I’m climbing a big mountain and creating content to start a conversation about men’s mental health.

We need to start this conversation because every 60 minutes, 60 men die by suicide. Thats our fathers, our uncles, our cousins, our brothers. It’s us. These numbers make me angry. Death by suicide is preventable, with the right resources. I think this is because only real emotion we men are shown and told is acceptable for us to express is anger. We are expected to be stoic, unwavering forces of power and strength to provide. Yet looking at our suicide rates, something about this absolutely needs to change. We need to be able to talk about this.

I’ve been climbing mountains and trail running all over the world for the last 20 years. While I’ve achieved some incredible things, I’ve realized I’ve spent 20 years running from myself. I grew up without positive male role models–the only role models I had were the stoic masculine stereotypes society gives its young people. I thought I was supposed to be hard and tough and climb mountains and not have feelings. Internalizing this attitude at a young age meant I suffered far more from my own mind than from the world’s most formidable peaks. And it took me 20 years to realize it was within my power to do something about my own suffering.

Climbing mountains is an excellent metaphor for life. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and it’s about how you decide to respond. You have to put one foot in front of the other and find something in yourself to keep going. You can’t control the mountain or the weather, but you can control how you manage yourself. From personal experience, the stark reality is you need to learn to turn up for yourself, because no one is going to come and save you. Only you can do that.

It starts with taking responsibility for yourself. When you are responsible for yourself, looking after yourself, you can turn up for the people you love. Being able to meaningfully connect with those we love is an important aspect of being a man mental health.

Some of the main ways that i learnt to be responsible for myself was by doing 4 simple things: eat, sleep, exercise, and talk to mates. I could have alleviated a lot of the pain my younger self felt by doing these 4 things regularly. I want to encourage everyone to get on board with doing these basic things for their mental health and wellbeing. The reality is that most of us feel ‘not quite right’ at some stage of our lives, and having a simple framework to keep us putting one foot in front of the other when times get tough is a valuable habit to build.

Ultimately, my motivation for this epic Movember expedition is about dreaming big, chasing it, and going full send in what you believe in