Gus Kennedy markGusKennedy
Gus Kennedy speaking to a live audience
The Anti-Self-Help, Self-Help Guru

Gus Kennedy

Author • Speaker • Founder of the Non-Consent Movement

You were never broken. You were just taught to believe you were.

Angus Kennedy Gus Kennedy
From the world's leading chocolate expert to founder of the Non-Consent Movement Author, Apollo Publishers, New York Spoke to thousands — GTBank Food & Drink Festival One of the fastest-rising accounts on Instagram
My Story
Gus Kennedy

For sixty years I tried to live the dream I was promised. I worked hard, followed the rules, tried the self-help books, the gurus, religion, positive thinking, manifestation, changing my diet, worked harder — and still found myself doing things I never really wanted to do, while the life I actually dreamed about stayed out of reach.

Just four years ago, I was completely broke, homeless, unemployed, divorced, dealing with operations on my knees, and watching people I loved die around me. I had no idea how I was going to rebuild my life.

Eventually, I stopped trying to make the old system work, and trying to be positive and grateful when I wasn't. I realised the systems around me were part of the problem. I stopped blaming myself and challenged the false spiritual authority I believed was standing between me and the life I wanted. I withdrew my consent openly, wrote my own powerful prayers and Statement of Being, and claimed the sovereignty and power I had always held within me.

Without spiritually unconsenting, I honestly believe I could have spent the rest of my life feeling doomed. For sixty years, nothing I tried seemed to work. It was only when I started doing this work — and writing my latest book, When All Else Fails — that things finally began to change.

Four years later, I'm living happily with my children in a large manor house, running three companies, creating on social media, and doing work I love to do — with abundance pouring into my life every single day.

I couldn't find this work anywhere, so I wrote my own programme, wrote my own books, and went on stage. It changed my life.

If everything you've tried has failed, this is where you land.

What People Say

Readers & Audiences

Just to let you know that I have just completed your book and tuned into your unique look on life and I loved it. Something definitely did shift within me whilst reading your books and listening to your presentations — the acknowledgement that I already have everything I need, and your words reinforced that to a deeper level. One thing that particularly stood out for me was "take what feels right and leave the rest on the table." I'm going to revisit this frequently.

— Reader & Audience Member

I've tuned in and been following you for some time now and it's incredible!! Well done!!! Your program will change lives!! I am certain of it! Really loving your enthusiasm!

— TikTok Follower

My daughter shared your talk about the spiritual writ against the disagreeable god. Perfect synergy. Needless to say, I've added you as a follow — because we need more people to wake up and look around us, and to take action to make this place better for the next generations.

— YouTube Viewer

You sound like the guy I need to talk to. Trains of thought nobody gets near to.

— Instagram Follower

What's been fascinating for me listening to you speak is that I already understood these things deep down. Your ideas of identity, and creating from the state of being rather than wanting — your idea of "isness" made me look at it from a completely different perspective.

— Event Attendee

The biggest shift has been towards wholeness. I found myself removing seemingly harmless phrases that focus on what I don't want — a real life changer — and replacing them with declarations of what I choose instead.

— Mentorship Follower

Your posts, reels, and live events really are — I would say — inspiring to people who feel the manifestation stuff isn't working and that all this spiritual stuff is BS. How can we create our realities if things aren't changing? Thank you.

— Instagram Follower

Yessss Gus! Keep going!!! Can't wait for the next event!

— Event Attendee

Gus, I'm not sure you've gone completely mad and I will listen to you for a bit more. I actually think you might have hit the nail on the head.

— TikTok Follower

You're candid and refreshing — at last, a real human telling the truth.

— Amazon Reviewer

Gus Kennedy is one of the few people brave enough to say what we've always felt and are not supposed to say. I've read his books and look forward to the big event!

— Amazon Reviewer

The Backlist

2026 — 2007
Coming
When All Else Fails — Why It Was Never Your Fault, cover
Gus Kennedy

When All Else Fails

Why It Was Never Your Fault — manuscript complete, going to publishers end of 2026

Thirty-five years of writing led to this masterpiece. The book that changed Gus's life — the complete dismantling of the systems that convinced you something's wrong with you, why you were never broken in the first place, and the ancient Gnostic prayers and Statements of Being that turned everything around. This is the true, life-transforming book.

Not yet available — publisher submission in progress
2026
Non-Consent to Being Poor cover
Gus Kennedy

Non-Consent to Being Poor

July 2026 — Digital & Print

The companion book on the spiritual side of non-consenting to bad, false karma — and agreeing to being poor. A formal refusal, laid out like a case you'd bring against poverty itself, that you never agreed to. How Gus did it, and changed his life around.

2026
How To Make Money Without Chasing It cover
Gus Kennedy

How To Make Money Without Chasing It

Gus' Coffee-Time Reads, Book 1 — March 2026, Digital

The unconventional art of freefallism, failure, freedom, and finding yourself. No hustle-bro nonsense — stop chasing, stop planning, and watch what happens.

2018
Bittersweet cover
Angus Kennedy (Now Gus Kennedy)

Bittersweet: A Memoir

Apollo Publishers (New York) — Hardcover, Kindle & Audio

Angus Kennedy's — now Gus Kennedy's — story of how a kid raised on candy samples and family chaos became the world's leading chocolate taster — the "real life Willy Wonka." A rags-to-riches memoir on how to get the best job in the world.

2014
Good Reasons For Bad Things cover
Angus Kennedy (Now Gus Kennedy)

Good Reasons For Bad Things

Black Mansion (UK) — 222 Maxims

Written at 2:22am, every night, until it was done — 222 short maxims that came out of the worst stretch of my life. For anyone convinced everything going wrong means something's broken. It doesn't.

2013
The Kitchen Baby cover
Angus Kennedy (Now Gus Kennedy)

The Kitchen Baby

Black Mansion (UK) — Kindle & Paperback

The true, unfiltered story of delivering my own son on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night — no midwife, cord round his neck, no idea what I was doing. A father's-eye view of pregnancy, birth, and how not to deliver a baby.

2007
Please God I Want To Win The Lottery cover
as Clayton Caine

Please God I Want To Win The Lottery

Paperback

The first book. Written under a name I made up because I didn't yet have the nerve to put my own on the cover. It's where all of this started, so it stays on the list.

Gus Kennedy

About Gus

Gus Kennedy went from Britain's leading chocolate expert to the world's most successful failure — and he's better for it.

For over 25 years he's written and told the truth for a living: as the "real life Willy Wonka" behind Bittersweet (Apollo Publishers, New York), and now as the author of nine books written under three different names, because the story kept changing and so did he.

In 2021 he lost almost everything — homeless, broke, unable to feed his five kids, recovering from injuries that took his ability to walk or use his arm. Every self-help trick he'd ever tried had failed him. So he stopped trying to fix himself and started telling the truth instead. That's the philosophy behind everything he does now, on the page and on stage: no toxic positivity, no fake mindset hacks — just what actually works when everything else has failed.

He's currently finishing When All Else Fails, his most personal book yet, heading to major publishers by the end of 2026. He's built an audience of 30,000+ from zero with no paid ads, and speaks at schools and on stages across the UK — represented by School Speakers for academic bookings and Inspirational Speakers for other events and dinners — on burnout, toxic positivity, and what it actually takes to start over.

Speaking

Keynotes & School Talks
Audience applauding Gus Kennedy on stage

Book Gus to Speak

The story of how I went from homeless to living the dream, against all odds — through non-consent.

The keynote your audience has never heard.

Your audience has given up hope. The gurus failed them. The books, the courses, the systems — all failed them. Then Gus pulled ancient Gnosticism and spiritual non-consent into the most controversial talk they'll hear all year — and it worked for him. Homeless, jobless, watching people he loved die, needing surgery he couldn't afford — to living the life he'd always wanted. He'll bring that same story to your stage: burnout, toxic positivity, and what actually happens when you reject the self-help playbook and start over. Past stages include the GTBank Food and Drink Festival in Lagos, in front of thousands — plus talks for schools and headteacher conferences built around the chocolate-taster story. Represented by School Speakers for academic bookings and Inspirational Speakers for other events and dinners.

School Speakers

For academic bookings — school talks built around the chocolate-taster, rags-to-riches story.

View listing

Inspirational Speakers

For other events and dinners — the anti-self-help keynote talk.

View listing

Mentorship

You Were Never Broken — The Non-Consent Method
You Were Never Broken — 30 Day Mentorship cover

£495 — five places, every month

A 30-day, one-to-one mentorship built on the Non-Consent Method — the work that rebuilt my own life after I lost everything. Four modules, five private sessions, taken through personally by me. Not a course you work through alone.

Get the next chapter before anyone else.

No spam, no daily nonsense — just news on new books, mentorship intakes, and speaking dates as they happen.

Get In Touch

Speaking, the mentorship, press, or anything else — send a message and I'll get back to you directly.

Prefer email? Write direct to angus@thekennedys.uk

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