A Journey Unveiled: Personal and Professional Insights from the Founder of 3Minds
First of 3 Post Series
I’m not sure if it has been a helpful exploration, but as I worked on new initiatives for my company 3Minds, I spent 2 hours scrolling through photos and videos stored in my phone to pull together words and images of the profound learnings both personal and professional that I have had over the last few decades. Nearly losing myself in the vast rabbit hole, I emerged only slightly scathed, and want to tell you what I discovered.
I once shared my entrepreneurial beginnings at the ripe age of 12. Today, I present to you my high school graduation class photo. If you squint hard enough, you’ll see me in the sea of 17- and 18-year-old crazed know-it-all young adults in the middle right side of the photo. Graduating with a class of around 400 other Midwestern Americans meant that to keep out of trouble and obtain a university scholarship, playing sport was integral. I didn’t really succeed in both, but I gave it a red hot go nonetheless!
I studied in high school, but not as hard as I should have. Instead, I invested my time in sports and working out. By the time I was 15, I was in a weightlifting group and was part of the softball and volleyball teams. I was also an avid snowboarder and mountain biker.
I went off to study at a university in Australia after graduating high school and returned to the US in my early 20’s when I was forced to take time off from all of my pursuits to care for my parents after a severe car accident. It was during this difficult time of rebuilding myself, going back to my beginnings, that my love for fitness returned as a means of coping with the situation I found myself in. Taking my weightlifting, running and mountain bike training to another level, I began competing in running events and duathlons. I found nothing more exhilarating than training and competing in events.
I have always been active. Whether it is running, biking, snowboarding, surfing, rowing, boxing, rock-climbing, weightlifting, hiking..the list goes on. Physical fitness has been integral to my personal and professional life and has been a contributing factor in all my successes.
As I scrolled through the photos I came to the work at hand. At 3Minds I wanted to develop a company that enabled people to excel in their professional life. But as I pondered the last 30 years or so of my personal and professional life, something struck me. Through all the positive periods of growth and change, through the moments where I saw real happiness and success both inside and out, there was one element of my life that was always there in both my personal and professional realms: fitness.
As I analyse my lived experience, I see that the happier and more successful moments in my life always had a strong correlation with a healthy lifestyle and mindset. When I looked after my body and my mind, success would soon follow.
All of this brings me back to 3Minds. Those who know me know my passion for all things fitness and wellbeing. I have been fortunate to have the time and capacity to consider how my love for fitness and wellbeing can be instrumental to develop a business model of coaching and leadership development.
How did I get to this realisation? An event a few years back can be seen as the catalyst for this idea. It was an event that resulted in a complete shift in everything for me. It was the moment I realised everything I thought about myself completely shifted from what I thought I knew about myself and the world to what I never knew I needed to know about myself in the world.
Pre-curser to ‘the event’
I have always been pretty good at competitive sports. By chance, I was introduced to boxing in my late 20’s. Boxing wasn’t something that I considered before, but upon a few kickboxing sessions with a personal trainer, I found out that I was actually pretty good at it..with the right training of course.
I pursued boxing and kickboxing for quite a few years. I toyed around with doing my first professional fight, but life happened and after having my youngest daughter, I completely changed course for the first few years of her life, spending most of my time with her and my eldest daughter.
Then came the Summer of 2020/2021. After emerging for a short period of time from the lockdown (Melbourne lockdowns which made us all a little bit tougher), I stepped into the fun summer of re-connecting with friends and reconnecting with boxing.
On a chance meeting with famous boxer and trainer, Sam ‘The King’ Soliman, I spoke to him about my previous experience and love for boxing, and he invited me to train with him at his home in the beautiful southeastern Melbourne suburbs. I began weekly training with him instantly for a bit of fitness and fun. I never thought that it would amount to anything, but within the span of 12 months, I went from 1-2 boxing sessions a week to 4 boxing and fighting sessions at his gym paired with other dedicated mixed workout sessions across a few other fight and training gyms. Not my words, but another boxers’ words, ‘I was training at professional athlete level for what I was doing’. While I was perusing all of this, I was also kicking goals in my professional life too. I truly was on a high in life and loving all aspects of everything I was doing; my family, friends, business and fitness.
November 2021, Sam asked me how I felt about doing a professional fight. He was organising a fight night in February 2022 and was considering putting me on the bill for my first professional fight. Absolutely thrilled and pumped to be in my early 40’s and considered for a professional fight, I started putting everything I could into getting fight ready. I was 110% dedicated to doing whatever it took to be ready for fight night. Watching my food intake, cutting back my cake addiction (still found time for a slice here and there of course), getting enough sleep, proper training in prep for fight camp…
During this time, everything in life was really feeling right. My business was kicking goals, my kids were happy and doing well and I was feeling great both emotionally and physically. In hindsight, I also think having the planning and structure around getting ready for my first fight helped me to feel more content and secure and pushed me to maintain a bit more structure and planning in my business, which ultimately meant more happiness and success in that area as well.
December 3, 2021
So, feeling like I am on top of the world and following the fight ready plan, my day started off like most, with an early morning workout in prep for my boxing session in the afternoon.
I got both myself and my daughter ready for the day and packed her and our dog Maya into the car to run her at the local dog park before Maya spends a few hours home alone while I attend a work meeting.
While at the park with my daughter and Maya, we bump into another lady and her dog who we met the week prior. We remember each other as my dog was a Lab Ridgeback cross and hers was a 40kg Pitbull Ridgeback cross.
Maya was quite a rambunctious dog and loved running at the park. She had met her match. It was love at first sight for the two dogs. Jovial words were exchanged between us two dog owners. We watched and moved around slightly each time the dogs came near while playing with each other.
I started noticing that the two dogs were playing a bit rough this time. I picked up my little girl, holding her on my hip just to make sure nothing happened and was about to grab Maya to leave the park as her behaviour while playing with this particular dog was becoming a bit too much. With my daughter on my left hip, I began to let the lady know that we were leaving, wishing her a good day, when I look up to my right to see the ladies’ 40kg dog running straight at me. I had no time to move, sturdied myself, planted my legs firmly into the ground to ensure that nothing would happen to my daughter, shielding her from any potential impact and then bang. The moment of impact, I stood my ground and the dog ran full force into the right side of my right leg.
Still to this day, I am easily brought back to the moment of impact, hearing the thoughts that went through my head, seeing the darkness as if I was in that moment again.
I fell to the ground still holding onto my daughter. My first concern was my daughter and then my dog. After ensuring my daughter was ok, and my dog was on a lead, I asked the lady to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be ok with Mummy, but that I needed a moment to sit.
With my head in the ground, everything went black. The smell of freshly cut grass was wafting through my nose but I didn’t care. I was taking deep breaths trying to soothe the pain emanating from my leg and to keep myself present for my daughter.
The same thoughts and visions kept running through my head like a movie reel.
The pain was so strong that my body went into a bit of shock, and I attempted to stand up. I couldn’t bare weight. People in the park came running and someone I knew was also there with his wife and dog and they came to help as well. I asked my friend to watch my daughter while two people helped me to a park bench. My poor daughter who was so brave during the event had my phone and started taking photos. Here’s a few from the roll.
In that moment I knew everything was about to change..
This is a three-part blog series. Stay tuned for the second blog in the series where I will unpack the thought that went through my head the moment it all went black.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed this reading and I thank you for your time.
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