Episode 15 - Being Human with Andy McCarthy

From burnout to balance — this week’s Being Human episode is a story of success, collapse, and rebuilding from the ground up.

Joel and Luke sit down with Andy McCarthy, founder of Gippsland Solar and author of Here Comes the Sun, to explore the toll of chasing perfection and the power of vulnerability in leadership. Andy shares how he went from being labelled “the face of the energy transition” to collapsing from exhaustion on a hotel floor in Barcelona — and how that moment became the turning point for his life, family, and purpose.

This is a raw and deeply human conversation about pressure,identity, and redefining success — not by what you achieve, but by how you live.

🎙 This episode is for you if you’re into:

• Overcoming burnout and rebuilding your life
• Letting go of external validation
• Redefining success and leadership

• Finding strength in honesty and rest

💬 Got thoughts or want to share your own story?We’d love to hear from you. Reach out anytime:📬 ⁠lifesbumpsbruises@gmail.com⁠

📲 Instagram: @lifesbumpsandbruises

📘 Facebook: Life’s Bumps and Bruises New episodes drop every Tuesday — because being human is never perfect, but it’s always real.

Credits:

The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Life's full of bumps, bruises, and emotional puff holes. I'm shovel shell, just a bloke is battle, anxiety, and depression. Remember, Luke for Ted, cancel my couch and the counter my chaos. Each week we talk real life, anxiety, overwhelm, family stuff. And those mornings are getting at a bit feels like a win. Plus, this is one of the bumps and bruises when we call it here.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

For sure. Absolutely. Be a good one. How's your week been? Busy, actually. Always. Yes, it has been very busy. Um, but that's life, unfortunately. But a good way.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Pinged my calf on Saturday, I think. Because you hold. Because I because I'm getting into fully yeah. I also I know it's called Bice Bumps Bruises, but I received a speeding fine. So three demera points, which I wasn't trying to be naughty. 56k's in a 40 zone. Good luck. And then rang up Finds Victoria to say that their system wasn't working, to work out that I was entering in my registration number and not my driver's license number. And then she proceeded to tell me that I had an outstanding fine for not voting in a state election from 2012. So that was a particularly fun date. Alright, let's um mate, let's get into it. Our next guest is we are joined by someone whose story is as inspiring as it is on us. His name is Andy McCarthy. I'm gonna get in trouble if I call him Andrew. So I'll give you a uh a bit of a rundown on his story and then uh we'll throw to the great man himself. So Andy has been in renewable energy space for 25 years, long before it was recognized as an industry. In 2010, he started Gippsland Solar in the heart of coal country, and what began as a small, struggling startup in a town of just 2,000 people grew into one of the largest renewable businesses in the country, employing nearly 100 people and putting LaTrope Valley on the clean energy map. On paper, Andy was living the dream, traveling the world, being labelled as the face of energy transition and leading one of Australia's most successful solar companies. But behind the scenes, he was working himself into the ground. And that relentless grind caught up with him in 2018 when a crippling panic attack on a hotel floor in Barcelona marked the beginning of a breakdown that nearly cost him everything, including his health, his family, and maybe even his life. Since then, Andy's been rebuilding, not just as a business businessman, but as a husband, a father, and someone who's committed to speaking openly about mental health. He's written a book, which we've got here today, a couple of signed copies of Here Comes the Son, and he's been interviewed on ABC's Conversations and now shares his story on stages across Australia. Not just about renewable energy, but about resilience, recovery, and what really matters in life. Andy, thank you for coming. We've had some technical difficulties, which is very on brand for us. Um, but welcome to the show. What would a podcast be without some technical difficulties? Goodness me. You need to help us get uh get some help on that. Have a look at us, have a look at us, knock it out of the park anyway. Yeah, we'll push we'll push on. We'll push through. We've got we've got video recording, we've got uh straight into the laptop, but I'm sure it'll clean up all okay. So, Andy, um tell me, give me your human stats, so your age, your family, where you grew up, and what your day-to-day life looks like now.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Um 43 years old, um, a Geelong boy, uh born and raised in Geelong. Um used to be in the Geelong Cheer Squad making the banner on Thursday nights at St. Mary's Hall. Did you really? Yeah, carry that on the field every week and and used to sit there with the pie munchers in the cheer squad and and uh just abuse the opposition and the umpires. Were you uh were you involved in any typos that got put up?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Uh no, no, I wasn't no Geelongs with one E or anything.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

No, no, no, I could actually spell. That's probably why I got the gig.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Um I mean I still remember the bombers looking you bury for the bombers. I remember the bomb rays. I still call them the bomb rays because of one time they had the banner with the letters the wrong way around. Yeah. Um and I just yeah, I loved it. I I went to the 92, 94, and 95 grand finals as a 12, 14, or 15-year-old boy and cried my eyes out. The worst day of my life was a Carlson fan patting me on the back and giving me sympathy in 95. 95, yeah. And that was the end of the era, the aging list we were done, and I wasn't going to see a flag. Um, and then the tears came again in 2007, just you know, after all those years of just misery and seeing the cats get across the lines are the best days of my life.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Speaking of footy, you and I actually know each other from a past life. We played footy together back in the day. Hell us about time playing footy at at the powerhouse of Bic Uni.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

I shouldn't say powerhouse, because you'll probably leave me with another story, but yeah, well, it's it's fair to say I played a lot of country footy in my life, and I didn't I wasn't really cut out for the amateurs style of football, the gliding along the wing, skirting around the packs kind of style, which I think you were quite accustomed to, Shelter.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Um, but no, I was um I was a head basher. I didn't have any peripheral vision, I didn't have any um awareness what was around me, no foot or hand skills. All I had was put your head over the ball and just if someone's in the way, just knock them over.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

So that's a really nice way to say that you're hard at it and I was soft soft.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

You know what? Someone has to finish off the work that I did, you know. You didn't want the ball in my hand with 30 seconds to go down by four points.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I used to get to the end of the game and just be able to hang up the uh the footy jumper at the end of the day because there was no dirt on it, and you used to have to scrub bloodstains out of it. Sleeping in a bath at Voltana. Exactly. All right, let's get into it. So you've spent what over 25 years in renewable energy before it was an industry, and you know, can you describe what drew you into that space in the first place? How did it all come about?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Well, throughout my childhood, um I knew there was something different about me. Um I didn't fit in anywhere I went. I I felt really lonely and lost through life. Uh um I didn't realise at the time that I was suffering from raging ADHD. Uh and back in the early 90s, there was no respect for it as an illness or a condition. Um, you were just seen as a jerk. Uh it was a jerk, but uh but it was a reason. So um I was just looking for trouble everywhere I went. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Um I didn't understand what was going on inside my head. There was this fire that was raging, this fierce passion and energy that I couldn't control. Um the school system, I went to Flinders Peak, secondary college in Cry, which is now shut down and turned into a drug and alcohol rehab facility. So that all that speaks to the the sort of sociodemographics of the area. Well, yeah, it was the only school that would have me. Um so I just drifted through school, um, causing trouble. I had the crap kicked out of me all through high school. I was bullied for years. I used to put my head out, look left and right out of a locker room, um, out of the school classroom as I went out just to see if they were out there and they'd always find me. And yeah, I was just um I was, yeah, it was awful, awful for years. And that feeling of never fitting in and being lonely and and misunderstood in the world has just stayed with me forever. Um, and it's interesting when I talk to people now because I've been in this industry 25 years in renewables. I go to this conference that's on this week, actually. I know pretty much everyone in the room, and I go to all the networking events and been very fortunate in my life. People are surprised when I say that I never fit in anywhere and I had this horrible, lonely, lost existence until I was probably 17. Um and so I never forget that because it's really you know, as a father of three boys, I just imagine the challenges that are going through the head and like I've been there, and as like as hard as their challenges are, I always say to them that, you know, I'd rather trade your life or mine at this point in time. Um so it's uh it's kind of grounded me and and caused me to never forget what that upbringing was like and how awful it felt. Um but but you know, in a lot of ways, renewable energy became my salvation because um I'd been kicked out of school at 15. Um, I was in trouble with the law. Mum and dad had bunted me out of the house, put me in half a dozen different places just to try and find someone that could manage me. Um I was just a dickhead. Like I was just yeah, always in trouble, and um any publicity was good publicity at that time. And um my life was heading down a path that that um I think was quite concerning in hindsight. And then uh when I left school, I decided to go and get out in the workforce, as you do, and picked up some discipline working for Really Tough Boss. And I found myself working for a um a company selling reconditioned um batteries, deep cycle batteries. Actually, we're recording this podcast at Roxburgh Park, and my first job was that in Campbellfield. Hang on right, battery stock on the Him Highway.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Oh, battery stock.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yep, that's right, Jason Nicky. Um so I was working there, and one day a customer came in and said, Hey, I've got this deep cycle battery on my farm, I keep having to bring it up 500 metres up to the shed to charge every time it goes flat. Is there any other options? And in 2025, it's pretty obvious she'd just put a solar panel on it. But back then there was no industry, there was no solar panel manufacturers to that I knew of, there was no customer base for it, there was no anything, there was certainly no solar on homes connected to the grid.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

There's literally solar panels on the house directly opposite us.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Yeah, that's right. They're 30% of homes now. It's magnificent.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Wow, 30%.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah, yeah, in Australia, a rooftop solar. So um, so I did some research and I thought, oh, you could just buy an 80-watt solar panel and connect it up, put on the fence, connect to the battery, and just keeps it charged all the time. No moving parts, you know, no maintenance, no anything. And so I think my first solar panel I bought was an 80-watt panel for $800 wholesale. I paid for it, and now you can get it online for about 70 or 80 bucks on the same panel. So yeah, it's crazy to see how far we've come. Um, but then I I took it to the customer's house, um, put the battery on the on the post, connected the solar panel next to it, put the little charge control in, and I put the black and red cables in it, it just it just lit up, and then it just lit something in me, I suppose. It just the moment that that thing came to life, I was like, this is a mission that I can get behind. Um I didn't do it for you know financial reasons. I didn't expect this industry to go where it's where it has ended up over the next 25 years. But I just love the magic and the simplicity of something powered by the sun forever with no moving parts. It was just yeah, dutiful in its simplicity. Um, and that was it. I just, you know, like a lot of people with ABHD, I just went down this rabbit hole and I just went crazy on this mission to just accelerate the world's transition to renewable energy, and then 25 years later, that was a pretty good decision.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah, for sure. Well, that's so I mean take us back to I think you moved into what La Trove Valley and started Gibson Solar in coal country at a time when I'm guessing most people probably hated what you stood for. Can you take me back to what that looked like sort of mentally and and what you were dealing with, you know, from a day to day or week to week or month to month sort of basis?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Yeah, well, I had been living for 10 years I'd been living um in Melbourne. I met a um Gippsland girl, we met in Geelong, she was at uni. We came up to Melbourne, we spent five years living overseas, traveling the world and living out of a backpack. Came back to Melbourne, and I was living in the inner green belt of Melbourne around Northcote and Thornbury, and um the thing about that area is that it everyone shared my passion for renewable energy, for transition, for you know, creating a safer climate and a better world for our children. I was just surrounded by my wolf pack. Everyone did it because we were wanting to change the world. And I just had this overwhelming sense that that energy transition was just obvious, that it was inevitable, that we were transitioning, that everyone agreed, it was wonderful, it was like a utopia. And then when Kel got pregnant with her first child in 2010 and we decided to move out of the city to raise a family in the country, um the pool of family, she loved living in a small town in Gippsland, and I fell in love with her immediately when we went down there for a bit of a look around as well. Um so we moved down there for lifestyle, uh, but we were just on the uh little town called Murban Off, just above La Trobe Valley. Um and for those that are familiar with the valley, you'd know that you know, coal-fired power stations dominate the area. It's one of the biggest employees in the region, has been since the 50s. And um suddenly realized there was no solar companies down there because everyone hated renewable energy like everyone. There's probably 120,000 people in the La Trobe City Council region.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Is that as simple as they hated it because it was providing jobs for the community? Yeah, look over to that.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah, but I mean actually the hatred didn't even come until later. It was actually just ridicule.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

You imagine when this little this smart ass little lefty moves down from Thornbury, Northcote to the La Trobe Valley and says, Hey, we're all going solar, we're gonna go and change the world. And they're just like, look at this dickhead. So people just laughing out of officers. The council um dismissed everything I believed in. I went into the bank and they said, Listen, mate, you this is a ridiculous idea, no chance. Um, I couldn't even get a lease on a factory at any stage because people didn't believe in the business at all. We just people just didn't think it was secure because no one thought we were transitioning and I wanted to believe it. At that time, there was still probably three or four thousand jobs in the valley in the coal-fired power industry. Um, it was just dominant. And I remembered thinking at times that it was hopeless, but um, I couldn't find a job. There was no solar companies, and Cal was seven months pregnant and just quit work and we were financially like strapped. Yeah. And then Cal said, well, if there's no jobs and there's no competition, maybe we should start our own business. Right. That's it. It was all the encouragement I needed. So I paid 50 bucks, I bought a logo on a website online. I took out a six dollar ad in the Murbu North Times, a little paper in town. Circulation of about 70 people a week around. Yeah. Six bucks a week for little here's my card ad, Gippsland Solar with my mobile number, call Andy. That was it. That was it. That was the origins of Gippsland Solar. Yeah. And then from there, you know, it just grew. We got on the the cusp of this wave of renewable energies, washed over the whole region. And it's quite incredible to think after some really challenging first couple of years where I actually gave up at one point, went and got a job because I I just thought maybe everyone was right that this wasn't going to work at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Well, that's what I wanted to talk about. So you spoke about almost giving up um in 2011. What was going through your mind at that point, and I guess had its self-doubt show up for you at that time?

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Uh when the mortgage repayments started coming in, that's when the self-doubt started showing up.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

And this is the thing about found as an entrepreneur is like we talk about it in such glowing terms. You go on LinkedIn and you see these wonderful stories of just back yourself. Just go and follow your dream and you'll have some tough years and then you'll succeed, and it's going to be wonderful. And that is essentially what my story looks like if you bookend it. But all the stuff in between no one talks about. And it's at some point, you just get to the point where you've had six months where you cannot fire a shot, you can't win a job, everything's working against you, and then your bills start piling up, and you've got a toddler running around the house, and you're like, Shit, I am failing as a husband and a father. I've just got to put food on the table and stop being so selfish to follow this dream that's becoming a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. So I just I just did I I came home one night and I said to Cal, I just can't do it. I can't do it. I need a job. Um, I was in a really dark place, and for six months I built the local secondary college in Leon Gather when the government was funding all those uh expansions of schools. Um, mate of mine, Joycey, was actually the foreman down there. He lied to his employer and said that I had 10 years experience as a chippy. I said, Oh, I've got a guy, yeah. He's he's he lives in Mirban North, he's an experienced Chippy's qualified.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

And how much experience had you had?

SPEAKER_03 14:49

None. No. Well, when I rocked up on the first day and I still had the barcode on my tool belt, and my tape measure had never been used before, and and my pencil, you know, the little the grey LEDs there, I still had to get the Stanley knife and sharpen, it's never been used before.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

It was pretty clear that I didn't have 10 years' experience. I did Chippy. Yeah. And then the first day, someone comes up and goes, Hey Andy, after smoke, I'll get you to go and hang those architraves. I said, Yeah, yeah, no worries, mate. I rocked around, I was running around trying to find Andy. I said, Andy, what's an architrave? So he protected me and um I was getting paid really, really well. Um, and if the phone did ring, the odd customer is inquiring about solar, he'd let me run under the stairs and go and answer the phone uh under cloak of darkness. And uh and I I I think about those people in the early days that helped them to keep the business ticking along like that because um it's when you're at your lowest ebb and things are really working against you and you have no influence or leverage or anything to offer the world, it's the people that back you in and support you that you always have to remember. And I was I was very fortunate that you did that because it was it was very much at the point where Gippsland Silas ceased to exist. And in the end, we employed over 1,500 people on our business journey, and all of those opportunities might never have happened if I had just given up and kept that job because I needed to put food on the table soon.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

So from 2011 to 2017, you you grow to nearly a hundred staff and you called what the face of the energy transition. How did that happen from like being a chippy to then going from you know doing sort of work on the side and waiting for the phone to ring to a hundred staff in a six-year period? Explicit, talk me through that. I'm fascinated. My face would call me a chippy.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

I reveal you.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

No, I said you were being a chippy. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Um well, look, I just you know, clearly 2011, 12, 13, you know, that was when you started to see rooftop solar popping up all over, um, all over the country. And eventually that movement found its way to the Latrobe Valley. So I remember enjoying a couple of wins late 2011. I had four jobs in the pipeline, and I said to Cal, that's it. I've got enough work here, I can quit the job, I'm going all in, I'm gonna die on this hill, I'm gonna fire this business up, and I am gonna be all in no matter what happens. Um, and then we had premium feed-in tariffs, we got paid really well to feed your excess all into the grid. So, in the period of 18 months, we went from having three jobs in our pipeline to install to having six pallets of panels um in the shed to expanding, overflowing out onto our rear lane of our house, like to just like it was like Luoyang C power station. There were just solar panels everywhere. And I had this little walkie stacker trying to unload um a dozen pallets of panels like manually, and I went from having a problem with having no work to being like absolutely stressed out of my mind. It's crazy how quickly. That is literally how quickly the um the industry just flourished in those early 2010s. And so by 2013, um decided to get out of the backyard and go open a shop up the road, employed our first staff member, Barb, and um and then from there, second employee three months later, and then by 2015, we probably had a turn about 30 or 40. And we installed the first electric vehicle charging station in regional Victoria and in the valley. And you think that wasn't a red flag? Um, Ribrag to a bull in the valley when people were just scoffing because I just bought an electric vehicle myself. Everyone's laughing at me saying, Oh, well, he's installing it for himself because he's gonna be the only customer for the next 10 years. Uh, either he's will never take off in the country. Um, and then within six months there was cars queued up to plug in. So I think the I think the um the narrative, the ongoing narrative of our business was just people telling me that it was ridiculous, and then me proving through our deeds that we saw a future that others possibly couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

And formost entirely improving right, which is wonderful. So take me back, obviously at the start, you've got mortgage pressure and you're doing your work as a chippy and you've got no work, to then you've got all of this different work. I'm guessing it's a different type of pressure because now you're committed to delivering on projects and stuff. Like, are you handling and managing your mental health through that time? Like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Well, that was really a time where I just had to get the job done. You know, year after year. It was just I didn't have time to stop and check in on myself. But you know, you always have to make time. We know now that that's the case, but I just didn't see that as a priority. I was just so stretched. I mean, the bank wouldn't give me a loan, I couldn't get a credit card, I couldn't get a car loan. Everyone thought, yeah, he's got some work, but this is just a flash in the pan industry. There's a business in Murbano that told me a couple of years ago that when you rocked up in town with your little shop there, he said, ah, he's just going to install sole in every house in Murbano and then piss off again. Like that was the mentality in the valley that, yeah, it's had its it's having its day in the sun, pardon the pun, but it's not sustainable. And I was just driven by this, you know, this energy, this passion that neurodivergent people I'm sure can relate to of just like when you get something in your mind and you have a target that you're working towards, which for me was proving that people were wrong and that I was right, it's just so powerful. And I would have done anything, uh sacrificed my performance as a husband, my performance as a father. I was drinking too much to push through till three, four in the morning just to get the work done because I wanted to work hard on everyone else. I wanted to win at all costs, and it literally was at all costs. I would have done anything to succeed and build an epic business, and nothing else mattered.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, wow. So then I'm curious to know. You're talking about uh, and I know that in your story you talk about how you had some mental health issues and sort of crashed. How did that all unfold? And then how did you secondary question to I guess I might have to re-ask this to you? Uh, how did you overcome that?

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah, well, 2014 to 2017, I feel like for three years I was just running on pure adrenaline. It was so exciting. We were just employing people every day, we were winning, we were getting jobs, we're breaking records every day. The salespeople were coming to my house on Friday nights for poker nights and big hats and cigars and bullshit and bluffing. And um, the Christmas parties are in my shed with a bathtub full of cans, and I was flipping the snags, and a culture was great, and I just like I would have done anything for this business. I would have taken a bullet for Gipsy and Solar at that point, and I just loved everything about it. And that's the fun part of the journey, and and um I knew it at the time that this was the peak. Like I felt like we'd done all the fun parts and we hadn't grown up. Uh, and it's all I wanted, and and so I just continually put everything else, second, third, and fourth, to the business. Um but year after year, I think I was just maybe like that elastic band that was just pulling tighter and tighter and tighter, and you don't you don't think it's gonna snap. You know, you convince yourself that you have more energy than the average person, that you're more resilient than the average person, and then if you hustle, that you can achieve superhuman feats, but but we all have a breaking point. And um pretty much exactly at the time in early to mid 2018, where if I look on paper, there was nothing that I'd wanted to achieve when I started out that I hadn't achieved. Not being arrogant about it, but we were at the point where we had nearly a hundred staff. I was traveling all around the world, I did presentations and keynotes in like fifteen different countries. Um we'll you know, we had a lot of influence. We were We would spend millions of dollars with our suppliers, millions and millions. And so my ego started getting away from me. Um, and I I I really and I didn't realize that I was getting ahead of myself, and and um I was just working harder and harder. And then one day um someone said to me, I think you need to go and take a break. I feel like you're running on fumes here. And so I took the month off, went over to Europe for a conference, the family came, we stayed for a month and switched the phone off, the emails off, and just had the most blissful month. Like we were over there for the whole month of the 2018 Football World Cup, Soccer World Cup, and every night we're in beer gardens, spending time with the family, doing amazing day trips. Life was so good. I remember thinking like this is this is like as good as it gets. Um the last night of the holiday was the World Cup final, and we had to fly out the next morning, and I remember um packing the bags, putting the kids in bed, and watching the final, and just as the final siren for the um 90 minutes went, I was like a snap, like shit, that's it. Holiday's over. Tomorrow back to reality, got to get rid of that staff member, wonder if their customers pay the bill, dealing with some bass, whatever it may be. Um all of those things that I had just put aside um just came back, and it was like I'd been running away from this avalanche and running faster and faster to try and avoid the um the snowball coming down the hill. And then the minute I stopped, it just it just mowed me down. And um I remember um looking down at my hands at at about one o'clock in the morning laying in bed, I started to twitch. And then um my heart started to go faster and faster, and and then next minute the sweat just started pouring out of everywhere, and and um I was like, oh, this is not good. So got that on my hands and knees on the floor, I could just see um the pools of sweat coming off my ears and my nose and my eyebrows and everywhere, and and then and then I thought I was having a heart attack. I started convulsing and I curled up in the fetal position on the floor and just had this almighty violent physical and mental breakdown, and I didn't know what to do. So, like I'd been doing for ten years, I just ran. I just threw on my sneakers at one in the morning in Barcelona, I ran through the streets for God knows how long. I can't even imagine what my heart rate would have been for that hour. Um, I got back to the room and turned the ceiling fan on high and just like collapsed in a heap on the floor in my own sweat and tears and just fell asleep for about an hour and a half, and then woke up the next morning and felt like I'm hit by a truck. And I I didn't talk to the family about it. I was trying to be tough for my three boys and for Callan, and I didn't say anything. The next night put the kids to bed in the hotel before a red-eye flight back from Dubai, another panic attack, and then the first night we got back, um, another one, and pretty quickly it was almost every night. And then I'd lay in bed and I was think I was okay, and then I get to about ten o'clock at night, I'd be laying in bed, and I go, Oh, I hope I have a good night tonight, and then that's it. You've you once you think that, you've lost the battle. And um, and it just it just mowed me down and made my life a misery. It was awful. And um I uh my thoughts got really, really dark at that point, darker than I spoke about in the book because once you write something, it's out there forever, but I'm becoming increasingly comfortable to talk about the fact that I developed a sense of hopelessness that was really quite scary and I'd say how did you overcome that? Have you? Um I don't think anyone ever really overcomes this. It's not a it's not a race with a finish line once you have in a an episode like I did. It's a constant, it's a constant um moving target. Um I mean the first thing I had to do was start to open up to Kel and say, look, I'm I'm in a bit of trouble here. Um and and she said, you have to you have to go and tell your team. You've got a great team, they'll support you, but you have to tell them what you're dealing with. This being tough bullshit is not gonna work anymore. Um and because I was the positivity guy, I was the visionary, I was we're slinging sunshine here, we're winning, we're doing this. It wasn't in my brand to be open and vulnerable and say that I'm in a really dark place. Uh but the minute that I went back to my three or four trusted people around me and said, Look, guys, I'm I'm dealing with some pretty heavy stuff and I don't know when I can come back to work, but it's going to be some time. And they just wrapped the rubs around me physically and metaphorically and just said, you do all you need to do and look after yourself and we'll take care of the business. And um for six months I barely warped into the office once. So after three months of sleeping a couple hours a night and being on the phone to be on blue, sometimes four or five times in a night in the middle of the night. Um I just um eventually I cleaned up my diet, I cut out alcohol, I went and saw a psychologist and a life coach to start processing it with some of my my demons, and just really slowly, incrementally started to just put one foot in front of the other, and it's that slow. And it feels like recovery for whatever that looks like is just so far away that you just can't see it, and it's that hopelessness that started to really um cause me to think some really ugly thoughts. But if I could just see that by this time next week I want to be able to do this without breaking into a sweat, um eventually I got a little bit more sleep. Um, you know, and through all of this, that actually my worst point, I um my um uh inflammation in my body just went through the roof. Um my my old man suffers from ulcerative colitis. Through the peak of the breakdown, as I was getting to the point where I've been going on for months, I got rushed to hospital and and I had um ulcers bleeding out through my colon. I've lost about 15 or 20 kilos and my skin had changed colour, and um they rushed me into the hospital, put me on drip, and said, You need to stay in here until you get your information back under control because you're actually suffering from sepsis. So that's how much I've been trying to push through, is that I actually made myself so violently ill that I was nearly in an induced coma, and I just thought I was tough enough to come out the other side. And so there was there's a few warning signs that things were pretty bad. Yeah. Um so that slow recovery um it took quite a long time. And I remember after about three months, there was one day when I woke up and I'd had maybe four hours sleep. So relator meals for me, fantastic. I thought, I think I can do it today. I put my work shirt on, I drove down, got my coffee. I was like, I today's the day, I'm back. Sat in my first meeting, and and they're going, okay, so here's a bit of an update where things are at, and then I looked down, my hand started shaking, my shirt started pouring out with sweat. And I just jumped back in the car, so I can't do it, and I just the shame of driving back up the highway going, uh, it's not it's not gonna be today, um, was awful. So there's lots of those little moments along the way that it's it was hard.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

There's something that you said there that was pretty important to me. It was like, yeah, there's no end goal that I that and this a lot of people say this sort of stuff is that um where is it gonna end? When is it gonna end? And then you you were talking about how sort of one step at a time, you know, one day, one week, whatever the time lapse is. Um I think that's an important factor for everybody to understand is that we're working through helplessness and hopelessness. And if you think too far ahead, then the hopelessness and helplessness gets increased, and then it and then it just bulged you down even further. And like you said, you had pretty dark thoughts after that, yeah, that get exasperated and even worse. Um well I'm just curious to know what was there anything that you you did, like maybe daily, weekly, or whatever, that um helped you get through each day.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yeah, so it's just micro goals, like that was the best thing. And I I didn't really think I needed a counsellor or a life coach at the time. I didn't I just didn't respect it as a ne as a profession.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

A bit like solar in the early days. Yeah, but it was a load of rubber. It'll never came. It'll never say it's no way.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Um, but I mean I owe so much to the sport that I had around me because um, you know, you you get into a position like I was I remember the mindset when I was at my darkest and the hopelessness was starting to envelop me that I was like I was looking for an easy out, um which is it was really ugly. Um, and it was because I got into a mindset where I thought I'm 37 years old, this week was worse than last week, and last week was worse than the week before, and next week's gonna be worse than this, and I've got another hopefully another 40 or 50 years on this planet, and every week feels like it's gonna be worse. I can't see a time where I'm ever going to be able to feel like a normal person again. I think I've broken something. Um, and when you think about how long you have left on the planet and the fact that every week feels like it's gonna keep getting worse, that's the scary moment because you just you just think, well, what's the point? Like you you literally do think, what's the point? This is a guy with a business with a hundred staff, financially doesn't have to worry about anything, happily married, three kids, coaching the junior footy and the Oz Keep program and the cricket, like living the dream, living the dream, and thinking that there has to be a way to make all this pain go away. Like it's just it's impossible to imagine how someone that has that many things going for them can be thinking the things that I was thinking, but that's what it does to you. It clouds your vision and your perspective so badly that it feels hopeless.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

There's one thing I want to say for for the listeners, right? Is that even though this is a mental health issue, right? We still need to understand that this is a biological impact of most likely a trauma. So, uh, and that probably happened when you were younger, and then your body stored it. And so then now we're trying to control a physiological issue with a mental approach, and that's really, really difficult. Yeah. So I can appreciate why you would feel that way because it's tough.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Yeah, I I had a lot of unpacked, unprocessed, unpacked trauma through my childhood and and my entire life that uh all started to come out in the space of a few months. Yeah, no. And when it did, it was violent. It's yeah, yeah, and and what I've learned now is that you know, when you're when your petrol needle's getting up to a six or a seven, you've got to be able to feel that within yourself. You need to check out, like I'll happily clear out my calendar, I don't care what's in it, I'll clear my calendar if I just need to go out into nature for a day, take my dog down to the beach for a run, go and um swear at a golf ball, actually quite relaxing. Um, but I have to do something, I have to, because if I don't, I know what happens next. And that's the perspective that I have now, and that's my new mission, other than the renewable energy mission, which I still love so much, is just showing people that if you can if you can get onto it at that point when things are starting to get too much, you can have the success, you can be an entrepreneur, you can work your guts out, you can do all these things and be the very best and achieve incredible things and still preserve your mental health. It is not one or the other. And but you just have to acknowledge the warning signs and and talk to people and just look after yourself because the things in life I value, being a great husband and father, being there for my mates, being running a balling business and making a big impact on industry and all these things I want to do. I can't do any of those if I don't look after my health and well-being. It's not a matter of priority that sits at the top, and everything else then can argue over second, third, fourth, and fifth. Because I can't do any of those things if I'm not looking after myself.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

I um as you were telling that story, I'm I'll be completely honest, I started to have tears blow up my eyes because as you're going through these milestones and these checkpoints, I'm just like, yep, yep, yep, yeah. It was in fact, you said something, and I used the exact same terminology when I turned to my dad and my wife one day, and I said, I'm in a bit of trouble with you guys. Yeah, and that was the exact phrase that you use. And then I remember you saying that you know today was going to be the day and you'd pick yourself up and then you had the panic attack. I remember after I left work and quit and had to, and then went up to mum and dad's to cut hedges because I'm like, Well, I can do this, my brain's not working, but I can do this. And I got about 20 minutes in and my whole body seized up and had a panic attack and cried in my dad's arms. And um, and the terminology that you use was I I said, I can't do this forever. I can't do this forever. There's 50 years I've got to go, and you know, I'm guessing you're probably talking about suicidal ideation, which is what I had at a time. But being from a loving family with a beautiful wife and great kids, it's like I wish there was something a little less permanent because I want this to go away and I want to wake up in six months when this is done because it's so hard to work through. Yeah. Um, and it was just it was about eight things you said there that it just brought tears to my eyes. So thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yeah, it's uh it's the impact on a family. Um when I was feeling guilt on numerous levels during my breakdown, it was the feeling of not being there for my kids and and and being a weak father and and not being able to support Cal and leaving a load on her shoulders, that guilt just accumulates and it just um you've got to give yourself a break, you know. And and this is not about men, this is about men and women, but I would speak to men because I've only ever been a man and say that you know sometimes that um old school feeling of having to provide, that Neanderthal sort of mindset is really, really unhelpful. Like we are humans, we have feelings, we have needs and emotions that need to be managed. And sometimes the pressure of having to from feeling like you're providing sometimes causes you to push yourself to a point where you know you end up in quite a lot of trouble. And um that was what drove me at the start, and then my ego just took over, and then I just wanted to just be more important and have more money and do all these things, have a nicer car, and and that's society just teaching you that you have to keep striving, but you it's not it's not sustainable if you don't do the hygiene along the way and look after yourself.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

It's um I like to frame it like this, right? You I I actually said this to a client yesterday, and I say this to a lot of the more uh impactful clients that I see is that you remember when your your children were born, like yeah, you remember how they couldn't eat, they couldn't um bathe themselves, they couldn't look after themselves, you had to do everything, yeah. So now your kids are at this age, maybe it's just their turn to look after you, you know, and it's okay because it'll go around full cycle again. But respect there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

That um my kids had never seen me cry up to that point, and um it's interesting, yeah, yeah. I just I wasn't not a crier. I was never had I d uh I don't know, it's not that I avoided it, I just didn't feel an urge to, and then once it came, it just came and came and came for ages. And it was the smallest little trigger, and then um I still remember one moment really clearly, and I'd been taking my little panic attacks and breakdowns into my room and closing the door because my boys were 10, 8, and 6 at the time, and I still had this mindset of like I need to internalize this, I don't want them to see dad in this in this state.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Um and the one time best it would have been the best gif he given.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Well, yeah, and that's that's what happened in the end because I was sitting on the couch one day and I was watching something random on TV, just minding my business, but took a coffee in the afternoon. Charlie was having a sandwich, my six-year-old boy up on the kitchen table there. And next minute um started to get the shakes, and then the tears started flying. Next minute, he could hear me like actually sobbing uncontrollably. And um and he just um I heard him the this this queak of the chair as he got up. And he just walked over and he just placed a hand on my shoulder from behind. He said, Are you okay, Dad? Um and I was like, Man, this six-year-old boy that sees his big strong father figure in his life that just like is bulletproof and nothing can bother him, and his mates all look up to him, he sees him sobbing on the couch and he comes over and says, Are you okay? I was like, Imagine how a little six-year-old boy would would feel about seeing his dad in that position. Um and that six months did more for my relationship with my boys than the ten years before, because I just said my like dad might look big and tough, but then sometimes dad deals with lots of things in his head and he has lots of challenges, and I find things really hard sometimes, and I'm only human, like I have these moments, and I'm sure you will too, and that's part of being a that's part of being a human being, and um that that realization, I think, uh the ability to be vulnerable for the kids has really opened up my relationship with them. I'm wish I hadn't gone through the whole breakdown, but I'm glad that I had the experience to now have that perspective with them because I think it's definitely enriched my relationship with them.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I um you spoke about having the first panic attack and you tried to basically outrun it. You put your shoes on away for a run. I know that knocks me out for 24 to 48 hours after because it's so draining mentally. But I'm interested to know now that you've had you know your burnout and your panic attacks, how do you redefine or how do you define resilience? What does it look like to you now?

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Oh, how do you redefine resilience? Yeah, that's that's interesting. Um, well, I think there's a there's almost like a strength in weakness, you know, in the ability to admit that you're you're struggling.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

But that depends on whether you see it as weakness.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Yeah, that's right. But that's what how I perceived it as weakness, but now I see it as strength. It's quite interesting. And um I would say over the last five or six years, through my mental health journey and my recovery, my circle of friends has changed significantly. I've I've narrowed my um inner sanctum down significantly, but the friendships that I have inside my inner sanctum are so deep and have so many layers to them that just like we will talk about anything. You know, my a mate of mine just picked up the hand of the day and I said, How you going, mate? He goes, Not so good. Just just rang me, straight off the bat, not so good. Caught up for a coffee, just had a good old chat, had a hug, and then he messaged me later and he said, Jeez, I needed that. I mean, there'd be a lot of very nervous psychologists out there in the world because we are we are the target market for that. The 43-year-old man is too proud to talk about his feelings, is keeping an industry afloat. But if if a couple of blokes like that can just pick up the phone and say, mate, I'm struggling, can we go grab a coffee and then just open up about their feelings and have a big code afterwards? The world will be a better place. There's a lot of things that worries me about the state of the world and where we're headed, but that is something that I think my kids will do better than I did, and I will do better than my dad did, and I just hope that as men we will continue to just see a power and that vulnerability, and that it's the thing that makes me feel positive about the future of the human race.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah, well, I mean, that's one of the reasons we started this, especially doing some market research around this podcast. There's not too many white middle class heterosexual males that are between sort of 30 to 45 doing this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Sitting on the couch on a Tuesday on a Tuesday board, have a bit of a cry.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Um have you got anything else? I'll thought I was that's awesome. I'd I'd like to um well, uh talk to me about the book, Here Comes the Sun. So you obviously you traveled with your family and then you wrote Here Comes a Sun. What tell me about the journey of first writing a book, how it started, um, where we can find it, give it a bit of a plug on.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Well, I never intended to publish it. Um, you know, the the part of the journey that we haven't covered on is that once I recovered in 2018 and got myself back in a reasonable state, we um we built our business up and and Gibbs Saint Solar got to over 100 employees and we got acquired by RECV at the end of 2019. It was everything I'd ever wanted came to fruition on paper in um best day of my life uh from a business perspective. So I did my three years at RECV as a CIO manager rector. We acquired all these companies, we built a workforce of two to three hundred around the country. So um, through my recovery, managed to still stay at the helm of this business that managed all these incredible things, secure and acquisition, and that is really down to the power of my team and every support they gave me. Um so we achieved all these incredible things, and I remembered people constantly messaging me on LinkedIn and other platforms saying, God, what an incredible journey, what an incredible success you've been, and just putting me up on some sort of platform of someone who has done everything, got the trifecta life is just great. And and no one outside of my inner sanctum knew what I've been dealing with. I thought it's really um it's really disingenuous of me to be projecting this life of um of freewheeling, you know, privilege and and everything being great. Because there's other people out there who are struggling in their business, and every decision they question they feel like it's wrong, and they look at me and just go, how come this guy's nailing it? What's wrong with me? And they start to feel like I was probably propagating that and making people feel there's something wrong with them because they weren't finding they're running their business as easy as I appeared to be. Because I'd been telling the world a fake version of my story. Um and we all do, you know, it's like the we tell the version of you know the homer's night out where on The Simpsons where he's got the top hat and the wispy little moustache and the cane, he's out there celebrating. You don't tell the story of him on the couch and he's got stubble and he's burping, and then Lisa comes in and goes, gee, Dad, you look really hungover. We're looking wasted on the couch. We're only telling one part of the story. And afterwards, when I finished up at RECV and I had this huge crisis of identity going, like, who am I now that I'm not Andy from Gippsland Solar? I thought I just need to go out there and tell the world that yes, we enjoyed great success, but there was a significant price to pay. This is this is how the journey played out. Um and so in the end, I actually started writing the book as more of a diary, as more of a form of counselling, because someone said to me that getting your thoughts on paper was probably the cheapest form of counselling and the most effective. Once I finished it, I I I polished it up with chapters and put us some structure around. I thought, I'm just gonna keep it in posterity. Maybe the kids will want to try and understand how Mum and Dad ended up where they are in life and what they did to get there. And that was it. Um I sent it to a friend of mine who'd helped me, who was an author, helped me just to get started from that flashing cursor we don't know how to get the first word out. And and she read it and she's like, gee, this is really good. She's like, You need to send this to a publisher, this is really good. Um And I thought, well, I've written the book, I've got nothing else to do now. And um, all they can do is say no, I've done the work. So I reached out to Affirm Press, who's a tier two publisher based in Melbourne.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

I know A Firm Press. Oh, do you? Well, only because I wrote a children's book and I sent it to her to try to get published. You still haven't heard back from her. So So I might need a connection there.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

Well, let me tell you what I did. There's a submission process that says 1 and 5 p.m. every Friday afternoon, end of the month, we sit we accept submissions. And I found out that they publish a hundred books and they receive about 3,000.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Yeah, it's I know I know. I've been through the process, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

So what I did was I found the managing director of a firm press on LinkedIn, managed to find his email address, and I sent it to him as a Word document, and I said, Hey, sorry, not sorry, for subverting the process, but here's my story. If you'd like to um read it and you think there's something you can work with here, then give me a call. Otherwise, thanks to your time. I thought this is the way to at least get it in front of the right person. And uh anyway, he's So you've broken the rules. I broke the rules. There's the story for you kids. Yeah, it's right. Everyone's knocking on the front door and I'm trying to cut a key to let myself in through the side. That's it. That's the way I see light. Luke's got a crowbar.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Yeah, be in this from Roxburgh.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Yeah, and um, and so he got back to me uh five days later. And uh and I remember uh on your phone you get the you get the first few lines of an email. Yeah, and I saw, hi Andy, thanks to your email. I've had a read through the manuscript, dot dot dot.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh and I'm trying to unlock it. My face OD's not working, the kids are over here. I was like, shut up, shut up.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

What do they say? And then I opened the email up and it said, I just read this whole thing cover to cover in one sitting, and the world needs to hear this story. Well I catch up with you when you're back in Australia. Nice. And I I could not believe that someone who's read thousands of manuscripts in his life could take some chump story who didn't finish year ten, who's never barely read a book that alone written one, but there was something about the story I'd written that captured his imagination. He said the world needs to hear it. So it was quite incredible that I I just became an accidental author. And from there, like it's just a whirlwind. Like I went into this meeting, he brought him the whole the whole team in there. Here's how we're going to market it. The solar guy made good in coal country, the lone wolf that didn't fit in anywhere, all these narratives are going to tie in. We've organized a publicity tour when the launch happens. Well, I was like, Jesus, I did not expect any of this. Um, but they were so bullish about the book that they said, no, this is something that will make an impact in in so many different ways. And I didn't think it was that interesting. I thought my story was interesting to me and maybe my family, but not to the average punter. And then when he read it and gave me that confidence, I thought, you know what, let's do it, let's polish it up and let's put this book out to the world. Um, and the day that it goes to the public to the printer and you know that it can't come back is the scariest day of your life. Right. Because like, what if it's a steaming pile of horse shit? What if no one really cares? What if you've referenced someone that's gonna land you in trouble? Because I'm talking about a lot of people. This is a real life story. I know a lot of enemies in business when you employ 1,500 people along the way and you win a lot of jobs over a lot of people and and whatever, and you're trying to be yeah, you're gonna piss off a few.

SPEAKER_01 46:47

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah, and you know, I'm seen to have deep pockets these days. So if someone wants to take me down, they probably think they could, you know, get a bit of payday out of me. So it was an awful feeling of like, I hope this is okay. And then I I started getting some um emails back from people who had asked to read it and give me a testimonial for the book, you know, the energy minister Lily D'Ambrosio and and some other key figures in the energy industry, and they came back and said, mate, what a read. I can't wait to see this. Happy to endorse it. Then I was like, okay, maybe it's not a waste of time. Wow. And then in the end, we've sold, I don't know, over 10,000 books, I think, between print and and ebook and an audiobook. Um I narrated the audiobook myself. Where's that available? Um, well, I think it's on uh Audible Audible. Yeah, all the different channels. Um I walked into BW one day and there's 30 copies of our book sitting on the shelf in Bloom. Yeah, I was like, what? In Dimmix, and um it was crazy. And then the book launched, we had one in Gippsland, one in Melbourne. The energy minister came and did the opening for me, and and um and she just threw the script away and she said, I don't need this script any though. I've known each other long enough, and she just spoke from the heart about the work that we'd done in coal country to bring people on this energy transition journey. Um, and it was just a wonderful celebration of everything that we'd achieved, the opportunities we created for people, and then there was this overlaid story of um, yes, like things looked great on paper, but here's what it's really like for founders and entrepreneurs when you push yourself too hard. And um the conversations that opened up afterwards were pretty incredible. Like I remember shedding some tears on stage at a conference one time doing a keynote, and some big old electrician from Bumberbird, you know, working out of his shed just came up to me just rack his arms around. We just had a big old hug. Um I I've had hundreds of those conversations and those messages from people, from people's mums, from people's grandmas who are worried about someone in their lives. And I don't really care. I think we'd spoken about this in the pre-sort of in the preparation for this podcast. I don't really care if I'd sold 20 books. Yeah. But if it made an impact on 20 people's lives and cause them to go and get some help or open up about their feelings and it's job done. Um but it's fair to say that the impact of the book went far beyond anything I'd ever imagined.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

So I we're almost done here, but I'm interested to know for what's one lesson for someone who's listening who might be on the brink of burnout or going through this process, like how would you sort of coach them through that? And then a second part of that is was it all worth it?

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Yeah, like I I think it was worth it. Like it's it's it's it's my story, it's who I am. Um I wouldn't be the person I am now if it wasn't for that. I think if I hadn't had hit that breaking point, I'd probably still be an egotistical, you know, a bit of a like on a power troop who who'd lost his way, like I lost my way, all the success we wanted when we were went from hustling in our garage to becoming really quite influential and having a lot of sway and being up on stage collecting awards and things like that. I lost myself as a person when we sold the business. I kind of lost my way as well. I my values kind of shifted briefly because you you're not you're sort of thinking about things through can I afford this anymore? So all of those little things that happened in the downfall and then the recovery and the downfall again, like all of those setbacks I think just help to keep you grounded and and just help you to remember what's actually important in life. And I just you know, sounds a bit cliche, but I just live for just spreading the message and just trying to help people as much as possible. Like I just love nothing more than when a stranger comes up to me and says that in some way your books had an impact on my life and I've gone and sought some help. I I'm the president of our football netball club up in Murbanorth at the moment, and um the highlight for me last year was I brought all the young players off the track, the whole club off the track an hour early. We got a group in called outside the locker room to talk about mental health and resilience. Um I asked Robert Denise Nash to one of the legends of our club whose son Cal took his own life when he was 26 years old and no one knew that he was struggling. He he was just so loved and he didn't realise how big his network was, he just didn't reach out to it and use it. He just thought it was it was without hope, um, as I probably did in 2018 and as so many people have. He just jumped off a cliff. And um they set the scene for this night about how important sporting clubs and communities are beyond kicking a bag of air around. It's just that place where people come to be together, to lean on each other, to help get through those rocky times in life. And um it's what binds communities together, but only if you lean into it and open up about how you're feeling. And seeing the engagement from the young footballers and netballers in that room that night, the the hugs and the the engagement that they were showing 13, 14-year-old kids, seeing the emotional intelligence they were showing um made me feel like this works making an impact. And and that's what the next uh 40, 50 years is was about, is just making some sort of impact and trying to teach people that no matter how you feel, there's always hope. There's always hope. And there are so many people around you that care about you. If you just lean into it, um you'd be surprised how much people they'll be there to help you. Um but not if you don't tell them what you're dealing with. That too.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

I uh I'm interested if you want to um join us for our next segment and then we'll finish. So every week Luke and I talk about what three things made us happy this week as a bit of a small wins um final checkoff. Luke often changes it to one thing he's a pre-give of, or he'll start telling me a couple of things that pissed him off. But I'll uh I'll go first. So obviously, Luke, I saw you yesterday, so thank you for helping me through my leg issues and um and being there as a guiding support as always. So that's one. This chat with you, mate, was it fucking incredible. So it's been my you've been absolutely my favourite guest. This is my favorite episode. So um sorry to the other guests.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Yeah, I know now.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

Would you I did it several times? Oh my god, if we're gonna go on the next podcast, but I've been my favorite guest.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

We'll cut that out. And uh number three, I just drew a racetrack in the backyard for my daughter in chalk, and she uh she was riding a bike around it the other day trying to break a record and had to go around a barrel of water that I filled up, and there was a little pit stop thing, and and that was that was pretty enjoyable. So that was three things that made me happy this week. What about you, Luke?

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Three things, struggle town with three. I would say I'm very grateful and appreciative of you sharing your story because uh it is quite deep, like you just talked about. So thank you very much for trusting us and our listeners, man. Thank you. Um I would I am pretty appreciative of my son who actually did what he was told last night, cut the grass, which is really good. Um and I'm appreciative, I would say, of my closest friends because they don't know what they give me because I don't ever tell them. But when I reach out for something, they always give it, always deliver. Um, so thank you to all of them, because I know that most of them are listening. Um so thank you guys. I really appreciate your your energy, you give to me.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

Nice. What about you, Andy? Can you think of something?

SPEAKER_02 53:50

Oh well.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Made you happy this week.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

I'll start with the heavy stuff. I had a friend of mine reach out who I haven't seen her in quite a while, and she was having dinner with a mutual friend who I know, but I don't know him well. Um, we've spoken three or four times over the last few years. He works in the solar industry, and she sent me a selfie, and she's like, I don't think you realise that you had a massive impact on this guy's life. He said he he just said last night that when he spoke to you about something he rang you, he was in a really dark place, and he I don't think you ever realize that you help him through something pretty significant. And this is just a person who just exists in my peripheral sort of network, it's not someone I'd really thought about. And I it just made me realise the impact that sometimes you're having on other people's lives that you might not even be aware of. And there's a beautiful um there's something beautiful about that in just lifting other people up and not even realizing you've done it, not needing credit, um, and maybe not even knowing it's just that that residual impact that you're not aware of that um you you've made someone else's life better, which is the best thing we can do in this world, isn't it? Is to have an impact on someone else's life. Um what else is there? Oh, you know what happened actually last night? I coached the Under 12s cricket in Murbank. It's six years in a row, and my first year was my oldest boy Lockie's first year, and I've stayed in under 12s that all three of my boys have gone through. Charlie's 10, he's been playing under-twelves for five years now. He's a veteran.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

Yeah, there wasn't there weren't even any whites for him when he was five years old because they were too thin.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

But he came on last night, he opened the bowling, and one of the other kids who's a gun bowler cracked the shits because why is Charlie opening instead of me? The guy that was facing plays GCL, which is Gibson Cricket League, the representative league, he's a gun bat. Um, young Edelboss's name is he's averaging about 38 in his career already. This kid, he's a gun. Anyway, Charlie came in and bowled a beautiful ball, swung away outside off stump. The guys tried to smack him, smacked it over his head. Charlie's run backwards first ball and popped two hands out and caught it over his head, caught and bowled first ball of the innings. And the look on Charlie's face, like a grin from ear to ear, he was so pleased with himself. It's so good. And so having been with him on that journey and you know being the little brother, always having the crap kicked at him by his older brothers and feeling like he's not good enough. That was his moment in the sun, and that smile is just that junior coach in a nutshell, it's magic.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

That's so good, mate. Um, that's it for for this episode. This was Being Human with Andy McCarthy. Thank you so much for joining us. If you do have a guest or someone that you'd like us to maybe interview or someone you think's an interesting story, feel free to email at lifespunts and bruises at gmail.com or Instagram and Facebook under the same name. That's it for another week, Luke, unless you got something.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Nah, thank you guys so much. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Hey Luke. There you go. See you next Tuesday. Thanks, Andy.