Craig Semple – The Detective Who Investigated His Own Recovery: PTSD, Resilience & Mental Health

Soon as you go through the back door of that house,

if you're confronted with a threat,

do not hesitate to pull the trigger.

You hesitate, you are dead.

My marriage couldn't take any more of it.

My marriage broke down. Then I attempted to my life.

Ended up in a hospital emergency ward.

A lot of people don't get a second chance.

When they try to take the life,

I did and I've taken it. And I've done something with it.

And what I decided to do from that moment

on was to put my old investigator's

hat on and treat my recovery like it was an old police investigation.

Welcome to From the Ground Up Show.

Honest conversations with people who have built their lives,

careers, and businesses with heart,

hands, and hustle. Your host, Erick Loden,

acquired and scaled his family's roofing company,

growing annual revenue more than eightfold and operating profit about

15 fold before choosing an internal sale and retiring from the business at 37.

Join Erick and his guests for the hard-earned lessons behind real success.

Today, this is gonna be a a fun and a unique show.

~ the guest I have today spent twenty-five years with the New South Wales Police

Force

you

in Australia. He rose to the rank of detective sergeant,

working homicide investigations,

drug

operations, and outlaw motorcycle gang cases.

After years of operating in high pressure environments,

Craig Semple's policing career ended with a psychological injury,

a turning point that launched an entirely new mission.

Since twenty fifteen, he has used both his professional experience and

you

personal recovery to help tens of thousands of people build mental resilience,

improve workplace mental health,

and perform under pressure without breaking.

He is the founder of Mentality Plus,

an accredited mental health first aid instructor,

a former ambassador and presenter for the Black Dog Institute,

and the author of two books The Cop Who Fell to Earth and Getting Back Up Again.

Craig Simple, welcome to From the Ground Up Show.

Erick, thank you very much for the invitation mate,

it's very nice to meet you.

Yeah, I'm excited to hear all about your career,

~ your books and what you're doing now.

But we like to start every show just getting to know you a little bit,

learning about you as much as we can.

So can you take us clear back to the beginning and tell us a little

bit about your childhood and what it was that shaped you into the person you became?

Yeah, look, it's well my childhood was a long time ago 57 shortly.

So but it was I had a Pretty blessed childhood really I I Wouldn't say that

as a kid I've ever faced any real adversity other than the usual,

you know occasional bullying at school and those sorts of things but but

me and my brother and my sister really got through life without

any major challenges and

We were raised in a place called Lake Macquarie,

which is where I am back living here again now after 30 years away.

But Lake Macquarie is the largest coastal saltwater lake in the southern hemisphere.

that was my backyard. And we had heaps and heaps of bushland that we were brought

up on as well. So basically my childhood was with my brother

and all our neighborhood mates running around in the bush.

you know, making our own makeshift weapons,

our bows and arrows and all that sort of stuff you do as a kid,

slingshots and fighting around wars in the bush.

And a big part of my childhood too,

I had a real passion for fishing.

I loved fishing immensely. So my fondest memories of my childhood

was strapping a fishing rod or my spear gun to my push bike and riding down through

the bush. And, you know, we'd be going for 20 minutes or so to

get to the waterfront.

and they'll be out on the water all day fishing and spearfishing

and things like that. So I was pretty lucky.

And also not only do we have the lake there,

but with all the beaches are there as well.

So I was served a lot when I was a kid.

And so, you know, it was pretty idyllic really.

Parents for me, look,

my dad was alcoholic and he did

a lot to provide

you know, all the financial support and all the things that you know,

needed to sustain us, good education,

all that sort of thing. But I wouldn't say he was really there as

a father figure for me. But one of the,

my mum was very, very solid. She was,

she's always been very, I've been close to her,

but I do a lot of work in male audiences,

like male dominated industries,

like construction and mining. And I often say to people,

particularly blokes that you don't have to be someone's father to

be their father figure and my father figure who filled that role for me

in lieu of my dad was my pop so it was a grandfather on my mum's and

he was the president of Ironworkers Union here in which the steelworks back

in the 80s, 60s, 70s, 80s was massive here in New South Wales where

I live in Newcastle.

So he got me my first job when I left high school,

which was a labor at the BHP Steelworks here.

And I often talk about this in construction and mining industries as such.

That opportunity as a kid, just leaving school to go and work in a hot,

hard, dirty industry like the Steelworks was,

it really gave me an appreciation for what hot,

hard, dirty work was all about.

And that sort of set me up to appreciate the career that I eventually went into

so much more.

which was the New South Wales Police Force.

leading up to that time, as in high school,

etc., I wasn't someone who academically did great.

School wasn't necessarily the greatest place for me.

It certainly wasn't the last two years.

When I hit those later teenage years,

the social side of it was really,

I loved it. I had a steady girlfriend over that period of time as well.

and I really enjoyed those for years but didn't matter how hard I studied.

I just couldn't crack through with the academic side of it.

my actual career goal through high school is I wanted

to be a marine biologist because I just love the ocean so much.

Things took a dramatic turn in a different direction at some point.

So that's a bit about my childhood and what we did growing up.

My brother and I are still very,

very close. He joined the police force too,

which you might touch on later,

but he and I did a lot of stuff running around the bush

and knocking ourselves around a lot.

But that was a time where parents felt much more comfortable letting their kids roam

free. We didn't have video games and telephones,

so we just made our own fun. And it was so much more creative,

so much more risk-taking.

All the good stuff that really

builds you and shapes you from childhood into being an adult.

We had all that in Spades, mate.

It was really cool.

I'm a little envious of the spear hunting there that or spear fishing.

that's something I'd like to do a little bit more of.

That's a lot of fun.

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But you you mentioned that your grandfather got you a job in steel work prior

to becoming a police officer. Did you have any other jobs as you were finding kind

of your career path and where you would eventually land?

That was a primary one. When I was in high school,

he also got me work at some big factories around the Newcastle area.

Phillips was a brand of light bulb and they had a massive factory here

in Newcastle where they do all the light bulbs and glass work.

And so I'd go in my school holidays.

So we'd have six weeks over the Christmas break,

six weeks holidays. And I'd spend my Christmas holidays in

the steelworks with overalls.

getting into all the machines and cleaning out all the broken glass

and getting it ready because they do the Shutdown and and fix all

the machines up during that period.

It was horrible work. I was covered in kerosene all the time and and

and turps and getting in and getting cut Scratches and everything from

all broken glass and infections But I didn't care because I was getting some really

good money during that school break and I could go and take my girlfriend

out for the dinners and cheap dinners

And movies and stuff like that.

So yeah, I did all that sort of work.

So I had plenty exposure to the industry but But definitely the steelworks

was a big one for me they they even tried to so I worked there for

I Would have joined the police force earlier,

but my age I needed to I need to fill some time in for a while before

I could join so

working the steelworks that gave me a real appreciation for that sort

of work because You know One of the things I found in industry working there.

There were some guys that have worked in that same Steel plant and

I'm talking it was a massive steelworks.

It was the hundreds of acres of just full it was it's huge and ~ and some

of these guys has been working there for their whole lives,

you know 40 years and and more and

And I really noticed it as a young bloke that I was wondering

why they're always looking at their watches all the time.

And after a while I realized it was,

and as soon as the minute ticked over to their smoko,

so their morning tea break or their lunch break,

it was bang, tools down, let's go.

So that's all they were doing.

It was just like watching their watch,

when's my next break? When's my next break?

When am I knocking off? And I thought,

I never want to have a career.

Where I'm constantly looking for when I can stop work where

Mm.

You know you you will away the hours of your day in your life waiting

for your next break I never wanted to have a career like that and they actually when

I joined the police force the steelworks offered me a pretty good job

on the staff there and I end up I turned it down and it was

I was really appreciative of the offer but There's no way in the world.

I would have stuck with it and in the end you know with

the economy and everything's gone on in Australia over the years.

Industry's slowly being shut down over here,

which is a real shame, and gone offshore.

And eventually the steelworks closed anyway,

so probably lucky

Mm.

I did choose.

you mentioned that ~ you kind of worked that job longer than you would have liked

while you were killing time and becoming old enough to go into law enforcement.

when was it that you initially decided you wanted to pursue a career

in law enforcement?

It's sort of it was a bit of a journey actually because my grandfather

my pop from the steelworks he He often recommended to me joining

the police force even in my high school years I'm pretty tall like a

six foot two and Back then I was pretty lanky.

I didn't see myself as a real tough guy though back then it was I Wasn't

a naturally aggressive sort of person violence wasn't something that interested

me at all. I wasn't a fighter

So it sort of I didn't jump straight into it I gave it thought and

I always listened to him very like intensely when he was giving advice

he paid attention and he had a lot of connections in government over here

at that time and he could have easily slipped me in but What by the time

I did make the decision I wanted to do it on my own terms Without any

any help or assistance. I wanted wanted this to be my my achievement

but the final step was

~ one of my last girlfriends in high school her Her brother-in-law

was a detective in the police force,

~ where we lived and I became quite good mates with him Because he loved fishing

etc as well When I was old enough he would take me to the pub With with

his workmates after they finished their work and and i'd have a few beers with them

and just sitting around and listening to these like war horses of police,

law enforcement

telling stories about what they'd just done that day and other stories

and it was just so I thought I just want to be a part of this it sounded

so exciting and so amazing that that was the final thing for me I thought this

is definitely the job for me it was it really appealed to me as something that would

break my shackles open the world up to things that I've never experienced before

and so I jumped in and

put my application in and away we went.

I I understand you rose to the rank of detective relatively quickly in

in only about four years. What was it that helped you advance through

the force so quickly?

I think opportunity was probably the main one for me.

was because the first station they sent me to was a place called Redfern in Sydney.

And so it's about two hours away from where I was brought up.

And Redfern in the inner city of Sydney.

So there was a few pretty tough patrols back.

You've probably heard of King's Cross in Sydney.

was back then was a drug capital of Australia.

But Redfern

had a lot of racial issues. So we had a lot of indigenous population.

Police had a real long history of conflict.

And so here I was getting thrown right into that bonfire of racial tension.

Plus there was a lot of poverty back then as well in that area.

A lot of unemployment, high rise housing,

public housing, provided by the government and cheap housing.

So we had housing commission towers that was sometimes 30 stories high

and they're just full of people who were,

there was a lot of desperation,

lot of drug addiction and things there too.

But you know, I couldn't have been sent to a better place to learn

the trade than Redfern because even though was one of the toughest patrols

in Australia to work as a cop,

that gave me the opportunity number one,

to toughen up real quick.

And number two build the confidence through constant exposure

to dangerous situations like like I was saying before for a bit of context You know,

I wasn't a someone I described as a tough guy when I was a kid But I soon learned

to be Through at Redfern. Yeah,

you put it this way. If you didn't learn to be tough,

you wouldn't survive it And that sort of fitted in with their workplace culture back

then too was there was an expectation that you'd be tough enough

to take everything and that sort of had complex

some issues with the mental health and wellbeing side of things later on as well.

But so it was opportunity really that helped me move up because working in a city,

you know, I could put my application into going to plain clothes

and I always looking for recruits into being detectives into

the criminal investigation branch.

And so I got accepted pretty quickly.

I was only in uniform for three years before I was accepted into plain clothes.

And then they sent me out into the city in a squad called the Anti-Theft Squad,

which is, for American viewers and listeners,

would be something akin to 21 Jump Street,

where you're just thrown in street clothes as young cops and sent

out to do undercover street level drug buys.

We were basically in the Anti-Theft Squad.

They sent me there so I could get some experience in playing clothes

and what it's like to work.

in that sort of environment with minimal supervision and basically what they

do is just like, here's the car keys,

you two, you're working together,

you've got the whole inner city of Sydney,

Kings Cross, Redfern, everywhere,

the rocks, it's all yours, just go out there and lock as many people up as you can.

And so we could go and target robberies,

could target drug dealing, breaking in as burglaries,

whatever we wanted.

just get out there and get amongst it.

So that was real fun, like wearing earrings and doing all that sort of things.

So that was a gram of teeth in that,

then went in to do some of the more protracted criminal investigations under some

pretty strict guidance and mentoring.

I know y you've investigated homicides,

drug crimes, motorcycle gangs,

suicides, and a a lot of traumatic events.

is there a case or experience that you could share with us that kind

of captures what that work was actually like?

Probably not one, there's probably many because there's so many different...

There's so many different types of work that I was involved in as

a patrol detective like if you go to the armed robbery squad You only work

on armed robberies if you go to the homicide squad you only work

on homicides where as a as a patrol level detective I was doing all

of that at different times

Mm.

and So there's so many different aspects of the drug work that I was doing

I had a real passion for drug work,

but if I was to try to encapsulate really the most meaningful type of

impact that that work had on me.

It was probably the whole idea of victim care is looking after the victims

of crime and I was only at Redfern for about five years and then I took

a country posting so it was a outback town somewhere between Sydney

and Adelaide which is so where I was working in Sydney for to give you

an idea it was like a ~ eight hour drive west out into the middle

of nowhere so everyone's probably seen

You know strain out back on movies etc.

So it was a little town with 3,000 people in it I was the only detective

of that police station and I was still cutting my teeth so I had

all that training but I was only just started the academic side

of my qualification attainment So I had a homicide out there And they hadn't

had a homicide out there for 15 years or more.

I can't remember how long it was a long time and here I was

two or three months that I was there,

bang, we got a homicide. And one of the things about that was that that

was the first homicide that I ever took charge of as a lead investigator.

Like I've worked on homicides in the past,

but only as one of the low level investigators.

Here I was, had one and I'm responsible for it.

And one of the things I learned about that was the responsibility that

That sort of work and my role as a detective investigating that murder.

My responsibility to the family who were left behind.

They had this beautiful family.

They'd had their son stolen. He was from Sydney actually.

He was working as a Jackaroo on a sheep station out there.

Pursuing his dreams. It was random attack.

had no idea. He never even met his attacker.

He got stabbed in the back with a big hunting knife from behind.

one night when he's out with his friends and it was just ~ such a senseless murder.

But his family, like all they had to hope for was justice.

That was it. Their son was stolen from them and that justice,

like I was responsible for pursuing that for them on their behalf.

And there's a massive weight of responsibility with things like that.

That's probably

That's probably one of the most profound jobs I've ever done,

not because of necessarily anything to do with the nature

of the investigation itself. It's more about what I learnt through that process

about how important it is, the responsibility it carries.

It's not just going out and locking up the crooks.

It's looking after other people as well,

all the way through. It's a lot of responsibility there.

Yeah. Yeah, I can only imagine the weight that rests on your shoulders when when

you're responsible for serving justice and doing it in an appropriate way.

I imagine there's a a lot of things like that that go along with law enforcement.

W what was your favorite part of being a police officer and what did

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Look, my favorite part, there's just so many aspects of that too.

I fell in love with that career right from the start.

How I thought I was going to be a marine biologist,

I've got no idea, mate, because the law enforcement,

I was basically born for it. I think part of

it was the camaraderie, especially,

and when I was talking about Redfern,

one of the toughest struggles in Australia,

why I was most happy there.

out of my whole career and I worked in some beautiful places on

the coastal areas and things but out of everywhere I worked that first five years

at Redfern in that hellhole of you all the stuff I described earlier some

of the happiest years of my life because you know one of the things I found

is the toughest places I've ever worked at that the bonds between your workmates

were way stronger so the camaraderie

I got a real good taste of that in those first five years which continued

on throughout the rest of the career as well.

But it's just when you're putting your life in other people's hands,

when you're putting trust at such incredible levels with your workmates,

the bonds are just insane. You really truly are brothers and sisters.

So that was a big draw card for me and probably the other one.

Was just literally the thrill of the hunt I just love being plugged into

the adrenaline socket of police work and I think that's one of the things that

I that may have sort of led me down that path of being a detective because You know,

I was talking about my childhood.

We go out hunting fishing all that sort of spearfishing Well being

an investigator is being a hunter you're hunting down bad people and

and I just loved that I Set my sights on a target

and methodically work it down until we got the arrests at the end of it.

And having the euphoria of a really big win,

the dopamine hit, everything goes from that.

So there's multiple sides to it.

But I think probably another one would be,

you know, the ability, law enforcement,

through the challenges that it presents,

gives you great opportunity to keep pushing your boundaries out,

to see what you're capable of.

Like in the military, soldiers,

when they get trained up, I've had two sons go through the military here

in Australia, and they get trained for war.

And eventually they get to a point where they're well trained,

but then they want to test themselves and get put into those environments

and have a chance to prove themselves and push those boundaries out.

It's similar in law enforcement.

So I always had the opportunity for personal and professional growth in that

job as well.

you talked a little bit there about kind of the the adrenaline,

the excitement, the the hunt of being a detective.

~ do you have any cases you could tell us about that really exemplify that?

and might convey some of the excitement that goes along with being on the hunt?

Yeah, look, uh, like it's many,

guess. look, I worked a lot of drug drug work,

one of the drug work I had a real passion for.

when I first started, um,

my police career, I was thrown in some real,

when, when they get recruits out of the police academy in the city back

in those days without any training,

because we weren't, we didn't have the mannerism of police.

hadn't sort of built that character where,

and we could be easily picked out.

So they pick us to, and they give us a

Handful of cash and sent us out to do drug buys in that street level and I'll I've

a real taste for that sort of work because of how exciting it was And

so that sort of followed me through as well,

but the drug work Became a little more personal about 10 years in

my career my brother as I said early he followed me in the police force

and He was only two weeks into his career and he got stabbed by a drug dealer

and nearly died and his work might as a

Two cops got stabbed off duty.

My brother was one and he's workmate and he died on the street ~ next

to my brother so Drug work became a lot more personal for me after that

But look The exciting ones there were so many different aspects to it a

lot of the bikey jobs I did we had a lot of lot of Especially the last

10 years my career we had I had a huge amount of dealings outlaw motorcycle gangs

and The bike gangs that we had here in Australia and you've got them over there

in America as well they're pretty pretty ruthless and The last command that

I worked at in in New South Wales in my career.

I was place called Coffs Harbour We had six individual bike gangs in

our one patch and nowhere else in Australia is there six bike gangs

in the one command because they

Normally you can't have that many different gangs without them being

at war with each other all the time.

Somehow it worked there. So I lived and breathed bikies.

Probably the last job of my entire career was the most exciting of

my whole career as well. It's the one that actually ended my career.

But that that bike gang, see the context behind this is in the city,

if I was working on gangsters in the city,

I could lock one up and go home.

They didn't know where I lived.

because it's sheer size of the place.

But in the

Mm-hmm.

regional areas I was working at,

basically my whole career after I left Redfirm was in regional areas,

know, country areas of the state.

But when you're working on bike gangs in those sort of areas,

they know where you live, they know what car you drive,

they knew where my wife worked,

where my kids went to school. So the dynamics were a lot different because

the potential

for repercussions or reprisals against us was quite high.

But that last bikey gang, know,

we had that last bikey job, we had telephones tapped,

so we were doing a lot of electronic surveillance.

We had their cars, houses bugged,

undercover operatives, like professional ones out in the,

doing massive drug buys for us and all the raids that went through it.

And we,

It was we were targeting one particular outlaw motorcycle gang chapter that said

25 members and They were on a recruitment drive at that time with that went violence

some of their their victims ended up life-threatening injuries someone

was eventually going to get killed and And I still remember I went

to I'd become quite manic in Wales doing my job by this time so I had

a lot of issues going on the background,

but I still remember going to my commander and say mate instead of just picking

out two or three of these guys what we normally do

target them, settle the whole thing down.

This time I've had enough, I just want to do one big job that covers the whole lot.

want a big extended long-term investigation where we target the whole chapter

and we lock up all 25 members at the back end of it and shut this thing down.

So and that's what we did. So it was was a really dangerous job.

There was a lot of excitement involved in it.

You know it wasn't just

Logistical investigation it got hands-on at times as well.

I got in physical fights with these guys at different times and there was

a lot of we did a lot of raids over that period of time and by this time

I felt myself I was pretty bulletproof and I was a bit careless with

my own Physical safety so I always made sure I was running point on every raid

we did with a sledgehammer first through the door on those forced entry raids and

And because I'd love the through I love the adrenaline hit from from that sort

of danger So there's a lot going on over that period of time.

But look at the end of the job.

We ~ We ended up rounding up about a hundred cops from all over

the state specialist tactical guys All the dog squads or everything and

we sent a hundred police out to do 13 raids on properties right across

all those all coordinated

operation and we ended up getting that big win.

It was one of the biggest organised crime investigations run in regional areas

in the state at that time. it was my last big major investigation

was probably my greatest achievement.

I imagine the the flip side of that excitement is that there is a a lot of danger,

a lot of stress involved. i emotionally difficult work having to deal with victims

and and dealing with the danger and the the the adrenaline and then the

the dump of that adrenaline. So how did you and your fellow officers process that

when when you're dealing with those extreme highs and lows and high stress?

~ one word alcohol literally it was we had a massive cult the drinking culture

in the police force back then and it's changed a lot now but the police force

I joined back in 1988 we had a Royal Commission of Police Corruption some years

later and it so to describe the culture back then as being loose would

be an understatement so it was a huge drinking culture so

But back then we had no psychological services,

so there was no real support there from a mental health perspective.

No one was even talking about mental health back then,

back in the 80s. You know, it's a long time ago now.

So we dealt with everything by going to the pub and having a beer or 20.

You know, it was just, it was a huge drinking culture and I'd sort of fallen

in with that culture as well. so I guess a lot of,

so there's two sides of that.

So the drinking culture, the negative aspects of it were,

can only imagine the impact on family members with so much alcohol consumption

and their loved ones hardly ever coming home till late at night

and things like that. And the physical toll it takes over a long period

of time when you're drinking excessively,

that's the negative side to it.

the positive side to it,

was fed into that camaraderie again.

was just that ability to go out,

get to know each other outside of work,

which is one of the things I think why we were happier because these days it's

a lot more sanitized, the workplace.

There's not, you know, the drinking's now definitely not encouraged,

probably the opposite. And so people just go straight home from work these days.

Cops go straight home from work and they don't get to know each other outside of the

the workplace and this applies

Mm.

to workplaces across all industries.

When you don't get to know each other,

if you only know each other at work and you know we've all got different ways

of doing things and you can butt heads a fair bit and that can cause a little

bit of interpersonal conflict in the workplace.

But the thing back in the old days when you go to pub with each other and have

a few beers you get to know each other outside of work too and even though

you might not like the way someone does things in the workplace

When you get to know them outside,

it's like, you know what? We've got so much in common.

And so that breaks down that interpersonal conflict.

So there were so many good aspects to that as well.

So, and we got to talk. And so when I'm going out and doing the med hall stuff these

days, it's, yeah, I really encourage people to go chasing a psychologist

if they've got some problems they really need to do a lot of work on.

But even just talking to a friend is often enough.

Mm.

So we would do that. So that's how mostly how we coped.

Most of us never went home and told our wives,

partners what we did at work. I certainly didn't.

I never went home and shared anything I did in the workplace at home.

And that caused problems as well because when your spouse doesn't understand

what you do every day, it's sort of...

it makes it hard for them to understand why your behaviors end up becoming

the way they do.

Mm-hmm.

And also, as I said before, law enforcement gives you that massive opportunity

for growth. and sometimes if you're not going on that journey together

as in a marriage, for instance,

then you can sort of, one person grows one way and the other one grows

a different way and you can sort of have that divergence and marriage problems.

But

But when it comes down to the coping side of things,

was basically just coming down to mostly alcohol and the social aspects.

you mentioned it there, but ~ I understand you were in the police force both before

and after the the Royal Commission into the police corruption.

~ i that sounds like kind of a big deal that probably significantly affected

the culture there. Could you tell us a little bit about ~ what that was

and how it shifted things?

Look at look at the end of day it had to happen and Like I was only

a young cop when I was in the city and that's where the most

of the corruption issues were and Look I'd had suspicions about some things over

a period of time But you just you you knew back then you don't

ask questions You don't you don't so there was culture back then was also

you never give up your mates ever

And that was good to some degree because you want to trust each other

and have each other's back. But it also provided opportunity for those

who wanted to exploit it for their own personal gain as well.

There's this and I never make excuses for corruption,

but back then police were very poorly paid.

They were really low paid workers back then.

Not much more than security guards,

you know, and a lot of a lot of people struggled to.

make ends meet with their families and so they turn to corruption as a

way to do that. There's never an excuse for it.

But even I, when the Royal Commission started,

so I don't know if you guys know much about Royal Commissions and what they do,

but the powers of a Royal Commission in Australia is basically

if a Royal Commission's called in to investigate something,

they can compel people to give evidence and you don't have a choice.

Like, you know, I can't remember what you call it in America,

you take the fifth and you don't have to answer your questions if it's going

to incriminate you. Well, in the Royal Commission,

you don't have a choice. If you don't answer the questions,

you go to jail. So they call it contempt

Mm.

of court. So they launched this Royal Commission and it was quite investigative

as well. They had a lot of people,

a lot of other investigators proactively investigating corruption.

It wasn't just running the hearings.

They had phone taps. had

Bent cops who they'd already caught and rolled them over and sent them

out to get more bent cops caught and whatever and It went when it

all started to unfold this back in 94.

It started the Royal Commission.

So I'd been in the police for six years Even I was shocked at

the level of corruption that was entrenched in my

Mm.

job and And that's why I it had to happen because things were really

bad way worse than I thought they were

So it changed the culture a lot but it sort of changed it went too far

the other way for a period of time so Detectives were primarily mostly responsible

for most of the things that uncovered in that Royal Commission and I

was a detective and For a long period of time after that Commission was finished.

It was two years of hearings There was a lot of targeting of detectives within

the police force. So there was there was non-detective

commanders, know real high high ranking officers in in the in headquarters

who For whatever reason didn't like detectives they basically had next grind

and they they really made my profession within the police force very unattractive

~ or

Mm.

tried to close us down at one point and And it made it there was quite

a tough few years afterwards. So what happened was in this effort to purge

Any possible leftover residual corruption from the police force?

They went too far the other way where everyone that got any sort of even

a minus most minor complaint like a uniform guy not putting his hat on When

he left his police car to go and talk to someone it were full-blown Investigations

in into it and and the disciplinary side of it was it went too far the other

way and it made policing very very hard So and that dragged on for

I basically for about five six,

maybe maybe a few years more

Especially the drug work I was doing which was probably the most high risk

for corruption. That's that that area of work I felt like I was being

in the subject of investigations being interviewed as a suspect More often than

that. I was actually interviewing suspects myself with it with

Yeah.

the work that I was doing So that's how bad it got.

So yeah, it was really there was a tough period of time Eventually things found

their way back into the center and a bit of common sense

But for a long time there, was just like,

was a few times I felt like I was going to have to leave the police because just

the constant persecution. I had my phones tapped at one point for no reason at all.

So it's sort of, it got to be there for little while.

but it's sort of these days in a modern police force like we've got now,

I think it's almost impossible for corruption to flourish

at least at an entrenched level.

The opportunity will always be there for individual opportunistic levels

of corruption, but not at the level we had before.

that's the one good thing from that Royal Commission.

Okay. Well, I know y you've mentioned now a couple of times with

the the alcohol culture and the corruption,

that y you know, there's kind of a balance.

There were some good things about maybe the negative culture that you

had prior to those changes, but definitely some corrections that need to be made.

So to to diverge a little bit and maybe a a leader in an organization or

an owner of a business, what do you think the secret is to kind

of finding that balance of

a culture that facilitates camaraderie,

the the bonds that you guys get by connecting outside of work and

and having each other's backs,

protecting each other, but yet doesn't fall down that slippery slope into

the the culture and the conditions that you guys had early in your career.

What what's the secret to finding that balance?

What does that look like?

Well, from a leadership perspective,

it's about setting standards, I think,

at the end of the day, what you're willing to accept and what you're not.

So my leadership experience in the police force started probably about halfway

through my career, where I was temporarily relieving up into detective sergeant

ranks and then actually being promoted up into as a detective sergeant.

And I got the opportunity to lead some pretty experienced,

highly motivated teams over a long period of time,

over 10 years. And that taught me a lot about leadership.

But also, even though I learned a lot about leadership by doing that role,

I actually learned a lot from the leaders that led me in

Mm-hmm.

the years leading up to that as well.

I think set to setting the standards and being consistent with it

was the main thing. So all the teams that I led,

they had an old school detective sergeant and I did really encourage us going

out on a regular enough basis where it wasn't going to cause problems

for people at home. But it was,

we were going to get the benefits of that bonding together as well.

It was one of those things where I set the expectation.

that people would make the effort,

you don't have to drink if you don't want to,

you don't have to drink beer, but I just want you there so you can,

you know, when we have the occasional social functions so that you get

to know each other, be part of that outside the work culture as well.

But without sort of pushing people too much towards an expectation that I'll drink

or anything like that. So, and also with the standards.

For those who did want to push a little bit too far,

was also raining them in and being really strict on that.

So, and one of the ones that I guess the standards for me was that I

had to set standards with myself as well.

And even though like it's pretty hard to change very,

very deeply ingrained behavioral traits,

I did have to be a lot more conscious of the fact that now that I'm

in a leadership position,

~ I can't go out being a loose cannon like I was when I wasn't in one,

know what I mean? So that was important.

Yeah, there's a a weight that comes with leadership.

So well I wanna shift gears a little bit here,

so to kind of wrap up your career in the police force and and move into

our next line of topics here. ~ your psychological injury that you experienced,

do you think that was caused by a single defining event or was it

a a cumulative weight of many events?

wha what did that look like? Can you share with us a little bit more about what

you experienced and what led to that?

Yeah, my definitely, ~ look, it was,

it's definitely not one event.

There's, there's one event I'll touch on where I can definitely say that

I knew I had a problem afterwards,

but looking back in hindsight,

there was definitely an accumulation over a long period of time.

but, and also it wasn't just the events themselves.

It was that, that finished my career.

was more about the way that I dealt with all those events or failed

to deal with them properly. Probably is another way to.

put it but there's one homicide in particular where I knew that had

a problem and this is one of the reasons I do what I do now which is going

out and educating people in workplaces about mental health because education

is so important if you don't know what to look for how you're know

it how you're know yourself whether you're struggling or how you're gonna know

and be able to identify with your workmates or your team members if

you don't know what to look for and I was in a high-risk

job for psychological injury

And over the years I've saw that the change in discussions about it,

know, it was coming up in conversation a lot more The services were very very slow

to get You know embedded and to accept it But we had no education at

all so You know, we go out and do our firearms proficiency make sure that

way we can shoot straight all that sort of stuff Which is great.

We've got to maintain that but honestly,

it was like there was

Our biggest risk in that job was not getting shot by somebody.

It was by, it was just by the psychological exposure of what we were actually doing.

so we had no training in that at all.

We're flying blind. Didn't know what to look for in me.

I didn't know what to look for in my workmates.

And I also didn't know the things that would increase risk for mental health issues

as well. So what happened was I had one particular homicide.

This is

I've had many homicides over the years,

but this one in particular, it was about 16 years of my career and

it was an isolated farmhouse in the middle of all these sugarcane fields

up on the North Coast in the subtropical areas up there where I worked.

like a lot of the other investigations that I've run,

uniformed cops would usually ring me from the scene and say,

know, Sam, we've got this job down here.

They give me a quick run through over the phone about what I was about to walk into.

So I was always prepared. With this particular homicide,

I was the first on scene. It was at this farmhouse out in middle of nowhere.

It was on a weekend. I didn't know what had happened in the house.

I just knew from the nature of the call it was pretty bad.

So I knew I had two jobs I had to do.

I couldn't wait around. I had to get in that house,

make sure no one needed medical help.

And while I was in there, I then had to clear that house of danger and make

it safe for the cops that I'd call in to help me afterwards.

So that's what I did. Now when it comes to the risk side of things,

I didn't understand the whole fight flight response back then.

I just knew I loved adrenaline,

I loved the thrill of the adrenaline hit.

But also I also knew that in potentially life-threatening situations like

I was about to walk into, if I had the time to psych myself up,

and get myself combat ready before walking through the back door of that house

as an example, I knew I'd have a better chance of survival.

I knew that from playing football,

rugby union, that sort of thing.

And you pump yourself up before you run on the field so that you play better.

And it was the same thing in law enforcement.

So before going through the back door of that house,

because the front door was locked,

I took out my firearm. And like I'd done many times before,

I went through this mental process of saying myself,

mate,

Soon as you go through the back door of that house,

if you're confronted with a threat,

do not hesitate to pull the trigger.

You hesitate, you are dead. So it's all about flooding my system with adrenaline.

Now I knew physically that's good because it will get me combat ready,

but I didn't know about the psychological risk with that because what adrenaline

also does, not only does get you physically ready for combat,

but it gets you mentally ready.

And what adrenaline does, and I've learned this many,

many years later in treatment,

is when I was pumped on adrenaline,

know, all my sensory experiences would get heightened and really sharpened.

So eyesight becomes clearer, colors become clearer,

my hearing becomes very, very acute,

senses smell, taste, touch, all those things get very fine tuned

for survival reasons. So what happened was,

went in that house, pumped on adrenaline and the more I searched that room

at the house at gunpoint, the more adrenaline I got.

And then by the time I was exposed to the worst of that crime scene,

and the house was a mess from one end to the other,

it was a bad crime scene, but I found the victim's body.

And by the time that I found that and was exposed to it,

my system was so flooded with adrenaline,

that adrenaline really served to heighten and burn in deep all the things

I was experiencing right in that moment,

all the sensory things. So what I saw,

what I could hear, what I could even smell and taste.

Like, you you almost taste the blood in the air.

And

Yeah.

so that became very, very burnt in it sort of scrambled the way

my brain processed all those experiences in the moment.

And that for me caused post-traumatic stress disorder.

That was onset of my dramas, but I didn't know that at that time.

And what happened a couple of weeks later,

I started having, so it was a four week investigation in the homicide.

I ended up catching the guy who did the shooting and

That's great, good achievement,

but then a couple of weeks later I started having some really

bad nightmares about that particular house.

And the nightmares were not just having a bad dream,

you go back to sleep. What would happen for me,

and it was the same reoccurring theme,

and I would wake from that nightmare to the point where I was about

to be brutally murdered myself,

and they were so realistic, it was impossible to get back to sleep,

they really terrifying.

When it comes to where this all led,

we didn't have any education about mental health,

but I did know from watching movies,

hearing about all the stories of combat veterans,

et cetera, that nightmares are a very common symptom

of post-traumatic stress disorder.

And here I was having them. So I knew at that point that I had a problem.

But I was terrified of anyone finding out about it because I was

And the main reason for that was that I was terrified that if my workplace found

out that I was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder,

that my career would be over. That would be the end of me.

I'd be showing the door, you can't work anymore,

see you I loved my career so much and I didn't want to lose it.

And so I made, in the end,

that concern that I had never would have happened,

but that was what I was worried about because what I'd seen happened to others.

So I remember after a few weeks of these recurrent nightmares,

I made a decision I thought after a bad night's sleep,

thought mate, what are you gonna do about this?

And I had two choices at that point one of those choices Was to go

and get some professional help for it get it sorted out get myself straightened

and the other choice is to keep it secret and I Chose to keep it secret

and I chose to keep it secret for a number of reasons firstly,

and this is quite common in all industries

I didn't want anyone to see me as being weak.

I'd build a reputation in my career as being one of the tough guys and

I didn't want to lose it So my own ego was probably a barrier there but

my main one Was that I just thought you know,

no one ever dies of a nightmare So suck them up go to work every day

and you don't need to tell anyone you can deal with nightmares,

right? So So that's what I did

But unfortunately, and this is where it goes from here,

is that that was probably the catalyst that event,

but there was so much more that happened over the next eight or nine years while

I was living with this secret that I told no one about.

it was basically, there's so many aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

It's not just nightmares, it's things like hypervigilance.

It's the emotional numbing where you just can't tap into normal human emotions like

most humans can.

which caused problems with marriages,

problem was aggression, anger,

irritability, sleep problems. You know,

for eight or nine years, I lived on somewhere between two and five hours sleep

a night. And usually if I got a good five hours sleep,

that was alcohol induced, which isn't the greatest sleep either.

So, and that's not sustainable.

know, living your life like that is just not sustainable.

And many of us, we choose not to get the professional we need,

we will just fall back on our own coping strategy.

So I already talked about alcohol.

When I joined the cops and we were going out socially drinking together,

I drank because I enjoyed the social aspect of it and the fun and

all the enjoyment of my, of having just having like-minded people around me and,

you know, having that enjoyment.

But when I started drinking to medicate myself,

Numb out and escape that's where drinking really became a problem.

I would say for me So there's two aspects of drinking that I see it's

the problem drinking is when you're yourself medicating and you're doing

it to escape if you're out socializing it's a way different thing

can be positive but So alcohol was one thing but the other thing I use as well

was I tried to outrun everything By making myself tougher,

you know, I was I was I started boxing so I was doing a lot of boxing training and

I was making myself physically much more dominant.

A lot of gym work, weights, all that sort of stuff.

All the bikies I was going up against.

I want to make myself more bulletproof.

But also in that, I use my work as a way to escape as well.

So what I was able to do with my work,

if I had a bad night's sleep, it didn't matter because I come to work.

At least the first half of the day,

We were doing drug raids all the time,

search warrants. There's a lot of adrenaline in that,

a lot of thrill. And so that would stimulate me and counteract

all that negative stuff that I was dealing with in secret.

But also the investigations I was running,

was like I became quite manic leading up to that last bikey investigation.

I could never sit still. Like what I wanted to do was I picked my targets,

worked the investigations down.

Sometimes they would take six months,

12 months, we'd get

get the win at the end so get that that dopamine hit from from the win

but then I couldn't sit still it was like most of us would sit back and

and do all the paperwork and get it all ready for court and then move on

to the next job not me I would just go right bang straight into the next

job and all the paperwork would pile up and I would just be moving I just couldn't

I needed that constant adrenaline hit so I was always you know moving from

one job to the other

becoming very manic and the next job would need to be bigger than

the one I'd already done. It's almost like a drug addiction on adrenaline.

The more adrenaline I had, the more I needed to sustain that stimulation.

And long story short, basically it wasn't the PTSD that brought me down in the end.

When I finished that last investigation,

that bikey job, that was 18 months of work.

You know, I was just so done, burnout,

all the adrenaline, all the stress.

All the alcohol and the chronic lack of sleep over a long period of time

all work beautifully together to completely burn me out and within four weeks

of finishing that that that huge achievement of that investigation I

had this what we call back in the old days a nervous breakdown.

I had a full psychological breakdown at home And that was basically the

end of my career because I just pushed too much.

I was fully burned out and and smashed so So that was it for the from there

And so what were you you mentioned the nightmares,

not being able to sleep. W what were some of the earliest signs that

you wish you would have paid more attention to?

Very good question. Definitely the sleep but the anger and aggression.

So one thing I'll just put out there,

was never, I was a cranky dad.

There's no way in the world I could deny that.

My sons, you know, all know that.

In saying that though, we have a bit of a laugh about it now,

thankfully. And one of the things with post-traumatic stress disorder,

makes you become very on edge and

So my startle response was very acute.

It took nothing to set me off.

And so my kids, they told me years later after I come through treatment

and everything. One example was they would,

they'd actually, if I was out in the lounge room,

out in the TV room, and they out in the dining room unpacking the dishwasher,

for a laugh, they would say, watch this,

and they pick a plate up and drop it and watch my reaction to it,

like blowing up.

They thought that was quite funny,

but they felt bad about it later,

but it was it is Interesting because you know they were exposed to a

lot of that sort of stuff over the course of their childhood But probably

the the biggest thing I think for me if I was to look back and think well

You know I've it would be the hyper vigilance side of it Now it's hard

to describe to people

What I'm talking about hyper vigilance because it's a word that's quite often used

in many different circumstances,

but the way I'd probably best describe it is being vigilant,

particularly when you're, you know,

there's potential for danger, et cetera.

That's it's quite quite appropriate,

but

Mm-hmm.

hyper vigilance is where you just can't turn it off and

it becomes extremely exaggerated.

basically, particularly with the sort of work I was doing with the bike gangs.

My hypervigilance got to the point where,

say I had a threat level bar graph,

was greens for nice,

calm, relaxed, stress-free, all the way through to yellow,

orange, maybe having a bit of an argument with somebody,

all the way through to red, which is full combat.

I was permanently living in a state of yellow,

orange, never in the green. So I was always very agitated.

~ Always thinking something bad was going to happen and so it took nothing like

dropping a plate in in the in the dining room it took nothing to flip

me over to read because I was already right on the edge and With that sort

of went into my sleep too because at night time,

you know if I was Yeah,

tossing turning having my sleep.

It's nice if I heard even a pin drop in my house I'll be switched

on thinking is this

Is this some reprisal? Is my family safe?

I kept a weapon under my bed and I would get out and I just wouldn't

be able to settle until I'd gone through and patrolled my house and cleared

it made sure it was free and dangerous while my family was sleeping.

That's not normal human behavior,

but that's what I was actually engaging in on a regular basis.

And so when you wound up in that real high threshold of stress,

a long period of time there's going to be a consequence for that

as well that's probably the one I think if I could have got that under control

and I've learned a lot over the course of my recovery through meditation

and other techniques to to settle that whole fight response down

and keep myself more in the green than in the other colors and I wish

I'd known that back then it's

Mm.

probably one of the other aspects of that hypervigilance is in

the adrenaline and I'll share this with

Police that are still serving now is that when you've been in a

in real high-octane shift of law enforcement Where something exciting's happened

or something tragic or whatever it might be?

To go home to three Loud boisterous young boys

who want to you know

Yeah.

jump all over you if at summertime and I was in my backyard swimming pool

so I'd get home from work just go and dive in the pool just to try to

You can press a little bit, but I have the kids on top of me instantly

and it was like get away from me You know,

just give me five minutes if I if I'd known what I was dealing with What

I mean what I know now I would have taken the time before I went home To

go and even if I had to sit in my car 10 15 minutes and do a meditation

or something to get allow myself to decompress Before I went back to them

a family so they had a better version of me when I walk through that door That would

have been helpful as well

Yeah. Did did your family, your colleagues,

people around you, did they notice any of these early signs?

Is it did you hide it from everybody or did they have an idea something

was going on?

No, was definitely no one picked it up in my family.

There was a lot of adverse behaviors within my household from me,

particularly with the drinking side of things.

But that was causing a lot of problems.

But I don't think there was anyone sort of put a finger on work being

the major cause of it. It was more me.

But when it comes to my colleagues,

Those of us who are dealing with mental health problems that we want

to keep secret can be very, very good at masking what's truly going on.

So what my workmates got was the opposite of what I was dealing with.

And that was part of that whole process of trying to be the tough guy

all the time and make myself tougher and being a bit of a renegade.

was like when my eventual breakdown happened,

which in language is very important in this space too,

Someone opened my eyes up to another way to phrase that and I now call

my breakdown my breakthrough because it really did need to happen.

I couldn't have kept going the way I was going.

I was just on a path of self-destruction.

But one of the things, I can't remember where I was going with that.

was the family. So, my workmates.

So when my eventual breakdown happened,

All my workmates said, mate, you are the last person on the planet

we expected something like this to happen to.

Because I was so good at putting this armour around me where no one could,

there was no cracks, no one could get a C in.

But

Yeah.

it's funny, know, later on, because it was a workplace injury,

my psychological issues were workplace injury and it had to be investigated.

That's what happens with workplace accidents and injuries over here.

And so they sent an investigation team into my command to interview

my superiors and people that were about what they knew about it and

I still remember one of my one of my superiors who was also one of

my best mates still is he was interviewed and the investigator asked

him well did you did you know Craig was struggling with his sleep

and you know always tired and all that and he said yeah I did and he said well

why didn't you do something about that and he said mate

We are all in that same situation.

All of us. If I tapped everyone on the shoulder in my office who's having problems

sleeping, I wouldn't have anyone here because we all got the same.

So there's a lot of challenges there because trying to pick out those

who are basically just living like we all were in law enforcement and those

who have gone to the next level and really in a bad way,

it was very hard to do

to be able to pick those things up because once again,

it comes down to training and education.

you mentioned that ~ you know,

you kinda knew you had a problem developing,

but you were afraid to tell anybody 'cause you just loved your career so much.

It was a part of who you were and a part of your identity.

And i eventually after your breakdown you you did lose that.

It kind of went away in a rather dramatic way.

W what was that like? What what was it like to experience that loss and in that way?

Mate, was like losing the closest person to you in your life.

That's the grief that goes with it.

People deal with things in different ways,

but ~ I wasn't ready for it. I certainly wasn't ready for it.

I was nearing the peak of my career.

And in some respects, I look back and I think,

well, I'm sort grateful that my career ended in a way where I was at the

top of my game rather than slowly burning out.

Used to joke years ago. I don't want to I don't want I don't want to Grow

old and gradually, you know, the flame goes Peters out.

I want to slide into my grave sideways so

Yeah.

and And it's sort of that's how my career ended.

I've sort of slid into my grave of my career sideways and went out with

a bang but But look it was I was totally unexpected.

So there was multiple things to deal with here like had the

the breakdown, which with that,

I had a real battle with major depression.

So my breakdown was through burnout.

I had the post-traumatic stress disorder,

which is like I was explaining,

very anxiety based with the hypervigilance and all the things that went with that.

But the flip side of the burnout was then I was dealing with depression as well.

So it's like a roller coaster of moods you're constantly on.

And

I was drugged to the eyeballs so the psychiatrist and the medical team

was put around me, loading me up with antipsychotics and antidepressants

and other medications as well.

Sent off to a trauma clinic for three months for really intensive treatment

as well and other things. But my career,

I was medically discharged probably the fastest that anyone's ever been from

the police force. It was only nine months after I finished that last investigation

that I was medically retired.

It was a real shock to wake up the next day after my last day

of service and realize, you no longer have a badge.

You have no powers of arrest. If something happens out in the street now

in front of your house, you've got no powers like the cops do to

do anything about it. Having that identity stripped away so suddenly,

there was a grieving process.

That happened with that. I didn't understand it.

I fought it and because I didn't understand it I didn't process it probably

so there was a lot of competing things going on not only do they have

the the deeply entrenched mental health issues I was dealing with But

I also had this loss of identity loss of purpose loss of worth loss

of self-esteem All these things were gone And probably the other big thing that

I lost was control So I lost control of my life.

I lost control of

being able to earn and living under my own steam,

where I was now relying on insurance company for my workers compensation payments.

I was now relying on doctors for my health.

All that control was gone as well.

There's a lot to be dealing with in one go.

you know, it was three long years of treatment going nowhere.

see no light at the end of the tunnel.

There were other things that happened in my life over those three years as well.

which I won't go into any great deal,

but they did involve my father.

And eventually, you know,

over that three years too, I had a real battle of suicide.

And it's really important. I always talk about suicide.

doesn't matter if it's a podcast like this or the mental health talks

I deliver because we are losing way too many people to suicide,

particularly men. And so I had a real battle of suicide for those three years.

And eventually,

My marriage couldn't take any more of it.

My marriage broke down. Then I attempted to my life.

Ended up in a hospital emergency ward.

A lot of people don't get a second chance.

When they try to take the life,

I did and I've taken it. And I've done something with it.

I did get that real big scare through those actions that I took.

And I'm very lucky to be here and I made the most of it.

But I guess what's that come down to?

Well,

You know, one of the things I've learned

is that probably,

know, this high achieving large and life detective in the cops in three short years

doesn't want to live anymore. Comes down to one thing and that is I didn't

get help when I should have. And that's my main message and platform

for people these days is, you know,

had I've got that help, here's a little,

a good way to highlight this. When I went to,

when I did my three months of treatment at that

brain trauma clinic. They don't take everyone on that program and I

had to go through two days of assessments before they whether or not they'd take

me in and so after day two the doctor said yep we're gonna take you

on Craig we're gonna put you through the program and and I had this question

I wanted to ask and and it was Lucy if I'd asked actually asked for help

Yeah, eight nine years ago when I first started having nightmares where

I first knew that I had a problem Would it have really made a difference?

I was hoping she'd say no, but she said Craig If you had to put your hand

up all that time ago, we would have been able to sort this out with with half

a dozen sessions One-hour sessions we would have and still would have looked after

you moving forward You'd still be in the career that you loved and

who knows the situation your family would still be with them as well Five one-hour

sessions

As a result of not getting that help when I should have I've had now

had over 250 300s, know individual sessions with with all these psych

so I Don't live. don't live with much regret in my life but I think

if I had the Chance to make a different choice back then I would have taken those

five sessions. So that's a pretty important message as well

Yeah. So w what was it that finally convinced you to accept help and seek help?

I had no choice mate, it was like a full breakdown.

just, I couldn't function basically.

And it was, guess when it comes down to it,

I'd gone and I'd sought, by now we'd had this thing called employee assistance

programs where you could confidentially go and see a psychologist and talk about it.

But it was a little bit hitting me.

So you've to get a psychologist that gets or understands.

The nature of the work you're doing and the things you're dealing with

is that's important. I'd never got that So Because my breakdown

was so catastrophic and sudden Basically when it happened,

I wasn't sleeping at all. I was all night I was laying awake in

bed with panic attacks and other things happening So I was pretty wrecked

and it was just like it came down to the point where around that four-week mark

after that investigation

I called off sick for the first time to work and I called off with a flu.

So I didn't even want to declare mental health problems still,

even when I was completely shot.

And then the next day I called off sick with a flu again.

And this is where good leaders and good colleagues and friends play such

an important role here is that my direct line supervisor,

he's the they interviewed and talking about sleep,

he was a very good mate of mine as well.

and he knew Craig Sample even if he's dying of pneumonia he would be at

his desk and working he never takes a day off sick and here I was I'd just taken

two days off for the flu and I didn't contact the office to go off sick

I contacted the uniform section to report to them so sometimes it's just

the little things that are a bit out of character for people as you know them that

should switch you on and help get you to pay attention

And what he did instead of just picking up the phone and calling me to check

up on me because he knew I would have easily blown him off over the phone.

What he did was get in a car and come and see me.

And because he did that, I couldn't deny it because he could see it.

It was written all over me. And look,

it took him a long time. It took him over half an hour of discussions before

he finally convinced me to go to my doctor and get some time off work.

And that's basically where the whole medical side of it.

I took four weeks off work on sick leave and then there was no going back.

That was it.

you spent your career investigating pri crimes.

You've been trained at as as an investigator.

And ~ I've heard you describe your approach to recovery almost like

an investigation. Can you walk us through that process and that invis investigation

and what you learned through that?

Yep sure can so when I got out of hospital after the suicide attempt Well,

actually while I was in hospital my eldest son who drove me into

the hospital that night So there's more impact on family But I still remember when

he was he was next to the bed in the hospital and I and I made a pact to

him That I made a promise to him and to me that I said mate.

I promise you I'll this will never happen again I'm gonna when so soon as

I get out of here

I'm gonna find a way to get myself back on my feet and get my life back

and so I stuck to that but What happened was the first?

When I was eventually released from hospital the first morning that I woke

up in my own bed made a pot of tea went out and sat in my lounge room

and I thought right. Okay, you made this big call now.

How you gonna do it? And one of the things I've done a lot over the years which

has led to the two books being published is I've done a lot of journaling

So a big part of my treatment

and this is all self-led, was writing all the stories of all the things

I'd done in my police career and helping to make things.

I guess it's a way of processing your experiences.

So the first thing I did when I was in that lounge room was get a pen

and a notepad and just start jotting things down.

What has led you to be at this point where you end up in hospital the other

day and you've made this attempt on your life?

What's all the things that led to this point?

And that just got the wheels turning and I started thinking about what

had changed since I got out of the police force.

what I realised was that everything I did in my police career was to a plan.

You know, if we were going to do a raid,

we'd get our heads together, we'd come up with a plan.

Every single day, even if I was running an investigation,

right, I watched my investigation plan,

everything was planned. And many of us do this in our jobs in

all walks of life in industries as well.

But it's funny how we do that at work,

but many of us fail to do that when we're going through personal challenges

and crisis because it works the same.

If you don't have a plan, you have no sense of direction.

Without a plan, you have no goals to work towards.

Without a plan, you have no strategies to work with.

And what I realized was that for the three years I've been out of

the police and just going to my psych sessions and

Whatever, I was just going around in circles and treating water with lead boots.

I had no sense of direction, no sense of control and I'd fallen into

a really negative victim mindset.

So I thought to myself, well, I need a plan.

It was the first time I'd ever thought of it.

And what I decided to do from that moment

on was to put my old investigator's

hat on and treat my recovery like it was an old police investigation.

Right, what do you do?

So come up with a plan, plan your strategies and over 300 hours of sessions,

all these psychs over in many places,

they tried to teach me different strategies that would help my recovery.

And so I kept all the homework and I brought it all in my lounge room,

spread it out over the lounge room floor.

And I wrote out a list of all the strategies that have been taught.

And there were things like exercise,

meditation, challenging negative thinking through cognitive behavior therapy

and others. There was pleasurable activities,

lots of

different strategies and I wrote them all down in a list and my plan

was what I wanted to do was come up with one small simple action for how

I was going to put each of these strategies into my life every day from that

day forward and so there's no one treatment that I would say got me to where

I am now it was a combination of many different things that worked off

and with each other so that was very important

The other important part about that plan was that because I set really small actions

and achievable actions for them,

it minimized risk of surrender on the days that I just didn't have the capacity.

Because I'd set really small actions,

it was just right, OK, that's all you've got to do.

So just do that. And then once you take that little step,

you can build on it moving forward as well.

So that's how my basic recovery worked from there on in.

So, for instance, exercise as an example.

I love surfing. was I was a very very keen surfer up there on the North Coast

I was the president of the sorry the captain of the police surfing club

for the state and and I just loved it if I wasn't boxing before work I

was surfing I just I loved it that much when I go to the police I barely touch

my board because The number of different reasons but primarily

is depression robs you of the pleasure you used to get from the things

you love doing so you stop doing them

Well for exercise I'd simply decided that every single day without fail

you put your surfboard in the car,

you drive down to the beach and my action for exercise was you just have to get wet.

There was no time limits, was no you have to catch 27 waves or whatever it was,

it was just get wet. So on those days where my mood was really low

or the conditions were pretty poor and I didn't want to be there.

I'd get down to the beach and I'd mate,

you know what, all you've got to do is walk 40 metres down through the sand,

jump in the ocean, get wet, then you can get out,

pat yourself on the back, well done,

you're stuck to your game plan and go home.

Now the minimised risk of surrender thing with that was I'd have that intention,

go get wet, go home, but once I jumped in the water and it felt really good,

I'd stay there and I'd get my board and go for a surf.

So that's sort of, in a general sort of way,

how my game plan worked for all my strategies.

set small actions, build on them over time and that was very important.

Okay. W were there any kind of traditional PTSD treatments that

you found did not work well for you?

Yeah, that certainly

was. And look, one thing I'll say from the outset is nothing that

I say critically about any sort of treatment is critical about

the treatment itself because everyone's different and I had my journey,

what worked for me might not work for somebody else and what worked

for somebody else might not work for me.

So I'll say that at the outset,

but I still remember one of the treatments was exposure therapy.

And that is like imaginal reliving where you shut your eyes and you

get led through putting yourself back in situations that were contributors

to mental health problems and reliving them like you're actually there.

I actually found that was re-traumatizing.

It did not help me one little bit.

If anything, it probably made me worse at different times.

Another one was when I was doing that three months of treatment that

hospital down in Sydney. My homework one week was to go back to my community,

so flying home again and going out in my community and trying to see

and write down as many examples of people doing nice things for each other

as you possibly could. So that's what I had to do,

go out in my community, go shopping centers,

whatever, just hang around and just watch and see examples

of someone doing something nice for someone else.

But the downside of that

and this is where a lot of therapies don't take into account the nature

of the work you're doing is that I've been hardwired over 25 years not

to look for good people doing good things but for bad people doing

bad things so when I'm going out and I'm trying to look for those good examples what

am I seeing? Suspects. I'm seeing drug deals.

Mm.

So it was quite counterproductive because they didn't take into account those sort

of things so some things were

Some things were a bit hit and miss and some things were outright unhelpful.

But you know for me it was about finding not only finding the right therapies

but also a part of that recovery was learning trying

to psycho-educate myself to learn as much as I possibly could about

the way the brain works, the way the brain and body works,

the way trauma works, the way recovery can work,

all the therapies. And with that

With that more education I had over the years moving forward,

I guess I started to build a bit of belief in the things that could help as well.

So that was important.

if you had known everything you know now,

would you still have chosen a career in policing?

Yeah.

Yeah, 100 %

no hesitation 100 % it's like that job made me

who I am now and I sort of even though it didn't end on the terms I would liked

it to look everything's got to come to an end at some point

so we don't always have control over the way things finish

and sure there was a lot of consequence to that as well for me and my family

But there's, know, mate, all things said and done.

There is no way in the wide world I would change anything.

had some 25 of the best years of my life in that job.

One thing I've never done, and I know a lot of people in law enforcement

and the military sometimes get into a real negative mindset of anger,

blame, resentment. I chose to never to fall into that trap because if

I chose to blame an organization for failure to

support me, I blame them for the lack of education,

if I blamed the world for throwing all the things at me that the world threw at me,

all I'm going to do is just live in that negative victim mindset for

my whole life and then not be able to look back with pride at my career.

And I a quarter of a decade,

sorry, a quarter of a century working that career.

What a waste that would be just to look at it all with resentment and anger.

I refused it.

to do that I've always looked back at my career with a sense of pride.

Yeah.

I know a a lot of the industries that you have worked in and

now work with construction, mining,

law enforcement, the steel industry,

military, there's a lot of people in those trades that ~ like you mentioned,

kinda think poorly or look down about mental health programs,

corporate mental health programs,

they're afraid to admit that they need help.

how can a leader

build a mental health program that people in those trades would actually use.

That's a really good question,

I'll talk about this a lot Comes any workplace culture the end of the day like

it I know in Australia there's been surveys done over the years on businesses,

you know industry wide right across the country and it's and it's Yeah surveys

on on leaders like corporate leaders across all these industries and you know,

sadly

I think the last survey I was about five years ago and things

are always improving thankfully but there was still 50 % of leaders that didn't

believe that mental health had any role in their businesses or any impact

and it's like what? 50 %? It's like the world being,

the productivity of your organization,

productivity of your employees is going to be well and truly linked

to their overall mental capacity,

wellness and resilience as well.

So it's a massive, massive commitment.

But it comes to the workplace culture.

And one of the things I get out there and do a lot of talks and like I've shared

here today, talk about the benefits of getting help early and

the consequences of not. Well,

I'm also mindful of the fact that for some people,

working in some workplaces, actually declaring your mental health problems could

be counterproductive and could cause your problems if you do

not have an organization with

good leadership who understand and have the right policies

and procedures and support services in place to look after you.

But culture is a big part of that.

And what I'm talking about culture in workplaces,

I'm talking about is building and then maintaining a really positive workplace

culture where employees feel safe,

firstly, to declare.

to their, not only to their colleagues,

but also their supervisors, so that they can be better managed

in the workplace during recovery,

to declare their mental health problems.

And second part of it is that once they've declared it,

they know that they will be supported through whatever recovery journey they need

to go on. And everyone's got a role to play in that culture.

It's a top down from the bosses,

but it's also bottom up with colleagues and support as well.

But that culture, that can take some time to build in.

Having ~ just having some sort of written workplace policy where you send

out emails to everyone say look If you've got problems,

we'll be very supportive blah blah blah.

That's great But where the culture really develops is when people actually take

those steps and are supported so they're seeing it being done that's where the

Mm.

culture over time will start to start to build and You know,

i'm really grateful that I have the opportunity

to help a lot of businesses in that process because I come out,

share my story and that's the first part is getting the conversation going

and then the rest will follow as well.

But there is a, so there is legitimate fears in some workplaces that people won't

be supported because, you know,

the right structures are not there and that does happen and that's unfortunate.

But then there's also some historical hangovers from it as well and.

Mining is a good example actually because we've got massive mining industry over

here in Australia. I basically do most of my work in the coal industry.

Okay.

so I had, this is an example, had one young coal miner who had a young family

and he had some massive things going on in his personal life and

he was really struggling. And after I finished my talk,

know, talked to all the miners,

there's about 80 people in the room.

Most of left and I was left with him to have a chat and he was in tears and he said,

mate, you know, you're talking about going in and talking to your bosses

and declaring it. He said, there's no way in the world I talked to any

of my bosses about the stuff I'm dealing with at the moment because they would take

me off the machines. I love what I,

the only thing keeping me going now is my work.

And I said, mate, how do you know that?

Have you seen this happen? And he said,

no. And I said, so it's just like,

what you hear in the workplace is that

You know other people's negative experiences.

Yep. Do you want to put it in the test?

And he said how I said well, how about I go with you to your mind manager

now and I'll Make the approach for you while you're there and then you

can talk it through and let's see.

Let's put the test and see what happens So we went did that and you know

He got nothing but the most utmost care and support from that mind manager

He supervises everyone and I followed him up

A couple of weeks later and I just to make sure that followed through and

he was so appreciative of the fact that because he actually declared

it his bosses with not only put the sports around him,

but really focused on making sure he was able to to maintain his capacity

at work as well. So that and they helped him through that crisis.

And so sometimes it's just it's just the I don't know.

Maybe the workplace culture is one way to describe it,

but

Sometimes it can just be people telling negative stories all the time

and it just creates a bit of a distorted perception about what would actually

happen. there's examples there where sometimes there might be

an expectation that they won't understand,

but how do you know if you don't try?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point.

Well, you mentioned there that ~ kind of what you do now is two parts

is is telling your story and then kind of coaching and advising.

And I wanna kinda turn that same corner here.

~ can you tell us a little bit about your first opportunity to speak

or teach about mental health? How how did that come about?

How did you get into the business that you're in now?

Yeah, well, you know when I was working on that game plan when I got

out of hospital I sat down I worked through all my strategies that I'll

set sat there in that lounge room with my notepad Pretty much every

day for about six or seven days working through that that plan It was

it was quite an involved Process,

but one of the things I decided to do cognitive behavior therapy is it

is a therapy that is designed to help you Retrain your brain away from negative

thinking behaviors

And I was plagued with negative thinking over those years I got out of the police.

so one of the strategies I had to come up with an action for

was my cognitive behavior therapy.

Now that's, not going to go into the details,

it'd take too long. But one of the things that got me thinking about

was not only can you learn to think about your negative thinking behaviors

in the moment, but I'd been looking at my whole life with a really negative mindset.

And it struck me when I was working on through that game plan on this strategy that

Mate, you have looked at the last three years of your life with a sense of loss.

Lost my career, I lost my identity as a detective,

which is truly my soul. Lost friends,

family. I truly looked at it like I'd lost three years of my life,

I'd never get back. Okay, so that wasn't helpful,

there's a really negative mindset.

So, I decided that I wanted to come up with a way to make those three years

of my life worth having lived.

So,

I wanted to find a way to turn all that negative into something positive,

which is important and One of the things I did realize was number one

I had to change language Instead because one of the things I first identified

was that every single time someone asked me why aren't you working

the cops anymore doing whatever I'll just basically say it's because

I suffer from PTSD. I Wrote that word suffer down on my notepad and

I thought Mate that's got to go

Because what I've realized every single time I use the word suffer,

I was reinforcing a really negative message in my mind that I was a victim

of these illnesses, which meant they had control over me.

And so I made a pact with myself that day that I'd never use the word suffer

in my life ever again and I haven't.

In its place, I started to say,

I live with PTSD or I live with depression or whatever it might be.

And every time I said that to somebody,

was reinforcing a bit more of a positive message that,

well, you know, I've accepted my situation now,

me and these illnesses, we coexist,

which means I'm not their victim,

I'm taking back that control. So that was a very important part of that.

But to turn all that negative experience into something positive,

I made a decision, I love my motorbikes,

I made a choice to, I wanted to ride my motorbike around Australia,

number one, my, my head and for a bit of therapy,

two-wheel therapy, but...

I wanted to, my strategy was that I was going to use my ride around Australia

as a way to raise money for some mental health initiative and use as

a platform to get those messages out about getting help.

So I worked on a proposal, I typed out six page proposal planned out about

how I was going to do this. My doctor had a contact at the Black Dog Institute,

which is one of the world leaders in research in mental health in Australia.

And so I sent the proposal off to the Black Dog Institute to support their research

in the kids mental health and they ended up contacting me the next day and said,

mate, thank you. Very generous offer.

But we've read his story and we think you'd be really good for a good

fit for program. We've got this community led program all on a volunteer basis where

we get people like you lived experience to go out and share their stories

in high schools with kids and community groups.

just to raise awareness and reduce stigma and educate people.

And I jumped at that opportunity.

Like I couldn't think of a better way to turn that negative to positive.

And so they only put me through one day of like facilitator training.

And this is about four weeks after my suicide attempt.

So there's a lot going on. I'm like throwing myself into it.

Mm-hmm.

And about a month or so after that,

I had my first high school talk to go and deliver.

And it happened to be at my local high school out of all the high schools

in Australia. It was just coincidence.

These guys asked for someone to come in and talk.

So one of my own kids was going to be in that first talk.

170 kids who were around the 15,

16 year age group. And so I still remember driving up the teacher's

car park that day to deliver that talk.

And I parked my car and I could not get my hands off the steering wheel.

I was literally terrified.

Nothing in my police career scared me as much as what I was about to do on this day,

right? And I think it's that vulnerability,

you know, I was about to share some really personal information with a bunch

of kids I didn't know and I wasn't sure because it's still really raw

I wasn't sure I was gonna get through it without Embarrassing me and

my son through breaking down tears or anything like that.

So I was that close to bailing out and going home But at the last minute

I said to myself mate, what'd you put your hand up to do this for

in the first place?

What is the worst that can happen is get out,

go and plug that USB stick into that machine in there and just give it

a crack and that's what I did and you know,

I was nervous as hell and in that whole first talk I can barely remember much of it.

It went for over an hour, but I was so nervous but but what I do remember

is what happened afterwards and it was my first experience with this.

I looked up, I was packing up all my stuff at the laptop and projector and

I looked up and there was a bunch of kids lined up in front of me,

know, 15, 16 year olds, maybe a dozen of them.

thought, what's going on here?

Anyway, first kid comes up young man.

Um, and he shook my hand. He thanked me and he shared with me

his experience of living with depression as an adolescent.

It's a lot of kids out there with mental health problems.

Um, further down the line, young lady anxiety problems.

So she was sharing that and other kids did the same.

And you know, some kids came up and

wanted to get some advice about how they could support a parent that's

got mental health problems or the other kids just want to come up and

ask for more war stories or ask me if I'd shot anyone and all those sorts

of things that the kids like to ask.

But you know, was that first experience.

It's like I walked out of that school standing way taller than what I

was when I walked in there because I'd just taken that first step

in turning that negative and positive and making a difference.

And when I went home, I really reflected on what had just happened.

And I realized that

These kids have just seen this big bloke with my background get up and open

up and be vulnerable, show that vulnerability and they thought he's gonna get me.

It was like this connection and that's where the power of it really rolled

out and I guess I had to be really careful because this is very challenging going

out and sharing such personal story with people and basically opening up.

I guess it's reliving it to some degree as well.

I had to be very careful not to push too hard,

but that's a good thing about volunteer work for recovery,

for mental health problems is that I could do it at my own pace without over

commitment. so as much as I was challenging myself and pushing the boundaries

out a little bit further every time,

I could also make sure that I didn't over commit to it and put myself back

in the whole world where I had been before.

So that was the first.

talk that I delivered and then gradually I built on that and I did more

and more and more over a long period of time.

Okay. And at what point did you realize that that could become a career

and not just something that you did for your own therapy and and to help others?

You know years and and and when I say that it's because I enjoyed doing what

I was doing so much I didn't even want to get paid,

you know, it was sort of ~ it was it was such a joy to get out there and

and do what I was doing and so over over those ~ So it sort of it kept developing.

So I remember The black dog institute contacted me from sydney.

~ one day and they said mate

We're getting some really good feedback from all of these high schools that you've

been talking to, but we've got a lot of areas in the outback and regional areas

of like farming communities, et cetera.

And we can never get anyone to travel.

And I just said, mate, I've got a motorbike,

so let's organize stuff. And so they started organizing tours.

And so I jump on my motorbike and ride out into these country areas

of New South Wales. And I go for five days and I call in the.

know, five country towns, talk to the kids in the schools and then

do follow-up talks with parents and teachers as a volunteer.

And the first one we did was such a success,

it just kept rolling on. And I got around and spoke to thousands

and thousands of kids, you know,

and particularly in that first year after that I started doing this.

And it was quite profound, you know,

as like I said earlier, there's not one thing that I think got me to where I am now.

It was a combination of all the things like exercise,

commitment to meditation, gratitude practice,

lots of other stuff, called me behaviour therapy.

But actually getting out and finding renewed sense of purpose and identity

was a big part of this for my recovery.

What I was doing were these talks and you know,

it was about the one year mark of doing these talks that I realised

I'd reached a turning point in my recovery.

The turning point was some magic moment where the sun started shining on

me and I think, know, I'm better.

Yeah. It was just, it was probably just one day I sat there and I thought,

you know what, mate, you are now consistently having more good days and bad days.

Well done. So that was the achievement I grabbed hold of and ran with both hands.

And, I, and I guess it was on so many levels,

but you know, there's one story I often share that highlights why.

This work that I was doing was so important for my healing.

There was one school I went to As always bunch of kids wanted to come

and have a chat afterwards and I saw one young man He was was hanging over

on his own afterwards and he's waiting for a chance to talk to me in private

So when he got his chance, he was about 16 When he got his chance,

he came up and he shook my hand.

He looked me dead in the eye and he said Craig I really want to thank

you for today And I knew something was gonna come and I said mate

you are very welcome. Why is that?

And said, and he just come out and said,

he said, well, when I was two,

my mum killed herself and he said,

I've been so angry and resentful at her for making that decision and leaving

me on my own. I've been so angry with her my whole life.

I said, mate, I'll talk about suicide in these talks and said,

you did really well to sit through my talk in there.

You okay? And he said, Craig, in all honesty,

after listening to you I think I'm now starting to understand what my

mum must have been going through and what I now feel is I feel at peace

and he shook my hand and off he walked.

I still have, doesn't matter how many times I tell that story I still have trouble

putting the words how that kid made me feel that day because I don't know what's

happened to him in the rest of his life but if that one young man

was the only interaction I've had with literally thousands of kids since

but if he was the only one

then he on his own has made everything that I've gone through totally worth living

because who knows what different direction that kid's life has now taken because

he let go of that anger and resentment to his lost mother and found peace through

forgiveness. And that's where the power of all this stuff that I

was doing with Black Dog was. So when it comes to when I decided this

was going to be a career path,

it was years down the track because I couldn't even think about charging anyone

money for what I was doing.

because of what I was getting out of it in return.

My emotional bucket at the time I tried to take my life was dead empty.

These kids, they were filling that emotional bucket back up again and that

was so important to me. But it was about two years down the track

in my recovery game plan where I'd been doing this for a number of years.

I'd come out the other side and I could safely say that I'd recovered from PTSD

and depression. And because I'd come out the other side,

other organisations started to tap me on the shoulder,

can you come and help us out here?

One of them was Police Legacy in New South Wales and they kicked off a program

and I was one of first on board with it where they caught it back up

for life where we realized there was a lot of cops out there that had

no support at all, either weren't on workers' comp anymore

or whatever the situation. lot of former police taking their lives and they asked

me to come on board as one of the first mentors for that program.

So basically that volunteer role was me going out.

providing support to former cops and their families if required.

Sometimes it was just sitting down and having a coffee with them

and letting them talk and be validated and just be heard.

Other times it was going to medical and legal appointments with them

and supporting them through those processes.

Sometimes it was full suicide intervention.

And you know, I got a lot out of that volunteer work as well.

So two volunteer roles by this time.

Then I did a mental health first aid course,

I'm not sure if you've run them over there in America,

but first it's now, it used to be mental health first aid Australia,

it's now international, it's gone out to 25 countries around the world.

And it's like physical first aid,

except we're teaching people the skills to be able to identify when someone's

got a mental health problem or in a crisis like suicide and be taught

the skills to be able to have the effective intervention.

and guide them to the help they need.

That's what the course is about.

I did that course and the instructor came up and said,

mate, why don't you consider becoming an instructor for these guys teaching this

course, but you can go out to workplaces,

start your own business and make a living from it.

I'd never considered ever doing this sort of work.

So that was my step in and basically I started my own business and off I went.

you know, the histories are there.

That was about nearly 10 years ago.

where I started my business and yeah,

apart from COVID, which, know,

all the lockdowns and everything,

I'll shut down for three years.

But if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have got my books finishing

and publish either. so there's

Ha ha ha.

a lot of benefits, even though I lost a lot of like business momentum over COVID.

I've never seen it as a loss because one of the proudest things ever in

my life was walking into the, you know,

the airport bookshops and seeing my book up on display.

~ in that shelf and it wouldn't have happened if I didn't have that shutdown over

COVID too.

Yeah, that's quite an accomplishment.

So

Yeah, definitely.

So how did you you started teaching the I'm gonna screw it up here,

the the mental first aid courses,

Yep.

mental health first aid. how did that turn into launching mentality plus?

So basically what that did was,

because I actually felt, I guess I probably had a little bit of imposter syndrome,

but also the fact that because I'd done so many hundreds of talks

and presentations for people for free as a volunteer,

I had trouble getting my head around actually charging people

to deliver this stuff and making a living out of it.

So the mental health first aid course,

however, wasn't my story. It was education.

So that was a real good way to lead into be able to do mental health education

as a career. But running the mental health first aid course on its

own was never going to be able to support me.

There's just not enough demand.

There's demand for it, but not enough to pay the mortgage off.

So I ended up putting myself out there for the talks I did as a volunteer.

deliver these in workplaces as well and the Black Dog Institute ended

up taking me in their workplace training programs and and You know help facilitate

that as well And then over time I got used to the fact that look there

is times where you can you can do this stuff for free as a volunteer

for community organizations but you can also make a living from it

as well and that's where it all came about and the longer I did it

and the more exposure I had to different organizations and and

working with different groups,

including trauma organizations,

et cetera. I learned a lot. I learned a lot,

not only about myself, but other people as well.

having the opportunity as a volunteer to go out and do that mentoring work with

all the former police officers over that time,

it really highlighted some of the challenges that not only I went through,

but other cops go through as well.

And I ended up developing a program during COVID called Growing Through Transition,

transitioning from your career in the law enforcement.

And

And the police force, put it through to them as a one day program.

I put it through to the police force in New South Wales and their insurer.

As a one day program, we do it as a group session up to 12 former cops

and they loved it. So we ran some pilot programs.

The feedback from all these injured police officers was fantastic.

So now it's an embedded part of my business as well,

going out and running these programs for injured police officers on claim.

There's so many different things I deliver,

wellbeing, resilience programs,

as well as my own lived experience talk and the mental health first aid that

it sort of built up into a pretty busy business now,

which is really cool.

Yeah. So what what type of organizations hire you at Mentality Plus?

And ~ you mentioned a few products there,

but ~ an organization that hires you to kind of launch their mental health program,

what kind of services could they expect?

Well, you know, I guess I've worked all the way through from white collar corporate

types all the way through law enforcement,

military. But probably the sector that I get most traction with is

in the male dominated industry.

So numerically male dominated like mining construction.

And it's just who I am and what I look like and my background.

It's like with blokes, you've to be able to cut through.

And it's like they can see I'm no wilting flower.

~ a bit of the, say for big mining companies and construction companies,

the first step I often recommend is get me to come in and tell my story

for the first part. And then we start,

we have a step approach to delivering training over a long period of time.

But when I go in and so with large groups of the workforce and go in

and share my story, so they learn from that to start with,

but also because I'm opening up to them,

and they get to hear everything.

It's a really good opportunity to also build rapport and trust with that work,

that workforce. And then if for any of other training that we went then want

to start to drip feed into the organization,

because I've already got that rapport,

there's that trust and there's buy in.

So everyone starts right. Yep.

We know Craig and we're going to listen to him.

~ And so that, that really, it's a really good approach to be able to do that.

So that's probably the primary thing and plus I've got the resources there.

One of the things I'm very mindful of is that I've never been interested

in building a big company where I've got heaps of trainers and I send them out.

I'd like to keep it tight and I work in as a...

My business model is I collaborate with other businesses that have

got like-minded structures but a little bit outside my lane.

they've got... Rather than me try to be an expert of everything.

and not doing a great job of everything.

If I've got clients that say, mate,

we'd like you to come in and do,

well, you know what, I could do that.

But I want you to introduce a colleague of mine who's got this other business

and they specialize in this and you're going to get,

so I've stayed really firmly in my lane and work a business

in collaboration with others. I find it's a really good model.

Okay. Yeah, that's an interesting model and an interesting approach.

I wanna talk a little bit about your your books.

your first book, The The Cop to Fell The Cop Who Fell to Earth,

kinda tells your story. And the the second book,

Getting Back Up Again, is more of a recovery guide or has a

lot more practical advice. was there anything in that first book that was

Difficult to write something that you felt uneasy about sharing and did anyway?

Yeah, definitely. look, the process of that first book,

as I said, I did a lot of journaling over a lot of years of recovery.

then my doctor was always interested to read what I'd written.

So basically, the idea behind it was I would write about all

the experiences leading up to a certain point in my police career,

bundle it up, put it behind me.

That's being processed, done, then move on to the next and do that.

And he said, mate, you write so well,

you need to actually write this as a book one day.

And so I always kept that in mind.

And then I sent it off. Eventually I did put it together as a book and sent it off.

And it was too big. was like 700 pages of my life.

And the publishers said, mate,

we're not going to go near anything that big.

So I had to rewrite it. And that's where COVID came in to.

But it was really good because I had an opportunity to go and do that project.

And I sent it off and they decided to publish it now the reason I tell that story

is that When it came to Actually a publisher fine,

and it's hard to get published it is there's so many people that they're trying

to get published and trying to get some of the even look at your work

is very very difficult and I Because I do a lot of conference speaking There

was someone in a crowd one day actually came up saw me and I actually know

a publisher blah blah blah and done the introduction and

When they actually looked at it and said,

mate, this is really good. We're going,

we're definitely going to run with this and here's the contract.

That's where it hit me. thought,

holy crap, like I'll put a lot of stuff in here.

That's very, very personal. Not like everyone's going to get to know.

And I was worried about, I was worried about judgment,

um, in a negative way. And I probably need not have because

the fact that, you know, I can't,

I can't, one thing with memoir is it's like,

You can't go and start tell a story about all the good things about you

and all your achievements and all that without actually putting in

the other bad stuff as well. Like you need to be honest about who you are.

And so there were things that particularly in my married life where with infidelity

and other behaviors with drinking and everything where there was a

lot of shame associated with a lot of those behaviors for a long period of time now.

I'd come to a point where self-forgiveness for a lot of that,

which was important for me and healing.

But it's one thing to forgive yourself.

It's another thing to be able to put those stories out for other people

to read and be at their judgment.

And so, you know, I was terrified in all honesty,

Erick. was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done was going through with

that contract and

I was blessed with a really good publisher who was very understanding

of those challenges and and she said Craig you're gonna be surprised mate people

are gonna be a lot more forgiving than what you possibly think when they read your

whole story in it in the context of its entirety there'll be

a lot more understanding of what happened and so I'm really pleased I

did but that was probably the biggest challenges just like

those personal indiscretions and poor behaviours over that period of time that

I was open and honest about, it was that fear of judgement.

Yeah. So if you could go back and do that again,

would you leave it as it is? Would you include less of those details or would

you be even more vulnerable than you were?

I don't think I could have been more vulnerable than what I was.

I really put everything in so but it's ~ but it's sort of there were some things

about Particularly my dad and some of the experience in my personal family where

I had to be very careful with those because I didn't want to you know,

it's one thing for me to share my vulnerabilities,

etc, but One thing I was mindful of I can't put any of these books gonna hurt anyone

else particularly those people I care about so there were things I had to

be that I didn't put in but I alluded to

enough detail to give people a bit of an idea without gaining the detail

of it but for the rest of it no I'm glad now that I did because like

you can imagine I guess if it was a flip side if I didn't put all those negatives

in and then you know book goes great and people are saying ~ what

and then someone can well hang on a minute I still remember what Craig

was like back then he did this that and the other that's gonna make

you look pretty bad so

I think it's definitely better to be open and honest about your experiences

in its entirety. And look, if some people judge me poorly over some of those things,

well, so be it. that's their prerogative to do that.

But my experience has been total opposite.

People have been very forgiving and appreciate the honesty because,

you know, there's not many people in,

you you get through a certain number of years of your life where people can be

There'd be very few people who could sit back and say well I've done nothing wrong

in my life. I've lived like an angel Sin free all the rest of it and

it gives some when when other people read some of the things that they were negative

about my behaviors over that period of time You know,

especially for them it probably allows them a bit of self-forgiveness to that.

not all perfect and and and I think guilt is something I had to come

to terms with and guilt

A little bit of remorse is a really good motivator for behavioural change.

But too much of it, it just keeps you bogged down in the past.

And that's not good. Life is too short to be bogged down in the past.

for me was about self-forgiveness.

I made all those mistakes.

And the only way I can deal with that is to bow to myself.

I'll never make them again. And I'll try to make a number of promises

to myself about how I was going to live my life into the future.

Yeah. Yeah, I like to draw a distinction between guilt and shame.

Guilt says I have done some bad things and shame says I am a bad person.

And guilt can be a healthy emotion

Beautiful.

that, like you said, helps correct behavior,

provides motivation, brings you back on track.

But when it switches over into that shame,

~ that's a that's a downward cycle that has some pretty negative effects.

That's a really good way to put it Erick and and it sort of feeds into

one of the things when I when I came to that conclusion that that Self-forgiveness

and it's easier said than done like there are still times where I've something will

happen which brings up the past a little bit and I'll still feel that

tug of guilt but so no,

I don't think anyone can be perfect self-forgiveness,

but

Like you said, so what I did to come to that conclusion was I eventually

got a point where I think said to myself,

mate, okay, you've lived a pretty long time.

If you were to weigh up all the good things you've done in your life with

the bad things, which one's gonna be the way in your favor?

And it's definitely the good things.

So that's sort of how I sort of come to that conclusion.

And then going through the rest of my life doing more good things will help as well.

Yeah. Well, I know your second book,

Getting Back Up Again, that's more the the practical guide.

So ~ I know you you wrote a whole book about it.

There's a lot of content to cover there,

but if you could kind of

Yep.

distill down the basic game plan,

what is it that readers can expect to get out of that book?

Yeah, well the first the first one that that's more of a police career plus

a lot of the other story in the background too So that's like a front

row seat in the law enforcement and that helps people understand what cops

you know go investigate It's more written like a crime novel than a memoir.

So It's

Yeah, okay.

Really feel like you're actually in the action Where the second one because

I sort of just touched on how I got myself well in this one I really wanted

to explore that in a lot more detail so that people

going through not just mental health problems but adversity in their life

can get a bit of an idea of the importance of sitting down and writing

out a plan when you're going through a tough time in your life.

so there's real guidance there from a lived experience in the context of

a story as well because I think people learn,

there's many ways you can learn.

can learn the clinical way of how things work or the practical way of

how it works in the real world.

And that's how I prefer to share my education and

So I've given examples of many different aspects of my life

to highlight different strategies to deal with adversity in that book.

But the primary one is that game plan.

If there's one message I'd leave with everyone from our discussion even,

apart from the getting help side of things,

is how important it is to have a game plan when you're faced with a

big challenge in your life, whether it's divorce or work challenges

or whatever it might be, mental health challenges.

Sitting down and writing out a plan helps you identify what your

key challenges are and the strategies you need to put into place to overcome them.

It helps you set goals. helps you having have a plan helps you,

especially when you fall into a negative victim mindset where you feel like you've

got no control over a situation in your life,

where you feel like you're taking back some control and regaining some of that.

Having a plan gives you a sense of direction,

a sense of hope for the future.

Rather than looking back at everything that you've lost as well.

You know plan having a plan very very important and so this that's what

the second book's basically about Some people put it call it like

a self-help book I'd I sort of steer away that from that term a little

bit I'd like what you how you described it more of a guide

Okay, awesome. Okay.

Yep. Well, the way I

look at it, Erick, is like, I don't profess to be some sort of monk sitting

on a mountain in Tibet with all my shit together,

right? It's it's, it's this, but you know,

I've got the same challenges in life that everyone else does.

I've got my life back on track and,

but you know, everyone's got their,

got their flaws and their strengths,

et cetera. But the way I look at it is that I can share a lot

of things I've learned. And for some people,

It's not all gonna fit But even if someone was to pick up that book or go

to one of my talks and they take one thing away And I think you know what some

of that no, but that one thing you said there I'm gonna take that on board

and that and and basically what happens in you're gonna listen to someone else

or read someone else's book or whatever And you go I like what they said about that

and you take that on board and then you build your own Toolkit that's customized

to you

And that's what's really important about just exposing yourself

to as much information. If I can play just that one little role with that book,

then that's a victory.

That's a a great approach and a great thought process and it sounds like

it you know, you mentioned there was some some traditional advice

to processing and dealing with PTSD that did not work for you and other things that

did and and kind of figuring that out of,

you know, what is gonna help you move forward,

that sounds like a great approach and a great mindset.

Thanks, Mike.

Yeah. So this is my favorite question I ask of every guest.

are you a person of a particular faith tradition?

And if so, how has that impacted your journey?

I not. went through private schooling in high school and

the Catholic education system over here.

So I was a person in faith and I'm not going to probably get into

the details of where and I can't really put my finger on where I may have lost that.

However, one thing I and this is one thing I'm extremely supportive

of is that people who are of faith have much better mental health outcomes than

people who are not.

And maybe it's probably my exposure,

my stuff I've been exposed to in the police,

it sort of tested me in that regard.

you know, I hold people with faith in very high regard because,

number one, they have a sense of community.

So that's a massive thing for your health and well-being.

But they're generally people with a better sense of hope as well,

in humanity, in themselves, in people around them.

So...

Having, I encourage people if you can,

to embark on some sort of journey of faith because it is a protective factor against

mental health problems.

Okay.

Yep.

Well, i if there's somebody listening that's a a police officer,

a veteran, a construction worker,

business owner, or some other high performer that ~ is showing some

of those early signs, there's they know there's something wrong,

but they're kinda resistant to getting help.

What would you have to say to that person?

Look, explore the support services you got available in your area.

Obviously I'm in Australia, so it's a lot different over here.

to make those inquiries, I mean,

there is so much information available to us now with the internet.

I don't like doctor Googling too much,

but get out there and make some inquiries.

Like even explore this. There's even online surveys you can do

now where they're confidential and you can put in,

answer questions about your life.

They're sort of a guide to depression,

anxiety, et cetera. And that's a really good starting point for self-awareness

is to actually do some of those questionnaires.

The Black Dog Institute in Australia,

where anyone can access is called Black Dog Institute Online Survey.

And so you get on and it'll ask you questions about your mood

in certain timeframes and give you a bit of a score on where you're sitting with

anxiety and depression. Then the next step is going and seeking.

Professional help that you've got available in your areas.

I know it works different over there So I won't give too much advice

on that but explore it get some advice ask from friends get referrals

Ask people before that, you know have gone through tough times gone

and got help What who did you see and how did they go for you and just

get the ball rolling that way?

Okay. And i if someone wants to engage your services at Mentality Plus

or or wants to grab your books or otherwise take advantage of the resources

you have available, where's the best place to find those or to get

in touch with you?

Yeah, look my email is craig at mentality plus comm.au so you can email

it me directly because I've got an inquiry form on my website,

which is mentality plus as well So you just put that in?

It to the website, but it's probably better sometimes the firewalls

and everything's probably just better to send the email straight through

and with the books obviously, they'll publish in Australia

by English publishing company bonnier books,

but They're on audio. So the audio

audio books for both books are recorded.

There's Kindle versions like ebooks and also so they can be accessed anywhere.

If you want a hard copy Amazon and other platforms sell them as well

so they can definitely go through those platforms.

Wonderful. Well, we'll make sure we get links to all of that in the show notes

and make it really easy for people to get in touch with you.

as we wrap things up, is there anybody that you would like to see on from

the ground up show, somebody you know that has a really unique story or a

a r a really unique business that you'd like to learn more about?

would give that some serious thought Erick because I know a lot of people

and trying to pick one out of them would be would be hard but Leave that with me.

I'll have a chat with you off recording later on and and look at some

of the topics that you might be interested in because I know some people

who like got some great expertise in leadership training and and other things

as well, which sounds like it might be a good fit

Awesome.

if you want to hear another police story though,

you'd probably want to talk to my brother,

who's

Okay.

apart from recovering from his stabbing,

he became one of the world's most proficient tactical snipers.

So he'd

Wow.

be a one for you to have a yarn too as well.

He's got an interesting background.

We go on motorbike rides together and do a few things these days.

So throwing rocks and bows and arrows at each other in the bushes,

we've moved on from that now.

Yeah, we do more grown-up stuff.

That's awesome. Yeah, that that might be a really

Yeah, yeah, so put you in touch with him if you want.

interesting conversation. I might have to see if you could introduce us.

Well, he's got

So

a lot of contacts in the US. He's done a lot of work in Afghanistan and

in Iraq in military circles. So yeah,

and he's got some business interests over there as well.

Yeah. Yep.

Okay. Yeah, that might be really interesting.

Well,

Craig, thank you so much for the time today.

~ I know with the time change and everything,

you were up really early. I really appreciate you making this work

and just sharing your knowledge and your expertise with us.

it has been a pleasure for me and I'm sure our listeners are gonna really appreciate

everything you had to share as well.

So thank you.

I hope so, Erick. And it's very nice of you to have me on over there,

mate. It's nice to share this story,

not just in Australia, but get it over abroad as well.

So thank you very much.

Yeah, it's a a good message and one that deserves to be spread far and wide.

So awesome.

Good on you mate, cheers.