Margaret River Business Awards

Thursday the 14 th of September 2023 – Margaret River Business Awards are being held at the HEART.

My wife wanted me to apply for the awards, her family has plenty of business experience and I guess this is some form of an initiation.

When I received a phone call a few weeks prior to the awards to update me on the news that I was one off the finalists, my initial response; I laughed! I wasn’t getting excited or carried away, this was all new for me and it was too easy to be critical of myself.

In fact, I even got in trouble for that by the wife. She was stoked, the children were excited for me. My wife also runs her own business and she was also a finalist. Now although we didn’t ‘know’ which categories we were finalists in, we knew we wouldn’t be competing because I only qualified for one section: Arrived & Thrived, a new business less than 18 months old. But anyone in this category was ineligible to others.

So, I got in trouble for acting like I didn’t care, this wasn’t the case at all. We just had different views of the situation.

Fast forward to the night and I’m standing on the stage in front of this crowd of maybe 100. It was such a supportive crowd, full of amazing local businesses. The second finalist for this category is called up and Justine joins me on stage. Justine is a wonderful person. We hug, share a laugh. I am convinced she has this in the bag. She was even hosting some of the workshops to help businesses complete the application process.

I didn’t even hear it, we had barely finished hugging each other when the representative from South Regional Tafe continued “and the winner is……Lifestorm!” Justine had to tell me I had won.

Yes, I took the podium and made a short speech thanking South Regional Tafe and my wife, saying I didn’t prepare anything to say as I had not anticipated to come away with the win.

So, after 15months of some very hard work, some much needed help from my beautiful wife, and juggling various other casual jobs to at least pay the mortgage and put food on the table, I won a business award.

It may not offer any immediate financial assistance but now I have to use this as an opportunity, be slightly less humble and advertise myself as an award-winning business.

Not what you get into the mental health industry for, but if it means Lifestorm develops better recognition and consumer confidence then I can reach and help more of the community and continue my mission of building resilience and empower mental fitness.