Go out and live with Strength, Tenacity, Resilience, Optimism, Nurturing & Generosity and you will be living THE STRONG LIFE.
I was recently reminded of this quote I love when a good friend of mine referenced me using it with him in an article he wrote. It really sums up the attitude I endeavour to have towards any challenge or obstacle I encounter in my life. In today’s environment, where…
The pressure that comes from what you see in your career is going to have an effect on you. It is going to affect your life, your relationships, your family, your mental health, and your levels of stress. The issue for you is the stigma that surrounds mental health for…
There are several signs that the job is affecting you, and as a police office, it must affect you. You cannot see the violence and trauma that you experience and not have it come out in other areas of your life. You will find yourself being potentially more reactive, angrier,…
It’s 3.28am, I have just gotten out of bed to try to make sense of a shit situation. Yesterday I took a massive punch to the face and I am still reeling. Unfortunately, due to factors that I won’t discuss to protect their privacy, I find myself having very limited…
In today’s society I believe we reward peoples’ mediocrity and we discourage people from striving to be amazing. All too often we want people to fit into the crowd and we don’t want people to stand out. Society is geared for us all to remain at the same level, and…
The people that we surround ourselves with dictate the future success that we will enjoy in our life. Too many people have friends in their life that are negative, who don’t believe anything’s possible, who will deliberately sabotage you to keep you down so they don’t have to look at…
I’m so surprised at how little education, influence, time, and money is put into developing decent leaders within businesses. All too often people think leaders just appear, as though it is a natural born skill that every person has. I believe that there are people who have a natural predisposition…
The time you spend with your children is critical to their development. Their confidence, their emotional connection, their self-awareness is all dependent on the time you spend with them and how you parent them. All too often I see parents take this responsibility lightly and put so many other things…
There is a huge difference between managing people and leading people. My belief is that there are very few natural born leaders in life, but there are many amazing leaders who have developed their skills throughout their life. The number one key to being an amazing leader is to be…
For much of my life, I felt very different to most people around me. For a long time I saw this as a weakness and something I wanted to rectify. These days, I am more than aware that it is an absolute strength and something that I not only embrace,…
As you travel through your life, you will come across people who don’t like you. You will come across people whom you are just not their cup of tea. Sometimes, unfortunately in life, we will find people that just do not like us for whatever reason. When you are strong…
Fuck failure. I will not accept failure in my life. I will never quit. I will never give in. When you are going through your life, and when you are trying to achieve something spectacular, you will have stumbles, you will have obstacles, and you will have failures, but that…
At some point in our life, we all want other people to take over control of what is happening and make decisions for us. It is very difficult to be strong enough to stand up for what you want and what you believe in. We often want other people to…
This is my very first article written especially for the WPN Wear Community. I’m so excited to have come on board as an ambassador for WPN Wear around mental health and how we can help men to be more emotionally connected, more powerful and more successful in their lives. Today…
Sometimes people in your life will treat you poorly, and unfortunately, that is just the reality. Some people are suffering with a lot with their own demons and drama, which has them act less than appropriately to the people around them. You cannot influence their behavior. All you can do…
In the last three days there has been four police officers that have committed suicide in the U.S. and in Australia. One very close to home for me is a guy who I don’t know, but is a very good friend of some very good friends of mine. What really…
Police officers have a very unique role to play in society that has them interacting with people and experiences in situations that most human beings will never experience. A police officer will see more violence, trauma, death and injury in one eight hour shift than most normal members of society…
In today’s modern society law enforcement, military, and first responder personnel need to treat themselves like warrior athletes. An athlete is somebody who eats, sleeps, trains, rests, does everything in their life motivated and focused on gaining the absolute best they can out of themselves in every situation. As a…
As a society we have this archaic idea that boys shouldn’t cry and men should not show emotion. The ideal man in our societal view is a strong, stoic individual who shows no emotion and stays tough no matter the situation. The saying, “man up,” is a great example of…
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental injury, not a mental illness. The medical profession may classify this as a mental illness, but in my opinion this is an injury that has occurred as a result of the trauma and the violence that you have experienced as part of your career,…
Today I’ve heard about another soldier who has committed suicide as a result of mental injuries suffered through combat in Afghanistan. It greatly concerns me how many men and women are out there struggling who are police, military or first responders, because of the mental health stigma that we have…
I have recently launched my book “My Dark Companion” which is my story about 13 years as a Police Officer and my subsequent journey through PTSD, depression and suicide. The response to the book has been amazing and I have received so many message from people all over the world…
I went to my 11-year-old daughters primary school graduation last night, going from Grade 6 to Grade 7, she is such a beautiful kid, I was very proud of her. The principal was talking about resilience and how life can be tough sometimes. I was super impressed that these days…
The reason that you’re unhappy is because you won’t give up dumb shit. You wont give up the things that don’t serve you and you won’t give up the things that cause you grief. One of the simplest examples of this that I can give you comes back to our…
When you look in the mirror and you see the person looking back at you, you’re responsible for everything about that guy. There are certainly things that happen in your life that are out of your control, but you are 100% responsible for your reaction and how you deal with,…
There are 2 ways to handle any situation in your life. 1. Fight it and push against whatever is happening in the hope that it changes, 2. Accept where you are and then change your decisions and behaviours to generate a different outcome. I suggest that the 2nd option is…
From a young age we teach our boys that to cry is weakness, that to have emotion is weakness, that you need to deal with shit on your own, you need to Man Up and keep your problems to yourself and deal with them. On the other side of the…
Recently I have known a number of people who lost loved ones through unforeseen circumstances and this has had me contemplating just how can you get over this tremendous loss and move on with your life? Only a few days ago a friend of mine passed away in his sleep,…
Too many people live their live surrounded by critical and negative people because they believe that’s just how life is. When you live where the people celebrate who your are, not just tolerate who you are, you will be much happier, more productive and will generally be a better person.…
As men we have been taught our whole lives that “Boys don’t cry” and men are tough and don’t talk about their feelings. The problem with this is men then become so closed off emotionally and we keep everything that bothers us to ourselves. When we keep everything bottled up…
It means living Strength, Tenacity, Resilience, Optimism, Nurturing and Generosity. SO many people live their lives just surviving and putting up with mediocre. There is a different way for you to live and that is to show up as the best version of yourself and do whatever is possible to…
We often hear about people who are born with amazing talent and skill in a particular area. Athletes, Business people, Authors, Actors the list goes on and on. The reality of this situation is that talent is a small part of the equation. Talent will only take you a very…
Anything that is worthwhile in your life takes time. If you want AMAZING results then it is going to take time and effort, if you are happy with mediocre then you can cruise along with little effort and you can have it now. If you want to live a life…
One of the topics that I discuss the most with the people I work with is how to follow their dreams and live an amazing life. But it is not easy. Through the journey of the past 46 years I have learned much about what works in my life and…
One of the major problems I see with many of the people I work with is that they care way too much about what other people think of them. We have all been conditioned to try to keep everyone around us happy and to try and fit in with the…
