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Mental fitness isn’t built by staying quiet.

• It’s built by having the conversations we avoid.

Episode 8 of MC Hammer Time: Beyond the Badge dives into listener questions around:

• emotional weight, identity,
• leadership under pressure, and
• how silence can quietly shape our behaviour, decisions, and relationships.

This episode challenges the idea that strength means suppressing emotion, and explores what real resilience actually looks like.

• For leaders.
• For first responders,
• For anyone carrying more than they show.

#Leadership #EmotionalIntelligence #MentalFitness #BeyondTheBadge #MC Hammer Time #FirstResponders #ConstructionLeadership #PoliceLeadership #ResilientLeadership #HumanLeadership #SpeakUp

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EP7 — Stories from the Ground

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In this solo episode, MC reflects on recent events that have shaken communities close to home and across the world, including the Bondi incident, and the quiet emotional ripple effects they leave behind.

Stories from the Ground isn’t about headlines or details.
It’s about the human impact: how shock, grief, and uncertainty live on in families, workplaces, and everyday moments long after the news fades.

As we move into the Christmas and holiday season, this episode offers space to pause, breathe, and reconnect — reminding us of the importance of kindness, presence, and staying human when the world feels heavy.

#MentalFitness
#EmotionalIntelligence
#Community
#Resilience

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EP6 – The Negotiator Mindset: From Crisis to Calm

There’s a moment before everything changes, a breath, a silence, a split second where a life can go either way.

In Episode 6 of MC Hammer Time – Beyond the Badge, I take you inside that moment. Drawing on real experiences as a police negotiator, we unpack the mindset required to move from chaos to calm under extreme pressure.

This episode explores:

• Emotional intelligence when stakes are high
• Why negotiation is about lowering emotional temperature, not winning
• How calm, presence and listening can save lives — and relationships
• Why people in crisis aren’t bad, they’re hurting
• How negotiator skills apply to leadership, parenting, work and everyday life

These principles don’t just resolve crises — they change outcomes, restore humanity, and remind us that presence can interrupt tragedy.

If you lead, care, listen, or support others — this episode matters.

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#MCHammerTime #BeyondTheBadge #NegotiatorMindset #CrisisToCalm #EmotionalIntelligence #MentalFitness #LeadershipUnderPressure #HumanFirst #Resilience #PurposeMeetsPressure

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After last week’s raw and confronting story in EP4, this episode brings light, strength, and a different kind of resilience, the kind built through discipline, identity, and self-belief.

Today I sit down with this Episodes Collaborator - Kerryn Waters — qualified nutritionist, personal trainer, natural bodybuilding competitor, and the heart behind Hibar Nutrition & Fitness.

Kerryn doesn’t just train bodies…
She helps people rebuild confidence, identity, and emotional strength through the process of lifting, fuelling, and showing up for themselves.

In this episode, we go deeper than reps, macros, or motivation. We explore:

💛 Why mindset is the missing piece in most people’s fitness journeys
💪 How lifting weights transforms confidence, not just physiques
🧠 The mind–body connection and its impact on emotional resilience
🥗 Nutrition truths that cut through confusion and rebuild self-worth
🔥 The identity shift that happens when people stop trying… and start becoming

Kerryn opens up about the clients who changed her as much as she changed them, the emotional breakthroughs she witnesses every day, and the quiet power of choosing yourself — even on the hard days.

This conversation lifts you.
Grounds you.
And reminds you that resilience isn’t built in a moment…
It’s built in the choices you make every single day.

Next week, we shift gears again — into EP6: The Negotiator Mindset — From Crisis to Calm, where I share real stories from my policing days about influence, pressure, and what it means to lead when everything is on the line.

MC Hammer Time – Beyond the Badge
Real stories.
Real resilience.
Real people becoming more.

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In this powerful solo episode, I share a story from my undercover career — a night in Kings Cross that tested my purpose, shaped my character, and changed the path of my life.
This is where Purpose Over Position was born.

EP4 is emotional, dark, and honest, a teaser of what’s coming in Season 2: The Undercover Chronicles.
And next week, we move into EP5, Building Resilient Bodies & Minds, exploring how physical resilience fuels mental strength.

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Some people learn emotional intelligence from books.
Others learn it from life.
Jason “Jack” Frost learned it the hard way, through people, pressure, loss, loyalty, and the everyday moments that test who you really are.

In this episode, Frosty opens up in a way most leaders never do.
He’s no doctor, or psychologist, and he’ll tell you himself he’s no expert in the science…
But he is real.
He is raw.
And he carries a quiet emotional intelligence shaped by years on construction sites, on the air strips, decades as a father, and the kind of life moments that leave their mark.

This conversation is full of laughter, honesty, vulnerability, and the kind of grounded wisdom that only comes from lived experience.
It’s emotional.
It’s human.
And it will hit home for anyone who has ever led people, supported a mate, carried pressure, or tried to stay strong when life got heavy.

Frosty shows us that emotional intelligence isn’t academic, it’s personal.
It’s the way we show up for each other, and for ourselves, when it matters most.

And next week… we go deeper.

Episode 4 — Purpose Over Position — is a solo episode where I open up about one of the defining moments of my life, a Solo, from my NSWP Undercover Days.

A night in Kings Cross that shaped part of the man I became, long before podcasting, long before leadership coaching, long before the construcion sites.

If EP - 3 touches your heart,
EP - 4 will stay with you long after it ends.

MC Hammer Time – Beyond the Badge
Real people.
Real emotion.
Real leadership.

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In this powerful debut episode, Mike “Hammer” Cunningham goes beyond titles and uniforms to explore what really drives us.

From his journey as a former police officer to construction safety leader and coach, Hammer shares how purpose, emotional intelligence, and mental fitness shape the way we lead, live, and show up every day.

This isn’t about badges, ranks, or recognition — it’s about rediscovering why we do what we do, and learning how to stay grounded when the pressure hits.

Real talk. Raw lessons. Purpose over position.

Because beyond the badge… is where real leadership begins.