6/5/26 Full Show - Wellness Wednesday with Tom Boyd

Welcome back to wellness Wednesday here on SEM thrilled to be back with you another week for those of you who don't name me. My name is Tom Boyd. I used to play A4444. The GWS giants very briefly and also the Western board dogs and this show we try and cover all things regarding wellness, wellbeing, mental health, you name it to try and give as much value back to the listeners in terms of not only stories from people who have experienced this topic in their life but also people who are practitioners in supporting some of the things that do impact it. And today is no different. We're very lucky to be joined by Peter Sitchef who is a mental health speaker with Beyond Blue and Braden Ainsworth who was a former West Coast Eagles player and is doing some great work within the community as of today. This show is brought to you by MI OK. The app that helps you stay on top of your mental health. Get online and download it today. What I wanted to start today's show with was really a conversation that has been, you know, covered at nauseam nationwide and really that is the reaction to the Elijah Holland situation from the AFL. And of course I don't want to touch on the individual person. I don't want to talk about the specifics of the issue but I really want to address the action that has been taken by the AFL and announced yesterday with Andrew Dillon. So first and foremost let's have a listen to what Andrew had to say. Today the AFL is now finalised its enquiries into the circumstances surrounding Elijah Hollins, participation in the round six match between Kaltmann and Collingwood at the MCG on 16 April. Having reviewed Kaltmann's report and conducted further enquiries, we found that there was sufficient visual cues, performance started during the match and an understanding of Elijah's individual circumstances to indicate that he should have been removed from play earlier than he was. We also determined that the delay in removing Elijah from the field resulted in an outcome that brought the game into distribute. These findings have been made against the Kaltmann football club collectively, not against any individual. As a result, Kaltmann has been found to have breached AFL rule 2.3A and has been sanctioned $75,000 with a full amount to be donated to the AFL's mental health partner headspace. What transpired during the game was something we haven't seen before and while Elijah did undergo checks, he should not have been left on the field for that period of time. And the incident has highlighted something important for our game. Whilst our physical injury protocols are strong and well understood, mental health presentations can be variable and are complex. That means we need to continue to strengthen and standardise how we respond on match day to acute mental health episodes. It's a fascinating conversation. I've spoken about on this show a number of times, the difference between having the best medical care provided, the best access versus the medical model that does exist within professional sport and to put it simply, professional sporting clubs tend to be very focused on winning on the day. They don't tend to have in a lot of cases these long term sustainable views around whether people are going to get further injured or have further issues from a specific injury by playing through the game on the weekend. And I think this is no more evidence been through it myself with shoulder injuries and broken bones and fingers and so on and so forth. And that is something that we do sign up for in many ways as AFL players. And so when you look to your team or by the way, not just within the AFL, when you look to these guys and girls running out there on the weekend, you can guarantee that a huge portion of them are substantially below 100% healthy. And I mean that physically and I mean that with regards to the stresses and the anxiety that much of this high performance world presents. That isn't to say that we should all feel sorry for everyone, but it does I think speak to one of the great challenges that we're going to have in this space as we look to implement some of the changes. And I have spoken a number of times in the media over the course of this issue in the last number of weeks and one of the sort of big things that I've tried to articulate to people is the challenges surrounding implementing some of these changes, particularly on match day. Because what you'll find is that if you actually go and watch an AFL player prepare for a game by the time they arrive at the ground, they have essentially conceded or opted in or whatever you would like to call it to say hey I'm right to go. And every action that is taken from the time they arrive at the ground is about getting them out on the field whether that's working with the trainers or the other support staff, whether it's working with the physios and the doctors or the assistant coaches, the high performance staff through the warm up and then of course they had coaches they prepare for the game ahead. And at no real point in that process is there a natural time frame to just go hey is this person okay to go out there and play? And so I'm fascinated by how the medical community and the changes that they are going to make from a policy point of you actually plays into supporting that process. And I think my overwhelming feeling is if they don't seek guidance from players both former and current support staff, footballing staff coaches, they're just going to miss one of the big realities which is just how the game functions. And so I commend the A file in terms of taking action. I think it is the right impulse but I'm really fascinated by the details as to how this is to play up in the future. The other thing that I suppose I'm I have an open question about I think many people do is when they refer to they should have done this and they should have taken these steps on game day. There's so many questions that opens up to me about when and where and who and why and I think again this is probably to Andrew's point maybe that we don't really have clearly defined processes particularly on match day around resolving some of these issues. And again I think if we can find a way to create a meeting of the mind between the AFL 40 people as well as the professionals in this space, it's going to give us the best chance to be able to deal with it. There was a number of actions that was also announced in terms of changes that they're going to make off the back of this issue. And I thought it was worth just touching on a couple of them because some I would say are probably not very well understood by the general public and some perhaps more so. And so I thought I'd just go through a couple of them. So the first is that they're looking to implement a full-time psychologist within each of the AFL and AFL W programs. And the question I have and I've asked this a couple of times is I just want to understand how that is markedly different to what is available as of today. So for those of you who don't know, the AFL PA have done a great amount of work in terms of supplying resources within the mental health space in terms of medical professionals for players to access. And that doesn't just end at the players it also pertains to family members and partners and the like who can access that support at the right time as well. And they do a magnificent job. And the concept of having a psychologist full-time at the club is one I don't fully understand yet. And the reason for it is I don't know what they would be focused on in a full-time commitment. I'll give you an example. For a large portion of the week the players are pretty much unavailable to be talked to. They're either in the gym, they're doing cardio training, they're in meetings, they are out on the training track. And a large portion of the time at the club is really allocated exactly to that, to training and preparing and improving towards being able to play a game on the weekend. And the ability for a psychologist is the way that I've seen them work and operate and provide great value within these clubs. And I've spoken about Lisa Stevens who is at the Bulldogs in particular. She did a magnificent job working with the leadership group, the young leaders program. And of course individual players, she did an amazing job but she certainly wasn't there full time. So really interested in terms of clarifying exactly what that role will actually have under its remit given that it's a large expanding position compared to what I know is there today. The other part is really around the soft cap. So the soft cap is the additional football spanning that the clubs are allowed to do outside of the player salary cap and that lose looking to be revamped to ensure that things like supporting the mental health and wellbeing of players within the teams is not impacted by restrictions on spending essentially, which I think is a great next step. And then we start to get more into the bigger program. So things like just finding sort of a psychological fitness to play, which again fascinated to hear how not only that will be designed but also implemented. I think it will be very challenging to have a conversation with a head coach or with a bunch of coaches around whether someone is ready to play or not. I really am interested to see how they're going to tackle that component because obviously there is a huge urgency to get performance out on game day. So mental health literacy training program was announced across the football departments, which I think is a positive thing. The establishment of an AFL health and wellbeing committee to advise on essentially the best industry wide healthcare incident management, I think is a positive step and equally, you know, some media round table to round how to talk about this stuff as well. So a lot is in it and the AFL is also I will be remiss at me to say they've also done a lot of work in this space as of recent times. And I do think it's important to recognise that a lot has been done in the last 10 years since I first experienced these issues myself. And I think there's been some magnificent steps in the right direction too. As Andrew said, standardised the model of care for players. But at the end of the day, I suppose the next steps are the ones that are going to be most interesting because if there has been an issue like this arise, one can only assume that obviously a lot of other players across the competition are having issues in some way, shape or form that perhaps aren't being picked up at the moment. And I think that is the true question as we look to discuss this issue more. It's been a big conversation. Hopefully this ties a bow in it as much as possible. And all parties involved can work towards improving the outcomes into the future. And I can stop talking about it. So we're lucky enough to have some great guests on the show today, as I mentioned. And I'm really looking forward to discussing people who have first hand experienced some of this stuff, one in the workplace, but two within the AFL environment as well. So up next we have Peter Sitchef. Welcome back. Obviously this is the topic of conversation surrounding mental health in the workplace at the moment with regards to the AFL updates from the Elijah Holland's situation. I wanted to bring someone on today who really could talk to what's actually occurring in workplaces, someone who goes and speaks not only on her own experience, but also shares her lessons and wisdom I suppose. Two workplaces through Beyond Blue. And that is Peter Sitchef. Welcome. Thank you, Tom. Thanks for having me. So talk to me about the lived experience work that you've been doing with Beyond Blue. I know you've been doing it for a little while now. But how does one get started in that space, so to speak? Good question. So Beyond Blue, this is probably going back now. I've been a speaker for about three and a half years. And I applied before COVID. An expression of interest came out. And I applied and then COVID got in the way and forgot about it. And then I got a call for an interview. And essentially I was interested in the lived experience speaker after my own lived experience with burnout in the workplace. It was a story that I had written and self-published. I thought, how can I increase awareness and support and prevent other people from experiencing the same life disruption I did? Yeah. And I think that's incredibly important. This is why I think there's such a space for diversity in the types of people sharing this message. Right? I think as people we tend to try and align ourselves with someone that sort of has a life experience that resembles us to it agree. And I think in some ways it's a really powerful thing. And otherwise it's a bit of a mistake because we kind of go, oh, they're different. And this is something I've come up against in a lot of my speaking work because people haven't had the unique AFL experiences that I have had. But I know that you've worked across a number of industries, like pretty broad, in terms of their work that you've done through Beyond Blue. What are those sort of big ticket questions that you get? What are the big conversations happening in the workplace from the community that you come up against on a regular basis? Oh, there's some, some ones that consistently keep coming up. You know, and I think the one thing I've learnt to your point just before is the experience of compounded stress over a period of time and the impact it has on you. The pressure cooker. The pressure cooker. Exactly. It's universal. That's the one thing that I've learnt. And by keeping it real and actually, you know, speaking about the signs and symptoms and what goes on, people relate to that story. And that's where the questions start really opening up. So questions that are most common are, if I reflect back on that time, was there a turning point in my chapter? Would you do something? Would I have done something different? Everyone loves the hypotheticals. Correct. I get it. But in a way, you know, my answer to that question is I really like my life now. So in a way, it's been very formative this period. But at the same time, I wish I'd known A, B and C. And I presume you're probably a bit the same. I am exactly the same. I really like my life now and the way it has been for the past 10 years. I realise now I'm empowered and I have agency in my life, whereas in the past, I didn't. And I let that happen. So a lot of it is awareness and education that in my era, I didn't really have that at school. I didn't go and sort it out myself. And it's something I'm incredibly passionate now about with my son. And he has such a stronger level of awareness. And I do think it really does help. I mean, the way I describe it to people is, if you're trying to seek help, one, you get the flu, you know what it is, you know what to call it, you know where to go, you know how long it's probably going to last. Right? It's very well drilled into us from a young age, exactly what's going on from our parents and their schools and everything else. But if you finish school like I did in 2013, that same application of anything in the mental space didn't apply. There was no conversation at all. And so when I first came up against it, it was a very foreign thing that I probably didn't even really understand what was going on. What do you feel like that level of awareness and education is within the broader community today compared to, you know, when you grew up and even when you're in the society. I think it's a lot better. I think it's more acceptable to have the conversation these days. However, I feel as though there is a disconnect between, you know, what is anxiety, what is stress, what is loneliness, what is exhaustion, what's the difference between all of those? Do we really understand them or do we throw everything under the bucket of mental health? And I found that incredibly important going through the exercise of as someone who lived with chronic anxiety, acute panic attacks went through acute burnout and recovered from acute burnout, redesigning life from the ground up. Being able to differentiate that for me has been incredibly important because it's shrunk the perception of what, the impact anxiety has on my life. In bite-sized pieces. In bite-sized pieces, right? And everyone has a different antidote. We have to be aware of that. I find when I mention that as a lived experienced speaker, it really resonates with people because they don't, we're not breaking it down that way. So I do feel like that is incredibly important. You asked before about what questions do I receive most frequently? One of the others is when there's someone who I recognize is struggling. How do I reach out for support? It is just every talk I do. That question comes up and my response is always the same. I always say, look, you can't solve anyone's problem. Everyone's big problem. Definitely not in the first conversation. Definitely not in the first conversation, but what you can is reach out to connect, let them know you're there. If the conversation or if that person allows, bring them into the present and say, hey, how can I support you today? How can I support you in this moment? How can I make today easier for you? Which in the workplace, there is generally, there are things that you can do from an employer perspective to make someone's life easier today. Yeah, for sure. I think there's a big difference between telling someone, hey, if you need help come and find me, versus just almost demanding out that, what can I do to alleviate some pressure on you today in a way? Now, that is such a good point and it frustrates me when I hear, I've let them know that they can knock on my door any time. Well, the door is always closed. Well, it's always closed, but essentially what you've done is you've put the burden on that person, you've given them something else to do, you've put the burden on that person to make the effort to go and knock on the door. As a leader in an organisation, we can all proactively check in on our team. Definitely. Whether we think they're flying or whether we're concerned that there's some warning signals there. I think the other part that I hear often, and I think this has come probably from some of the earlier speakers in this space, it's just my perspective, I'm not 100% certain on this, is this concept of two things. One, the difference between someone being anxious and having an anxiety disorder and how normal it is to feel anxious at times or nervous or whatever you want to call it to make everyone feel comfortable. Also, on top of that, you have something that you have dealt with in this space and it's going to be there forever. It's a never-ending, this is who I am as a person. You mentioned before that you have recovered from acute burnout. How do you share that message of, there is a resolution to a lot of these things. It's going to take some work and support and effort and change in mindset and so on and so forth. How do you give people the hope that hey, this stuff doesn't have to last forever and in fact it can be something that you do put in the rear view mirror to a degree? I think there's two parts to this. There is how do you manage yourself today in the current moment. How do we alleviate your symptoms? How do we get you through, how do you get that initial support to build up your physical and mental reserves? And then you fill the cup. And then there is the, how do you design your life in a way that is sustainable? Within that too is also the acceptance piece of you know, being anxious is a totally new normal human reaction to life stresses. Okay, we all get anxious. That's the reality. However, generally when those stresses are removed, that anxiety subsides. For people who have an anxiety disorder and I live with chronic anxiety, I have my entire life, those feelings don't subside. And being able to call and professional help at that point in time and go, okay, you know, find your support crew. I have my support crew, you know, great psychologist. I have my GP. There is people who help me is, okay, what do I need to create a sustainable future? So I have to accept, yes, perhaps I need medication, perhaps I need to be mindful of, well, I do need to be mindful of my boundaries, preserve my energy. I need to know my limits. I need to know my triggers. And the tools you have available on your phone. I've got to have a toolkit. Yeah, for sure. We have to have toolkit. I think one of the really big questions that I typically get at a lot of these different events is one, people tend to go, my mate, Johnny, it's got this issue, right? It's always someone else or my son or whoever. And one of the big questions that I constantly get is around young people in social media. Is that something that comes up in some of your sessions? And is there any sort of advice you obviously have as son who's riding smack bang in the middle of this, you know, last six or seven years of social media uprise? Is there something that you share with people? Is this a question that you get? Anything you can sort of share with the audience on that point? I feel as though everyone's relationship with social media is personal to them. For me, what has been important is having an intent or a purpose around social media use. Don't do him scrolling. It's not good. No, I know for me, do him scrolling is a trigger on, I'm on a slippery slope towards not a place that's not good. So being intentional is important. When it comes to younger people on social media, I feel somewhat conflicted sometimes with this, you know, having had a teenage son go through COVID and you know, in the ages of 14 and 15, social media was his lifeline and the way that he connected with his mates. And I'm sure I'm not the only parent who would be saying that right now. There has been, I think there's a challenge after that in pulling back. However, I do believe as a parent, we have a responsibility to be able to guide our kids on creating a purpose for the role social media has in their life. Yeah, I think it's, it is the great challenge. I've had a few debates with different people, obviously my kids are quite young and four and four months, but I think there is a world where you simultaneously want to protect them from the dangers, but also educate them on how to make good decisions. That's exactly right. Pete, it's been great to chat to you today. Up next, we're lucky enough to speak to Brayden Ainsworth here on Wellness Wednesday. Welcome back another episode of Wellness Wednesday here on SCN. It is great to be with you all and obviously some really big conversations happening in the wellbeing space across the country at the moment. I wanted to talk to a guy I met a few years ago, he's someone who has done a lot of work in the mental health space and is also an X AFL footballer and that is Brayden Ainsworth. He was picked 32 in the 2017 national draft and he joins us from the West Coast of Australia over in Perth. Welcome, Brayden. Hey, mate, how are you? Good to be on. That is the most Perth answer I've ever heard. So good to hear that you've really had contact with us over there. Talk to me a little bit about your career, mate. Obviously, you went in the second round of the draft, you've made it to the elite level of footy, but that's obviously not all of your story. Have you got sort of a quick summary on some of the experiences you've had during your professional career and since? Yeah, I guess footy journey started, I guess like any young kid that wants to get draft to play and Osuke following dad and brothers and I guess, idolizing them and then as you do as a young Osuke, you idolize ASL players and that becomes the dream. If it will ever come true, you never know and I guess I just always had in the back of my mind. It's a well ever wanted to do. Only thing I guess that I felt I was okay at, but also that I just loved in my life. So chase that dream and live in the country seven hours away from Perth, it was a hard thing to I guess go after and achieve and I never really took control of that dream until deciding to move to Perth after year 12 was never in any rip sides or anything up until that first year out of school when I moved to Perth, played at Suviakau Footy Club in the waffle and made like I'm not I guess your typical draft story where you know you're in the state teams and all of that you know the 14, 15, 16s, I eventually moved to Perth, played as an overager in the cult, got lucky enough was an overager in the 18s, had a good carnival and then all of a sudden I was on an 18, sorry on an AFL list off the back of basically six months of being in Perth and playing in waffle 40. So it's a different story but it happened very very quick and then yeah that was that's my journey to 40 drafted in the snapshot. It is a very a typical story certainly not one that most people and I think for those of you who don't know and in particular our national audience who doesn't spend as much time focused on AFL 40 as we do down here in Victoria. Within the draft system you're expected essentially to start making some of these representative sides and interleague teams and state sides across the journey from about the ages of 15 and so to be able to get through and really only decide post school to get into the sort of serious mode of 40 if you will I think is very different to most people's story. When you arrived into the AFL was it everything that you thought it would be you mentioned obviously that was your dream going up was it was it everything that you'd hoped it would be once you first arrived? Yeah especially that first year like I got drafted in 2017 so walking into West Coast in 2018 was a pretty successful time when it could do one of our flag obviously and I was lucky enough to have played through games that you'd debut and then I was emergency for the grand final just missed out and you know to see that that your first year I was like this is everything I wanted and more but then post that that first year everything sort of I guess went down hill through the things that come with being in the AFL system that I guess you're not taught about you know separating the identity of football and who you are and you've got to be the best football you can be and that's all you should focus on and then it became the identity so I guess from that aspect I didn't understand that that was going to come with it the pressure the expectation and what comes along with doing the thing that you love to do and I didn't realise how quick it could actually become a job rather than a bit of fun and play and the love of the game sort of left me over the next probably three years but that first year was everything and more and then from there was trying to chose to be the best footballer I could but then it shaped into so many different things from identity itself worth to expectation to pressure to you know we wanted to have a successful long 15 20 year career like Scott Penderbury for example yeah so trying to chase these things and getting I guess so caught up in the validation and everything from the outside world as an 18 year old young man who still doesn't really know who he is or what he stands for or what he wants to do away from football I didn't understand all that aspect I just thought you know you have a good good first year flies into the second year third fourth and all of a sudden you played 150 games and you're on your way yeah I just think that so many people to have their perspective of you know these guys who have played forever in mentioned Scott Penderbury before it just never seems to get any older and in fact I recall going to a calling would to do my AIS placement in 2012 and he looked basically identical and I think he stat line was the same so some people can play forever but obviously that is the very very rare case the experiences that you mentioned really around not knowing who you were and some of the pressures and challenges obviously that's not something that purely exists within 40 I think being a player in Perth post winning a grand final and the big country town that it is I'm sure played into it but I know that you do a lot of work in schools today and you do workshops and the like what are some of the big things that you're seeing in young guys and girls with regards to their mental health and how they're thinking about their futures as of the at the moment yeah the biggest challenge that you know when you go in and run these workshops in the schools is like they're tying their self worth their a loss of happiness and joy are all to a lot of its academic stress a lot of it's through the you know that body image in the way they look and then they also the biggest thing is you know trying to please everybody but they're not pleasing anybody you know the fear of failure and and basically not being a good son or daughter and then it's not being a good friend and then it's also like what do I do with my life I'm not being successful enough because nowadays you know there's a lot of you know young 20 to 30 year olds that have started their own business or you know already onto certain things in that area and they feel left behind or they feel like they're not good enough for next. This whole week, I'll be giving you. be better every single day, the self-growth, the wellness, the happiness, the joy, the fulfillment, they're not getting any of it and it's, you know, distresses just keep adding up. And then at the moment for the young men, especially, it's what it means to be a man because there's so many things out there, they're so confused. And then we start the tyre and say, "Wash, and that is my joy." And so what we do, not to who we are. And if that's through academic results or if that's through sporting achievements, and then that then just escalates. And they're not for me and the way they express it to me is they don't really know how to navigate that side of it. You know, I know is that I'm myself worst tied to my grades and my achievements and how good I am in that aspect rather than how good I am as a person. Yeah, I do think that obviously there's a level of, you know, M.A. in control of actually whether I'm getting validated in what I'm doing, but also I think, you know, your point around comparison and really the, let's say, scope of comparison that's been provided to young people in general with regards to social media. And I often reference as his kid called Jack, who unboxes toys and makes $100 million a year. This is my favourite example to use. And if you compete yourself to someone like that, you go, "Well, you know, geez, I'm really falling behind here." On the lesson, say that you've learned last question, really, you know, when you're having these conversations with young people, when you're hearing this feedback coming back towards you, what are some of the things that you've learned that you feel can really help these young people in dealing with some of these challenges they're facing at the moment? A lot, I love the Ben Crowe, he's separating the human being, just the human doing. And I talk a lot about that because it's, you know, you have to go to school and you've got to do that sort of thing. If we're lucky enough to get that. But then you've got to be out and separate that and work out who you are. And for me, I come back to community connection and then character. So who do we stand for as our character? Who do we want to be? How do we want to treat other people? How do we want to be known for that? But how can we then impact the community and the people around us to that school, if that sport, if that's whatever that is for you? And then the connection piece, I think, is just super important. Because we only find good, deep, quality connections, especially for young people, they can actually take the mask off and feel so comfortable to be themselves. And for me, when I share my journey and my story and my mental health background, it was the biggest struggle that I had. And what got me out of that was going back to connection. What can I do for the community? Right? And then what do I stand for as a young man? And that's my character. So I teach sort of, I guess, well, I teach, but I work on those three things and get them to start to work out, you know, where can they help out in their community or the people around them to make other people's lives better? How can they connect back to themselves and other people? And then we're start to work out what the who they want to be and what they want to stand for through that character. I think it's amazing, mate. I think, you know, people who have been through experiences like you have early in their lives and obviously have made it through the other side and can share some of those experiences and some of the lessons that you've learned is incredibly powerful. Thank you very much, Brad. And I appreciate you joining us up next. It's the Boyd Bulletin. Welcome back. Wellness Wednesday here with me, Tom Boyd on Sien. It is time for my favourite segment, the Boyd Bulletin. Now on Wellness Wednesday, it's time for the Boyd Bulletin. Some great work from you, producer Dom. Always good to hear that stinger. We have a couple of Brisbane-associated people to chat through today and the first is Chris Fagan on the Whiteboard leak. What I'll probably say is I'm not going to comment about what was written on that whiteboard because from our perspective, it's private information. You know, somebody illegally took photos of information that was on a whiteboard and then decided to make a hero of themselves and put it out in the public domain. I reckon it's a little unfair when it's your workplace and it's what you do every day and it's information that we keep internal and we've been doing it for nine years. We've been writing the strengths and vulnerabilities of opposition players up on a whiteboard. So, I'm not just going to comment on isolated things that were written on it. I can promise you though that nothing was written up there that had that there was anything sinister in mind or degrading in mind at all. I do think one, two things. First and foremost, no one would be doing tours of the Brisbane locker room for a while and if they are, they will be having their phones confiscated, which by the way is pretty common practice, especially around the gambling side of things. And number two is I will say there is a huge psychological battle going into each and every game. So, if you take it at face value that some of the information that was on this whiteboard is really around how one play can get it and manage over the other person and some of the strength versus weaknesses that is happening in every single footy club maybe not in the same format but certainly it is part of preparing for a game. The next up on the board, Boulton, is Markovos talking about the current situation at Colton. I think our brilliant intent at the moment is not where it needs to be clearly in that phase of the game and you've seen that we've got, we put ourselves in positions to win the game. So, that message seems to be working pretty well but our ability to be able to do it for a longer period of time is not at the level it needs to be at. And when the game is against you, you need to defend and you need to fight and we are not doing it well enough. I can't be any clearer than that. Yeah, I mean, it is the hardest job in footy right now I will say. And also, you know, this professional football is a professional athlete. You are certainly not immune to the psychological challenges of starting to repeat bad behaviour over and over again. Right? There's, you know, this comes in many forms. I've used the example of Melbourne through that really challenging period of time that they had with the number one draft picks and all of that sort of stuff and you do learn to lose not only as a whole but also in certain ways as the Blues boys seem to be doing a little bit at the moment. The last segment that I wanted to cover off on today is a really important conversation from Sian 1170 and that's really around looking after your mates. How did this all come about? Where did this charity start for you? Yeah, mate, look, it's a huge question. I'm a chalky by trade school teacher mate. How do young blood coming in most days didn't know anything about what was going on for him at home. You know, asked a couple of tough questions and matey told me it was having troubles at home. He was batland. He wasn't getting much sleep. We had a lounge up at the back of the classroom and said, "Mate, go and have some sleep." When he went up there, matey camp for about 20 minutes. He'd come back and he was an absolutely different kid. He was engaged. He was respectful. And I thought, "Imagine if we could do this for our mates. Imagine if we could do this for people around us. The simple ability to go, "Hey, what's going on mate?" When our mates can tell us, we then can empathise, understand them and mate get around them and support them. And then mate also, I met a champion young fellow who was playing 40 at the Canon Rams, a young man called Bastion Module. And he passed away mate with you in Sarcoma. One of the last things he ever said to me, mate, was love life and don't waste it. And when he said that, Jimmy, I wasn't loving life and I was wasting it in my. Because I was doing all the easy things in my life. I wasn't stepping up. I wasn't challenging myself. I wasn't being the husband that I needed to be and the dad that I needed to be. And not because I'd had some traumatic upbringing, but just because I was stuck under a culture where I thought, "You know what, this is how I need to operate." And it wasn't prepared to challenge myself. Which I go out now and do every day with young men and women in Australia wide. Tell me, what is the best way for young people to communicate these days? Some people find it awkward having face-to-face conversations. We know how the rise of social media. What's the best way to try and get that message across? Yeah, mate, it's a good one, mate. I always say to kids, we're almost have been taught for a long time. They look the way that we do this is with the talking stick round to fire. Now, I haven't sat round the Bush television for a heck of a long time, mate. So, you know, it's the reality that's impossible, right? But if we all love a game of golf, what a great way to have a conversation with a mate, because you don't have to look at each other, but it also, if it starts to get a bit hard, you can just play one over four fairways and give yourself a bit of a break. But mate, I'm really lucky. I've got mates that I call my pick crew. And now the blocs that hold me accountable. And I open conversations and we open conversations. We've got a line that we use, which is, "Hey mate, how's your head and your heart?" And it's just an awesome way to lean in and go, "What's going on with your trends and trends, your brains?" But also mentally and how you're feeling. Give us an understanding of some of the impact that the most impactful for you, the things that happen within your workshops, Tommy. Yeah, mate. Look, a trigger warning on it. And I want to be able to, for people out there, the listening mate, you know, this involves suicide. But mate, I had a workshop up north where a lot of young boys, you know, great 11 boys, they were. They were sitting around. One young fella talked about his old man being in the gangs and the pressure of that. And that's why he comes to school and bullies others. Another guy talked about, you know, getting bullied at school and, you know, using drugs at home to get away from the pain. And mate, when the workshop finished, everyone left and one bloke stayed and he was shaking like a leaf on the floor. I walked over and said, "What's going on with your mate?" And mate, he said, "Hey, he said, Tommy, I was actually on the way home to try to tape my own life." He said, "I tried 10 days ago and it didn't work." And he said, "I was prepared today." He said, "I didn't know what this session was." was about and I said what stopped you mate and he said the fact that my mates just told me what's going on. He said the fact that I just heard my mates are battling as well just like me. He said I felt so alone that I just didn't want to be here anymore. So mate I guess you know the message of that is simply go up and we'll mate today and go away. Nuclead, you know, you're a bit of humor. Great old mate of mine who I'm sure you know Jimmy Neil Pringle, he saved my life. You know go up and we'll mate the way that he does and go hey, hey go on mate what's going on. Neil always says me you look like rubbish. He says but so do I. So let's go and have a yak and have a yarn and let's talk through it. I think so often that you know the first question that you ask gets deflected with yeah I'm good, I'm busy you know not bad and it is that follow up question to really get a picture of your mates head and heart that really can be the biggest difference. If any of these conversations they have been challenging just remember Lifeline is always available on 13 11 14 that's 13 11 14 and this episode of Wellness Wednesday has been brought to you by MI OK the app that helps you stay on top of your mental health. Download it today. Thrilled to you with you on this wonderful Wednesday and thank you for joining us each and every week to talk about one of the critical conversations in our community today. Wellness Wednesday returns next week after sports day on SEAN. Welcome back. I had a really good think about obviously the discussion that we just had regarding the Elijah Holland situation and I really wanted to talk to someone who was well versed in two areas. First and foremost a lived experience. Speaking to someone who's dealt with mental health in her own life and also someone who understands I suppose mental health in the context of a workplace and very happy today to have Peter Sitjef with me. Welcome, Peter. Thank you Tom. Thanks heaps for having me. So for those people who don't know who you are which can't be many but let's assume a few. You're two kinds. What is your background? How did you end up where you are today? Presumably you obviously didn't just start doing the lived experience speaking and all the work you do with Beyond Blue in its initial instance. What sort of the story that led you to be doing this work today? Yeah it's an interesting story. It's my own. So my background is I've often described myself as almost like a professional athlete and I'm sure some people will be able to relate to that. I've got a background in sales and sales leadership. I used to work in the medical device sales industry for many many years and it was a job that I absolutely loved. I performed incredibly well and really and then and then it got to a point where the let's just say the the hard days or the bad days started to outnumber the good days or be it at the time I didn't really recognise what was happening and persisting with that over a period of time. It essentially I came to a point where my life came to a grinding halt. My body took over. I couldn't I couldn't function anymore and I had to resign. In terms of sales I mean sales is one of those industries, industry segments, whatever you want to call it I think where a lot of times people will say oh you know it's these tough and go getting high functioning types not necessarily an area that necessarily you would go oh this is an area where mental health is a big part of it. How did you find sort of your experiences being in that hyper competitive high functioning sort of role and obviously starting to develop these symptoms and these issues over a period of time. It there's a tension that you have to carry and that is the tension between customer demand and corporate demand and probably to add a little bit more context for the listeners is my role was managing the spinal prosthesis meat needs of about 20 of Melbourne spinal surgeons and those patients don't present neatly between the hours of nine or five nine and five I should say. So it was you know I was a member of almost included as a member of their surgical team and I worked when they worked and essentially for 13 years I was on call 24/7 so you know I have very high expectations of myself from a customer service perspective the demands of the role were incredibly high as was the pressurised environment and the personalities that I was managing at the time as well to be able to deliver a great outcome clinically for them and then the flip side of the coin was the organisation I worked for the sales targets which kept increasing year on year as I delivered and you know the expectation was always there of we'll give it to Peter we'll get the result. So you know it became the culture of the organisation was very much it was very competitive very very high performing high achieving and rewards and recognitions and accolades accompanied all of that so it very much became who I was. Do you find that in some of the work that you do today that this unsustainable approach to sales and to certain parts of businesses is improving or do you feel that it just depends on which business you pick. I'd love to say that it was and it's an area I've been really passionate about since leaving the sales industry particularly from a professional development perspective. One of the challenges with sales is there is so much that you're not in control of and you know your target or your metric of success is something that you're not in control of. So you know and neuroscience tells us that an internal locus of control is incredibly important for sustainability yet we're setting targets that you can't control whether a customer is going to place a booking or not. You can't force it. You can certainly influence it in a way. You can influence it. Effort and skills and capability but at the end of the day you're not in the game of forcing these individuals to spend money and help you reach your targets right. I'll give you an example you have a surgeon who decides to go skiing not that many of them do because of the risk associated. They break their risk and they can't risk and they can't operate for eight weeks and you've lost your biggest customer. So you can't control that and then what do I do now? So I think from a sales perspective it's you know to answer your question I think it's yeah it's that challenge of what you're not in control of and constantly trying to perform. Yeah and so I had a big challenge personally with the control piece. I mean obviously in my time in 40 I was an in a professional sales environment but I was certainly in a position where you had a large portion of control to how you prepared for the event but very little in terms of which way the ball would bounce on the Saturday. In those examples and then the work that you've done and obviously not just withstanding that this doesn't apply just to sales but also obviously more broadly into the community. How do you work with people on developing that structure of control and feeling like they actually have the ability to manage these things either with others or even within yourself over the course of the last number of years? Yeah look I think one of my biggest lessons was understanding the importance of values alignment. I think for me if I reflect back to that period of time my values my personal values shifted without me realizing it and our values can change we're in control of those and I tried to I persisted with the job because I needed the income because of the lifestyle I'd created that was the only way it was going to be maintained. She did the golden handcuffs. Golden handcuffs it's exactly what it was and I was petrified I thought I had no choice. I'm all-gauge I need this income. So you know my biggest lesson from that time is I need to be living in alignment with my personal values to thrive both at work and in life and that becomes the the real nucleus of you know what I teach today you know your values are what you represent what you stand for and to be able to put boundaries in place to preserve your energy you you can't but your boundaries protect your values so if you don't know what you're protecting how can you have that level of awareness and how can you set boundaries that support your limits so you don't reach your limit when you fall apart and explode which is exactly what happened to me. When you say your value shifted was there sort of a specific part that you felt like changed that led to you say being at odds in a way to the loss so you had it work. Yeah well the on call 24/7 was obviously incredibly challenging and it I was constantly on so it was almost like it was a hyper vigilance without even realizing it and what started to happen I was also a single mum and my son was a nine at the time and And it wasn't easy for him. It wasn't easy on anybody around me. The pressure built up. And I-- I look back now on a guy. I didn't like that version of me at all. However, what I started to feel was this pull of my son needs me. He doesn't need the income and the fancy house. And he doesn't need any more stuff. He had enough stuff. He needs connection with his mother. And I think there were a few family things at the time that occurred where I felt like I just-- I need to be at home. I can't keep doing this anymore. And the-- yeah, that pull started to take over. And something that I remember really, really vividly was a moment where I received a call from a surgeon who was notorious for booking cases at the last minute. It was 4 o'clock on a Friday. And I promised my son that I was going to be, you know, birthday party, basketball game the next day, having a day with him. And as soon as I saw it, I just burst into tears because I knew I was about to lose my weekend. And I did. And at that point, the money no longer mattered. I very much-- all I wanted to do was be with my son. And I felt like, you know, if my phone rang, I started to become fearful of my phone. So, you know, it was a really challenging time. And that, for me, was a real notice, a shift of, OK, something shifted here. It's visceral. It's not, you know, it was a point where I think resentment for work really started to kick in as well. And so obviously, a lot contributed to you getting to that point as you said, 13 years of essentially being wired to the hilt. And it's certainly I hear a lot of these stories from people in public service and the paramedics and the people in the police force and the fireies and all of these types of trials, even in the health care sector, you know, nurses and the like. Especially people doing shift work. And obviously, to your point, the on-call part of all of that. Once you did arrive at the point where you made a decision that your life values and priorities had changed, what were the things that really helped you, I suppose, start to deal with some of those issues that you do been experienced for a period of time? Because I can't imagine it just magically changed overnight. No, it didn't. And to be honest, when I resigned, I resigned out of desperation. I got to a point where the-- I almost felt disassociated from myself. There was physical stress, mental stress, the emotional stress, and then right down to that spiritual, this is not who I am anymore. I can't keep doing it. And I split open. However, I didn't-- I resigned immediately, and I left the business four days later, five days later. I remember at that point in time thinking, OK, what do I do? I've resigned with no practical thought. I have all of the financial commitments. And I want to start my own business. Well, gee, that was a good idea, wasn't it? So six months of doing that, and without the practical thought and without the support of the corporate mothership, the financial stability, my credit cards were at their limit. My cash flow was totally gone. And essentially, it was a moment of intense financial stress that was my rock bottom. And that was-- I was actually at an AFL launch, and I left early, and I couldn't get out of the car park because I couldn't afford the parking ticket. I had no cash flow. So I tell you that story, because I just kept thinking everything was going to be OK. And that was my rock bottom. It was that moment of financial stress. Still gets to me this day. And the buildup from there was a friend who had a psychologist colleague who was able to get me in to see her the next day. I did not have any level of awareness of what was happening to me. I had no knowledge. And I was under the guidance of my psychologist twice a week, every week, for at least six months. I was told I wasn't allowed to work. And all I could do was be mum. And that's what I did. And I had to put measures in place to get help, to ring the bank and do whatever it is that I called. And the first place we started when we got to what do we need to do today? So I can function and get to the end of the day. I needed medication to help me sleep and alleviate symptoms. And we worked through the physical symptoms, et cetera. And then we moved into that values piece. So number one, what support do I need today to get through the day? How do we redesign the future? So it's sustainable. Yeah. And I think these are the very practical conversations that we can get to. We're going to continue the conversation on the podcast segment of the show. And up next, it is Braden Ainsworth here on Wellness Wednesday.