About Connor

The work is personal because the problem was personal.

I’m a coach, facilitator, writer, and founder based in Lisbon. For more than a decade, I’ve been exploring how ambitious people can do meaningful work without sacrificing their health, relationships, or sense of self.

In 2017, two years into an exciting role at Google London, I found myself burned out. On paper, things were going well. Internally, I was stressed, depleted, and increasingly absent from the rest of my life.

It became clear that working harder was not the answer. I needed a fundamentally different way to operate.

2013–2020

Seven years at Google

I worked across New York, San Francisco, and London, mostly with Google for Startups. Google also became my teaching laboratory: I facilitated internal programs on productivity, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence and trained to teach Search Inside Yourself.

2017

The turning point

Burnout pushed me to study cognitive neuroscience, nervous-system regulation, meditation, mindfulness, and the psychology of focus. I was searching for something deeper than another time-management system.

2020

Building Forgewell

I left Google and founded Forgewell to help people and teams build healthier, more human ways of working. Since then, I’ve taught leaders at organizations including YouTube, Squarespace, Google, and L’Oréal.

2025

The Inner Operating System

After years of teaching separate tools, I brought the work together into one integrated program: a practical, body-first system for moving from scattered and reactive to focused, present, and in control.

Today

Life in Lisbon

I live in Lisbon with my wife and collaborator, Claire, and our growing family. Parenthood has made the work more real: sustainable performance is not an abstract idea when your work, health, relationships, and family all need you.

What informs my work

Body before strategy

Your state shapes what you can see, choose, and do. Regulation is the foundation, not an optional extra.

Practice over information

Knowing is not the same as changing. The tools need to survive contact with an ordinary Tuesday.

Ambition and wellbeing

You should not have to choose between meaningful achievement and feeling well enough to enjoy your life.

Small experiments

Lasting change is built through curiosity, feedback, and compassionate iteration—not perfection.

Training & perspective

Serious ideas, made practical.

I’m a certified Search Inside Yourself teacher and Make Time facilitator, with additional training in mental resilience, yoga, breathwork, and meditation. My work blends research with lived experience—and always comes back to what people can actually use.

Start here

See what a better way to operate could look like.

Explore The Inner Operating System