employed and be his own boss.

McGee often uses the beach ball to show others how to increase their understanding and awareness of other people’s worlds. “What colours you see on the beach ball depends on your perspective,” he says. Photo from The Sumo Guy’s Instagram.

He got involved working as a sales consultant and trainer with Dale Carnegie Training, which teaches professionals to sharpen skills and improve performance.  

As a freelancer, he also got a contract with British Coal. A lot of coal mines were closing in the 1990s in England, leaving thousands unemployed. McGee was helping these men find alternative work, and also “from an attitude point of view, deal with the fact that they’d lost their jobs”.

“And what I realised was, from my own learning: This was not just about how to put a good CV or resume together. It’s also about how you see yourself as a person and what your attitude is like. And how you deal with rejection and setbacks.” 

From these work experiences, McGee’s ideas for SUMO started evolving.   

Pushing doors

God also brought into his life people who restored him in various ways. 

“They became almost like father figures and encouragers. 

Motivational speaker The Sumo Guy, aka Paul McGee, (left, with son Matt) overcame a rocky start and chronic fatigue to develop and expound “sticky, memorable” concepts to equip people mentally. Photo courtesy of Paul McGee.

“God seems to draw certain men into my life that have restored what felt like had been lost in my childhood,” said McGee, who had a challenging life, growing up without a positive father figure. Of the past, he said: “In a sense it’s time to shut up and move on. It was just a chapter in my life.” 

Chief among the male role models God brought into his life was a Christian friend, also called Paul – Paul Sandham – who became a mentor. 

Sandham worked for a HR consultancy at the time, and often roped McGee in when organisations hired his company for events.

“I might just literally be sat at the back of the room for half the event, listening and learning myself. But then he’d say, ‘Okay, let’s break up into small groups. We’re going to do some video work, we’re going to do some role plays’, and he invited me to help facilitate that.

“Paul was aware of my material and started to give me the opportunity to use some of it in his courses. He knew the impact it was having on the audience.

“I was like a sponge. I was so eager and hungry to learn. I started to share with others,” said McGee, who enjoyed drama and acting in school. Opportunities for him to speak also increased. 

Sandham was instrumental in getting McGee’s book SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) – which changed his life – published.

“A lot of people don’t realise that SUMO was rejected by 13 publishers who said: ‘No one is going to buy a book called Shut Up, Move On. It’s too aggressive,'” said McGee.

But Sandham said to him: “You know, I really believe that God is in this SUMO. You just need to push doors.”

Said McGee: “And it’s not like there are a thousand publishers that publish that kind of book.” But push more doors he did.

One of those doors did open. SUMO was published in 2005. It became a UK Sunday Times Best Seller. It has been translated into at least 19 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Icelandic and Russian. McGee has since authored 11 books, and has spoken for more than 1,000 organisations in over 40 countries.

“This is not a book that’s had any real marketing budget behind it. I am not a celebrity in the UK. And yet, by the grace of God, it is still selling well now.”

A partnership

Of the times he has spoken to Christian audiences at seminars in churches and some Bible colleges, he says: “I’ll sometimes dip into – which people wouldn’t usually expect a motivational speaker to start looking at – the book of Lamentations, where the writer has been talking about how basically life is so bad.

“But then it says: ‘I say to myself. Why are you so downcast within me? And I will remember the mercies of the Lord are new every morning.’  (Lamentations 3: 20-23)”

He also relates SUMO with Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God”.

“The Hebrew word ‘rapha’ can also mean ‘be quiet’.

Paul and his publisher made How Not to Worry (top row, second from left) available for free on Kindle in April to help readers during the uncertainty of the Covid pandemic. In Singapore, the e-title from the National Library Board had a waitlist, as seen from this screenshot taken from the Overdrive app on April 4, the day after Circuit Breaker was announced.

Faith and his relationship with God as a partnership, said McGee. “We are not puppets where God just pulls the strings. Sometimes if we say ‘we’re doing nothing, we’re just trusting God’, I think that encourages people, if we are not careful, to be passive. 

“God calls us to be partners, to be proactive in bringing his Kingdom on earth.”

Master storyteller

McGee has been involved with speaking at EAGLES conferences and workshops since the mid noughties; he is due to speak in the upcoming one in 2021. The subject is one close to the hearts of pastors and preachers: Captivating and sustaining attention.

“Jesus was the master at this: The power of creating pictures in people’s minds and using relevant illustrations.

“So, for me, one of my key messages is: We need to look at how we make our messages sticky and memorable. It’s not about drowning people in detail and Bible verses.

“Be a great storyteller. We are all MAD,” he says, using his acronyms of  Making A Difference. “But bring that alive.” 

To illustrate these two points, he shares that his son Matt didn’t like biology when he was in school.

“One day we are talking. He’s 15 at that time. And he says: ‘When I leave school I want to become a doctor.’ 

“And I’m like: ‘A doctor? But you don’t like biology.’

“And then he says, ‘We’ve got a new teacher, Mrs Shaw. And she’s really enthusiastic about the topic.’

“I’m not going to tell you the whole story, but my 27-year-old son is now a doctor.

“He went from not liking biology to having a change of teacher. Mrs Shaw and her enthusiasm became the catalyst. And that is the power of one person.

“Every single one of us makes a difference. Yes, we work together, we are stronger together. But let’s understand that a word of encouragement that you personally might give, making yourself available for someone else, sharing some advice or wisdom – your words can change people’s worlds.

“When Jesus communicated, he asked questions. He met people where they were. It was all about relevance.” 

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