Over the last couple of days, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on some of the threads from my childhood and how they've shaped the father, husband and man I am today. When I look back, I genuinely think I was a good kid. I loved adventure. BMX bikes, skateboards, rugby, riding motorbikes, building things, getting dirty, disappearing with my mates until the sun went down. I was curious, energetic and always looking for the next bit of excitement. But underneath all of that was a young boy who carried a lot of anger. I reacted quickly. I remember kicking a hole in a classroom wall after getting into trouble. I remember stealing Mum's wedding ring and trying to sell it at school, having absolutely no understanding of what it meant or why it mattered. Looking back now, those moments weren't because I was a bad kid. They were moments of pure immaturity, confusion and emotional reactivity that I simply didn't have the tools to navigate. However the decisions I made then led me on a path. I changed schools more than once when I was young, and then at thirteen, just as I'd found a solid group of mates and started to feel settled, Mum and Dad came home from a trip to Oz for an aunties 40th and told us we were moving to Australia... Within a month they sold everything, packed a shipping container and started again in a completely different country. When I really sit with that now, I can see how much adapting I did as a young bloke. Every time life changed, I learnt how to fit in. I became the chameleon. I learnt how to read people, connect quickly, make friends and find my place wherever I landed. For a long time I probably saw that as survival mechanism, for sure. Today I see it as one of my greatest gifts. It allows me to connect deeply with people from all walks of life, and it's become one of the foundations of the work I do with men and in my community and in business. My dad worked incredibly hard. He was always building something, fixing something or working in the motorcycle shop. Some of my greatest memories are wrapped up in that freedom. Riding bikes around town, hanging around the workshop and exploring the world. I also remember crashing one of his little motorbikes and getting an almighty spray. At the time it felt terrifying. Now, as a father, I understand that he was doing the best he could with what he knew. I can also see parts of him in me now. There are qualities I carry forward with gratitude, and others I've consciously chosen to soften.

The hardest stretch of my childhood was leaving Omaha, Nebraska at thirteen for the ranch in Oregon. I'd had a tight, close group of friends. I arrived with to this new home with years of hype, expecting warmth, and found the opposite—bullying, isolation, and a version of masculinity so narrow it had no room for who I actually was. The men in that community were farmers, athletes, cavemen. Anything else wasn't encouraged. Misogny, Racism, and Homophobia were often subtle and normalized. I felt like I didn't belong, and I didn't really settle in until senior year, right as everyone was leaving. When I look at my ancestors now, I see that I inherited two kinds of strength. My dad's paternal lineage—stoic, competitive, high-achieving, resilient, but it came at the cost of tenderness and a rigid idea of what a man could be. My dads mother- Barbara - gave me something different. She lived that same hard ranch life in devotion to her partner and raised her kids. She taught me something by what it cost her. I don't want to repeat that. She suffered from seasonal affective disorder and post partum depression and depletion from having 5 kids in a 7-8 year period, Choosing that life cut her off from the people who nourished her—her father tragically passed away unexpectedly the first time they visited the ranch, pouring salt in the wound. Her family lineage to this day has energy that feels lighter and more whole. As a grandmother she regained her warmth, her hospitality, her personality. Her wisdom tells me that a father can be strong and stay connected, can work hard and still keep the tender relationships that feed him. I want to inherit my grandmother's warmth, not the narrow toughness I was handed at thirteen. I'd want my grandmother standing behind me as I become a father. The wound I'd point to isn't a single injury—it's a pattern from high school. Freshman year, a bigger senior teammate choked me unconscious in the hallway for standing up to him, and a teacher walked past and did nothing. Later, after I scored a clean touchdown in practice, a classmate speared me in the back—a cheap shot—and the whole team high-fived him for it. The pain wasn't really the physical hits. It was being surrounded by people who rewarded dishonor and mediocrity, who didn't have my back, and by adults who enabled it.