Tell us about The Push-Up Challenge.
The Push-Up Challenge is Australia’s largest fitness-based mental health initiative. It’s free to take part, and encourages individuals to complete a set amount of push-ups over 25 days in June, to educate and raise awareness about mental health. The number of push-ups corresponds to the number of suicides in the previous year.
While The Push-Up Challenge is a fun way for Australians to connect with one another, get fit, and learn about mental health, it also gives participants the opportunity to raise funds for headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation, Lifeline Australia or The Push For Better Foundation. Since it began in 2017, it has motivated Australians to collectively complete over 400 million push-ups and raise over $16 million for mental health.
What inspired you to start The Push-Up Challenge?
In 2017, I was chatting with a few of my mates one day and we were all feeling quite unfit. We decided to set ourselves a challenge: 3,000 push-ups in a month to get our bodies back into shape and get our fitness back on track.
Word spread that we were doing this ‘challenge’ and more and more people became interested in getting involved. After about 30 people joined in, I decided to turn it into something more momentous, making it an annual ‘event’ with a bit of branding to spread the word.
Just over a year later, my life changed drastically when I found out I needed open heart surgery. For the first time, I experienced severe depression. I had no idea what was happening to me.
I started speaking to friends and family about what was happening to me and realised many people around me had trouble with their mental health at some stage in their lives but didn’t really talk about it. This is where my resolve changed – I made it my personal mission to educate myself about mental health. My eyes were opened to the large number of Australians who experience mental health issues in any given year, and the stigma surrounding it. As soon as I learnt this, it made perfect sense to make the push-up ‘challenge’ a mental health awareness drive and fundraiser – and things took off from there.
Tell us about your career and background.
My career background was a pretty typical one – at least at the beginning. I grew up in Melbourne, where I went to uni and studied engineering. In my first few engineering jobs I travelled a fair bit, and work eventually took me to Western Australia, which I now call home. I’ve worked in mining in WA for a few years, which is where my heart problems began and when The Push-Up Challenge was born.
In the third year of The Push-Up Challenge, I dropped back from full-time to part-time engineering so I could give more of my time to the Challenge. When I sit back and think about it, it’s amusing that my title has gone from ‘Study Lead’ to ‘Chief of Push-Ups’!
Describe a typical work day for you.
As with any day, it’s best to start a work day off with a bit of exercise. Out of push-up season I like to hit the beach as much as possible, particularly in these warmer months when the sun rises a little earlier. Board paddling or ski paddling is a great way to stretch the body and clear the mind. Once at Push-Up HQ my typical day includes supporting the team with direction and problem solving and meeting with stakeholders virtually from all over Australia.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Rip in and hold on. There’s a reasonable chance it’s going to be an emotional ride. Remind yourself, if what you are doing is easy, then everyone would be doing it. Starting a new venture is hard, but you can succeed if you are resilient and stick with it. The trick is to be stubborn enough to keep going, but wise enough to know when to stop. Good luck!
What’s next for you, and The Push-Up Challenge?
At Push-Up HQ we absolutely love the event, we love the heart-warming stories that we hear from participants and we love the difference that we are making to the Australian community. We want to make the event bigger and better and reach even more people around the country. Look out for more from The Push-Up Challenge in 2022!
