David: Good morning and it’s time for another addition of my podcast and today we’ve got a special guest here Tommy Herschell who’s been involved in setting up the find your feet foundation Which looks into mental health for young boys in schools. Thanks for joining me Tommy and I’ll hand it over to you now. Tommy: yeh mate thanks mate, I appreciate it, thanks for having me on. David: excellent if we could just start in your early life I think you grew up somewhere around Tugun which is on the Gold Coast and a place that I know a little bit about if you could just continue. Tommy: yeah mate I grew up in Tugun the southern end of the Gold Coast there beautiful Tugun Seahawks we won the comp in 86, I think we lost it in 87 Yep grew up in Tugun. It was awesome, surfing, I was at the surf club, I was a Nipa and doing all those sort of things I was at the Currumbin primary school and then my oldies separated when I was a young bloke and my old man went to North Queensland and I sort of followed him up there And ended up at school up there for a couple years but then I ended up back down on the Goldy and went to Palm Beach Currumbin for a few years yeah mate I love the fact that I’m a Queenslander and bloody proud of it. David: that’s great as I said I had a little to do with the surf lifesaving down at Tugun I was there for about nine years, I know that area a little bit. It’s a great area, it’s got lots of things to do down there. Tommy: a great part of the world mate David: after your parents separated early in your life what sort of affect did that have on you? Tommy: yeah mate it was interesting, I sort of went off straight away. I was always a pretty loose sort of fellow bit of a smart ass, those sort of things And it multiplied a bit when I went through that and I didn’t really know how to sort of deal with it with the emotions of it and I went to school and I was probably a little bit louder than usual and I was a lot more insecure things that hurt before Probably hurt a fair bit more now in that moment that was probably the biggest difference for me and I remember all those behaviours that were going on they sort of multiplied later on in life you just always looking at ways of getting rid of that anger and that stuff without Letting anyone in on it or talking to anyone about it. Being rude to teachers was an easy way to let them know you’re angry and to get a little bit of anger out and then later on in life having heaps of beers and getting angry and doing all that shit was another way of doing it It just compiled what was going on for me and there was no way out really of having that conversation on what was productive & healthy. David: I certainly would’ve done things a bit differently, if I had all the Help that’s available now, wasn’t available when I was going through a lot of mental trauma back in the 80s so you’d like to think it would be handled a bit differently now and maybe when you get a few years on you you get a bit smarter I guess. Tommy: yeah you do, it’s almost like the young fellas & the young people They don’t really have avenues to do it and we’ve never encouraged them to have those conversations, we’re pretty happy to give Help when there’s something wrong with our teeth or our bodies and our health but when it comes to our mental health people sort of steer away from it, cause of that stigma but I’m a big believer that you gotta do something about it you can’t sit back and say poor me I got all this going on, you gotta take action on it the same way that we do with our other Health And I guess I’m lucky enough what I get to do is I go to schools and be able to have these conversations with young people and give them an opportunity to tell their story and own their behaviour and apologise to each other and just be a little bit more understanding for what’s going on for somebody else in the classroom. David: initially you got into teaching was that a dream that you had Tommy: not really mate. I love working with young people and I’m a big believer that you gotta have a trade. You gotta have something that you can do and I had hands like feet. I couldn’t operate a hammer. It did appeal to me the lifestyle of it knowing that when I got into it it wasn’t as easy as it was made out to be. You do a hell of a lot of work. It was just an awesome opportunity to be able to get involved with young people and be able to make a difference I guess I’ve never really worried about getting an A in maths. I was more concerned for them on what was going on for them after school And being able to help in that way. David: Why did you start find your feet? Tommy: I was lucky I met a champion young fella called Bas Mardrall and mate He had Ewing sarcoma a really aggressive form of cancer and when I met him I was 32 and I was a lunatic and I was bloody out of control And he was 15 1/2 and he just been diagnosed and I just saw him operating in ways that I wasn’t, he was his own man, he wasn’t a victim. He was just selfless and just an authentic fellow and I was just the opposite. I was a victim And all those sort of things. I just saw him one day be this man that I wasn’t and I sort of stopped for a little bit and thought this kids unreal. Here is he’s dying he’s been diagnosed with his cancer and he’s been diagnosed with six months but he still a solid fellow and and when he passed away his mum gave me this story that the day he passed he said to her I want to touch the Earth with my feet one more time and tell my mates to love life and don’t waste it and when she explain that to me, I’ve already had eight or nine beers on that day and I was arguing and I was playing the victim and I remember stopping and thinking what a bloody legend this fellow is here is he’s gone but he’s given me this opportunity to kick my own arse and then I thought about it and I thought I’m not loving life. I am wasting it and I’ve gotta do something about it so mate that’s why I started it because I wanted to give kids in schools and blokes all over an opportunity to stop and find their feet and have a think about the person they really want them to be so mate that’s what I get to do now is to go around schools and do that. I need to still be able to find my own feet so I still need to own my own boundaries, but I’m able to do that with all the tools and skills that I’ve sort of learnt since David: that’s fantastic so that was really what they call an aha moment for you when you finally worked it all out. Tommy: I don’t think we ever work it all out if we do, we’re called an expert and I reckon experts are a bit arrogant so it was a moment of what am I gonna do here? And what direction do I sort of? Need to take? David: as you say you never fully work things out but you work things out a little bit more you should go along and talk to people now you’ve got some great ambassadors through your foundation. How did you meet them? Tommy: yeah mate they’ve all just become good mates, the first was Matt Hayden just he’s one of the great humans you know and a great cricketer got a heart of gold bloody beautiful fella. I was on a trip and I met this bloke telling him about what I wanted to do and he said I want to introduce you to a Queenslander Matty Hayden and I said he’s one of the greats and we had this conversation and straight away he was mate I want to help you. I want to know all about it and he got involved. I was on a surfing trip and I came across Mitchell Marsh and he said I was talking to Hado and he’s been to one of your workshops and seen it and told me about it. Mate its about getting these people to a workshop and letting them see it Sammy Thaiday same thing he came up to me at an airport once and said I’ve seen what you’re doing bloody incredible and I said come to a workshop and get involved and he drove three hours out of his way and he came to a workshop and he saw it a and it’s sort of what it is. Once these people see what’s going on and see how amazing these young people are they want to Help. Nicho Hynes was the same. He didn’t see that work until it was three years into it and he just got behind it and he had his own journey and I think that’s the beauty of this. That people realise that we’ve all got a story and when we share it when we tell it we’ve got this awesome opportunity to shift perspectives or give others an opportunity to learn something mate. I’m absolutely blessed with the ambassadors that I’ve got mate. Luke Lewis is one of the ones I’ve got is an absolute champion David: yes I listen to Luke on the ABC radio sometimes sounds like a very good bloke. Tommy: I can’t put words through what that bloke is. he’s just one of the most beautiful caring, kind vulnerable bloody humans that I’ve ever come across you wouldn’t think that by seeing him on the footy field he’s pretty scary. It’s easy to be tuff on the footy field but it’s hard to be tough and being tough as being able to have conversations about shit that we got going on and stuff that we got going on in our heads in our hearts and all of the ambassadors have got to be able to do that there’s no red carpet there’s no fancy shit with finding your feet. It’s just people that want to help others and maybe mate that comes from Tugun roots I’m not sure. David: I’m a little bit involved in the shed which is an organisation that talks about men and their feelings but you’re actually getting to the roots of the issue when you’re going to school kids and talking to them about their issues because as you’ve said in a podcast that you did one time most of the problems are formed when people are young and they have issues and they don’t know how to deal with them is that right? Tommy: yeah that’s what I reckon mate. I can only speak for myself a lot of the young people that I work with that have something going on like a trauma. They’ve just not really taken it on all the people around them haven’t really applied themselves to help them take it on so it’s a matter of being able to get those people around you, good people around you that can help you be the best person you can be so like if you’re taking a car to a shit mechanic it’s not ever really gonna be fixed. is it? You’re gonna take it to someone who’s going to be able to help you out and sort you out so these things that have happened to a lot of these young people they just push it to the side they don’t talk about it. I use an analogy that it’s like a pile of laundry if we don’t ever wash it if we don’t look after it it just piles up and by the end of the week by the end of the month by the end of the year we just look at it and go shit. This is bloody way too much there. I’m gonna throw it out and that’s what’s happening with a lot of people we are losing nine people a day to suicide in Australia. we gotta have The ability to have those conversations & share amongst each other what’s going on with each other. David: what sort of coping mechanisms? I get the sense that you do a bit of exercise and I know when I’ve had issues I found that exercise makes me feel better, there are hormones that come into your brain during exercise or just after exercise so you’ve obviously found exercise fairly useful with coping with things. Tommy: yeah for sure mate if I’m not exercising or eating well I’m sort of not going the best I can so every morning I call it, I’ve killed a pig. I mean I get up and I go for a swim or a run or just a dip in the ocean or I’ll always have a good solid yarn with a mate after it mate. It’s been a huge part. I’m not sure what the exact science behind it is but I do know when you do that sort of exercise. What I call it is kill the pig. It kills that noise in your head and allows me to get into my day if I don’t have that exercise in the Morning i’m pretty much deemed useless to be honest. Yeah so whether it’s a long run or a swim or even 50 push-ups can often kill that noise in your head and gives you the ability to do something and you have to do something David: yeah I did a course a few years ago it was a management course and one of the subjects was on psychological things and it suggested that habits as long as you get into good habits and thinking back in my life since after I had by accident I’ve always done a lot of gym work and stuff like that I just looking back. I thought that’s something good that I’ve done without even knowing about habits. Tommy: it’s easy to get into bad habits because they’re right there and they’re easy to do but then a lot of the time those bad habits end up making you feel like shit so we gotta do the tuff stuff that’s the bit that helps us down the track and we get a bit better. We’re all human and we can get lazy and not do this and not do that but once we know what it feels like and once we know the benefit of it and that’s when things change and we can start making improvements David: I know I’m not feeling very good when I haven’t done any exercises. I haven’t done any stretches. I haven’t been to yoga. I can feel that and I know that I’ve gotta keep doing that otherwise I won’t feel okay. I’ll start to feel all stiff because that’s one of the things in having a brain injury in that your body is kind of a little bit stiffer sometimes so I just have to make sure that I’m always stretching and that sort of thing which is good for anyone to do but especially for me it’s been a long time ago my brain injury but I still deal with a lot of repercussions from it., a lot of things that I’ve discovered like mental health I’d say in the last 10 or so years is really coming to the limelight is that what you think? Tommy: yeah for sure and how people look at it too. There’s a lot of organisations that use a lot of interesting big words and mate then I guess if I was to describe find your feet is it mental health, I’m not really sure. It’s pretty much what it is. It’s just giving people an opportunity to unload their stories and take the weight off and develop some skills and tools to be able to continue to do that and that’s the most important part to continue the ability to be able to do it and if that’s contributing to good mental health well then that’s for sure because that’s what I do and you’re right. A lot of people are talking about it which is great and it’s happening in schools which is great. Now there’s mental health first aid. The big thing that we need to break is the stigma around it and people not seeing counsellors I think that’s the hardest thing that I see that people got a lot of stuff going on, they got struggles and when you ask them have you seen a counsellor? They go? Oh no no no I wouldn’t do that. Why wouldn’t you do that? Because I don’t want to be seen as week? You can smash that out of the water by saying to them, you know its week not to go, and hopefully then they get up off their arse and go and have a crack. Yeah it has popped up which is great. You could always say there’s a bit of a trend out there and you could say it’s a good trend. There’s been bad trends before & they can only lead people down bad roads but this is a good one. David: I can say in the last 10 years that mental health has become more of an issue and I think thank God that I’m not the weird one that has these issues that everyone can help their mental health. Tommy: yeah mate people don’t want to feel like they’re on their own and they say I’m not the only one out here doing this or doing that and the more people that talk about it then the more people that can help each other and that’s really important as well no one should have to feel like they’re on their own and battling it. We all want to be able to get around each other and help each other out David: and lastly what does the future hold for Tommy Herschel? What gets you up in the morning? Tommy: yeah that’s a good question mate. I’m halfway through building a big app. You know there’s a lot of people using phones and if they use them in the right way I’ve got a list of tools and skills that people can use that can help them with their mental health just daily things so that’s a big one that I’m working on. I want to be able to continue doing a lot of the workshops that I’m doing but I’m looking forward to having a bit of balance so I can be around for my own kids and my wife but mate just continue to do the work but do it really well. People say you gonna get bigger and it’s gonna go this and it’s gonna go that, we are doing a great job but we can do it better so let’s just do it better. You can do it bigger or we can do it better so I think mate that’s it for find your feet fill that legacy where it’s always there and at the end of their fingertips with the app and as well as that we’re out at classroom so we’re doing great work David: well thanks a lot for the interview Tommy and I’d like to learn more about your organisation and I’m sure I will and have a great day Tommy: mate I appreciate the time to be able to talk about the work because it’s important the more people that hear about it the better off, cause there might be somebody out there who listens & think I got things I could start to work on or I need to do this or I need to do that and that’s all because of legends like you who are brave enough to go you know what? I’ll talk about this I’ll bring this topic up and I’ll have a crack so I really really appreciate it mate. David: okay thanks a lot Tommy and thanks for your time and I’ll be in touch. Tommy: good on you ledge enjoy mate thank you David: Thanks for your time Tom. Tommy: no problem mate bye.