Why doing push-ups builds your mental fitness
3,214 Australians. That's how many lives were lost to suicide in 2023. As builders, we're experts at measuring, calculating, and fixing physical problems - but when it comes to mental health, many of us struggle to even start the conversation. That's why when Matt and I met Nick Hudson, founder of the Pushup Challenge, we knew his story needed sharing with our community.
A Personal Struggle That Sparked a Movement
Nick's journey began with a revelation that shook his world - discovering his father, the man he'd always seen as unshakeable, had battled depression for years without Nick or his brother knowing. This wasn't just surprising; it was transformative. That moment of realisation sparked Nick's mission to understand mental health better, eventually leading to an initiative that's changing how Australians approach mental fitness.
The Pushup Challenge: What It Is and Why It Matters
The concept is brilliantly simple - complete a specific number of pushups over a month while learning about mental health. What started with Nick's immediate circle has exploded into a nationwide movement, with 50,000 participants across Australia in 2024r. Each pushup represents something powerful - a commitment to breaking the silence around mental health.
In the building industry, we're surrounded by stereotypes about toughness and resilience. We work through physical pain, harsh weather, and demanding deadlines. But mental struggles? That's where many of us fall silent. The Pushup Challenge creates a framework where talking about mental health becomes not just acceptable but expected.
Mental Fitness: Building Resilience Every Day
Nick shared a perspective that resonated deeply with us - mental fitness is like preparing for a physical challenge. You don't just show up on race day without training. Similarly, mental resilience requires daily practice. It's about quality sleep, meaningful connections, and developing coping strategies before you need them. Remarkably, participants in the Challenge reported significant improvements in their mental health symptoms.
This conversation inspired us to take action. We're mobilising the Mindful Builder community - contractors, architects, designers, and everyone in between - to participate in this year's Pushup Challenge. Our industry faces unique mental health challenges, and it's time we addressed them together.
Participation is free, and while fundraising for organisations like Headspace and Lifeline is an option, the real value comes from joining a community committed to mental fitness. For those who've experienced loss due to mental health struggles, this isn't just about pushups - it's about potentially saving lives.
Ready to make a difference? Visit the Pushup Challenge website, sign up individually or create a team, and start building mental fitness alongside physical strength. Can't do traditional pushups? Modified versions work just as well - what matters is participation and awareness.
Let's build a stronger industry from the inside out.
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Hamish: [00:00:00] Hey Matthew,
I've got a question for you.
Do you think you could do 3,214 pushups?
Matthew: if you gave me a little bit of a time
Hamish: What about if I said you could do it over 23 days?
Matthew: Okay. I can give it a pretty good crack,
Hamish: Right. Okay. Well, today we are joined by Nick Hudson from the Pushup Challenge. Nick, welcome.
Nick: Thanks. It's great to be on.
Hamish: of the motivations behind this podcast for myself and Matt is, is not only to talk about, , our lives as builders because it can be quite stressful, but. we're also talking about how stressful it can be. We've got a big emphasis on mental health.
Um, you know, I've shared some personal journey, personal stories for myself. You know, I'm diagnosed anxiety disorder, diagnosed A DHD. You know, I quite often ride a bit of a roller coaster from, from month to month. but enough about me. I would love to hear about you and the story behind the pushup challenge
Nick: My [00:01:00] journey with mental health began when my dad, uh, had his own, you call it, I guess, journey with depression.
I was out at a restaurant, my parents. night, and dad, as he, as he often does, went off to pay the bill I'm left, left there sitting with mom, and of a sudden mom just starts crying, I was bawling her eyes out. Oh my gosh. I was thinking, what have I done? What have I said Was the meal that bad? reached across the table and said, oh, mom, you grab mom's hand. Oh, mom, you okay? What's, what's going on? She said, Nick, I can't keep it a secret any longer, I have to tell you. your dad has depression, I knew nothing about depression at this time. Nothing. I didn't know how to respond other than I could see the bad state that mum was in and thought, oh, okay, obviously this is bad. And just, just went with it. Just, you know, [00:02:00] listened and, and, uh, let her say her thing. Um, dad comes back to the table a few minutes later. Mum's still quite teary. And, and, and dad's, oh, oh, what, what's going on? What happened? And mum said, oh, I had to tell Nick that, you've got depression. And dad's, head just, just sunk. And he looked, looked ashamed. and that really saddened me. like many guys or girls, you know, my dad's a hero. and hearing that, you know, he, he was in a bad way, you know, hit me really hard. it turns out that dad had been suffering from depression for a long time. He 15, 20 years, something like that. Mom and him had been keeping it a secret from my brother and I, you know, all those years. when all this came out, I felt well in, in a way I was a little bit [00:03:00] disappointed with, with, with mom and dad for not, know, not telling me.
But again, I, I had no idea what depression was. So, I needed to learn. I respected. They didn't, they didn't tell me. And, and hats off to mom in particular. I mean, dad had been going through a super rough ride, but hats off to mom for, for shouldering all that, you know, for helping dad navigate all that and trying to keep that, and keep the household together and put on the smiling face and all that.
Whilst my brother and I were navigating school, that, that was my first. Experience with, depression and mental health, which was, yeah, an eye opener for me at that stage. And again, I, I was coming from a baseline of knowing almost zero mental health. So that's where my journey, I guess, I guess, began.
Matthew: quite a challenging conversation probably for you to have in your own head as well, because you're probably not wanting to then put the burden back on your parents. To add more pressure to them. So not only are you trying to there, because you said this, well, I've, I've [00:04:00] literally written this down. You've written the word, you said the word listened, you said it, which is such a key thing to doing that time. But you're there to support your, your, your dad and your mom and airing that conversation is also a positive and then move in the right direction, you probably also then had to start going through, well now how do I process in my head without putting that back on them?
Nick: that, that listening thing, it's so important, right? Men and women, but particularly for men you okay? I've got some really good tools about this, but The listening thing, just being able to. To make someone feel heard and to hear your emotions validated right and understood by another, can be so powerful
Hamish: if I'm thinking about, I guess the timeframe, so that was 20 years ago, you know, just outta school, and you're saying that your dad was experiencing this for 15 to 20 years, like you were a young kid when he was going through this. If I think about my dad, and I think that our parents are probably of a similar, similar age and [00:05:00] similar generation.
Why do you think that our parents' generation seem to be so stoic about this and see shame in admitting these things?
Nick: it's part of that cultural evolution, right? I'm sure there's things in, in, in generation before theirs that, uh, that they look back on and go, oh, how, how, how the hell did you operate like that? I don't know the answer,
Hamish: I was gonna say, I wasn't actually expecting you to come back with an answer because I've thought about it a lot and I don't think that even your dad, or even my parents or my dad or even his parents could answer the question as to why. ' and I dunno if you've got kids, but I've got kids, Matt's about to have his first kid.
the narrative that our kids are actually having these days around mental health is wildly different to what it was like when I was that age and the conversations that we're having. What makes me happy, I guess, in a way, is that we're seeing this change in generation of that communication and the way that we're actually talking about mental health. And now that it's actually just [00:06:00] not gonna say it's normal. I don't think we're quite there yet, particularly in our industry, but it, there is a change in, in this n around mental health and when we're actually feeling these feelings, we're actually talking about them.
Nick: there's certainly cultural change. It'd be real interesting to see how that changes. You know, over the next couple of generations when you ask the question of, you know, what was so different with the last generation or what caused that, stoic, and that that lack of openness there, I think if we, if we knew the pure answer to that in, in its, you know, completely scientific form, that would significantly help us today in unraveling that it'd be interesting to see how the next generation goes. And I am scared nervous about the next generation as well as I am excited and hopeful. I mean, I'm loving all these good chats that are happening and complete change, what seems to be like complete change in how we tackle this. But I, I. But, you know, with social media and, and information just being [00:07:00] so readily available along with the good, there's, there's bad in that as well. So, um, I'm excited about the, the future, but also a little bit nervous, you know.
Hamish: And it's totally understandable and, and you know, I'm sure Matt's having these thoughts too with his, you know, child on the way too and myself with two, and I'm expecting a third. I'm gonna just add one more thing to what you just said there, Nick. There's people like you out there who are making a real change, that are blocking out all that other noise because we can't stop that.
I always say to my team, and I say to, if anyone ever asks me for business advice, is to focus on the things that you can control. And I kind of feel like what you are doing with the pushup challenge is actually focusing on something that you can control and you are putting out a positive message. So I agree with you.
There's lots and lots and noise out there. There a hundred percent is, but it's people like you and organizations like the Pushup Challenge who are actually gonna [00:08:00] make a really big change. As best as you can, try and block out that noise. It's gonna exist. It's always exists, but know that there's also people like you who are gonna help change that narrative and change the way that people are thinking about it.
Nick: I really appreciate you saying that. And look, it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a team effort here, right? It's gonna take, uh, what do they say, a village, all these different individuals, all these different organizations, working towards that cul cultural change and what working towards those individual changes.
But I, I, I will, I will layer in this, which, which I think, um, is hopefully building on your previous point. Life is hard. Life is challenging. Bad stuff is gonna happen, right? People get sick, people die. People lose jobs to your, know, bad grades at school. Break up with your partner break up their partners. Bad stuff happens. [00:09:00] So. Understanding that bad stuff happens. What do we do about that? do we prepare ourselves for that? And I'm not talking about preparing yourself financially or, or anything like that, but I'm talking about, you know, emotionally, I'm talking about mental fitness. How do we prepare ourselves, build up that mental fitness those bad things happen, sure. you know, we mourn. learn, we, we kick ourselves, all that sort of stuff. But we're strong enough to get through it in a reasonable state. And there are times where I know through, I've been through those periods where it feels like, geez, this week or this month or this year, I've been hit with just so many things, many bad things.
And I know this is easier said than done, but at the end of the day. I know I've got a choice to, I can let those things get me [00:10:00] down and, sometimes they really do get me down I can try and do I can to lift myself back up. Now I know there might be some people watching this podcast or listening or other people talking about this and going, yeah, righto will, sometimes people just can't. And I understand that sometimes we're in such a bad state and we are lucky to live in a country where there were some pretty good services available to us out there us, you know, get out of those really rotten states. So I'd be encouraging people who are in that really bad place to, you know, reach out to those services to get help. if you are in a good way. Think about what you can do to improve your mental fitness, you know, today in terms of diet, exercise, time with others, time outside, that sort of thing. support the mental fitness of others as well.
Matthew: I also wanna add in sleep to that one. I feel like sleep's a really important thing.
[00:11:00] I, I think that's something that also gets missed a huge amount with this sort of, these conversations.
Nick: Sleep is absolutely number one. I had a period a few years ago, uh, where I was running on, uh, about two hours of sleep for a couple weeks, and I was going insane, going absolutely insane, and I. wasn't until I spoke to a doctor about it and, and got a bit of help that I helped steady that ship.
I was trying to solve all these problems I was trying to, I was focusing my exercise, my diet, all these things. My sleep was. Out of control, bad. I know Matt, on the, on the eve of having a, having a child, this
Matthew: Just rip the bandaid off here. Rip it off.
Nick: yeah. But, uh, but, but sleep is number one. If, if you're not, if you're not well rested, it's gonna be really hard to make those decisions to regulate your emotions. Uh, all those sorts of things, and yes, I know it might be hard for, um, for a, a young family, but it, it's something [00:12:00] people need to focus on.
Matthew: so the proportion of sort of a health expenditure that's dedicated to mental health, it lags behind a lot of the spending, say to cardiovascular disease, respiratory. Why is that?
Nick: Hmm. I don't know the answer. there's a number of things that can be done in the mental health space. The preventative is just so important. So rather than up the acute end, right, where we also need support, but up the, the preventative end, we, we also need investment. know, we need the good behaviors, put in place. there's a study that, that was done, uh, recently about impact of, you know, long-term focus on mental health. So, you know, interventions over extended period of time, we're talking about years having a positive impact.
And if you look at that. An intervention of that duration, the investment behind that's gonna be significant, right? it might be hard for the government to, you know, to be able to justify to itself around, I mean, the numbers [00:13:00] should say otherwise, uh, but it might be hard to government.
If you look at cardiovascular disease and, you know, cancer, they get, um, a, a lot of as they should.
Matthew: but the reason the funding comes from that, because if that someone can develop a tablet or a system to cure these diseases, the, it's highly profitable. look at, like, for example, a Covid vaccine. Um, major money made out of creating a vaccine. The issue with say, mental health, there's no vaccine and there's never gonna be a magic pill. So from an investment perspective, the return on income is never gonna be there. And that's the harsh reality from an investment. When a government's gonna look at something or a company's going to look at something, they gonna go to ROI on it? The answer's probably not, but they will along the lines somewhere, because these can lead to other issues within lives and domestic violence and assault and all these other things.
But I totally agree on your comment around being preventive. Like everything, we should be preventive, not reactive. And I, I have a [00:14:00] personal opinion, like didn't we just see recently a decrease from the governments around the amount of mental health sessions that someone can get? They've dropped it from 20 down to 10. The reality is most people, the people that we are probably around a lot of the time, can afford it. There's so many people that can't access this and don't have the money to access these things, and it just puts so much pressure on all these non-for-profits to to, to lift that burden.
Nick: It does, and it's unfortunate that, uh, the people who may really need it, , can't. Afford those sessions, which, which just creates a spiral of not good. it's challenging when you've got so many competing causes out there, good causes, but they are in a way competing.
Hamish: I think the tricky part about mental health is that there's so many different contributing factors that what might lead to you feeling in a certain way. this might be a really great segue into you talking about your experience with a physical health problem, which I would imagine has led into [00:15:00] a depressive period.
I might just throw over to you, Nick, just to maybe talk about that and probably, you know, start talking about like, the genesis of where like the pushup challenge came from. Because I feel really great when I'm training. I. When I'm physically active, you know, and I know that, that makes me feel good.
And I, I actually love the connection between mental health and fitness. So could you maybe share with us, um, I guess way back, the, maybe after you, you know, you, you hearing about your dad and, and your personal experience.
Nick: Number of years later, I was, uh, was, uh, winter and myself and mates wanted something new to do, and we were, you know, exercising a fair bit, but we wanted to do something else.
So I, I challenged the guys to, to take on a, a stack of pushups over a month. it worked really well. We, we got fit along the way. had a bit of fun with it, but there was an unintended consequence. during the challenge, during this, this thing that, you know, we were doing, you, you'd wake up the morning, it'd be, you know, [00:16:00] six 30 uh, we, we had this little lap that, that I built to help us. track our pushups it was really, really basic. Uh, but it worked and it was, it was, it was great. And everyone would put their pushups in there. Yeah. So again, you wake up in the morning, you, you'd fire up the app and you, see that, for instance, Hamish had always Yeah. 60 pushups. Like It's six 30 Hamish. I know you're a bit of a bit of a machine, how have you managed to do 60 pushups? And so, you know, you message a group, Hamish would inevitably say, well, you know, the kids woke me up at four. Um, so I thought, yeah, why not? Um, I was going to smash out a few now. And so the conversation would start about pushups, right? And then evolve into one other things and you know, it'd come to 10:00 AM on the app, check up, you know, fire up the app. See, Matt still hadn't done any pushups. like Matt Classic. Matt, come on late.
Matthew: Internet's.
Hamish: in.
Matthew: not working. Can't download it.
Nick: [00:17:00] the conversation would start about pushups, then evolve into life things. Yeah, kids about girlfriend, your partner, you know, whatever. so I found this, this, this challenge kept us really well connected. Because we're all busy, right? We've got families, we're extended families, we've got our partners or our mates at work, whatever, and catching up with some mates or, or some people, it can be hard. And this way of staying connected worked really well. We live in the era of, of, you know, group chats. I look at how many of my social groups are just around group chats now and how, how much that sort of drives activity. So I thought, well maybe it's something more in this, maybe we can get more people involved, get 'em better connected, have a bit of fun with it, fit. I. [00:18:00] That's the Venn diagram of good things, right? All those things connected. good stuff. So I put a bit more effort into it and got some, some more mates involved, got friends involved, and the following year we had a thousand people taking part across Australia, which I always stoked by.
It's like, this is awesome. The app, I improved, it, had all these new features in it. You can do all these new things like this is, this is great. after two, a thousand people involved. I said to the mates, all right, let's, let's celebrate. Let's, this is great. Um, and we did want, you know, any bunch of guys I. In Perth, we'd do to celebrate. We went over to, uh, went over to Bali for a few days, for a few days and, uh, you know, hit, hit the waves and, and, um, had a bit of fun. But coming back, , or even out in the surf there, I realized, I felt quite unfit. Went and saw a doctor who, um, who. [00:19:00] referred me to a cardiologist who told me that my heart was in a bad way that I needed to have work done on it. didn't really like that news. to some other cardiologists who confirmed yes, I needed to have open heart surgery in the, you know, very, very near future. And so that, that hit me very poorly, I got depressed. I. Hearing that I couldn't exercise for a while, I'd be at risk of having to go on, you know, warfarin and, and not be able to, know, drink and eat funky foods and all that. yeah, I went downhill and I started rejecting my mates, started rejecting my family, you know, withdrew from work with, withdrew from, from life. It was a, it was a low point.
So I thought, you know what? Let's, let's do something more for mental health. Let's build this pushup into something real, something big into there with my laptop. of time in bed, completely bored with [00:20:00] Netflix and, and all that. I thought, yeah, let's, let's build a pushup challenge. And so that's, that's when it was on put a stack more effort into it.
Developed all this, you know, developed a website and app and marketing stuff. And, and yeah, that year we had about 50,000 people taking part across Australia, which was just, yeah, mind blowing.
Hamish: As I kind of touched on before, we've got, um, Julie, who's a psychologist that comes onto this, uh, podcast regularly and she talks about like a few things that helps, I guess with your mental resilience, and that is purpose being physical. Connections and being out in nature and just listening to you, um, as you're going through that post-surgery, um, stage where you couldn't do much, you had a purpose.
You were trying to do something physical. You were creating [00:21:00] connections. Now, I don't know if you could go outside and enjoy nature or you had a nice window there or whatever, but like you're kind of hitting three outta those four really key ingredients. And if I think about like what the pushup challenge is actually doing, like it's hitting off so many of those things that we know plays such a big role into our mental fitness.
Nick: coming out of that, that surgery and, you know, for a while you can, you can't do much, but I knew as soon as I was, you know, well enough to. Walk a reasonable amount. It's on. I'm throwing everything at 'cause I'm still quite depressed. I am trying to get my sleep back, back on track, eating well, time of nature, time with good people and that sense of purpose, you know, that was incredibly, uh, prominent real for me and deliberately, you know, moving in those dimensions and trying to, um. To make all those happen at the [00:22:00] same time with the pushup challenge, how do I encourage, how do I nurture a community of people to do the same? that's one of the reasons why the Pushup challenge has been so successful, it's got all those elements of goodness. And it's, it's fun.
Matthew: so pushups 3,214. Why that many?
Nick: yeah, so this year in 2025, we're encouraging Australians to take on that many 3,214 represents the number of Australians who tragically. Took their own lives. And in 2023, which is the last year of, um, of mentioned data. number we wanna do something about.
we've had participants taking part in contacting us, and, and I've met, you know, many of them who will tell me, Nick, my brother, my dad, my sister, my son, was one of those, you know, 3,214. it's heartbreaking, but it's also, really motivating. '
Hamish: is one of [00:23:00] your business goals for the pushup challenge, given that there's, the last count was 3002 14. People that took their lives in 2023 would one of your goals for the business to not have to exist?
Nick: Yes, absolutely. So if, if, if we're successful, and the whole, village is successful, then that number should reduce over time. To get, you know, close to, if not to zero, then the challenge to us will be, How do we to maintain our mental fitness, our resilience? when those things do happen. We've got a better chance of getting through them.
Hamish: I absolutely love this term of mental fitness, like, I think, you know, mental health or, or, or, or mental disease or whatever you wanna call it. I feel like mental fitness brings across these connotations of something can actually do about it.
And [00:24:00] I know you are not a. Um, psychologist or, or mental health, or maybe you are a mental health expert or, or, or trained in that field, but what are some tips that you can give people to work on their mental fitness?
Nick: mental fitness is a term that's getting more and more discussion at the moment. More airtime, which is fantastic. I can tell you my interpretation of it. I can also tell you what it's not. Right. So there are some, uh, some things out there that suggest that, Mental fitness is about keeping your, your brain alert and whatnot. Uh, you know, there's games that you know help, you know, there's problem solving games with apps or, or websites, et cetera, that, know, say, I'll do this and you'll be more mentally fit. I'm not sure about that. It's certainly not what we're aiming for. Okay. We're, we're aiming for. Ability to, uh, adapt. So encouraging or, or enabling people's ability to adapt when those bad things happen. What works for me [00:25:00] my mental fitness, uh, the dimensions we just talked about and, and little things within there around, diets, exercise, time in nature, time with with people, time with. Um, I'm gonna say good people, but what I mean by that is people you get along with, people who make you laugh and who you can make laugh, uh, and then sleep. And I leave sleep to last, but it's really number one if you haven't got your sleep right, everything else is just so, so challenging And see what we did in, in 2024 with the pushup challenge we, we had Melbourne University do a study the event. ' Well, they set up this study to help, you know, measure the impacts of, of the event on people. And, you know, we, we surveyed over 40,000 people taking part in the event to see the impact of them, the mental fitness pre-event and post-event. And then three months down the track, so, you know, the, the lasting, you know, [00:26:00] lingering impacts. the results were just amazing. In terms of people's ability to adapt, to change, um, the severity of anxiety symptoms, the severity of, um, depressive depression symptoms, all, all these good things came, came from it, which has validated what validated out of what we do, validated our model just makes me wanna do more in this space. So I've got my own little things that I do. Uh, I'm not always super diligent with them, staying off the phone for a while before you, uh, before you switch off the lights. too close to your sleep time, but caffeine intake, think people are familiar with, with these things. The trick is just,
discipline. a great way to stay disciplined around this is, yeah, having that structure, being clear on that structure and, and sticking to it and having others.
I. Help you stay honest [00:27:00] with that structure. So if you do live with others, you know, a little bit of banter, a little bit of, um, little bit of stick, if you're not, you know, aligning to those guidelines can help. Uh, yeah. Uh, time and nature is another big one for me as well, which I have grown to appreciate more and more. So, I think in, in Japan they call it forest bathing. Uh, so deliberately walking through, you know, a, a, a green space. letting all that sink in. And there was a study done on this actually a couple years ago about, people go running, through, you know, forest or whatever with, um, or around the park with, you know, earbuds in or headphones in, and they looked at the impact of, a 5K run or, or whatever this, it was people used.
or headphones versus those who didn't and those who didn't. It was a much more of a positive impact.
Oh yeah, I found that really interesting. I also found that really disappointing. 'cause I thought, well, that's a shame [00:28:00] I love being able to multi try and multitask or walk, walk around my, uh, my local lake where it's all green, listen to a podcast and you know, I'm, I'm learning and I'm looking after my mental fitness the same time. Well, yes, but to get the true impact, you really need to immerse yourself in it.
And
Matthew: it's you. Do you like whatever works? Whatever works for you If you find that's relaxing. I, um, I know we sometimes, and I'm very big on studies and uh, analytical thinking brain, but if it works for you and you find that you chill with a podcast, music, totally okay too.
Nick: absolutely. And, and you hear, you know, GPS say this, you know, more and more often that, you know, you ask GP what's, what's the best form of exercise
they'll say whatever's the one you are most likely to do.
Just say, say the science said that, that running's the best form of exercise. Right? And say, you're not a runner. Well, then what do you do if you're
Matthew: Yeah.
Nick: You don't enjoy running, but you're being forced to [00:29:00] run. You're not gonna enjoy it. You, you're gonna try it for. A few days a week or maybe a month, then you're gonna, you know, revert back to your, your safe zone. So, I mean, it's worth giving a shot, but if you can find that exercise you really enjoy doing, there's a lot of, lot of value in that.
Matthew: Now I've got two things here because I know you do a lot of things with schools as well. leading cause of death in children, uh, under the age of 17 is suicide. It's overtaken, uh, transport accidents, which is a huge issue. what, what, how are you working with schools to get these kids involved?
Nick: it's a really grim stat, isn't it? But it's, it's so real. So what we we're trying to get more and more schools involved in a pushup challenge and a, a few years ago we kicked off our, our student ambassador program. year we had over, I think about 500 schools involved across Australia in our student ambassador program. And something where we're continuing, to grow to really get into the, into the minds of, uh, [00:30:00] people. had a school in, in regional. Uh, new South Wales, uh, a place called Don Dongo take part in the pushup challenge a few years ago. And they had a, a couple of students, approach their principal about, you know, taking on the pushup challenge, you know? Yeah. In the first, first year they were gonna take on this school, and the principal at the initially was a little bit hesitant.
they weren't, you know, scholars. Yeah. and they weren't known for these sorts of initiatives or, or showing much initiative at the school. The principal took a punt on them. It gave 'em, let 'em have a crack, and they smashed it outta the park, and they brought all these conversations to the school.
This new focus and this new way of looking at. Mental health and, and when I hear stories like that, it makes me so proud to be able to bring the pushup challenge to, well Australians, but, but also schools.
Matthew: And now I also wanna link it back to construction as well. 'cause at the end of the day, we do [00:31:00] have a lot of construction people listening to this podcast. In the construction industry, you're two times more likely to die from suicide compared to other males, and you are six times more likely to die by suicide compared to a workplace accident. are a BS study statistics as well. they're, again, pretty grim, but I, and we'll get into a minute on how you can sign up and participate in this challenge, but I feel as an industry being predominantly men, uh, and men, as we've probably spoken about through this podcast and through all podcasts and known as society, that men don't speak up as much.
It's the reality. It's the reality that 97% of our industry are men. It's only gonna be more likely that men are gonna take their lives. Um, think that something needs to be done about it personally. but as, as an industry, h how can we participate in signing up and how do we, how do we as a, as an industry get [00:32:00] involved in Hamish? We might have a chat about doing something where. We can sign up under the mindful builder as many
Hamish: I've got that. I've already got that written down. Mm-hmm. Where the mindful push up. The mindful push up group.
Matthew: Yeah. Um, we'll, we'll have a chat about something we can do, but just Nick, uh, before I've got one last question for you. How do we sign up?
Nick: Yeah, so to get involved in pushup challenge, it's easy. It's free to take part. takes part in June each year. Uh, there you go. Now you've just got the app firing up.
Matthew: You know I'm gonna have all this spare time in the middle of the night coming up when I'm up late at night 'cause the baby's not sleeping. I'm gonna be smashing pushups.
Nick: so yeah, people do want to wanna join, uh, just, yeah, Google the pushup challenge. It should be, should come up as number one or pretty close to it. And, uh, get involved from there. You can take. Part by yourself or with a team, with your mates, workmates, et cetera. it's free and, and easy if you do wanna fundraise. So people have the option of fundraising for mental health along the way if they want, but you don't have to. Right. [00:33:00] is your thing or if you wanna do it by yourself, not the team, for it. Would love to have you involved. if pushups aren't your thing, then, you know, you can do other things as well. You can do up squats, lunges, uh, you know, modified pushups, free to mix it up. And we get a lot of people, we start on day one. then burn out, or they go really hard on day one, know? And then day two, they can't move their arms. day one in particular, I spread 'em out over the day and throw in some alternatives. My dad takes part, he does wall pushups, um, which I find like, I'd certainly encourage those. We had 105 year old take part a few years ago. Uh, and he was doing wall pushups as well. So any come
Hamish: Amazing.
Nick: very easy to get involved. Again, it's free and it's, uh, hopefully you get to learn about mental health a little bit along the way as well.
Hamish: what are some of the, um, organizations that you support in the pushup challenge?
Nick: yeah. So this year [00:34:00] we're supporting Headspace. Lifeline and our own foundation, the push for better foundation. And so people can choose who they're fundraising for. there are a number of headspace and lifeline centers across Australia. In fact, combined, there's almost 200. the option for you to, to fundraise for one of your, you know, to support your local community by selecting a, a center.
It's based on Lifeline Center. That's, that's close to you. Again, fundraising is optional. We certainly encourage it. We'd love you to support. We'd love, you know, people to support their local communities. But we also understand that sometimes people financially just aren't in a, a position to, to donate or they're not comfortable asking their friends, family for donations, which is all right. They do wanna fundraise. We've got a bunch of tools to, to help you out.
Matthew: Nick, I'll finish on this. you've raised $50 million for mental health. What does that mean to you?
Nick: it's a number we're really proud of. also love the fundraising component. It's, it's not actually a fundraising [00:35:00] event, it's a participation event, and what really me is just is getting people involved and we have people reach out to us and say, oh, it's because of the pushup challenge that they've started exercising.
Again, it's because of the pushup challenge that they're being able to connect with their mates. It's because of the pushup challenge that they've learnt all this, this new stuff about mental health and that's the stuff that really motivates me, you to do more in this space. So the fundraise is, is pretty cool and I'm very, I'm super proud to be able to support, you know, lifeline Headspace what they do. But it's the participation that really, really motivates me.
Hamish: And I think it's also the numbers that you'll never know, and that's the numbers that you've helped. You know, not become part of that 3214 statistic of people taking their lives. [00:36:00] 'cause I'm absolutely no doubt that this event has saved probably more lives than you know. So well done Nick. amazing.
Matthew: We are the type of people that we get an idea and we now run with it. And I can only ima our brains just go left and right and I can just imagine the phone call. I'm about to him with Hamish about what we're gonna do with this. But I can
Hamish: Yep.
Matthew: and I'm gonna speak on Hamish's behalf, that we are gonna do something with this. We are gonna get as many builders, architects, engineers, build designers, interior designers, whoever. We are gonna create a. Minefield builder, little page for this. Um, and we're gonna do something pretty special to not only support you, Nick and your foundation, but also, uh, more importantly, support those who are in need because, it's something that I know Hamish is passionate about, something that I'm deeply passionate about.
unfortunately, my cousin is a statistic in that number. And so for me, uh, it's something that I really hold close to my chest, um, and, uh, feel very passionate about. So, [00:37:00] um, mate, thank you so much for coming on today.
Nick: Uh, pleasure,
Amy. It's been great being on your podcast.