A BUSINESS owner who ate crisps and bread for dinner as a child has built up an £80,000 company.
Ted Lawlor, 24, has bought himself an Audi TT with his earnings after growing up in cold and dark conditions, when food and electricity were unaffordable for his mum Jane.
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He battled depression and suicidal thoughts at university before launching non-profit media group If Only They Knew just a few months ago.
Ted went on to team up with DJ Tom Zanetti’s celebrity therapist Robert Hisee last year to release The Manifestation Journal.
A former Apprentice candidate also sent a gushing email of support for his business, which he expects to be worth six-figures soon.
Ted, of Bromley, Kent, said: “I remember asking my mum what was for dinner and she would say she didn’t know.
“Really she was hiding that she couldn’t afford to get anything in.”
He said he never understood why his mum could not afford to take him to places like the zoo, he sometimes clashed with her over financial pressures and he got into trouble at school.
Then his immune system shut down while working a retail job during his first year at university in 2017 because of his depression.
It was so weak that he would be left with scars whenever he touched his face, MyLondon reported.
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Ted, who grew up in Bermondsey, South London, added: “That person in 2017 didn’t want to be here at all.
“There were days when I was considering how to end it all – but luckily I was too scared to act on that.
“If I hadn’t done the things to change myself, I could easily have gotten myself into a whole heap of trouble.
“I would’ve been dead or in prison.”
But he felt like his only two options were drug dealing or going into business, and described wishing he could work somewhere like The Shard as he looked at the skyscraper from his bedroom.
He added how he had nothing to lose by giving anything at all a shot.
Ted described his business as “a hub for young business minds” and is now best known for its podcast.
He said the email from the unnamed BBC Apprentice star spurred him on to continue, adding: “She saved and changed my life.”
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