I lived a life I was told would make me happy.
It didn’t.
If you’ve ever looked around at your life and thought,
“I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, why doesn’t it feel right?”,
then we already have something in common.
It was my mum who told me I’d make a good teacher. “You like kids, and you’ll never be out of work.”
I didn’t know what I wanted and her logic made sense, so I became a teacher.
It was the first of many decisions I made because someone else believed it would make me happy. Job stability. Money. Marriage. Children. Property. Being a responsible adult.
That all equals happiness, right?
Eventually I moved into corporate learning and development. For more than fifteen years I helped organisations understand what they wanted, then designed the capability to get them there. I enjoyed the work. I was good at it.
On paper, life looked exactly how it was supposed to. A career. A home. A wife I loved. Healthy children.
I’d made it.
So why did Sunday afternoons start feeling heavy? Why did every Monday morning feel like dragging myself towards a life I’d worked so hard to build?
I assumed everyone felt like that. I assumed it was just adulthood.
Then COVID arrived.
Life became simpler and more complicated at the same time. Like a lot of people, I was juggling work, uncertainty, and helping my children learn from home. Behind the scenes, my marriage was coming to an end.
Then one afternoon, out running through suburban Brisbane, out of breath behind a mask, everything stopped.
I bent over on the footpath and cried.
Not quietly. Not politely. Completely. A loud primal wail.
I had no idea why.
I know now it was a breakdown.
My first mistake was believing I could think my way out of it.
I was partly right. I just couldn’t do it alone.
Working with a coach changed the direction of my life. Over the next nine months I did some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, and what I found surprised me.
I wasn’t unhappy because my career was wrong. I wasn’t unhappy because my marriage had ended. I wasn’t unhappy because life had become difficult.
I was unhappy because I didn’t know who I was anymore. And I didn’t know what I wanted.
I’d spent thirty years building a life around what other people believed would make me happy, without ever stopping to ask myself one question.
“What do you want?”
It’s a deceptively difficult question. Because long before we’re old enough to answer it, we’ve already been told what the answer should be.
- What if I don’t want children?
- What if I’d rather work three casual jobs than one career?
- What if I find joy collecting comic books?
- What if I want a camper van instead of a large house?
- What if I’d rather build quietly than publicly?
If that’s genuinely what you want, then that’s enough.
Not because anyone else approves. Because it’s your life.
Why did I became a coach?
In 2022 I became a coach, because it felt like the natural continuation of the work I’d been doing my whole career. For years I’d helped organisations work out what they wanted and how to get it. Now I help people do the same.
The difference is that coaching isn’t consulting. As a consultant, I was expected to have the answers. As a coach, I assume you already have them.
My job isn’t to tell you how to live. It’s to ask better questions, challenge the stories you’ve accepted, and help you reconnect with the person underneath the expectations.
I’m not here to fix you. You’re not broken. You probably just haven’t had the space to think clearly in a very long time.
Who do I work with?
Most of the men I work with tell me a version of the same story:
“I don’t know what I want anymore.“
Some are executives. Some own businesses. Some have young families. Some have achieved everything they thought they wanted.
The details are different. The feeling is remarkably similar.
Together we work out what they actually want, what’s getting in the way, and what needs to change. Not because they’re broken — because they finally want a life that feels like theirs.
Is it just me?
Most of the men I work with arrive believing the same thing:
that wanting something for themselves would make them selfish.
One of them had spent so long keeping everyone else happy that he’d stopped having preferences at all. He worried that turning any attention inward would make him a worse husband.
It did the opposite.
A few months in, his wife told him she’d noticed the difference. Not that he’d become selfish. That he was more present than he’d been in years.
That’s the pattern. Giving yourself permission to ask what you want is usually where everything else starts to move.
What working together looks like
We usually start with five to ten sessions, weekly or fortnightly.
You’ll do work between sessions. Some of it will be uncomfortable. Some of it will challenge beliefs you’ve held for years. I’ll support you through all of it.
This is for you if:
- You know something feels off but can’t explain why
- You’re prepared to be honest with yourself
- You’re willing to do the work
It isn’t for you if:
- You want somebody else to take responsibility for your life
- You’re looking for a quick fix
Why I still work with organisations
Alongside coaching, I still work with organisations in learning, capability and change — more than twenty years, and over 25,000 employees supported.
Queensland Government. NAB. Westpac. Objective. APA Group.
It’s the same work with a different client. Helping an organisation work out what it wants and build the capability to get there isn’t so different from helping a man do the same thing. It also keeps me in the rooms where the pressure is real, rather than theorising about it from the outside.
A little about me
I live in Brisbane. I play touch football. I run, and I chase cake. I write. I build businesses. I collect comic books. I talk to strangers. I’m at the beach whenever I can be.
I’m not chasing a perfect life anymore. I’m building one that feels like mine.
Let’s start with a conversation
You don’t need to know what you want before we talk. That’s usually why people reach out.
A coffee. A beer. A conversation.
Let’s start there.