Undercover Cop with a Deathwish, and the Man With Grief Behind Him

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)
Todd never planned to be a cop. A friend dared him over a couple of beers at the pub, and he said yes, mostly to get him to stop asking. That yes turned into 27 years in the Queensland police as a detective and eventually undercover. But the moment that really changed his life came early on New Year's Day 2000 when he lost his partner Karen to suicide. He was 25 and he had no idea how to carry it. So he drank, he ran, and he went undercover with a new name and a lot of risks.

Now he's written the whole story down, the funny parts and the hard ones, hoping that it helps someone else.

Todd Maguire (00:35)
I've opened the sliding door and there she was, used a piece some electrical cord and put it through the roof there she was. She was hanging, so she'd hung herself yeah, I didn't see that coming

Matt Gilhooly (01:22)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Life Shift Podcast. I am here with Todd. Hello, Todd.

Todd Maguire (01:26)
Hey, how are you, mate? Thanks for having me, mate. It's great.

Matt Gilhooly (01:29)
Well, thank you for wanting to be a part of this. We've had a couple minutes of conversation before recording. So sorry guys, you don't get to hear that part. But I

Todd Maguire (01:39)
you

Matt Gilhooly (01:39)
think what's important is, you know, we've we've all, I think everyone's kind of been through something life-changing, whether that was something that happened to them, an external force or some kind of internal fire of some sort that made them want to change in a on a dime, essentially. But

The real power, I think, for me is like the reflection element of it when we get a little bit farther away from it and, you know, learn from our our experiences and know that, you know, we felt alone in the moment, but we weren't. And so my hope here is, you know, conversations with you and all my other guests is that there's someone out there that maybe they're going through something where they feel like they're the only person that could understand. And maybe they hear your story and they're like,

I feel validated in my experience. I'm normal or whatever whatever it is to

Todd Maguire (02:29)
It's very true.

Matt Gilhooly (02:30)
move forward in life. So all that to say thank you for wanting to share your story in this way.

Todd Maguire (02:36)
Yeah, awesome.

Matt Gilhooly (02:37)
Before we do that though, can you tell us who you are in 2026? who is Todd? How do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days?

Todd Maguire (02:45)
Yeah, well, it is a big question. It depends how deep we want to get, surface value, I'm a 53 year old husband and dad of a 20 year old boy. I spent 27 years in the police service in Queensland, mainly as a detective. And I did some undercover work now retired and just recently

written a memoir about my life, good, the bad, the ugly. I'm learning from it and it's a bit of a healing journey and actually loving life. It's great that I can share my story with people. And as you said before, the amount of people that are saying, wow, that's exactly how I think or how I felt. And it makes me validated and make me feel happy.

I tell you what, I didn't think that by writing a book that was going to do anything. I was selfishly doing it for myself to allow myself to heal, which it did. But for to then go and help other people is just icing on the cake in my books. I love it.

Matt Gilhooly (03:43)
Yeah. Well, I would

say that is a a good reason to write a book, whether you publish it or not, is to be able to get

Todd Maguire (03:48)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (03:51)
things out of your head, process it, see it differently. I'm sure that was quite cathartic and hard and all the all the things

Todd Maguire (03:58)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (03:59)
that come along with it. do you feel like a different person finishing that book than when you started it? Yeah.

Todd Maguire (04:03)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I just felt

the backpacks getting lighter each time and just, the heaviness was just, just lifting.

Matt Gilhooly (04:12)
Was there a fear of publishing it so the world could read it?

Todd Maguire (04:15)
Heaps

of times. Not only that,

Matt Gilhooly (04:18)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (04:19)
not only the fear of being vulnerable and telling my story, I also had this fear that my story wasn't even important and it meant nothing and no one's really going to be interested in reading it. And it's proven to be quite the opposite.

Matt Gilhooly (04:33)
Yeah. Well, that's true of any piece of art. There there's still gonna be people that don't care, right? it's just gonna be part of the world. But if it if your book finds the right people at the right time, the ripple effect from that could be so grand, nothing that you would ever even know is happening around the world

because

of one person that picked up your book and read it and felt compelled to do something differently. So I think it's a I think

Todd Maguire (04:59)
Yeah, yeah, cool.

Matt Gilhooly (05:00)
it's a win all around. I think you're

helping the world in the tiniest of ways, through these ripple effects. And then also

Todd Maguire (05:04)
Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (05:06)
what a what a journey to give yourself. I think that is probably the hardest thing that people shy away from is telling their story and putting it down on paper. So kudos to you for all of that.

Todd Maguire (05:17)
and especially, know, I was never a writer, was never a reader, I was never really academic, I was a sportsman, so it's very surprising that I've been able to put this together.

Matt Gilhooly (05:29)
Well, it's your life, your story. You can you can get it out there. So that's awesome. And and that'll I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about some of the parts that are in your book and then at the end we'll we'll share how people can find it and and do all those fun things. But I would love for you to paint the picture of your life leading up to this main pivotal moment that we're gonna talk about today. Sounds like in your experience you probably had many of them, but

The one you've identified as the life shift moment for you that we'll discuss today. So can you give us that before version of Todd, however far back you need to go?

Todd Maguire (06:02)
Yeah, exactly. I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Brisbane, which is the capital city of Queensland. was almost like a bit of a country town back then, but she's starting to grow a bit now. it was one of those, you where you jumped on your pushy and you left at seven in the morning and you got home at seven at night when the streetlights came on. And every other weekend, you're sort of hanging out with mates at carp, parks, playing footy, playing cricket, playing whatever.

And it was just, yeah, just a push fight, yeah, sorry. I didn't think of that one.

Matt Gilhooly (06:29)
And what's a pushy? Is that a bike? Okay. You know, yeah, hey.

I love now I know something. Yeah. So it was an

Todd Maguire (06:39)
Yeah, yeah, a lot back then.

Matt Gilhooly (06:40)
a kind of like a a regular seventies, eighties life, you would say, that you were living?

Todd Maguire (06:45)
Yeah, really.

Yeah, Mum and Dad were together for 55 years before they passed away. an older brother, he's still with us. Younger sister is still with us and had a really close family. We weren't perfect but nothing major, nothing major at all. You it was a quite middle class, hard working, normal stuff where we had our trials and tribulations but there was no major dramas at all. It was

pretty idyllic and...

You don't realize that until I joined the police later. God, Jesus. God, I had a good family. Because you see some bad shit.

Matt Gilhooly (07:16)
Yeah. Yeah,

I've heard some bad stuff too. And it's always curious to me when people can describe their lives as like this idyllic, like nothing I mean, we had fights and we did, you know, whatever,

but nothing that

Todd Maguire (07:29)
Yeah,

Matt Gilhooly (07:31)
I can trace back to anything traumatic in a way that that affected me moving forward. And I I think that's beautiful. also could be in my cynical mind scary because what happens when something

Is that scary? Is it like eva the job you told me. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (07:44)
And that's exactly it. I've identified that. Yeah.

I wasn't prepared for a lot of the stuff that I was about to encounter because I'd had such a great life up to it. I didn't know anything bad could exist.

Matt Gilhooly (07:58)
What made you want to get into the field you got into?

Todd Maguire (08:00)
I honestly don't know still. When I left school, I had no plans on being a No one in my family anywhere had been a police officer. I was in the hospitality. I was running bars and cocktail bars and went on to resorts on the islands. And I was living a pretty good life. And it got to about 2022, 2023 where I thought I better do something with myself.

I just happened to be in a pub with a mate of mine who was a copper and he dared me to join it. goes, you you would actually really like it. And I was going, no, no, not interested, mate, not interested. it was like one of those things after a couple of beers, said, god, mate, if I say yes, will you just shut up? And he goes, yep, good. So I applied the next day and got in the process just went from there. So unbelievable. Yeah. I thought I'd...

Matt Gilhooly (08:44)
twenty seven years of it. Because

someone

w needed to shut up.

Todd Maguire (08:51)
Yeah, but once I, once I, it was probably nearly a year later that when I finally got into the academy, I really loved it. It's something that I didn't expect I was going to like as much. love the structure. love the camaraderie. Yeah, that the colleagues that you sort of work with and hang out with, it was just a laugh every day. Everything was fun. So was pretty cool. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (09:12)
Yeah. Was there was there

an element of a purpose beyond maybe working at a bar and whatnot as a young

Todd Maguire (09:19)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (09:19)
twenty year old, but now you have this service that you can help others while having fun?

Todd Maguire (09:24)
Exactly.

Yeah. And, suppose over the recently years, the reputation of police are sort of starting to diminish a little bit, but, you know, was, still have a little bit of a standing in the, in the, community. And

Matt Gilhooly (09:37)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (09:37)
I think initially I felt pretty proud of it. Hmm. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (09:41)
Yeah. When did you start? In the nineties, is that what I'm guessing?

Todd Maguire (09:44)
It 1997. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (09:45)
Ninety seven? Okay. Yeah, I would imagine that I don't know how it is in Australia, but police are there are great police officers, but the rep for the entirety of the police department is probably lower than it used to be. But knowing full

Todd Maguire (10:00)
Yeah, it definitely has.

Matt Gilhooly (10:01)
well there are great people doing great work and all the important things.

Todd Maguire (10:05)
Yeah, from what I've found, it's not usually just the individual. The organisation just cannot be changed. And

Matt Gilhooly (10:11)
Right.

Todd Maguire (10:12)
if you try and change it,

no good.

Matt Gilhooly (10:14)
Yeah. Did you

find yourself changing the way you were approaching things, thinking about things, whatever tough exterior, like were you were you changing in that role? Did you find yourself doing that or did you still feel like yourself as you were maturing into that?

Todd Maguire (10:31)
you

do get indoctrinated into it. know

Matt Gilhooly (10:34)
Okay.

Todd Maguire (10:34)
what you look at when you're driving around, what you're walking into. I noticed walking into the shopping centers, I would scan every face, every face, and I still do it just to see who is a potential threat.

Matt Gilhooly (10:50)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (10:50)
It's just indoctrinated in you because you're always looking at something.

Matt Gilhooly (10:52)
Yeah. Yeah. So your career

was detective work? You were were you investigating like really tough stuff that you wouldn't want to tell anyone about?

Todd Maguire (11:03)
no, I'm happy to open everything, anything from homicides to rapes to serious assaults to trafficking, child protection, sexual assaults, almost everything.

Matt Gilhooly (11:15)
Yeah. W d was

it hard for you to not take that home or did you take that home? Did you internalize any of that? I think there are some people that might and it might shift how they move through the world.

Todd Maguire (11:27)
Yeah, I think I did take it home. And what I did notice over the years is when our court system started getting lesser and lesser with the convictions and the penalties, I was taking that really personally and I

was really struggling to put in all of the effort to grab this person and then they'd get a slap on the wrist effectively and walk out laughing at you and the rest of the town is just...

screaming at you going, aren't you supposed to be protecting us? And I couldn't. And it was really, it was really awful to go through that because you feel like you want to help these people, know, the people who are not committing crime. But all it did was allow them to go back out and do it again. And

Matt Gilhooly (12:06)
Right.

Todd Maguire (12:07)
you go and grab them again and then the magistrate for the judge would let them out again. And then you go and get them the next time. No, magistrate let them out again. And yeah, it got, I did take all of that home. I really did. I hated it.

Matt Gilhooly (12:17)
Yeah. I could imagine

I think I've probably seen this movie where where a cop gets really mad and starts wanting to do not so great things. Were you ever tempted to to rebel against your your role? Okay. So no

Todd Maguire (12:31)
No... No, no,

Matt Gilhooly (12:33)
you weren't gonna take revenge on anything.

Todd Maguire (12:35)
no, it was was one of those. It was the pit of a moment where we're actually in the place where I went, you know, the time now is not to think about what the outcome is. It's just the action of what I'm doing. And whatever happens later is out of my control. And once I sort of did that, it made me sort of get through another 10 years in the police.

Matt Gilhooly (12:53)
Yeah. So I've just this before version of you seems pretty content in life. Like you're you liked your job,

Todd Maguire (13:00)
Yeah

Matt Gilhooly (13:01)
you were you were progressing, you were doing the things. I mean, judges were annoying, but you know, you were doing

Todd Maguire (13:06)
here.

Matt Gilhooly (13:07)
your job and so life was, would you say, good?

Todd Maguire (13:12)
I couldn't believe how much my life had been put together by that one conversation with a fellow at the pub. I wanted to play a lot of rugby league as well. So within the first year or two, I've made the Australian rugby league police side. And the first year I toured England for a month. And then the next year we came over to Philadelphia and we had a game against the

USA rugby league side and I'm pinching myself going how good is life. I was living down the Gale Coast almost near the beach. You're sort of surfing, getting the sun. It was like a real coastal sort of life and life was going good. yeah and just to compliment it I ended up meeting a wonderful girl down there by the name of Karen and

She was to me well above my pay rate. She was outstanding. She was just gorgeous. yeah, I sort of met her and things blossomed real quick on that one. She'd had a marriage breakdown and a four year old that was sort of between mom and dad. so we had a bit of a romance sort of blossom there.

it started very quickly and before you know it, as it always happens, I, I ended up moving in with her, into her house and, and things were going really nice. We were going on overseas holidays. We were, you know, I was living in the barracks prior to that with a bunch of blokes where a Tuesday night was a, you know, it was a chicken schnitzel and a schooner, at the pub. and now I'm sort of, you know, putting the Lego away and tucking the young fella into bed. And, to me,

It was all happening too quick, but I also knew that I was loving it. And it was one of those things where I went, you know, this is part of growing up, you know, I'm 25 now is all, this is it, you

Matt Gilhooly (14:59)
Yeah. So life is

still in this case now you're adding to the goodness of your life because you have everything's working out on the career side. You get to play your sport that you wanted to. You're living in a beautiful place, right?

Todd Maguire (15:09)
Hmm. And I was loving work. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (15:14)
and now you meet this woman who seems like, Okay, this this could be family, this could be as scary as it is when you're twenty five, but this could be something

Todd Maguire (15:23)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (15:25)
real and and

I'm assuming sunshine and rainbows aren't always there. I think, you know, you're painting this beautiful picture of this before life, but what did that bring what what brought you to this life shift moment and what is it? What what happened?

Todd Maguire (15:39)
Yeah, well, what had happened is I was with Karen for about 18 months and it ended up being Year's Eve on 2000. So was the Y2K millennial bug where the world was supposed to fall apart.

Matt Gilhooly (15:53)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (15:53)
I think that was the first hoax I've been through, but we've had a few since, haven't so we believed it at the time. And as the police, we were planning for the worst and it was all hands on deck.

And I still to this day don't remember. I still have not heard such noise coming from hotels and high rise apartments. the anticipation of a party like it's 1999 and nothing

Matt Gilhooly (16:15)
Right.

Todd Maguire (16:15)
was going to be around the next day was pretty intense. so I was starting work at 10pm that night with a few other copper mates and we're all sort of close friends with our girlfriends.

wives and we went to dinner first and so we were going to have dinner go to work and then the girls were going to go to a nightclub and and enjoy the New Year's Eve so what had happened was was sort of starting work and I might even sort of go back a little bit that about a month or two earlier Karen had told me that she'd fallen pregnant

And together we decided not to keep it just because of the problems with, know, she was technically still married, all of those things. again, was one of those things at 25. Still don't know if that was the right decision or not, but we did at the time and can't take it back now. so I could sort of notice that she was a little bit down on that,

nothing really bad. She wasn't

Matt Gilhooly (17:05)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (17:06)
in a state or anything. She was just a little bit quiet. fast forward to the New Year's Eve, told me that she took a half an ecstasy pill and wasn't sure whether that was the right thing to do or not. just said I'll just maintain contact with me and I just wanted to make sure she was okay as the night went

Matt Gilhooly (17:21)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (17:22)
on. And yeah, she was having the best night of her life. She loved it. She was really happy, enjoyable.

And she'd always been a happy person. We'd never fought, even before that as well. anyway, I picked her up. None that I'm aware of, no.

Matt Gilhooly (17:33)
Had she done these drugs before too? Okay.

Todd Maguire (17:37)
I'd never done it, heard her do it or would never have talked about it.

Matt Gilhooly (17:40)
Okay. So this was a little out of the norm.

Todd Maguire (17:43)
Yeah, a little bit, yeah. But I just thought it was New Year's Eve and yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (17:46)
Yeah, you were twenty five too.

Todd Maguire (17:48)
Yeah, well, it was something that, being a copper, I didn't really want that to happen.

also figured it's not my position to tell her either. All I thought I could do was support her and make sure that she was safe and I did that I picked her up. We went home and everything was good. We were having a cup of tea and a piece of toast and by this time it's almost seven o'clock in the morning and whatever it is and so I on, let's go to bed. I'm bugging. My eyes are hanging out and she goes, yeah, good call, good call. So jumped into bed.

A couple of hours later, remember waking up and the door Karen was talking to her ex-husband and the young fellow was being dropped over. I sort of got up and said, we didn't know we were having a car today. And she said, yeah, I know, I totally forgot. I feel so bad. And she was really beating herself up about it. She goes, we were supposed to get him this morning and I just totally forgot. And I'm going, well, that's okay. He's here now and everything's fine. There's no issue whatsoever. she was...

I've been a bad mum and think about which one is she talking about? know, I convinced her to come to bed and I said, you're getting really tired now. You really need some sleep. And I had to start work at four o'clock in the afternoon. So I was really keen to get some sleep.

Matt Gilhooly (18:59)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (19:00)
Also knowing that, know, everyone is still alive and the computers are still working and the planes are not falling out of the

out of the sky, everyone had a bit of a sigh of relief and going, how good, good, nothing's

Matt Gilhooly (19:13)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (19:14)
happened.

Matt Gilhooly (19:14)
Right? And it's a new year.

Todd Maguire (19:16)
Yeah, New Year. so felt like we both jumped back into bed and went to sleep and put a movie on for the young fella. I woke up and it was just after 1.30 could hear the young fella walking around going, Mummy, where are you? Where are you, Mummy? And it woke me up and I sort of rolled over and she wasn't there and I was like, I wonder where she is. So I picked him up and we went walking around looking for her in the upstairs area of the house.

And she wasn't there and I noticed the keys in the car were still out the front. She hasn't gone anywhere. So she wasn't anywhere in the top house. So the bottom house was like a, was where all our laundry was and there was a bed there as well. Just for people who might want to visit. So I said, she might be down there, mate. How about we go and check? She could be putting some laundry on. As we're walking down, I'm sort of making a bit of a joke with her and joke with him saying, yeah, mommy's always doing that. She's always.

making

sure that everything's clean and for us, she's so good. And I've opened the sliding door basically, and there she was, used a piece of some electrical cord and put it through the roof and there she was. She was hanging, so she'd hung herself yeah, I didn't see that coming and it really.

really knocked me for six. And first thing I did was I got rid of him. I threw him as fast as I could. And I hardly remember doing it, but I do know I did it just so he wouldn't see it. And I threw him out and closed the door. And then that's when I just started howling, started screaming. It was almost like my body shut down and it got

Matt Gilhooly (20:48)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (20:48)
hit. It got hit with this incredible force. And I sort of always explained it like a

Like a train that hit me. just took the wind out of me, took my breath out of me. My legs collapsed. screaming, but I don't think anything was coming out.

Matt Gilhooly (21:01)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (21:01)
Your body was just in so much shock.

Matt Gilhooly (21:04)
Right.

Todd Maguire (21:05)
And then everything started coming back together. And I started getting up and sort of moving towards her and then I was screaming. Saying, what have you done? What the hell is this? No, no, no. I went to pick her up and I'm trying to sort of...

get it from back around the neck and it just wasn't, it wasn't budging. was too tight. some stage I decided I'm going to have to, I was looking around the room. There was nothing. I ran upstairs and I got a knife and I came back down and cut it down and then released the cord from around the neck and started CPR. And I did it for, could have been two minutes or two hours. I have no idea.

Matt Gilhooly (21:41)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (21:41)
Everything was such a blur.

And at one stage I thought I'd got it back, but it was really just my air going in and a chest going in and out. got a little bit excited at one stage, but I decided, I must have realized that it wasn't working. And

I had a thought of what the hell's the young fella doing? I better go and make sure he's okay. So I went outside and

Matt Gilhooly (21:59)
Right.

Todd Maguire (22:00)
found him and he's just standing against the wall, just none the wiser, which was really good. And...

So I've decided, well I'm not going to bring him back in. I'm going to pick him up, call triple O 911 and wait for the ambulance and the police to arrive. So we waited upstairs out the front on the gutter and we'll both, well this time he's crying because I was crying and just waiting for the ambulance to arrive. And it felt like it took four hours, but it was really four minutes and it just took forever. I just needed someone to be there because I...

I didn't know what to do.

I'd only been two and a half years in the police. although I was still learning, I really hadn't experienced a hell of lot of that sort of stuff before as well. So I felt a bit vulnerable there going, I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do. Because it was just my loved one. I knew

Matt Gilhooly (22:49)
Right.

Todd Maguire (22:49)
what to do if it someone else's, but I was just, my mind wasn't thinking.

Matt Gilhooly (22:52)
Yeah. I think if you even

knew what to do, you wouldn't know what to do. It's just a helpless,

Todd Maguire (22:57)
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Matt Gilhooly (22:59)
empty, horrible feeling that I can imagine that you were kind of going through and like I'm sure in the shocked moment, or maybe you can tell me in the shocked moment, did you start having the thoughts about like what did I miss or any of those things? Or did that come later, or did that come at all? Okay.

Todd Maguire (23:15)
Much later, much later,

yeah. It was just panic straight up. I

Matt Gilhooly (23:17)
So you're Yeah.

Todd Maguire (23:20)
had to get it back alive. That's all my thought was. Because this can't be real. This can't be real.

Matt Gilhooly (23:24)
Well and then

and then then it transfers to I have to protect this child who's four, five years old, something like that, which you don't want him to see, but also like w you're twenty five, like what do you know how to take care of, you know, this kid? Not to say that you weren't equipped with that, but I'm sure that's just an extra burden, right? It's

Todd Maguire (23:44)
Yeah, I'm still very green at it.

Matt Gilhooly (23:47)
an extra burden to 'cause you I mean

There's part of it where you wanna be open enough with the kid, but to the level that he can he can handle, but also like where is that line and

Todd Maguire (23:59)
Yeah, I wanted to stay with her. you know, I'm waiting up the top and she's down there by herself and yeah, I didn't feel good about that, but I was torn. I didn't know what to do. I think I made the right decision, but yeah, I did it without

Matt Gilhooly (24:09)
Yeah, I agree. But there is there a right decision?

Todd Maguire (24:13)
thinking. Yeah, I did. Well, in hindsight, if I had to make the decision again, it would probably be that one. So I think I made the right decision. So I'm

Matt Gilhooly (24:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (24:22)
happy with that.

Matt Gilhooly (24:23)
So I mean, I'm sorry that you had to experience that. That's not something that anyone could ever prepare for. So even though you

Todd Maguire (24:30)
Mm.

Matt Gilhooly (24:31)
were in that field, you can't prepare for a loved one to

Todd Maguire (24:35)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (24:36)
you know, to go through that and then all the things that come along with that.

What what was like what could be the next step? Because I think in my mind it's like there is no next step. Like I wouldn't know what step to take. Like after the police came and the ambulance over all those things, after everyone came, like now what do I do? Like what is life anymore? Because this woman I was building this life with, my job just you know, is great, but also

I'm gonna see stuff like this moving forward. So, how did you get to a step that came next? Like, what was that like for you?

Todd Maguire (25:13)
All I, everything was such a blur.

Matt Gilhooly (25:16)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (25:17)
The street that we lived looked like movie set. was just that cars, that many emergency services vehicles with lights. And I was just, that's what I was just looking at that going, what the hell's happening? I couldn't comprehend it. I couldn't understand it. Where I'd grown up in Brisbane was about an hour north. And I rang my mom and dad and.

That was a pretty tough conversation to explain what the hell had just happened. And mind you, this is New Year's Eve, New Year's Day in the afternoon. Most people are recovering from a massive night before and that's the last thing they expected to get a call for. to their credit, come, they ride straight down and grab me. And once everything was finished and I went back to Brisbane and went back to my place that...

house that I grew up in and had mum and dad and all my family around me which was which was pretty good but it sort of as the days got on the days got on it just just couldn't believe that it was happening like each day you'd wake up going please tell me that

Matt Gilhooly (26:10)
Right.

Todd Maguire (26:10)
was a please tell me all of this was a nightmare yeah but now

Matt Gilhooly (26:14)
denial

and all the things that come with it.

Todd Maguire (26:17)
Yeah, yeah. I still had Karen's phone and the phone would keep ringing all the time. Other people who hadn't heard the story or had heard the story wanted to confirm it, which was awful. I had to sort of keep

Matt Gilhooly (26:28)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (26:29)
keep

telling people the same shit. So was pretty, it was pretty ordinary.

Matt Gilhooly (26:33)
Yeah. And I keep thinking and this my mom was killed in a motorcycle accident, so it wasn't in the same way, but I think of this little boy too and the confusion and the things that come along with that. Did you have any connection with him like after all this or through any of that? Okay. Okay. Okay, good.

Todd Maguire (26:53)
Yeah, I did. I did for quite some time and I still do now.

an amazing, he's a 31 year old now, he's married and he's bought a house and he's got a wonderful wife, planning a family and I'm actually really good friends with the ex-husband as well, the dad and it brought us all much closer and say to the dad many, many times, go,

Mate, you did a wonderful job because he brought her, ended up bringing him up. And I said, he's more mature than both you and me together. How did that work?

He's got such a good head on him. It's amazing.

Matt Gilhooly (27:29)
Yeah, yeah. Well that that

makes me happy to hear because I think that can go awry too, just because of the situation. Adults sometimes don't know how to move through grief. Did you know how to move through grief or did you bottle things up? Did you put on your tough exterior? What did you do?

Todd Maguire (27:47)
So what I did I just drank. I drank and I drank and I drank and I tried to forget about it. And I had three months off work, which meant that it allowed me to drink all day and every day. And I was sort of just stuck at home by myself. And I just noticed each day it just got earlier and earlier. was having really bad nightmares.

and I couldn't go to sleep, which meant I was using the alcohol to get to probably wasn't the numbing during the day. was getting to a state at night that I could pass out and not think of anything before I go to sleep. So that was the reason for doing it because some of the nightmares were just fucking horrendous. Yeah,

Matt Gilhooly (28:22)
Right. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (28:24)
just re-plan the thing and just being haunted by it basically.

And that's just your own mind playing up.

Matt Gilhooly (28:29)
Yeah, trying to sort things out.

Todd Maguire (28:31)
Going

Matt Gilhooly (28:31)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (28:32)
through that grieving process of blaming yourself, you know, there was a lot of blame, a lot of, when this happens in families, people got to blame someone. And I was the copper that was living with her and didn't see a thing, didn't see a sign. So, yeah, I took it personally for quite some time.

It

took me a while to make sense of it, to say, no, she made that decision. It's not mine. I'm not going to

Matt Gilhooly (28:55)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (28:56)
wear that. But it did take me many, years to get that out of my head. And whilst I reconciled with that, you're then grappling with the idea of, okay, well, she's made the decision. But now I've now got a process. She'd rather kill herself and be with me.

Matt Gilhooly (29:11)
Mm. There's probably

Todd Maguire (29:13)
And that,

Matt Gilhooly (29:13)
not anything about you.

Todd Maguire (29:14)
yeah, exactly. And then you've got to process that again. go, no, again, work through that again. No, it's got nothing to do with you. But this is things that happen over many years, know, many things of just a hit to your self-esteem that you've just got to build yourself back up again. And,

Matt Gilhooly (29:30)
Yeah.

I would imagine too in the time period of early two thousands, at least in America, people there was such a stigma attached to individuals who have died by suicide, and the family members that exist. People weren't talking about it. They were just talking

about the actual how it happened and not

the person and not the choices and not

Nowadays we know more that oftentimes you wouldn't know that someone was going to do this because they're going to appear they don't want you to know. They're trying

Todd Maguire (30:07)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (30:07)
to show that you they are okay. And so, yeah, but I can imagine the time period didn't allow you to hear any of these stories, any more details to validate how you were feeling. So I'm sure that is there like a snowball effect to that too, where you start to feel bad and then

Nobody's validating you that you shouldn't feel bad. So then it just kinda builds and builds and builds to this like

Todd Maguire (30:33)
Yeah, yeah, I don't blame my family or friends at the time because they did the best of what they could do. Yeah, when you're looking at 2000, 2001, 2002, no internet, no podcasts, no literature apart from you go to a library or you go to a health clinician

Matt Gilhooly (30:53)
Right.

Todd Maguire (30:54)
and basically it's all textbook stuff. It's not hearing other people's stories. It's not anecdotal. It's just all really serious textbook.

This is the reason why this happened and this is what you expect here. And I suppose I'd never surrounded myself with anyone that had been through this sort of trauma. And I, what I did, I started, I started making, feeling like I was the weird one because I'm the only one that feels this way and no one else can understand why I'm feeling this way. I didn't have anyone else to talk to. They were just.

They

were my circle of friends and they're the people that I was with 99 % of the time. It wasn't until, you know, just recently, the last five years, listening to podcasts, watching social media roles, reels, and it was just a jaw dropping time when I'm gone. This is exactly how I've been feeling for 20 years. And I haven't been able to put that into words.

Matt Gilhooly (31:45)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (31:46)
That's, that is normal. That is normal. and I've just realized that

Yeah, the whole time I was grieving almost textbook wise, but no one around me knew what that meant. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (31:57)
Right. Were you seeking

out any help in those twenty years at all? Besides the alcohol?

Todd Maguire (32:01)
Yeah, I tried.

Well, it got worse.

Matt Gilhooly (32:05)
did it?

Todd Maguire (32:06)
Yeah, I did. And I did.

And in my book, wrote that going to see a counselor or a psychologist didn't work for me, but

Matt Gilhooly (32:13)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (32:13)
it also meant didn't give enough energy as well. I had this thought that they were supposed to fix me. And I suppose as I've learned over the years, it's about me fixing me and having people to guide me along the way. But I would walk out of a session and go,

Well, she's still dead. I still feel the same. yeah,

Matt Gilhooly (32:34)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (32:35)
it's probably just,

Matt Gilhooly (32:37)
You weren't ready.

Todd Maguire (32:38)
I wasn't ready. My memories back then were just so much anger towards the world because what, what did, why did this happen to me? What was I supposed to learn? All of these things, which I just couldn't process. No one understands me. Why did this happen?

My life's over now. Blah blah blah. I'm not going. I'm going to trial this shit again, you know? that came out in a lot of things. And then obviously when I started drinking, I was acting out. I was fighting. I was being a dickhead. I was being

Matt Gilhooly (33:07)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (33:07)
really obnoxious. I was being a smart-ass. But I only just heard this recently and it exactly how I felt. That I felt...

that

my life had been dealt such an unfair end that I wanted other people to feel the pain that I was what I was feeling which

Matt Gilhooly (33:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (33:24)
is such a it's it's not how I feel at all now but I do remember thinking that which yeah yeah yeah

Matt Gilhooly (33:29)
Yeah. Because you wanted someone to understand you and know what it feels

like. Do you think d would you look back and say that you were in the victim mentality? Okay. I was too. I did I did it for twenty years. I didn't know any better. So it's like

Todd Maguire (33:41)
100 % yes, yep, yep, yeah, yep, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (33:47)
you didn't know any better and we're trying to make sense of it. But I th I bet I mean, I've learned that so many of the stupid things that I did and decisions that I made and

whatnot were just to protect myself. I was so broken inside that it was easier to, keep sealing up the cracks and whatnot and making dumb decisions because then I could still be the victim, right? So something else went wrong, see? And it was like just proving my thing. So that's why I ask if you felt maybe you were the the same way.

Todd Maguire (34:20)
Well, what I end up doing, I remember the fellow that talked me into joining the cops over five years. It was halfway through 2000 and I was just in a bar, being a bar fly as I always would have been, I ran into an old mate from, I think it was almost four or five years earlier now, hadn't seen him and he looked like, he looked like, you know, he was in

in a wig and whatever, it was actually his real hair. He'd actually gone undercover and he looked like a crook, he looked like a feral, he had long hair, dreadlocks, gay, like it just didn't look right. And I go, what the hell are you doing? And he told me, and he goes, hey, these are the other boys over here, come and have a chat. Came over there, they're all undercover agents as well and they were just having a really brief sort of chat together because they usually didn't really.

caught up with each other and I just listened to the stories for a couple of hours just going what the fuck and they said yeah

Matt Gilhooly (35:17)
It's like a movie.

Todd Maguire (35:19)
and I I felt like my life was over was nothing to look forward to I was just going through the motions just in a haze every day and then they said to me we've got a course coming up in a couple of months you should apply and that was the first time where I went

I

got something to look forward to. I'm doing this. This is it. I'm to be an undercover cop. I've got nothing to lose. I've got, I've got no one to go home to. I've got fucking no future. this is me. This is like a fucking movie. I used to say,

Matt Gilhooly (35:50)
Yeah, yeah.

Todd Maguire (35:51)
those movies where they go, he lost his family and he's got nothing to live for and just becomes a lunatic. And I did that. So Yeah. And I look,

Matt Gilhooly (35:58)
Yeah. Well, it makes sense. Because you didn't have to be yourself.

Todd Maguire (36:03)
yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (36:05)
Be someone else.

Todd Maguire (36:06)
I say two months to the 12 months to the day of Karen's death, I became a new identity. I became Donnie Wilson. went to the course and passed and started into the unit. They printed out this piece of paper and said, this is your new identity. You are not Todd anymore. Grab a car, grab this, grab that. You're heading up north. yeah, my first job was a couple of hours north and I spent nine months there.

bringing down amphetamine dealers and cooks. And it was a pretty good job. really,

Matt Gilhooly (36:37)
Yeah. Did it allow you to escape?

Todd Maguire (36:40)
was,

Matt Gilhooly (36:40)
Little bit?

Todd Maguire (36:41)
I look back now and I go, know, letting someone go undercover 12 months after losing their partner is probably not ideal, but it worked for me because it allowed me to be.

Donnie, because Donnie had lots of fun. had no worries, but Todd had problems. had, and I didn't want to go back to be taught. And it was awesome. I could just be someone else. You know, I had long hair. I had goatees, I had earrings, you know, was driving around, buying drugs, installing cars, just fucking living the.

Matt Gilhooly (37:14)
You were in a movie.

Todd Maguire (37:16)
Yeah, it was, it was fun. And, but

Matt Gilhooly (37:17)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (37:18)
what I sort of noticed after it all finished, especially

Once

I started writing a book, just the amount of times that literally escaped death, I buy rights I should not have made through the first six months. had guns to my head, had machetes to my neck, fucking knives. I was buying heroin off the Vietnamese and I trashed up their shop. So they put a bounty on my head for a hundred grand. I sort of got out of that and...

It wasn't until I was writing the book, I was going, it was like I was on a bit of a death wish, I?

Matt Gilhooly (37:53)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (37:53)
And my cousin said, fucking hate you, mate. We all knew that at the time. And I'm going, Ooh, Ooh.

Matt Gilhooly (37:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (38:00)
when I was writing that one, writing that one, writing that, I went, how the hell did I survive with that? And all I'm saying is I'm bloody glad now that I have,

Matt Gilhooly (38:11)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (38:11)
but I, part of my grieving and

my recovery was to be reckless and to be stupid and to do

Matt Gilhooly (38:17)
Yeah. Hide.

Todd Maguire (38:20)
dangerous things. Like if someone said, don't go through that door there, like there's some dangerous shit out the back, I would be running through it. Like I had no fear factor whatsoever and I didn't care if I lived or died. I'm pretty sure I wasn't suicidal, but

is that reckless that I didn't give a shit if I got a dog?

Matt Gilhooly (38:44)
Right. You don't want to do it yourself,

but if it happened, it happened.

Todd Maguire (38:48)
Yeah,

thought as well, yeah, the stigma that came out of Karen suicide was, don't want that legacy either. I think in the back of my mind, if I died in the line of duty doing a pretty big thing, at least they'll name a boat after me my parents won't have to pay for the funeral, the estate funeral. A little

bit different to doing it yourself.

Matt Gilhooly (39:12)
Well, and it it it all makes sense. And I think it's like it probably was what you needed. You needed that escape,

Todd Maguire (39:19)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (39:20)
that permission, you got paid to escape. And as much as you were reckless, I'm sure it was also where you could allow Todd to be just still and hide and sit dormant for a little bit, and then you could let some of that other piece out.

it all makes like it it's almost like hap it's a beautiful happenstance that that you were offered that and that you went into it and then you qualified, not to say that you should have risked your life in all those ways, but you did. there's nothing we can do about that. But

Todd Maguire (39:53)
Yeah, by risking

my life as well. It also, allowed me to get to these bigger crooks that the police had been trying to get for years, which meant that I was getting awards and pats on the back

and all that sort of shit. And I wasn't interested in any of it. I didn't care. I said, this is not why I joined. I didn't care about that stuff. I just wanted to be reckless and grow my hair out and wear fucking...

earrings and earrings and get more tattoos and shit.

Matt Gilhooly (40:20)
Well now you get a now you get a book out of it, you know, you get your memoir out it

you don't even have to make it up. It doesn't have to be a fiction book. It can just be your life. You know, which

Todd Maguire (40:28)
Exactly.

Matt Gilhooly (40:28)
you know, we're making making light of it. But I mean you were a it's a grief story too. I mean at it

Todd Maguire (40:35)
It is, yeah.

The first part of my book is obviously about my growing up and how idyllic it is. And then I explain how in detail what happened that day and how it flipped my world upside down and how it can show that your life can change in a heartbeat. That's just my example of it. obviously telling the stories about my undercover work.

and

how I escaped this and escaped that. It's just a classic case what most people do in grieving. And what I wanted to get the message out was, don't do what Donny did. I hid it. I was hiding it. was, to go to bed, it was getting to the stage where it was almost two bottles of rum with

to Mazepan and cannabis. And it was, and I still was still having nightmares. I was still seeing her next to me crying and stuff like that. I was, I was hallucinating at times.

was with some crooks one day going to buy some drugs, some guns, sorry. And I thought that, I thought that was, that was Karen walking down the street and I stopped the car and ran down the street looking for a chaser.

it wasn't her at all but mine was just plain havoc I suppose all of the things that are in my system probably didn't help either but didn't know what else to do

Matt Gilhooly (42:02)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (42:02)
I was living living the life

Matt Gilhooly (42:04)
Yeah. What

was so where did you start to pivot from that to you now? Because it doesn't seem like you would do the same things now.

Todd Maguire (42:16)
No, well, I've got a choice, but I don't look back now and go, whatever decision you made at the time was the right one, because that's the information you had.

Matt Gilhooly (42:23)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (42:25)
I like changing. I wish I did it this way. Everything's

Matt Gilhooly (42:28)
Yeah. Can't

Todd Maguire (42:29)
everything happens for a reason. is what it is. took me many years. It took me. And it still is part of it, but I'm a hell of a lot better. ended up.

After I finished undercover, met a young lady and we blossomed and got married in 2004. then we had a son in 2005 and I'm still married to her now and he's a wonderful kid. And that was something when I realized I'm not Donnie anymore. I can't keep acting like this.

Matt Gilhooly (42:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (43:01)
Because I'd still have the cases of PTSD, know, the irritability, the anger, the flying off the handle, just, I couldn't handle loud noise, like in a public place with too many people. just, I was always on edge and my wife kept on saying, it's like walking on eggshells around you. And it just made me feel worse every time I heard that. Because that's a...

It's not what I setting out to do. And

Matt Gilhooly (43:26)
All right.

Todd Maguire (43:26)
I didn't realize that my actions were affecting so many people because I felt I can't control my actions at the moment. I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to fix it. So I was constantly trying to find something to allow that to happen. nothing really worked in my books. It wasn't until maybe later down the track.

Well actually no, when my son was born that's when I really gave myself a kick up the arse and went okay this is about is not about you anymore you've got a your dad now he doesn't give a shit what happened to you five years ago he needs you to be present and I did a good job of it and I thought I did really well but I do notice that you know I fell off the horse a few times you know I'd still go back into those

dark times and then I'd just go on a drinking bender for a couple of days and then I'd be right But that's not a healthy way of living either. So I kept on searching for all these different things. as I said earlier, probably closer to when the internet and all of these things really started hitting it, 2015 to 2020 maybe, and then beyond. That's when I started listening to other people in my situation.

And

for the first time ever, I've gone, wow, I'm not a weirdo as much as I thought I was. Yeah,

Matt Gilhooly (44:37)
We're all a little weird.

Todd Maguire (44:39)
we're all a little weird. That's what I'm saying. I'm not perfect. But just started validating things going, wow,

Matt Gilhooly (44:45)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (44:46)
this is the first time I've heard in 15 years that because of, I was behaving like this, it's because of this, this, this, and this. I wow. Yep. So I just, yeah, I started.

diving deep into it and just reading more, listening more, finding out more. And if for some reason, I still don't know to this day why I decided to write a book, but I just

Matt Gilhooly (45:05)
Just gonna ask you.

Todd Maguire (45:06)
started one day. I do remember there was some pretty famous undercover agents that went through in the 70s, 80s and 90s in Queensland. And their books are really cool. And I was reading them and I was really...

Like I was loving it just it brought me back. It was like I was

back in in that world again, and I was going man They're such cool stories and was almost like and I got similar stories. So I thought yeah, how about I write an undercover book then I just as you the days go on and you think about it differently and I went no, I don't just want write an undercover book just tell war stories. I want it to be a little bit more deeper and

It just all come together where Karen undercover was me running away and hiding and numbing things and engaging in risky behavior. then a love story of finding a new love and getting my life back together, albeit probably another 10, 15 years. And then I went, I actually want this book to mean something.

That's why I read my books. If it was in a library, I don't know genre it'd be on, whether it be true crime, whether it be mental health, recovery, love story. It's got everything. I don't know.

But I wanted it to be. I classify it as a grief and and recovery story because that's what it essentially is. It's it's. I do say it's a.

It's a story of generally what not to do if you're going through

Matt Gilhooly (46:38)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (46:39)
a grieving process and learn from my mistakes. But I also do say, well, this is what helped me. This is what did for me. This is how

Matt Gilhooly (46:45)
Mm.

Todd Maguire (46:45)
I'm doing things. And I think I said to you earlier, you know how, when I decided to write the book that was purely doing it for me.

Matt Gilhooly (46:52)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (46:53)
And I didn't care if I sold four books and

But I thought at least my great grandchildren will be able to read about me and know something about their grandfather because we don't really know much about people

Matt Gilhooly (47:04)
Okay.

Todd Maguire (47:05)
above from that. thought, yeah, okay, I'll do that. I'll do that. And once I started, holy shit, it was so good.

Matt Gilhooly (47:12)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (47:13)
And then once it's now been out, I'm getting messages every day of people doing the, you have no idea. I was laughing.

laughing

in tears, crying the next page, laughing back again, crying. And I was just nodding the whole time going, yes, I know exactly how you feel.

Exactly how you put that is, my God, yes, yes, yes. I tell you what, yeah, that's what I said. It's just ice cream on the cake. didn't think, I didn't sit down and go, I'm gonna do a self-help book for all these people. I just did it purely for me.

And for thinking that

Karen's death was all in vain for years and it meant nothing and did nothing. At least it gives me something now to go. At least I can attribute her death now that might be able to help someone in a similar position and it might save someone. And that makes me feel really good.

Matt Gilhooly (48:03)
Yeah. No, I I love how people can attach to other stories and it's always so interesting too because nobody has your story, right? Exactly. Nobody's lived the exact experiences. But the way you felt through them, I'm sure there are a lot of people that can relate to maybe it wasn't exact, but the way they felt was the same. And I think it just reminds us like we're all human. Like we're all

trying to make it through whatever version of life

unfolds in front of us. And this is what you did. And now you get to share that with everyone. I was curious though, has your son read the book? Okay.

Todd Maguire (48:38)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, it's actually a funny, funny story what he said to me, because I wanted to read it before it got published.

Matt Gilhooly (48:46)
Right.

Todd Maguire (48:47)
Well, even just before I was publishing it, even told the publisher, get rid of it. I don't want it anymore. I even said, no one's going to be interested in this shit. know, what my my old boring life. And in the public

Matt Gilhooly (48:58)
Yeah, totally boring.

Todd Maguire (49:02)
public editor come over and she goes.

Are you serious? that is the most intriguing story I've ever heard. but everyone I know does this. She goes, yeah, I know. Cause you hang around coppers. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (49:11)
Ha ha.

Todd Maguire (49:13)
She goes, it is the most fascinating thing in the world. And it has become that way because people love to know what happens in those, in that, underbelly world. it is really interesting. but he actually said, goes, yeah, dad, three things. how the hell are you still alive?

And I went, yeah, know. said, aren't you lucky, hey? And the other one, goes, I didn't know you were so funny either. And I went, because I,

Matt Gilhooly (49:40)
And burn.

Todd Maguire (49:42)
yeah, I said, mate, I'm so funny. He goes, there's so many funny things in that story. went, yeah, cool. He goes, but they're sort of shit ones. But I really didn't want to write it where people are just crying the whole time or what.

because I did try and read it, write it for males because I went to a writing sort of a writing seminar and the editor said, if you target audiences, no one, you won't attract anyone. Who are you going to write it to? So I went, okay, I want to write it for males, 20 to 60. So I made it, there's a lot of sporting, lot funny Australian and that couldn't, you

stories and and silly things that i'd done as i was growing up and even in the police

Matt Gilhooly (50:26)
On pushy.

Todd Maguire (50:27)
yeah

Matt Gilhooly (50:29)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (50:30)
but similarly there's some sad ones sad parts obviously in there and yeah so no and and i and

Matt Gilhooly (50:34)
Can't shy away from it's just life.

Todd Maguire (50:38)
i've loved i've loved the feedback even from big tough blokes they go fucking hell i was pulling my eyes out i can't believe you'd have that to me

Matt Gilhooly (50:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

So I I wonder if what I'm sure you've thought about this, but is there anything that twenty twenty six Todd would wanna say to New Year's Day twenty twenty? I mean twenty two thousand, sorry, Todd.

Todd Maguire (50:58)
2000, yeah, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (50:59)
Like when you were sitting out on the porch waiting. Is there anything you'd wanna say or do with that, Todd?

Todd Maguire (51:05)
He wouldn't have listened, I do know I'd love to I found a clip that I see on social media, comes up all the time. it's Robin Williams and Matt Damon from a movie back, almost back that time as well.

Matt Gilhooly (51:17)
Dead Poet Society?

Todd Maguire (51:19)
Yeah, where he goes, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. And then he goes, no, get away from me. No, he goes, it's not your fault. And he just persists with it until he breaks down and gives him a big hug. It's not your fault. It is not your fault.

I have loved to have just ran that into my head just so I remembered and just had it in my head all the time. I wouldn't have believed it initially, but it probably would have quickened things up, think. yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (51:41)
Yeah. Seep seep in a little bit and move through. Yeah.

Todd Maguire (51:45)
I from from that day dot, it was a hundred percent my fault for for for quite some time. It took a while to for that to shift.

Matt Gilhooly (51:54)
Yeah. So we're running up on time here, but I wanted to

Todd Maguire (51:58)
Yeah, cool.

Matt Gilhooly (51:59)
ask you, if someone's listening and resonates with your story or wants to know more about your story, or maybe wants to reach out to you and tell you how a certain part of your story validated theirs. like what's the best way to find you, find your book, get in your circle, reach out to you?

Todd Maguire (52:16)
Yeah, cool.

Yeah, I've, you know, as a mid 50 year old, had to navigate the wonderful world of advertising on social media. And that's been a new process for me. yeah, I've got a Facebook page, Todd McGuire. I've got Instagram, which is Todd underscore author underscore Donny. And I think I've got a TikTok as well as Todd McGuire one. But

I've got a website where I can read and purchase my book and find out more about my story, which is www.toddmcguire.com.au.

Matt Gilhooly (52:54)
Perfect. I will put a bunch of those links in the show notes so people can find it. I really encourage people that maybe haven't shared their story. Maybe they were the Todd of, 10, 15 years ago who was pushing things down and not sharing, and maybe they feel compelled to share something. So I always encourage them to reach out to the guest

Todd Maguire (53:12)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (53:12)
and say, Hey, it made me think of this and the weight that comes off when you share that story for the first time. So hope you don't mind if people reach out to you.

Todd Maguire (53:20)
No, not

100%. I love the stories and I'm just, I'm amazed by it. It reminds everyone that everyone is going through something

Matt Gilhooly (53:28)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (53:29)
and if you're not, something is going to come your way and you need to be prepared on how you're to deal with it. Because I wasn't prepared and I didn't know how to deal with it. And I hid from it and I ran from it. But that beast that's called PTSD, it just sits

Matt Gilhooly (53:43)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Maguire (53:44)
and waits and as soon as you start slowing down, it catches up with you.

and it bites you even harder. So

Matt Gilhooly (53:51)
Sure does.

Todd Maguire (53:52)
my message to everyone is deal with it immediately, try and address it ASAP,

Matt Gilhooly (53:56)
Yeah.

Todd Maguire (53:57)
hit it head on.

Matt Gilhooly (53:58)
Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for sharing your story in this way and going along wherever my questions took us. So I appreciate you. Thank you for being a part of this.

Todd Maguire (54:05)
It's cool. It was good.

you very much. I loved it.

Matt Gilhooly (54:10)
And to everyone else, thank you for being a part of the Life Shift journey. We're almost at 300 episodes now, so thank you for being here along the ride. And I will be back in a couple days with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Todd.