Pictures: Anna Geary unveils her new ‘Game Plan’

ANNA GEARY, Cork All-Ireland winning camogie player, Cork Rose, coach on the hit RTÉ series Ireland’s Fittest Family, runner up on Dancing With The Stars, broadcaster, podcaster and parent, can now add ‘best selling author’ to her glittering CV.

Her first book, Anna’s Game Plan, reached number 1 in Ireland’s best seller lists for non-fiction titles and was recently launched at an event in Dubray’s Bookshop on Patrick Street attended by her former Cork camogie teammates.

Speaking to The Echo as she digested the news that the book had reached Number 1 in the charts for non-fiction titles, Anna described it as “fundamentally a helping hand to help them navigate through their life no matter what they’re going through”.

“It’s really about the power of mindset, if you can find ways to tweak your mindset, you can actually enhance your life. You can overhaul your life if you want to but it is really about enhancing the quality of your life,” said Anna.

“I designed the book in the way that there’s five different sections: acceptance, purpose, consistency, challenge and kindness.

“Within each section, I tell stories about my own life and tactics and give examples of the different techniques people can use and I also lean into the behavioural sciences.”

Anna, who hails from Milford, wrote the book while pregnant. She was awake in the early hours of the morning after her son was born in August 2023 and it serves as an example of one of the lessons in her book.

“A lot of people say we need to say ‘no’ more and set boundaries and not people please as much and I do agree with that but I think as well that we also need to say ‘yes’ and learn to say ‘yes’ a little bit more often.

“Often we will say ‘no’ to things for fear we will fail at them, for fear of what people will say about us, for fear of what they will think about us — it’s not that you don’t want to say yes to the opportunity but it’s the fear that’s holding you back.

“When I looked at my own life, whether it was saying yes to being a coach on Ireland’s Fittest Family or taking part in Dancing With The Stars or even saying yes to writing the book, the default in my brain was to say ‘no, what will people say, you’re from a small rural village in North Cork, if you go Dancing With The Stars, they will think you have notions about yourself’.

“I almost said no but I got out of my own way and said yes to Dancing With The Stars and it was one of the best experiences of my life.”

With a number 1 book in the best-selling charts, she has cause to be thankful for saying yes to that opportunity too.

She also expressed her gratitude to the many people who’ve shared their stories with her after reading the book and she was also thankful to the ‘Cork media family’ who had supported her following its launch.