It's Time For A Wake Up Call

living it on your terms. You ready to wake up and thrive? Let's go. No. I don't think I believed it. Yeah.

Wasn't an indulgement for us cuz we saw in you what you weren't willing to see within yourself. Yeah. Welcome to our first episode of a wakeup call. I'm Lane Beley and sitting opposite me here is my dear friend, my business partner, my soulmate, um, one of my greatest inspirations, Tess Brower. Hello everyone. What a way to start. Yeah, what you just heard was a very honest, raw, and real conversation. The kind of conversations that you and I love having. Um because we are doing this work knowing that as we get to know ourselves and grow ourselves, we can help people heal themselves. And we're always looking for that inner healing. Yeah. And it was a wakeup call that caused my inner healing. Yeah. And we realize that so many people are having these mini wakeup calls all the time if they're willing to listen to it or it's a huge wakeup call like a injury um illness for you, someone dying or just something significant in their lives happening that they realize that there's got to be a better way. So a wakeup call is about helping you find a better way because it helped us. Can you take us back to that conversation and the wakeup call that you experienced and and the impact that that had on your life at the time?

want to know more, you can read our book. listening to that audio that was played just then is a moment that was only captured maybe a few months ago and when I hear that I go instantly back to that moment in your kitchen and I met Lane when I was the head of partnerships at Virgin Australia and I had a job that was the key to the city and like weekends for me were coaches boxes front row fashion festivals signing multi-million dollar sponsorship deals or orchestrating the back end of that of like of really big significant business movements that I was privy to and and then I walk into your office seeking sponsorship for my charity foundation called Aim for the Stars. Tiny little charity. Have a few flights for a few girls coming from around the country. You'll save us thousands. Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of negotiating the Australian Football League sponsorship with Virgin Australia. But hey, and Lane walked in and the last thing you wanted to do is drop that to come and meet me. I was used to it. It was called a CEO special. But I God bless good CEOs. Yeah. And at that point I was fine. I was the corporate warrior who could do anything. And I remember you walked into the office and you just lit up my life. It was like this angel had just walked in. Not like and I had met a lot of significant business people, sportsmen, superstars, all the rest of it. But something clicked with you and I went click. I wish I could do that. Yeah. Lane can't click. You'll get to know this about her. And we all you wanted was a few flights, but what you were really doing was helping people live their dreams and giving them their first check because you someone gave you your first check. $3,000 is all it took to change my life. And I just wanted to shortcut the struggle and help women do the same. Yeah. And someone said to you, "I believe in you. Go get that world title." Yeah. Little did I know that I would be that person on the hands and knees asking you for help. Yeah. But I I didn't actually ask you for help. I was like I feel like cuz I met Holly Ransom as well through Virgin. I booked her for to host Richard Branson at a Virgin event. So I've got pretty significant business women that I was connected to. But we all just formed a really good friendship on your kitchen table. I sat there and I thought my life is absolutely over. So, I had moved to

feeling in my hands, not remembering how to turn my computer on and off, cracking headaches, falling asleep all of the time. like nor a normal person who wasn't in absolute burnout and a need to prove themselves would take themselves to hospital. But I ignored and suppressed all of those symptoms until I couldn't go on anymore and went to Dr. Google to diagnose yourself. Yeah. And how did that go? What did what did Dr. Google do? Anxiety. Go home. And I knew something was wrong. And I meet so many people who intuitively know that something's wrong in their lives, but they're too afraid to go there. So our intent is about a mental moment in your life where you go, I can't do this anymore. I remember lying there at the time. So I got readmitted to hospital cuz it was obvious it wasn't MS and it wasn't anxiety. It was something more serious. And I spent a week in hospital ignoring my family. You were in Geneva though? Yeah. I was ignoring them because I didn't want to tell them what was wrong with me. Why not? Shame. Shame of what? like um shame that I had ruined my life and that I was coming home and I hadn't achieved anything that I set out to and I wanted to bury my head in sand and make it all go away. So just through not communicating with your family. Yeah, it was the easiest way and I can relate to moments in my life where I have done that just on an every day cuz I don't want to face what was going on in my life. And you'll hear our stories today. And as listeners, we encourage you to focus on our similarities, not our differences. And that is the way you'll get the most out of this podcast is when we talk about trauma, injury, illness, world titles. Just relate these back to big moments in your life or um big challenges, big roller coaster rides. Yeah. Whatever that may be. because that truly is our intent is that you learn with us and through us so that you don't land up in a hospital bed in Geneva isolated alone and getting lumber punctured by junior French doctors. A story we will go to another time. Were they good-looking? I don't remember. I'm sure you don't. I just know that they missed my spinal cord and had to go again. Anyways, for me, I was ignoring those tiny little everyday moments probably my whole life. And as I've done this work, I've unpacked that I have been ignoring them my whole life. Fortunately or unfortunately enough, it resulted me flat on my back in Geneva. And I remember being wheeled down to the radiologist for one more MRI. And the French speakaking radiologist said to me, "You hit your head?" And I said, "Yeah, I hit my head. I hit my head." And he said, "You have a spinal cord injury. You need emergency surgery." And I that was the whole world just fell apart underneath me and they gave my mom 24 hours to get over to Switzerland. Um rolled me in for one surgery. I was in hospital for a couple of weeks and went home to Australia for what I thought was a 6 to 8 week recovery but nothing was improving. In fact, I was getting worse and I went back for emergency surgery and woke up in a spinal ward.

Exactly. Yeah. And that was 3 months in a spinal ward. And I walked out at 32 years of age. But yeah, I walked out at 32 years of age with no home, no car, no money, no clothes, nothing. And under psychiatric care of my parents whilst all of my friends were getting married, second babies, buying houses, buying houses, all of that pivotal moments of life. And there I was sitting on the floor with no labels. I was no longer test from virgin. I had I didn't even have a phone. It was absolute rock bottom. And I thought to myself, my life is over. The funny thing about that moment is I still meet people who are in have all of those things that I wanted, the car, the the home, the marriage, the kids, and they still feel trapped or lost or isolated in there. So, I feel like I relate to those people so much cuz I had to rebuild my way out. M so when I take myself back to that kitchen to book club, I said to you guys as part of my therapy, I was like maybe I could host a workshop with some of the stuff that I've learned and you guys indulged me in that. I don't know whether you got anything out of it that I remember anything out of indulging you to host help host this workshop. Oh my gosh, you brought so much value and so much gold. Yeah. Yeah. And you brought skill sets that I didn't have that I really desperately needed. But what was really interesting about that conversation is we had to help you get out of your self-doubt that you could actually possibly do this because prior to that, you were defined by all the labels of your job. Well, also of your discharging out of a hospital. Like you presented me with this long list of ailments that you were going to be living with for the rest of your life. And I know Holly who has much greater compassion than I do. She received it and went, "Oh my god, like you poor thing." And gave you a big hug. And how did I respond? Well, this is a bunch of If you believe this, it will ruin your life. Now, the truth is is I knew that if I believed this, not at a like a medical diagnosis is a diagnosis, and you can there's medical miracles all the time, but this is these are the things that your body is presented with. Now I still am presented with some of those things, a lot of them actually. But you were saying if I subscribe to these then they will destroy your life. If you believe that you are broken and you know if you allow yourself to be defined by this list of diagnosis then your life is over. Yeah. And you said to me, I've got a workshop in two weeks. I haven't sold any tickets. Well, I've sold a few. No, you had put it on sale. I have sold a few. I'm sure I had. You'd privately maybe sold a few tables, but it wasn't online yet. No, it wasn't.

you don't this is not test from Virgin anymore." And you said, "No, you are." And that was the $3,000 check in. But it was greater than that. you put out your hand and said, "No, I believe in you. I see something in you that you don't see in yourself and I trust you. I got you." And that was the greatest wakeup call that I could have in that moment was like, even when you can't believe it in yourself, someone believes it in you. And that's what you did for me. And here we are, a book deal later, inspiring thousands of lives, a business that works with some of the biggest businesses in Australia and the world, helping people help themselves. And I just think about that moment like what if you didn't put out your hand? Yeah. Who would I be? But I remember in that you were pretty broken at that time, too. I was a little depleted. Yes. And in that workshop, now that I reflect on it, I did a lifestock take of your life. Yep. Yeah. Right before that workshop. Actually, no. After the workshop, because when we hosted that workshop, I mean, I saw you standing at the front of that room helping people be centered and grounded. And I just saw someone that was so fragile standing out that front of that room and so in need of the the work in which she was sharing with others, herself. And I just wanted to wrap you up, but I realized that wasn't going to support your growth. No. Handing out you like holding you holding the space for you to grow and holding the space for you to be challenged. Um presenting a safe space for you to step into and go, I believe in you. I see you. You've got this. Um it's time for you to step out of that cocoon and that belief that everything's broken and your life's and nothing's worth living for. And stepping into the test that I saw within you. um that filled me with a sense of pride and satisfaction because I saw that that was your moment where you're like, "Okay, I'm I no longer subscribe to this. I have to keep moving forward." And I acknowledge that there's aspects of me that aren't functioning properly, but I'm going to keep going. Yeah. And I felt like you reflected to me the people that I needed in my life at that point. And I had a big medical team. I was going to 15 different appointments a week from like OT, physio, neurologists. I was in hydro pools with you name it, you were doing it. I was doing it. And then and I was also in other modalities, kinesiology, psycho psychotherapy. My psychiatrist is still my psychiatrist today. I was medicated. I was all of these things to get better, but I wasn't actually in practice of that. I was just the human doing of all of those things. And when you said that to me, I was like, I need to cut all my therapists down. I need to find one or two and just focus on that cuz I was so relentless in trying to fix myself. And what you said is, you're not broken. Yes. You just need to find yourself again. Yeah. And that's exactly what you helped me do the week after where is we went back into the office. Funny how the world works, isn't it? you went back into the office and you went, "All right, I'm, you know, really good at strategy and structure. Let's get a stock take of where you're at within your life." And here I was traveling the world, 180 days a year, giving over 65 talks a year around the world about sustainable success and how sustainable it wasn't for me. Yeah.

like on a surf tour and we worked out that you were busier now than you were on a winning reason I retired was to surf more spend more time at home be with Kirk more often probably in that order and I just wasn't doing that in actual fact I was more burnt out more exhausted and more depleted And I had convinced myself that that was okay and that I was fine. Yeah. And it was Kirk that pulled you up on it. Yeah. Second to me. You often find that wakeup calls don't just come from one person. It's like once the door opens, you start seeing it everywhere.

do you have the content? I said yeah I do but you know what writing doesn't light me up. So what else do you want to do? Let's build an online course. I wanted to digitize myself and I wanted to expand the message and help people help themselves. So that has culminated in what we call awake academy and empowering a million people to thrive to help themselves and uh and make the world a happier, healthier, more purposeful place. So the beauty of awake academy and what we want to our intent to bring you is lived and learned life experiences backed by science and tools. Now I'm an A type so of course I had to learn the science and the research behind everything to give you guys the right tools and the tips. So, I'm now a practitioner of positive psychology and well-being, which is really important because it means that this stuff works and it's not People say to me, "What is the work?" Like, well, there's many different modalities that we'll pull into this podcast and what we do in our courses, but part of the work is that you have accountability partners. So, consider this podcast part of your accountability partners, part of your dream team that can give you that little bit of inspiration that you need at any moment in your day. Because let's face it, we're all going through our own wakeup calls every single day. And then the last bit is tools. Yes. So, let's talk about those tools, shall we?

we work with executives and someone said to me the other day, I have a fear of missing out in my own life because I'm not present in it. And that resonates so deeply. So wherever you are at, what is the similarity in that and do a live stock tape? So we'll provide these in the show notes, but we like to say around health, family or friends, like how are you connecting, your mindset, your energy, and your work. Yeah, they're the five areas of your life that you need to take a stop take in. And what we mean by that is rate each one of those areas out of 10. 10 being the highest, one being the lowest. So when you think about your relationship with family and friends, do you even remember who they are? Do you make the time for them? When it comes to your energy, do you rely present with them as well? Exactly. When it comes to your energy, do you rely on stimulants to wake you up and sedatives to get back to sleep every night? I've been there. When it comes to work, are you all work and no play? Are you work at home? Are you work at work? Are you work on weekends? That's a zero. When it comes to your health and wellbeing, are you the kind of person that just manages to get through the week or, you know, just manages to get through to that next holiday and then you crash and burn on the first week of the holiday, you recover on the second week and come home and need a holiday from the holiday? That's I'm exhausted just listening to you. I need a holiday. So take an honest stock take of where you're at in these five areas of your life because it's through that honesty and that connection that's where you're empowered to now instigate change. Yeah.

into the show notes. No, I'm quitting. Um, the winner is actually energy. If you don't have the energy to do all the things that you love, then you can't have you can't maintain a positive mindset. You can't prioritize your health and wellbeing. You don't show up and be present for your friends and family. You're exhausted and depleted at work as well. So, your energy is the one thing that you really need to start prioritizing. And there's three really simple things that you can do to boost your energy that you can actually start doing right now. And what are they?

know, if you just can't concentrate and focus, drink more water. It helps you eliminate toxins, increase your cognitive function, and actually lose weight because it suppresses your appetite. Yeah. And you're walking all the time, going to the toilet. Exactly. You're moving a whole lot more now. I um I'm still in my coffee era, of course. I'm waking up very early with a toddler. So, I have a glass of water with a cracked bit of um Celtic sea salt and then I have a coffee. So, that's my commitment to myself. Good job. So, that's all right. Number two. Number two is sunshine. I love sunshine. Get a little bit more sunshine onto your skin. It is a mood booster. It lowers your blood pressure. It elevates your happiness and your serotonin, all your bliss chemicals. And it just makes you feel good. I mean, look, I get enough sunshine. You do. It's an occupational hazard. And for the people saying if it's raining right now, just get outside, take a few deep breaths of fresh air. We like to say it's like charging your battery. Yeah, I'm solar powered. Yeah. What's number three? Look, this is a really popular uh conversation right now. But number three in my eyes, which has had the most positive impact in my life, is protein. Especially going through menopause, I was tired of being tired. And I realized that I was depleting my body of protein, which fuels my energy, fuels my cells, fuels my muscles, and helps me keep moving and keep moving for longer and being stronger. So protein in our diet for me comes from having protein smoothies in the morning from plant-based protein powders. I'm not a massive fan of whey, but yeah, up to you. Do your own protein. Do you do you eggs, um, lean meats, sustainably caught fish, vegetable proteins like tempeh and tofu, but just getting more protein into your diet because I found, especially as being an athlete, but also out of being an athlete now, is that if I have You're now a corporate athlete, by the way, as much as you don't want to be. I don't speak corporate. I don't dress corporate. I don't even understand corporate. I've worked maybe a day in an office in my life. And that's for a reason. I'm unemployable by choice. But when if you have a like a sugar crash or a craving or an energy crash at like 2 or 3:00 in the afternoon, that's an indication that you have deprived yourself of protein first thing in the morning. So, you used to fast. What have you noticed is the difference between eating protein now versus fasting? Because there's a lot of conflicting info out there. There is. And look, what have you noticed in yourself? I'm a massive fan of Dr. Stacy Sim, so I've learned a lot of this through her scientific research. So, I haven't just based it on my own self, but coming from me, I have noticed that I have more sustained energy. I can now train and surf on the same day and not feel completely depleted and exhausted. So, that for me was mind-blowing cuz I remember that's huge cuz I thought you I remember you saying to me, I think it's just menopause and I'm just going to have to surrender to this. I'm so tired of being tired. That's that's where I got to. And then I incorporated more protein into my diet. Make sure I had regular sunshine breaks because we work best in 90 minutes sprints or intervals. And then drinking at least 2 lers of water a day. They are the three main principles to boosting our energy.

and drinking more water or incorporating more protein in your into your diet cuz there's a lot of planning and I I watch you go through that as well. Choose your hard. Choose your hard cuz it is harder being stuck. It's harder being sick, tired, overwhelmed, depleted. Yeah. Crashing and lost in your own world. So, we'll provide this toolkit in the show notes as well. And the benefit of this podcast is we're going to bring in the professionals. We're going to learn with you. So, we're going to do different modalities and learn about these wakeup calls. Everyone from um Stacy Sims to learn about menopause and the way that the body works to our therapists. Oh, yes. We're going to bring in our husbands. Um we're going to bring in a psychic and all of this to learn what the wakeup call is and what the message is cuz we all have them. And life is a gift. It either happens for you or to you. and we are choosing that it happens for us to learn and to grow cuz we're all humans having this wild experience. Thank you for opening up and being raw and being vulnerable and being so courageous and sharing the pain because it's our imperfections that connect us. It's our pain and our struggles that connect us. And I'm just so grateful to be sharing that journey and that adventure with you. Yeah. Well, that pain, a problem shared is a problem hard. And that pain led me to believe that I am worthy and and I am worthy to sit here with a seventime world champion and share my story cuz I I know that it relates to everyone as does yours. So we're going to dig into yours in the episodes to come. So on that note, you've got the toolkit, you've got the livestock tape, but I want to encourage you guys to be honest with yourself and call a loved one and have a wakeup call moment with them. What was something that was reflected back to you in today's episode that you want to share? Maybe it's a shame story. Maybe it's a epiphany or an aha moment that you got from today's episode cuz the number one predictor of happiness and longevity is connection with others. But deep soulful connection. So call a loved one and have a conversation. That's my tip today. What's yours? Well, look, we provide a bucketload of tools and tips in our book and in our courses and we did just now. Yeah, we did. And and if I was to and if I was to be asked, what's the one habit or tip that I would encourage everyone to do and

have very little compassion for myself, especially when I either hurt myself or screw up. And that now results in heightened levels of anxiety, increased levels of depression or moments of depression. And I retreat from the world and that's not who I am and it's not who I want to be. No. So, my number one habit for when I'm going through troublesome times or when I'm going through moments where I can't make sense of it is drawing my emotions. Now, I have one here. Picasso, what have you got? Yeah, I'm no Picasso, but this is a recent drawing from an experience that I had in April 2025 where I was competing at a surf event for my local board riders club, Freshwater Board Riders, and I performed extremely poorly. And we talked a little bit in this episode about expectations. And I put enormous amount of expectations on myself to perform at the best of my ability because I expect myself to to score the most amount of points. Well, you're a world champion. Of course you should. I mean, you're a seven time world champion. Exactly. There are no seven There actually are no other seven time world champions competing. No, there is not. Actually, I don't know if there was any other world champions competing. Anyway, um, and instead of listening and tuning in to what my intuition was telling me, I overrote it, pardon the pun, but I overrode it and I started going down into this rabbit hole. So, when I came up, long story short, I performed very badly. I scored three points out of 10 in both heats. Just did not What's your average score, Ryan? Six to seven, sometimes eight. So, I have the expectation to score well. I then went into a spiraling state of depression because I started telling myself all of these really crazy stories about how I'd let my team down, how I let myself down, how they're never going to want me to surf for them again. And instead of just staying stuck in the narrative and tuning into this radio station that was increasingly putting me under pressure and and putting me into a dark place, I grabbed my crayons and I just drew everything that was in pain. And once I drew my thoughts, it actually helped me make sense of them. I actually had some clarity around them as opposed to just staying stuck in the severity of them and magnifying them and and taking the time to unpack them makes allows me to go, "Oh, yeah, that's exactly what was going on. I was overthinking it. I put pressure on myself, which then makes me feel brokenhearted and now the team are never going to want me to have a next time." Like, am I ever going to have a next time? And then once I did that, I then felt detached from them. Yeah. I was able to go, "Oh, okay. That is how I feel. So, how do I want to feel now?" And what is beautiful about what you've done there is you've stopped your brain rethinking this over and over and over again. And you've you've paused those neural pathways to recreate new ones. So, what is your new story? Because it is equally as important to get out the bad and then rewire your brain cuz your brain can change at any time. So, what did you do? What was your new story? My new story as opposed to in the old story was uh I'm not good enough. The new story is I literally just chose the wrong board. And my intuition was saying, "Ride the whiteboard. Ride the whiteboard." I'm like, "No, I want to ride the blackboard. The blackboard goes way better." But no, you just needed to ride the white board. And so instead of telling myself like, "Oh, gee, you used to have it. Wow." You know, seven times world champion. That sounded like a fluke. You know, what happened to you? So, I've got some homework for you. Can you redraw the new story? Oh, yes. Because it is equally as important to reframe positivity because now you'll look for the positive everywhere. If that's just all that's stuck in your brain, that's all you'll see next time just because your brain has created that pathway. Okay. So, we'll bring it back. Yeah. In later episodes. In later episodes, we'll hear how you've rewired it and then you'll start seeing it. It's like red elephant. Don't look Don't see a red elephant. I can I can only see a red elephant right now. All right. Okay. Thank you for sharing that tool. It is a wonderful practice for you to do with kids, with loved ones, at the family dinner table. We do it all the time when we are in burnout. And I know certainly for me when I was broken, it was so hard for me to find a way out. And I couldn't believe that these tools that we deliver and teach every day, they were so simple, but I just didn't believe that I could do them. and it would make any change. Is that because we over complicate health and wellbeing?

you can do for yourself right now?" It gives you agency and control in that moment. And I feel like that has been the biggest lesson in this journey. And that story that you've heard is I was corporate burntout test who went from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to back to back to back because I had to keep going. Productivity was my performance indicator, not how I was showing up every day. And when I made that nuance, I believed that taking rest, prioritizing myself, drinking more water, these tiny tools that we're teaching you, I believed that they could make a difference in my life. And I went and did them and they did. And I was like, is it that simple? But the truth is, it's all layered on top of each other. It's a sum of all parts. But it's there is nothing better than a calm and quiet mind. So when you are fuzzy, these tools are your interceptor to go out, to recharge, to come back more clear, more purposeful, and less in fight or flight. And from that, when you do these tools, you show up more connected. You're more present with loved ones. You're able to sit at the table without thinking about the million lists, emails, and to-do lists. And yes, you can still go there, but you're able to come back to the laughter and the joy in the moment. And that to me is the success of this work is being more present, calm and connected in yourself. And yes, a sunshine break can do that for you. 100%. I feel that the the point I wish to add to that as well is doing these things is one thing. And it's the action that will establish the change, but it's actually the connection with how it makes you feel that will inspire you to keep doing it. M so going and drinking more water don't just drink it haphazardly or or mindlessly like drink it with intention and notice how it makes you feel because if you feel an improvement that's actually what will inspire you to keep going. Yeah. And if you feel an improvement after taking that 5 minute sunshine break that'll inspire you to take another one tomorrow. So these tools may seem really simple but they actually really powerful.

that matters right now is me and my energy. And then I can lead with love and, you know, run a successful business from a really grounded sense of energy. And it does flow. Yeah. So, be the chief energy officer of your life. And here's some tools to help you. One thing I'd like to add is that we're human beings, too. Really? Yeah. We're human beings, not human beings. Exactly. But we don't always get it right. You know, we have the toolkit and it helps, but sometimes we just neglect ourselves and neglect that and forget that these things are qu are quite simple. So, here's the toolkit that can help you get the best out of your life. From us to you, we trust that you enjoyed today's episode. If you have any questions, please email us at wakeupakeacademy.com.au AU and we will see you in the next episode or in the Awake Collective Toodles. Bye. And that's a wrap for today's episode. We'll be dropping a new one every Monday. If you want to hear more about us, check us out on awakeacademy.com.au or leave a comment or a review cuz it really does help us. And in the show notes is everything you learned today. And if you want to work with us more, join us at the Awake Collective. The link is in the show notes. We'll see you next week. Toodles.