Strongman Eddie Hall shared a special video with his fans on YouTube yesterday to celebrate hitting the one million subscriber mark.
Strongman Eddie Hall opened up about the struggles he overcame to achieve strongman stardom — including battling addiction and depression — in an emotional and surprisingly personal vlog uploaded to his YouTube channel yesterday afternoon. You can watch the video in full above.
“Eighteen years ago I was locked in my room, thinking about trying to kill myself,” Eddie Hall begins the vlog with a serious confession that sets viewers up for the serious tone of what is to come. “For whatever reasons, I’ve turned my life around.”
Eddie Hall shares many of the ups and downs of his life with the viewer, some of which are deeply personal, and all of which served to motivate him in his quest to become a stronger man and, well, better strongman. Hall aspired to be an Olympic swimmer as a child and that was where he honed his athletic dedication and self-discipline. However, his life took a darker turn in his teens when his grandmother, whom he was very close with, passed away from cancer. He was diagnosed with anxiety and depression shortly after. The video mentions he was prescribed Prozac “indefinitely.”
After being expelled from school, he was pulled out of the dark spiral of drugs and alcohol by none other than his childhood sports hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. After seeing a picture of his idol on the wall, he was inspired to once again take up the cause of becoming stronger and returned to his love of athletics, which he claims saved his life.
Eddie Hall went on to break some of the strongman’s worlds most coveted records, including becoming the youngest man ever to win UK’s Strongest Man at 23. He is, of course, probably best known for being the all-time world record holder for the deadlift, at 1,102 lbs (500 kg).
When asked why Arnold Schwarzenegger inspired him so much, Hall chalked it up to the hard work he learned from observing him and “the difference between arrogance and confidence.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Arnold, it’s that there’s a big difference between arrogance and confidence. Arrogance is thinking that you’re better than everybody else, but then confidence is knowing that you’re better than everybody else. But in order to be that confident guy, you’ve got to be arrogant, you’ve got to believe it before you become it. That’s what Arnold did, he believed it before it happened.”
Hall learned from Arnold’s willful determination to realize his dreams and applied it to his own life. Arnold became the greatest sportsman of all time because he believed himself and he had that vision for his life long before other people were able to see it. Like Arnold, Hall pushed himself because he felt in his gut that he was capable of more and that he deserved more from his life than drug addiction and depression. We applaud Eddie Hall for his bravery and congratulate him on 1,000,000 followers!
*All images and media courtesy of YouTube.
