It was her routine colonoscopy for Crohn’s, and after more than a year without medication, they found no inflammation.

She’s going to kill me for sharing this, but YOLO I just don’t care because I’m so bloody proud of her.

Anyone who knows Jen knows I won the lottery when I married her.

When we first started dating, her Crohn’s was a constant presence. She always worried about what she ate in case it set her stomach off and she’d had to race to the toilet to vomit.

But now, no inflammation. Nothing.

And the crazy part is she’s got to this point while working full-time, raising three kids and supporting me through a massive career transition.

She even got the top performance rating at work and a bonus! I didn’t even know the public service had bonuses!

But in all seriousness, she works in a pretty intense part of government where stress is high and plenty of people around her have struggled with their health.

So the fact she has kept prioritising sleep, diet, exercise and managing her stress, while still performing at such a high level, makes me even prouder.

Or perhaps I don’t cause her enough stress! Anyone keen to do something stupid with me? lol

Anyway, I’m incredibly proud and almost certainly in trouble for sharing this.

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RIP Dolly. Thank you for keeping me occupied on all those long car rides across the US in the early 90s.

PS: Apologies if you received the half-finished blog recently. Religion and belief are sensitive topics, so I want to make sure anything I share on them is thoughtful and not rushed.

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But every time I sit down to write about it, I get stuck.

Not because I don’t believe in it.

But because it only feels like part of the story, not the whole story.

The Spiral explains the direction we’re heading. But it doesn’t explain what’s pushing us there.

I think the environment does.

What brings out our energy?

I believe we place too much importance on motivation.

During my favourite years at the Brumbies, we trained incredibly hard. But I rarely remember needing to motivate myself.

And I think that’s because of the environment the coaches created.

We knew what we were trying to do and how our weeks worked. We received constant feedback, felt close as a team, and understood the standards as we were expected to eat, sleep and recover properly so we could go again and again.

That environment brought the energy out of us, and hard work became normal.

But many workplaces look at this the other way around. They search for “motivated people” or bring in motivational speakers to fire everyone up.

(I hate when my speaking work is described as motivational)

Motivation is the speaking equivalent of a sugar hit. It creates a quick burst of energy before people return to the same conditions that were draining them in the first place.

I want my talks to be more like meat and three veg.

Practical ideas that help leaders build healthier environments where people have the energy to perform long after the talk is over.

Because when the conditions are right, people rarely need to be fired up (Although I do love a good fire up speech).

The recipe

My current recipe for a thriving environment has six ingredients:

Clarity: Where are we going?

Structure: How are we going to get there?

Belonging: Do I feel part of this?

Standards: What does ‘good’ look like here?

Feedback: How do I know if I’m improving?

Recovery: How do we recharge so we can go again?

Most of these shape how the people inside the environment use their energy.

And writing this has helped me realise that the environment is the container for our energy, while the spiral shows what happens to that energy over time.

And that’s something I feel I can keep writing about.

How the environments around us either bring us to life or slowly drain us.

Because before we ask why someone lacks motivation, we should ask:

What’s this environment bringing out of them?

Thanks for reading.

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My mission is to help people thrive.

I think people only thrive when they’re in environments that allow them to.

Since rugby, I’ve been trying to build those environments through The Dock, Running for Resilience (R4R) and now with my work speaking about sustainable performance.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that the environment leaders create influence the quality of decisions people make in it, and those decisions determine performance.

And so rather than just keep talking about this idea, I want to build a company that lives it.

By combining the performance principles of elite sport with the human connection that’s at the heart of R4R, I hope to discover whether there’s a better way for organisations to succeed.

What I've Come to Believe

Since retiring from rugby, I’ve struggled to transition into the workforce.

Looking back, I don’t think it was because I missed rugby itself. I missed being part of an environment that helped me perform at my best. And the 2012 and 2013 Brumbies seasons were the years I felt I thrived the most.

Since then I’ve worked in and with large organisations, built businesses of my own, and now work with leaders across a range of industries.

And that journey has made me realise that not all environments bring out the best in people.

Some help people grow, make good decisions and thrive.

While others leave people exhausted, disconnected and performing well below their potential.

And those ones seem to be trying to get the most out of their people every day through pressure in the form of deadlines and being in a constant state of urgency.

But that’s not how I remember the Brumbies operating.

Pressure was something we prepared for, not something we lived in as the coaches weren’t pushing us to our limits every day.

They were trying to help us perform our best over the entire season.

And that felt like a completely different mindset to most organisations, with one of the biggest differences being how recovery was viewed.

Most workplaces seem to treat recovery as something you earn after working hard. Almost like it’s a luxury.

But elite sport treats recovery as part of the job. Where sleep and nutrition aren’t optional.

And recovery isn’t something you do after the work is done.

IT IS THE WORK. Because without it, you won’t be able to perform well again tomorrow.

And without recovery planned in advance, there’s no natural point to stop working and people just keep pushing until their body forces them to.

By then, they’re exhausted and often get sick as soon as they stop. Which means they spend their holidays recovering, and return to work without ever feeling fully recharged.

I don’t think that’s sustainable.

And I definitely don’t think it’s where most people do their best work.

But if I zoom out, I don’t think the biggest lesson from elite sport is recovery.

I think it’s planning.

Sport plans seasons, not days. It knows when the big games are, so workload and recovery are all built around those moments.

Business isn’t as predictable as customers change their minds, markets shift, technology evolves, and unexpected opportunities appear.

But I think the same principle still applies. You might not be able to predict every challenge. But you can deliberately manage your team’s capacity instead of expecting them to operate at full intensity all year.

And if things don’t go to plan, you adjust.

That’s where wearable technology and biometric data become interesting.

Not because Heart Rate Variability (HRV) has all the answers, but because it provides daily feedback whether your body is coping with the demands being placed on it.

And that helps individuals make better decisions, and gives teams another way to have conversations about workload.

Because like any good coach, the goal isn’t to eliminate stress.

It’s to understand when someone is adapting well to it, and when they’re not.

And to be clear, I don’t think people should be operating at 100% all the time.

I just think most organisations don’t know how their people are actually coping until someone burns out, gets sick or resigns.

And by then, it’s often too late to do anything about it.

Also most people don’t tell you they’re struggling and hide it because they don’t want to let the team down, or they’re worried about being judged.

So I wonder whether giving people a simple way to monitor their energy, and making it normal to have conversations about workload before someone reaches breaking point, could help prevent that?

I also believe this matters because I think many leaders reckon high performance is simply about working harder.

I think it’s about making good decisions.

And doing that consistently, especially under pressure.

Every poor decision I’ve regretted has usually happened when I was tired. And I’ve watched tired leaders make poor decisions that ripple through an entire team, creating more stress, fatigue, and even poorer decisions.

So I think the biggest opportunity isn’t finding new ways to motivate people or get them to work harder.

I think it’s about building systems that help people stay in a physical and mental state where they can keep making good decisions.

Systems that encourage good sleep, regular movement and recovery.

Systems that help people recognise when they’re under too much strain, and make it normal to adjust, rather than simply push through.

Because bad decisions compound.

But so do good ones. And the longer a team stays regulated (and focused), the longer it keeps making good decisions.

And over time, those decisions compound and I wonder whether that’s the real competitive advantage?

Recently, I realised I’d been testing this idea for years without even knowing it.

First with The Dock when we stopped trying to maximise the number of hours we were open. Instead of trading seven days a week, we’re now open five and a half. And we close for two weeks over Christmas every year.

Which on paper looks less productive.

But it gives our team planned recovery, which means they bring better energy when they’re at work. And I think that’s helped create an environment where both staff and customers genuinely enjoy spending time.

Basically, we sacrificed a little capacity in the short term to create a much better environment in the long term.

Then Running for Resilience showed me what happens when you combine that environment with movement, purpose and community. (click below to watch our recent live appearance on Sunrise)

Plus the feedback from my talks has been encouraging and these ideas seem to be resonating with leaders.

And that’s what’s finally given me the confidence to write this down.

But I’ve also realised my talks have a limitation.

People say they often leave inspired and want to change how they work.

But then they return to the same environment, where the expectations, incentives and habits are exactly as they were before, and the inspiration wears off.

So I don’t think inspo is enough if the environment stays the same.

And they don’t change because leaders don’t care.

I think it’s often because changing the way an organisation works takes a huge leap of faith.

A good talk might inspire people to think differently.

But lasting change usually requires more than inspiration, and leaders are far more likely to redesign their workplace when they can see another organisation proving there’s a better way.

So instead of trying to convince people these principles work, I’d rather build a company that lives by them every day.

And if it succeeds, the company becomes the evidence.

The Experiment and Where I Might Be Wrong

So here’s the experiment:

Build a company using the principles of sustainable high performance from elite sport.

Plan in seasons. Prepare for peak periods. Build recovery into the work. Measure how people are coping and adapt.

Basically build systems that optimise for human performance, not just productivity.

Then combine that with what Running for Resilience has taught us about community, purpose and identity.

I don’t know exactly what the company will do.

I have ideas, but I’d rather build the right environment first and trust that the right opportunities will emerge.

So my hypothesis is that a healthy, well-regulated team gives itself the best chance of solving difficult problems, adapting quickly, and ultimately building a successful business.

But maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe stress and pressure really are the only way to achieve extraordinary results.

An maybe the kind of sustainable high performance we see in elite sport simply isn’t possible in business.

I genuinely don’t know.

But I’d rather test this idea than keep talking about it.

And if I’m right, hopefully we’ll build a wildly successful company where people genuinely thrive, while will inspire other organisations to rethink how they work too.

If I’m wrong, at least I’ll know because I tested the idea rather than simply believing it.

If this way of thinking resonates with you, I’d love you to join me.

Whether you’re building a company, leading a team, researching human performance, or simply trying to create a healthier way of working, I’d love to compare notes.

Keen to know where I’m wrong, what I’ve missed, or just be pointed towards organisations already doing this well.

Thanks for reading.

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I know I want to help people thrive. And I think nervous system regulation is a huge part of that.

But what regulates our nervous system most aside from our habits?

The environment we’re in.

I’ve only recently realised this and why I’ve spent years building environments. First at The Dock, where people come to connect, and then with , where I’ve watched hundreds of people slowly spiral up simply because they found a place where they can exercise regularly with friends.

But I’ve also been talking about identity in my keynotes and how tying your self-worth to what you do can quietly become the path to burnout (Another topic I could happily spend years exploring).

And then there’s decision making.

I define peak performance as consistently making good decisions, especially under pressure.

And the state of your nervous system is what determines the quality of your decisions. Again, another rabbit hole I keep getting pulled towards.

But the reason all this is on my mind is because my speaking coach checked in last week and asked whether I’d made any progress on the work we’d done together.

The answer was no.

He still thinks I should be writing about the spiral and how people and teams either spiral up or spiral down depending on the environment around them.

But I just don’t know what to do.

My last blog was about trying to choose between writing a book or rebuilding Alfred.

But I think that’s the wrong question and I probably don’t need another project.

Maybe I simply need to keep writing and thinking about what leads to human thriving.

For years I’ve talked about energy.

But I don’t think energy is actually the thing anymore.

Energy is the output and a sign that your nervous system is in a good place.

And looking back, I’ve probably been chasing that feeling of energy ever since I retired from rugby.

Which has made me realise why so many athletes struggle when they finish playing.

Sport regulates your nervous system. It gives you routine, movement, connection, identity and purpose. I

Basically it’s an environment that quietly shapes who you are.

And when that’s taken away, it’s no surprise many people spiral down.

And I think that’s why I still miss the Brumbies environment from 2012-13.

Not because I miss playing rugby.

But because I miss being surrounded by people chasing the same goal, training together, laughing together and bringing out the best in one another every day.

So I don’t miss the sport as much as I miss that Brumbies environment.

Again, another topic I could write about for years and maybe that’s my problem.

I get bored easily.

I jump from my talks, to writing, to Running for Resilience, to The Dock, to AI, to Alfred because I find it all interesting.

But jumping around like that makes it hard for everyone else to understand what I actually do, and be able to help.

People know I give talks.

But even I sometimes struggle to explain what they’re about.

I know everything I’m doing is connected and maybe they’re all just pulling me towards the same question:

What actually helps humans thrive?

Maybe my coach is right and I don’t need another idea.

Maybe I just need to keep exploring that one question and trust everything else fits underneath it?

Thanks for reading.

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To keep me accountable, I announced here that I was writing one, and wrote the preface.

But I haven’t written a word since because I’ve been distracted.

I rebuilt Alfred (my old start-up) using AI and have been loving be able to make things using coding agents (makes me feel like my unfinished computing degree wasn’t wasted!).

Plus some people have found Alfred useful, even got 2 paying users, so it’s been taking up most of my spare time outside my talks work.

But The Dock has also been absolutely pumping and R4R keeps going from strength to strength, which has left no time for the book.

And when I shared this dilemma with Jen, she suggested pausing it for a few years, as we both believe there’s a lot about to happen worth writing about.

So I paused it to focus on Alfred. But I’m not sure that’s the right decision.

Maybe I’m avoiding the discomfort of writing it? Or perhaps I’ve fallen guilty of being distracted by “shiny object syndrome” and that playing with AI is easier and more fun than doing the hard work of writing?

But I’m also hitting a limit with Alfred. There are memory and performance issues that genuinely need someone with stronger technical skills than me to fix.

Plus I’ve also realised that I’m no longer excited about Alfred, and wondering whether that early excitement was really just me trying to prove to myself, or others, that I could code?

Because since coming back from holidays this week, I just haven’t had the same energy for it and trying to work out whether that’s because it’s a bad idea? Or because it is a good idea and I’m scared of getting back into a startup? Or because I shouldn’t keep building until I find a co-founder?

Either way, I feel like I’m at a crossroads. The Book or Alfred? Or perhaps drop both and double down on my talks?

I don’t know.

I started writing the book because a few people I really respect encouraged me to do it, and thought the process would be fun. Plus I also thought it would help grow my talks business.

But like Alfred, once the initial excitement wore off, I’m left staring at the long, hard slog.

I also can’t keep using excitement as fuel. Have learned the hard way that it’s just as taxing on my nervous system as stress.

But I can use it as a signal that something might be worth exploring.

It just can’t be what keeps me going.

So whether it’s the book or Alfred, or neither, I need a system that keeps me moving forward long after the novelty wears off, and make a hard decision.

Or maybe I just need to be patient and let things unfold? Because I don’t have all the answers right now, and maybe that’s ok?

I don’t need to decide today. But would love to know what you think.

Thanks for reading.

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PS: If you want to try Alfred for free, click here.

Recently, I shared about how Jake White was the architect of my favourite environment in rugby, the 2012-13 Brumbies.

He assembled an amazing group of staff, and I learned something from all of them.

But there’s one lesson from Jake that’s stuck with me more than any other.

One day we were in a team meeting watching footage from the weekend’s game when one of the backs missed a tackle.

Normally a coach would point to the tackler’s technique or commitment and say something like:“Your shoulders in the wrong spot” or “You gotta hit harder”.

But Jake paused the footage and said:

“Boys… you are not seeing the full picture.”

Then he rewound the film.

“The defender missed the tackle because he had to move late to his right. And he had to do that because the defender inside him was late into position.”

^{(For non-rugby fans: the best tackles happen when defenders can move straight off the line. But you can only do that when the players beside you are in the right spot.)}

Jake rewound it further.

The inside defender had been late because he had gotten sucked into a ruck he shouldn’t have gone to.

But why?

Jake rewound it again.

He’d gone to the ruck to help complete a tackle. And he had to do that because the person who was supposed to make the tackle was slow getting off the back of a lineout.

Then Jake rewound it one more time to show that the player was slow to leave the lineout because he was covering for another player who’d missed his role.

And the player that missed his role at the lineout was me.

The defender was getting blamed for the missed tackle.

But the real issue had happened three phases earlier.

I was usually pretty good with remembering my roles. But I hadn’t slept well that week and my brain felt slightly off.

Not enough for anyone to notice.

But enough to create downstream problems for the team.

And that was Jake’s gift as a coach. He always looked upstream.

Which meant that he didn’t just fix the missed tackle. He fixed the thing that caused the missed tackle. Because he knew that when you solve the problem at the source, the downstream mistakes often disappear.

I think this is why South African rugby is obsessed with winning the set piece. Because if you dominate there, everything downstream tends to flow, and you often win.

^{(For the non-rugby fans: the set piece is how the game restarts if you drop the ball and it goes forward, or it goes out of bounds.)}

That lesson has stuck with me and now I often think:

What is the set piece in my own life?

With work, the upstream issue is often clarity. If I’m clear about what I’m trying to do, then everything else tends to flow.

But if I zoom out even further, I can see that the upstream issue for most of my life is actually my health and energy.

Becaue if I’m sleeping well, exercising, eating properly, and just generally taking care of myself, everything downstream works better.

My thinking is clearer. I make better decisions. I’m more patient. And I just generally show up better for my work and kids.

And when I’m not looking after myself?

I push harder, become reactive, and I miss tackles.

Most people try to fix the missed tackle.

But very few go back three phases earlier.

Thank you Jake.

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While I was working at KPMG, I got asked to speak at a team meeting and share a lesson from elite sport.

I hated public speaking, but said yes anyway.

I spoke about energy and how the teams with the most are usually the ones that win.

I was super nervous, but it seemed to resonate and got asked to do a few more.

Then I got invited to speak at a co-working space to their clients. Which went well and I started to feel like this could become something.

So with a nudge from my wife Jen, I launched benalexandertalks.com

Since then, I’ve spoken to teams across government, construction, fitness and media about performing under pressure.

I’ve even got asked to do some group leadership coaching too, helping leaders think differently about energy.

But what’s surprised me most is where the work has taken me. Because I thought I’d mostly be talking about peak performance.

Instead, I’ve found myself having deeper conversations with leaders about burnout, guilt, identity, and what pressure does to people over time.

And across those conversations, a pattern kept showing up which was:

Their identity gets tied to the work and they tell themselves they’re sacrificing for the greater good.

So they push through, say yes too often, and put themselves last.

Then slowly, fatigue creeps in.

And what I’ve learned is:

At Running for Resilience, Breeny and I came close to learning this the hard way, pushing ourselves too hard while trying to help others.

So what I’m realising is that high performance is less about effort, and more about good decisions, especially under pressure.

And the quality of those decisions is shaped by energy.

Huge thanks to everyone who’s trusted me with their teams and audiences over the past two years, shared feedback, or challenged my thinking along the way.

I’m still learning. But excited to keep helping leaders and teams perform well without running themselves into the ground.

Let’s go year three!

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So that’s what I tried to rebuild. First with parkrun on Saturday with mates, Tuesday Trotters, then .

And it helped. A lot.

But it never fully scratched the itch and for years, I thought maybe what I actually missed was Rugby itself.

But I’ve recently realised it wasn’t the sport.

It was the environment.

Especially the 2012–13 Brumbies environment where it felt almost impossible NOT to perform at your best.

All you had to do was rock up, buy in, and you’d thrive. Because that environment would carry you.

The coaches made sleep and nutrition matter because they helped us train hard. And doing recovery wasn’t weakness, it was a vital part of performing well.

But we also laughed a lot, looked after each other, and everyone was rowing in the same direction towards a common goal.

And those two seasons was the funnest and most rewarding years of my career.

Long time readers here will know that transitioning from rugby for me has been a struggle. And for years, I thought maybe I was the problem. Too picky and too hard to satisfy after elite sport.

But now I think I just had an unbelievably high bar for what a workplace environment could feel like.

And I haven’t found one like it… yet.

The environment is something we thought a lot about while building the Dock.

We wanted it to feel relaxed and fun for the people living nearby. Because so many live in apartments, we wanted it to feel like an extension of their home. Somewhere they could bump into people, feel welcome, and leave feeling a bit better than when they arrived.

And while we didn’t initially set out to do this, has quietly created little pockets of this all over Canberra too.

Places where people can just rock up with no pressure to pretend you’ve got life sorted.

And while places like this help people recharge outside of work, and I think the crazy demand for them is because too many workplaces in Canberra are draining and toxic. And why I’ve struggled so much to find work after rugby.

But why?

Well… I think a lot of it comes back to leadership.

Not because the leaders are bad people.

But because many have succeeded inside outdated systems and ways of working. Especially large parts of the public service, where busyness, long hours, and pushing through fatigue still get rewarded.

Places where exhaustion gets mistaken for commitment, and poor sleep, stress, and being constantly switched on are the cost of climbing the ladder.

And compared to a truly high-performing environment, most workplaces here pale in comparison.

Because in the best teams I’ve been part of, we understood that:

Recovery drives performance.

Sleep and relationships matter. And you don’t perform well by running yourself into the ground.

But the challenge is many Canberra leaders climbed systems that rewarded the opposite.

So questioning those very systems would mean they’d have to confront an uncomfortable thought:

“Maybe all that suffering wasn’t necessary? Perhaps theres a better way?”

And maybe that’s what all of this really is.

The Dock. Running for Resilience. My Talks. Alfred. Even this blog.

I’m starting to realise I’m not building random things.

I’m trying to recreate the kind of environment that makes thriving feel normal.

But this time, not for athletes. For ordinary life.

The kind of environment I miss.

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It went something like this:

Feel good → Try hard and jam more work in → Get overwhelmed → Burnout → Recover → Repeat.

It was the downward spiral that lead to my burnout, and boy does it feel good to be out!

And now that I am, I’ve been thinking about what drove it:

Fear.

More specifically, a fear that I’d fallen behind.

While people my age were building careers, I’d spent the first decade of my working life playing rugby. And somewhere along the way, I started believing I had to make up for lost time and if I wasn’t super productive, I was falling further behind.

That fear controlled me more than I realised (it’s even driven my obsession with using AI, because I saw it as a means of catching up).

But the funny thing is, I stopped believing that story a while ago, and I no longer tie my self-worth to what I do. As work now feels more like an expression of who I am, and no longer proof to my self that I matter.

But the behaviour has stuck around as residue from the old loop was still there.

Spare time meant more work. I felt uncomfortable taking rest. And more effort became the automatic response to uncertainty.

And once I started seeing this pattern in myself, I began noticing it everywhere. People stuck in different type of loops. But with the same under lying driver:

Fear.

Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of looking silly. Basically just fear of the unknown.

And often, the familiar loop becomes safer than trying something different. Even if it’s making you miserable!

FEAR PRISONER NO MORE

Most people stuck in loops aren’t missing information and already know what’s wrong.

The problem is the loop feels safer than change.

Safer to stay in the draining job or relationship. Safer to avoid the hard conversation. Safer to keep saying “yes” and keep pushing.

Even when it’s costing them.

I’ve seen a few people break out of this and they tend to do the same thing: They stop waiting for the problem to magically solve itself.

They get honest with themselves, then they do one small thing.

Not a huge thing. Just enough to interrupt the pattern.

For me, it’s looked like learning to be more patient with myself and putting boundaries around work, like no emails after 6pm.

Less “squeezing more in" which has helped me slowly unlearn the idea that effort is the answer to everything.

But changing old habits takes time.

And sometimes growth isn’t about doing more.

It’s about becoming brave enough to stop repeating the thing that’s burning you out.

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And what made it worse was that 4 years later, there was a medical breakthrough that made the disease preventable.

But despite that, his family moved on and his kids, Daniela and Dario, now both run a company called Anthropic, who built the chatbot Claude.

The experience of losing their dad, only to see the disease cured, has shaped how they think about the speed of progress.

Because when progress on something is slow, the people who are struggling with that thing, don’t just wait, they die.

Which is something my dad also saw in his career as genetic researcher trying to cure terminal diseases in kids.

So speeding progress up for those who are struggling can be a matter of life and death. And what they’re trying to achieve at Anthropic.

But there’s a catch.

Which is the faster you move, the more likely you are to make mistakes.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I’ve started using AI to build things.

Nothing fancy. Just getting help with meal planning and ordering groceries. Anything that takes friction out at home so Jen and I have more time to relax and be with the kids.

And it’s worked!

We’ve got more time and bandwidth than ever. And once you feel that speed, it shifts how you think.

You start asking: “Where else can this help?”

For me, that’s (R4R).

R4R started as something simple and fun. But the admin and logistics required to manage our 50+ monthly events is growing, and stuff I never signed up for (But I accept it’s necessary to make Canberra suicide-free).

So I believe we need to use AI to take that admin load off and move faster.

And by “faster”, I don’t mean “work harder” and longer. I mean by being more systematic, prioritise more, and less reactionary.

But here’s where I think people get it wrong with using AI.

They treat using it as black or white.

You either use it for everything, or don’t touch it at all.

Reality is in the middle. In the grey.

And to find that, you have to use it and test it.

You have to see what it’s good at, where it fails, and find what stuff it will never be as good as humans at.

Because at the end of the day, R4R is about human connection, and AI can never replace that.

But if we use it well, we can run more events, share more stories, and reach more people.

And that, I believe, will save more lives.

Thanks for reading. Just on Claude, I’ve been using it to analyse friends’ fitness and sleep data, to help them find patterns and to suggest one or two changes to help.

If that’s something you’d like help with, click here.

Get Ben to Analyse your fitness data

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I never really enjoyed rugby again after that. From the outside, nothing had changed. My teammates and coaches hadn’t blamed me, and I was still playing at the highest level. But internally, everything was different. When I played well, I felt on top of the world. When I didn’t, I felt like something was wrong with me. My rise through the professional ranks had been meteoric, and somewhere along the way, I’d stopped being “Ben who played rugby”… and became “Ben the footballer”.

Once that happened, every performance dictated how I felt about myself. So I did what has always worked. I tried harder. Extra gym sessions. Endless thinking about upcoming games. Never taking a full day off mentally. Not because it helped. Because I wasn’t trying to improve. I was trying to feel better. But I never did. And when I retired, that feeling stayed with me. I told myself I’d had a good career. But it felt empty. I hadn’t won a big trophy. And was terrified that’s how I’d be remembered. So I went looking for something to replace it. Something big. Something that would prove I was more than that.

—

After the Lions loss, I built an app to help people lose weight. But when I retired, it stopped being about helping people, and became about proving I wasn’t a failure. I worked nights. Weekends. Even Christmas. We also sold our home to fund it, as I told myself it will work. But it didn’t. By the end of the pandemic, the money had run out. And this time, I hadn’t let my country down. I let down my family. I’d put our secure future in jeopardy. And I hit rock bottom.

I had no energy and no hope it would come back. I even thought about taking my life. I broke down in tears in my bedroom sobbing as my daughters came in and wondering what was wrong with Daddy? I couldn’t hide it anymore.

“I’m not in a good way. What have I done?” I said to my wife.

“Call your Dad”

So I did (he was in Switzerland with my sister) and convinced me to call a friend. That friend convinced me to call the Brumbies (my old employer), who got me in with a sports psychologist. And for the first time, I started to see it. I thought I’d been doing everything right. Exercising. Eating well. Sleeping. But I was still pushing hard. Still trying to prove myself. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had fun. Everything needed to have a work related purpose. Even rest. That’s when it clicked. I didn’t have a performance problem. I had an identity problem. And I was trying to fix it with effort.

—-

Six months later, I was on a run with a mate, when the Lions game came up. I’d never spoken about it with anyone. He shared how he remembers watching it in a bar in Singapore with mates. But he got all the details about the game wrong. He didn’t even remember me getting sent off. Then I thought: “he doesn’t see me as a failure at all. No one does.” Which meant that weight I’d been carrying for 10 years… was all mine. I was trying to outrun something I’d never faced. That the weight wasn’t from the loss. It was what I made it mean about me. And that had been driving everything. What I did. How I trained. How hard I pushed. That’s when I saw the pattern.

__

Early in life, when something doesn’t work, you try harder. It works and you get rewarded for it. Then slowly, you build your identity around it. The one who can handle more. The one who can “push through”. But then the game changes. Pressure and complexity go up. And effort stops working the same way. But you don’t change your approach. You double down. “Just get through this week.” “Once this is done, I’ll be fine.” This probably feels normal. You’re busy. Getting things done. But you can’t switch off. You don’t enjoy wins. Then performance dips. So you push harder. You get more tired. More reactive. Less clear. So you push harder again. Now from the outside, this looks like discipline. But underneath, you’re feeling worse. That’s the spiral.

Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. Because it’s everywhere. Founders. Leaders. People in transition. All doing the right things. But quietly getting worse. Even when results come, it doesn’t feel how they thought it would. So they push harder.

___

This book is for them. It’s also for my daughters. So they don’t grow up believing their worth comes from what they achieve. Because what I didn’t understand is that performance isn’t driven by effort alone. It’s driven by my “state”. And when your state drops, more effort doesn’t fix it. It makes it worse. In the pages that follow, I’ll show you how to spot the spiral early. And what to do when effort stops working. Because if you can see it… you can change it. And save yourself a lot of pain.

Thanks for reading. I’m yet to decide on a title, but been to know: Did anything resonate for you? Anything not make sense? And what would you want to read more of?

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It won’t be a memoir. But I want to write about the biggest mistake I made in the first half of my life, and the impact it’s had on me and my family.

Warren Buffet’s business partner, Charlie Munger, has a famous quote:

“I don’t have to make all the mistakes myself. I can learn from the mistakes of others.”

And that will be the theme behind this book.

Because if even one person can learn from my mistake and avoid the pain that came with it, then the effort of writing it will be worth it.

The Biggest Mistake I Made

The biggest mistake I made was allowing my entire identity to become “Ben the footballer.”

When that identity got crushed after losing to the British & Irish Lions, it set me on a path that I’m only just starting to understand.

First, I stopped enjoying my career and the game that I’d grown up loving. Which is sad, because I still played a lot of rugby after that match.

Then when I retired, I thought people would remember me as a failure.

So to compensate, I tried to do to “Mission Impossible” with my startup Alfred, which was to end obesity.

And there was nothing wrong with that goal.

But I made a lot of dumb decisions along the way trying to do achieve it, as I was hellbent on proving to other people that I wasn’t a failure.

At one point I even sold our family home to fund it. Which was so dumb and only now looking back can I see what was really happening.

I was trying to fix the hole in my self-esteem that the Lions loss had left behind.

I also spent nearly ten years ruminating about that game and worried people would judge me for it or remember me for it.

“Ben Alexander, the bloke who can’t scrum and let his nation down”.

Almost every day the thought crossed my mind.

I even thought about it in the morning of my wedding day, which still feels ridiculous to admit.

But I replayed the game in my head over and over and over again wondering what more I could have done to help us win.

And the truth is, a lot of that pain probably could have been avoided if I had simply talked to someone about it.

Why I Want to Write This

I want my daughters to be able to learn from my mistakes.

They don’t really listen to me when I talk. But they do love reading books, so maybe if I write one, they’ll read it.

If they can avoid some of the pain that comes from tying their identity too tightly to one thing, the book will have done its job.

Because when your identity becomes tied to performance, something subtle happens.

Effort stops being about improvement and starts being about protecting who you think you are.

So when things start going wrong, the instinct is simple: push harder.

That strategy works for a while. In fact, it’s usually what made high performers successful in the first place.

But eventually it stops working.

And instead of changing strategy, many people double down on effort to protect the identity they’ve built around success.

That’s when the downward spiral begins.

I also think this book could help other people. Athletes transitioning out of sport. People changing careers mid-life.

Or any high performer who suddenly realises the strategy that once worked is no longer working.

If the book helps even a few people avoid that trap, it will be worth writing.

Why Write It Now

Another reason for writing the book is that it will help me sharpen my own thinking.

My talks are going great, and much of what I speak about now is the link between identity, energy, and sustainable performance.

Writing the book will force me to organise those ideas properly and gather everything I’ve been exploring over the last five or six years in this blog, and turn it into something clearer and more useful.

Plus after years of writing online, the habit has stuck.

Now it’s time to channel that habit into something bigger.

The Plan

The goal is to publish the book in Spring 2027, ideally before the Rugby World Cup.

To do that, I need to finish the draft this year (Please keep me accountable!)

So from now on, you probably won’t be hearing from me here as often. As most of my writing time will be going into the book.

But I’ll still pop in occasionally, and if there’s something you’d like to read about in the book, let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

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And I loved it.

The opportunity came up after one of my talks, and we were focusing on sustainable performance. Manage energy, recovery etc and how leaders can manage their “state” so they can think clearly.

Then at one point I asked:

“What actually stops you doing things that recharge you?”

I’d shared the story and how exercising with friends is how I recharge, and I expected the usual answers. No time. Too much work. Meetings.

But that’s not what they said.

They said it was “guilt”.

Which surprised me, but also made sense because I used to feel the same.

9am Fridays I play pickleball.

Just after school drop off, but right in the middle of what feels like prime working hours.

For a while I felt guilty about it and there was a voice in my head saying: “You should be working Ben” which killed some of the fun.

But I stuck with it and started finishing every Friday feeling better.

Clearer head. Better mood. More patient with my kids. Just better weekends and I realised that one hour wasn’t hurting my performance.

It was actually improving it, and the guilt faded.

And that conversation with those leaders made me realise that most people treat recovery as a reward. You work hard first to then “earn” rest.

But leadership doesn’t work like that and recovery is not a reward.

It is an input.

If your state is poor, your thinking gets worse.

If your thinking gets worse, your decisions get worse. And these leaders make decisions that affect a lot of people.

So the real risk is not a leader going for a walk.

The real risk is a leader making important decisions while exhausted.

But I think there’s another layer to the guilt as well. A lot of us grew up watching our parents work incredibly hard.

Mine certainly did because focusing on “effort” was how they got ahead, and that mindset was likely drilled into them by their parents. And their parents before them.

But now as modern work is almost entirely cognative, it means modern leadership is no longer about effort.

It is about judgement.

And judgement depends heavily on your state.

Which brings me back to the coaching session, as most of those leaders already knew recovery mattered.

But they still felt guilty doing it.

Which tells me the real problem is not knowledge. It is the invisible rule or narrative in their head. The idea that good leaders should always be busy and available.

But the best leaders I know operate differently.

They protect their energy. Not because they are lazy.

But because they understand their state drives everything and they treat recovery as part of the job.

Not something they squeeze in when everything else is finished.

I’ve been asked to do more sessions, which is great, and a question I’m going to ask is:

“If someone in your team skipped lunch, never took breaks and looked exhausted every day, what would you say to them?”

Most leaders would say:

“Slow down and look after yourself.”

But many of those same leaders will not do that for themselves because somewhere in their head there is a narrative saying that “because they’re a leader, they should just keep pushing”.

Which is exactly how people end up burned out.

These days I do not feel guilty about that Friday pickleball because I know what happens when I do not recharge.

Everything gets worse. My thinking. My patience. My leadership.

So I see that hour for what it actually is.

Not time off. But part of my job.

And so maybe the question is not whether leaders should recharge.

Perhaps it’s:

“What is the cost of a leader making decisions while exhausted?”

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I assume you found my blog from (should be called 1/2/3 Rugby) and want to warn you that this blog hasn’t been about rugby for a long time.

Its mostly been a place where I think aloud while trying to figure out life after sport.

I’ve written 200 posts+ over 6+ years ranging from clear and useful insights, to complete garbage written mostly by ChatGPT.

But all of it has been me trying to work out what to do in retirement from Rugby.

Because I fucking loved playing for the Brumbies, and it’s only recently I’ve started feeling like the transition to my new career is complete.

These days I spend most of my time speaking and working with leaders and teams on sustainable performance.

The core idea is simple: “Effort builds growth. But your energy is what sustains it.”

But next week, I start coaching a group of 18 public service leaders on this, and I’m as excited about it as I ever was running onto a rugby field.

Not because it’s more exciting. Because it feels more meaningful. And what I want to do with the rest of my life.

Alongside that, I help drive which is going from strength to strength.

If you’re new here and haven’t heard of it, it’s a charity focused on erasing suicide in the ACT. And we’re doing that by sharing stories to fight stigma (like the one below) and by putting on as many free community events as we can to bring people together.

My posting rhythm is unpredictable.

Sometimes I’ll write a lot, sometimes nothing for a while. Basically I’m all over the place.

But I want to get back to writing more often, consistently, as I love slowing down to think properly.

And when do I write, it’s almost always about what’s giving me energy at the time.

It could be rugby, leadership, burnout, community, or the tough, but rewarding process of building a life after professional sport.

So if you’re expecting polished and well thought out posts, you’ll be disappointed.

But if you’re interested in watching someone figure things out in real time, you’ve come to the right place.

Welcome to the thoughts of a now slightly less crazy man. And well done on the launch !

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We’d been at my parents’ farm for the weekend, which they love.

But they fought the entire drive home and kept fighting once we got back.

Then I tried to have a nap because I had a big week ahead with my first major talk of the year in Sydney.

But they barged into my room still fighting.

So I sent them to their room…. but they kept f***ing fighting.

Then I lost it and it was the first time I can remember regretting having kids, which made me feel like a bad dad.

But when I looked back at weekend more objectively, I realised my blown up wasn’t from a character flaw.

It was from fatigue.

The girls were in their second week back at school, and understandably tired from adjusting. Plus we’d travelled to the farm so our normal weekend routine was out.

But the root cause that was preventable was I’d let two Friday beers turn into five, which meant I was behind the eight-ball energy wise.

Add in nerves about my upcoming talk, a disrupted nap, and a noisy house… my tolerance was gone.

Nothing about my values or my love for my kids had changed.

Just my nervous system ran out of capacity.

I speak professionally about energy. But on Sunday, I felt like a fraud.

I was exhausted and irritable, and scheduled to head to Sydney to tell a law firm why energy management matters.

But I was able to recover in time (thanks to Jen) and the talk went great.

And the bigger lesson wasn’t about performance.

It was about systems.

Because when I’m rested and regulated, I’m patient.

And when I’m depleted and overstimulated, my tolerance drops.

That’s not brokenness. That’s biology.

So the better question isn’t “Why did I react like that, you bad Dad?”

It’s “Where am I putting myself under unnecessary load without properly recharging?”

Where am I:

• Chasing stimulation without protecting recovery?

• Entering important days already behind on sleep or energy?

• Ignoring early fatigue signs assuming I can just “push through”?

Because certain thoughts and reactions only show up when I’m not recovered.

Which means they’re not personality defects.

They’re capacity warnings.

So my goal isn’t to become more “disciplined” in the moment.

It’s to design weeks that don’t repeatedly push me past my limit.

Because having steady energy isn’t about perfection.

It’s about protecting the conditions that make you who you want to be.

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But it’s not binary. It’s a spectrum.

At one end, people get energy from being around others. At the other, they need time alone to recharge. And most of us move back and forth along that scale depending on sleep, stress and what’s happening in our lives.

And the same thing applies to mental health and performance.

We often talk about “p

eak performance” over here, and “struggling mentally” over there, as if they’re separate categories.

But they’re not. They’re points on the same nervous system health spectrum.

And problems starts when we confuse a point on the spectrum with who we are. This is where labels come in.

Sadly, labels don’t just describe the state their nervous system is in.

They freeze them in a moment in time and their “state” becomes their identity (think “I have anxiety”).

That can feel relieving in the short term, because explains what’s happening.

But aside from trapping them, it often hides something more important:

Direction.

There’s a second mistake we make when we talk about this stuff.

We assume people move up and down this spectrum in a straight line.

Get stressed → recover → feel better.

Work hard → rest → bounce back.

But humans don’t work in straight lines. They work in loops.

Which means we don’t move in straight lines. We spiral.

Life runs in cycles of effort and recovery. Work and rest. Push and pause. And when those cycles are working well, each one leaves you a little stronger, clearer, and more capable.

That’s an upward spiral.

But when recovery doesn’t quite restore you, the next cycle starts from a lower base. You cope, but with less margin. You function, but with more effort.

And over time, that’s a downward spiral.

The tricky part is that downward spirals are hard to spot early because they don’t feel like collapse.

They often feel like commitment.

And commitment gets praised. Which can make it even harder to see.

Until it’s too late.

One of the first things to disappear in a down spiral isn’t productivity or performance.

It’s play. Things you do purely for enjoyment with no point in doing beyond the fun.

You stop making time for it and tell yourself you’ll get back to it when things calm down.

Which in the moment, it doesn’t seem like much.

But it’s a signal because when play goes, pressure has started narrowing your world and everything becomes about “what’s essential”.

Fun never makes the cut.

That’s why the loss of play is such an early warning sign. Because it appears long before burnout, anxiety, or anything feels obviously wrong.

And I know this because for three years after retiring, I was spiralling down and didn’t realise it.

I’d stabilised after an initial rough patch and thought I was doing all the right things. Exercising. Eating well. Prioritising sleep. I was coping and functional, and poured all my effort into my new career. A start-up called Alfred.

But what I missed was my direction, and wasn’t checking where putting all that effort into Alfred was taking me.

By the time I realised something was seriously wrong, I was in a really bad way. And it was scary.

I was in so much nervous system pain that l felt like my battery for life had been drained and feared I’d ever feel good again.

But with the help of family, I recovered, which is not the point.

The point is that I was heading in the wrong direction for years without realising it, so focused on trying to prove myself through work.

I’m sharing the spiral because I want to help people see their direction earlier.

Not to label themselves or push harder or add more things to do.

But to help them avoid hitting rock bottom by asking a simple question:

Which way am I spiralling, and how do I know?

Because once direction is clear, behaviour changes naturally (or at least it did for me).

And often, the smallest signal (like when play quietly disappears) tells you far more than any label ever could.

So, when was the last time you did anything fun?

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I’m pretty sure the world doesn’t need another ex‑footballer banging on about their mental health.

To be clear, it’s been awesome to see so many former athletes speak openly about their struggles because it’s helped society realise that mental health challenges aren’t personal failings and can affect anyone, especially people going through major life transitions (leaving the military, police etc).

Yet despite all this awareness, mental health issues continue to rise.

I think part of the reason is that the term “mental health” is still incredibly vague.

People are told to look after it. But are rarely helped to understand the underlying mechanism that governs how they feel, which is the nervous system.

I didn’t start my talks to speak about mental health.

I started them to talk about performance and why the team with the most energy is usually the team that wins.

Looking back, maybe I was already talking about mental health? I just didn’t call it that because I was talking about energy, and how it’s a signal of a regulated and healthy nervous system.

But lately, I’ve felt pulled to speak about this more directly from a mental health perspective, not just a performance one.

And when I was labelled as a “mental health advocate” during the Australia Day awards weekend, it didn’t quite sit right. And I’m still trying to figure out why.

Maybe it’s a fear of being seen as weak, as many leaders still believe that mental health struggles means you’re unreliable and incompetent?

Maybe it’s insecurity that I don’t have formal academic qualifications?

Maybe it’s because I worry my vulnerability is becoming cringe?

Or maybe I’m just still working out how to clearly communicate something I believe:

Either way, I know I can’t keep avoiding this feeling and needed to write.

Because this whole journey started when I shared in this blog that I was doing it tough. And the feedback I got from you, the readers, wasn’t judgement, but amazing words of support saying that what I was sharing helps.

And that spurred me on to write more, and I’ve felt a growing pull to speak more openly about it. Especially now that I’m finally on the other side of a difficult five‑year period where I can reflect and articulate what I went thru clearly.

So this feels like another fear I need to push through.

Whether I call it mental health or nervous system health, the truth is the same:

I’m still figuring out exactly what that path looks like for me.

But staying silent no longer feels like the right option.

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Absolutely buggered today. But a few bonehead moments aside, the Australia Day Awards weekend was the best.

I felt very spoilt, and what struck me wasn’t the prestige. It was a pattern of how every winner and nominee is empowering and inspiring others.

In different ways and in different fields.

But all giving themselves to something bigger.

Which made me realise my journey with is only just starting. Because so far, my involvement has been very selfish. As it’s helped me as much as anyone.

But I can feel that changing, as the past few years it’s begun to feel much more like service.

A service of giving back to a community that has done so much for me, in the hope it can do the same for others.

Not by fixing them, but by giving them a place to breathe, move, and remember they’re not alone.

Now for the bonehead moments.

Bonehead Moment 1:

Me: “G’day Governor‑General. Welcome to Canberra. You enjoying it?”

GG: “I’m from Canberra.” 😬

BM 2:

Me to Australia Day Council Chairman John Foreman: “You been tickling the ivory (playing the piano) for very long John?”

John: “Why yes Ben, I’ve been tickling the ivory for quite a while (50 years)” 😬😬

But number 3 was the worst and happened on the first day while hoping onto the bus to go to the War Memorial to meet the other finalists.

I found myself walking next to a woman about my age when I said:

Me: “Hi, I’m Ben. You been to Canberra before?”

Woman: “Yeah, I come here a bit for work meetings”

Me: “Nice. What do you for work?”

Woman: “Oh, just some stuff with the Department of Industry and Defence”

Me: “Ah ok”

20 mins later I find out she was Australia’s first Astronaut and soon to be Australian of the year Katherine Bennell-Pegg 😬😬😬

All you can do is laugh I guess. But getting to rub shoulders and chat with so many incredible Aussies was a weekend Jen and I will never forget.

My Speech

As part of the weekend, the made us write a speech in case we won.

Here’s mine:

I know it’s just a word on an award, but being called a “hero” feels a bit strange. Because the last time I was on a national stage, I felt like I’d let my nation down.

I’d lost a big match for the Wallabies, and didn’t show my face in public for a week.

But apart from that, representing my country was a dream.

And when it ended, I did what most Aussies do:

I stayed busy.
I tried to be tough.
And I kept quiet.

But while on the outside, things might have looked fine, on the inside, I was struggling.

And what I understand now, that I didn’t then, is that isn’t a weakness. Nor was it a mental health problem, or at least not in the way we usually talk about it.

It was my nervous system… And it was fried.

When your nervous system stays on high alert for too long….. life shrinks.

You struggle to sleep.
You snap at those you love.
And imagining a bright future… feels out of reach.

That’s why telling someone to “toughen up” or “speak up” misses the point — because resilience doesn’t start in the mind.

It starts when the nervous system feels safe enough to speak.

And that’s what Running for Resilience did for me.

Not because it fixed me…but because it gave me something simple.
A reason to move my body at the same time each week, with others, then grab a drink and chat.

No pressure. No labels. And NO fixing.

Just movement that settled my nervous system. Familiar faces that created safety. Safety that created connection.

And connection that created meaning.

A few shout outs:

Firstly to my fellow café and pub owners: You’re not just serving food and drinks. You’re creating places where people connect. And venues where people can truly be themselves don’t just do great business — they become part of the solution.

To policy makers: If we want to help people who are struggling earlier, especially men, we need to change the language. Because the term “Mental health” does not resonate with many. It sounds like a clinical diagnosis. But it also sounds vague, and it’s making people feel broken.

But framing it as “Nervous system health” makes sense (at least to me) as it explains why sleep, exercise, routine, and community matter, which then shines a light on a path forward thru the darkness.

And to every Australian that needs to hear this: You are NOT broken... and you do not need to struggle alone.

Don’t wait for a crisis before getting help. But start doing things that nourish your nervous system, now.

So to wrap up, our goal is simple: a suicide-free Australia.

It won’t be built by slogans or campaigns.

It’ll be built one regulated nervous system and honest conversation at a time.

Because no one is broken.

And no one should feel like they have nothing to live for.

Thank you.

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Meet Clifford Beers.

Cliff was born in 1876 and in his twenties, he attempted suicide.

He’d graduated from one of America’s top unis (Yale). But he broke down and was sent to a series of insane asylums.

Places where patients were beaten, isolated, and treated like animals.

But somehow, Cliff recovered and went on to write a book called A Mind That Found Itself. Which did two things that changed history:

1. It showed that someone who’d been labelled “insane” could return to a normal, productive life.

2. And it reframed breakdown not as moral failure or permanent defect, but as something that could happen to ordinary people under strain.

Cliff went on to found the “Mental Hygiene” movement, which got the US government’s attention and led to the creation of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (now Mental Health America), which became the blueprint for today’s mental health organisations.

His goal was simple: treat people with dignity and help them earlier, before life fell apart.

But there was a limit to how far he could go.

Because the only language available was medical.

And that shaped everything that followed and how we speak about mental health today.

The term “Mental health” didn’t begin as a broad, human concept.

It emerged inside psychiatry and public safety systems, where people who were visibly “unwell” and need to be institutionalised.

Psychosis. Mania. Severe depression. People seen as unsafe to themselves and others.

So the phrase “mental health” lived in asylums, hospitals, courts.

It was about abnormality and the phrase carried an implicit line:

There are “normal people” and there are “mentally ill people”.

And most of society sat comfortably on either side of that fence.

Then two things changed:

1. Asylums were shut down because they had become warehouses for people society didn’t know how to help, not places of healing.

2. We began to see that distress wasn’t rare or abnormal. It sat on a spectrum that included all of us.

Stress. Anxiety. Burnout. Trauma. Overwhelm. Grief. Loneliness. Panic.

These aren’t rare problems. They are common human states, and modern life is making them more common.

So “mental health” expanded, from a small group to almost everyone.

But the language has stayed the same. We’re still using a medical term built for acute disorders to describe everyday nervous system strain.

So now someone who is exhausted, over-stimulated, and under-supported is told they have a “mental health issue”.

Which subtly makes a normal response to pressure feel like a defect.

For me, the term “Mental health” felt vague and clinical, like I was broken and needed a degree just to understand what I was feeling.

But when I began to understand my experience through the lens of my nervous system, everything changed.

I was no longer broken. I was just overloaded. And that’s something I can control.

For years my nervous system had been stuck in high alert. Working heaps, putting tons of pressure on myself, and no recovery.

I stopped having fun. My sleep went. My patience with loved ones went. Plus my thinking narrowed and everything got heavier.

Not because my mind was faulty.

Because my nervous system was worn out.

And that reframe made things practical.

Instead of asking: “What’s wrong with me?” I could ask, “What is my nervous system dealing with?” which pointed me straight to action.

More rest, movement, structure and connection, with less noise, rush, and constant stimulation from screens.

But what helped me most was exercising with others at the same time each week, then grabbing a drink and chatting afterwards.

That simple rhythm gave my nervous system what it needed, and pulled me through some rough patches.

Which is why I give back to , in the hope it can pull others through too.

If you’ve read this far, you might agree that most modern “mental health” problems are not broken minds. They are overloaded nervous systems.

Cliff opened the door from “dangerous lunatics” to “ordinary humans under pressure”.

A century later, the next step is to finish the job.

Especially for men.

Because when struggle is framed as illness, many men hear one thing: you are broken and weak.

So they stay silent, tough it out, and wait until they’re in crisis. That’s what I did.

This isn’t about defect or blame.

It’s about load and the skills to deal with that load.

Here’s the shift I’m arguing for:

“Mental health” now spans everything from everyday stress to acute psychiatric illness.

That breadth has power, but it also blurs the picture.

At the severe end of the spectrum, medical language still matters. Psychosis, bipolar, major depression. These are real and serious conditions that need clinical care.

But most people aren’t living at that end.

Most people are tired. Overloaded. Wired. And under‑recovered.

Using the same illness language for both ends of the spectrum makes ordinary human strain feel abnormal. It turns “load”into “defect”.

What we’re really talking about, for most people, is nervous system health.

How activated is your system? How much load is it carrying? How much recovery does it get?

This language does something simple and powerful.

It explains what’s happening.

And it gives people their power back.

You’re not broken.

You’re carrying too much.

And that means there are things you can change.

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I’m pumped for the Australia Day weekend.

After winning the ACT Local Hero award in November, Jen and I are heading into four days of events in Canberra.

As part of that, I’ve been told to prepare a short speech (whether I win or not) and I’d love your feedback on the key messages.

Speech Intro:

Representing my country was a childhood dream. And when it ended, I did what most Aussies do:

I stayed busy.
I tried to be tough.
And I stayed quiet.

I stayed busy.
I tried to be tough.
And I stayed quiet.

But while on the outside, things looked fine, on the inside, I was struggling.

And what I understand now, that I didn’t then, is that isn’t a weakness. Nor was it a mental health problem, or at least not in the way we usually talk about it.

It was my nervous system. And it was fried.

When your nervous system stays on high alert for too long, life shrinks.

You struggle to sleep.
You snap at the people you love.
And imagining a bright future feels out of reach.

That’s why telling someone to “toughen up” or “speak up” misses the point — because resilience doesn’t start in the mind.

It starts when the nervous system feels safe.

And that’s what gave me.

Not because it fixed me. But because it gave me something simple and human.
A reason to move my body at the same time each week, with other people. And then to sit down together and chat.

No pressure. No labels. No fixing.

Because movement settles the nervous system. Familiar faces create safety. Safety creates connection.

And connection creates meaning.

Key Messages:

To policy makers:

If we want to support people who are struggling earlier, especially men, we need to change the language.

Because for many, the term “mental health” doesn’t resonate. It sounds clinical and vague, and it can make people feel broken.

But framing it as “nervous system health” is different. It explains why sleep, exercise, routine, and community matter. And it gives people a clear, practical path forward.

To hospitality owners:

You’re not just serving food and drinks. You’re creating places where people connect. And venues that create environments where people can be themselves, don’t just do great business… they become part of the solution.

And to regular Aussies:

You are not broken, and you do not need to struggle alone. Don’t wait for a crisis before getting help. But start doing things that nourish your nervous system. And start now.

So to wrap up, our goal is simple: a suicide-free Australia.

It won’t be built by slogans or campaigns.

It’ll be built one regulated nervous system and one honest conversation at a time.

Because I believe every Australian deserves to feel great.

And we’re starting with those who think they have nothing to live for.

What do you think? Is it consistent with what I’ve been writing about? And is it clear?