Standing at the national anthem, sick, sore, and not sure he deserved his spot, Tom Wickham had a choice. His partner Candace had said she might fly over with their baby son to watch him play. So he closed his eyes and made himself one promise: be the man his younger self would look up to. He scored inside the first five minutes. They won 5-0.

Tom is a dual Olympian and dual Commonwealth Games gold medallist for Australia's hockey team, the Kookaburras — but this episode isn't really about hockey. It's about the mid-career conversation that nearly finished him ("you care about everyone but yourself"), the three-word mantra he built to survive it, and why he now says the same thing to his kids, his clients, and himself. We go deep on pressure, purpose, and what it actually means to lean into your truth when everything in you wants to run.

Tom Wickham is a coach, mentor, speaker, podcast host, facilitator, and founder of Game Changer Coaching & Mentoring. Through The Game Changer Way, he explores leadership, pressure, performance, and what it means to live and express authentically.

Find Tom: gccoaching.co | Instagram @gccoaching.co | @tjwickham | Game Changer podcast

His Golden Thread in full

The Golden Thread

The Golden Thread… this is the essence we all carry. This is the highest frequency and vibration. This is authenticity.

I feel myself reaching a new threshold here. It is pleasurable and somewhere I want to return to. I get excited to vibrate along this thread.

It feels like home, true home, away from all inputs and yet so attuned to all of them at the same time.

When I am one with the Golden Thread, I feel I am not body, I feel I lose the judgement of the physical world and of myself.

It doesn’t even feel like love, it just feels silent, yet powerful beyond explanation… it feels like creation.

It feels like what sits before a heart beat, before life, before anything in this dimension. It feels like the threshold to the expansive unknown… our gateway to the next dimension.”

Jon Mailer is the founder of PROTRADE United, Australia and New Zealand's leading business advisory and coaching organisation for the trades and construction industry. He's also the author of Not Just a Tradie — a book less about what to do and more about who to be.

But before the business success came the breakdown.

When his daughter was just six months old, Jon was running a 24-person business coaching company, carrying the full weight of provider pressure, not sleeping, refusing to ask for help, pushing harder when he should have stopped. Then one Saturday morning, standing in the shower having a shave, numbness crept down the left side of his body.

He'd contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome — a rare autoimmune disorder that progressively attacked his nervous system. Within hours he was 95% paralysed. Four weeks in hospital. Learning to walk, talk and feed himself again.

He went in as one man. He came out another.

In this episode, Jon and I explore what it really means to go through the fire — and why that journey, as brutal as it is, is often the exact path a man needs to take to discover what he's actually made of and what he's here to give.

We get into:

• Why the lone wolf approach doesn't work — and what it actually costs you
• The physical reality of a nervous breakdown and what it forced Jon to confront
• Gratitude as the antidote to resentment — a tool Jon's wife handed him in the hospital
• The messiness of awakening — why it's never a straight line from dark to light
• The wake-up, grow-up, clean-up journey and what each stage actually demands
• Why parenting is the ultimate test of your leadership
• What it means to lead without a mask — being the same person in every room
• Jon's hope for the future and the world his daughter is growing into

Jon and I have shared a men's group together for over a year. That closeness shows in this conversation. It goes deep fast.

Connect with Jon: protradeunited.com.au | jon@protradeunited.com.au Jon's book: Not Just a Tradie — available via PROTRADE United

What does it mean to truly lead from the inside out? In this episode, I sit down with Matt Hocking — founder of planet-centred design and impact agency LEAP, co-founder of GOODFEST, B Corp ambassador, and one of the most genuinely thoughtful leaders I've had the pleasure of talking to. Matt's journey began at The Eden Project, where his deep fascination with the natural world first took root, and it's shaped everything he's built since.

We get into the real stuff — burnout, what it strips away, and what it reveals. Matt talks openly about his own experience of running on empty, and how hitting that wall became one of the most clarifying moments of his life. It's a story a lot of leaders will recognise but rarely talk about.

Nature sits at the heart of Matt's philosophy — not as a nice-to-have, but as a genuine teacher. We explore how reconnecting with the natural world helps leaders slow down, recalibrate, and rediscover what actually matters. In a business culture that rewards relentless doing, Matt makes a compelling case for the power of stillness.

We also get into some territory that I think is long overdue in leadership conversations — the role of love and heart in how we lead. Matt believes the future of leadership looks less like command and control, and more like stewardship. Sharing responsibility. Creating the conditions for others to flourish. He talks about why uncomfortable conversations aren't something to avoid but something to lean into — because that's where the real growth happens.

One of my favourite moments in this conversation is when Matt talks about agency — the idea that each of us, wherever we sit in an organisation, has the power to create change. Not waiting for permission. Not looking upward for the answer. Just beginning.

As Matt puts it, the antidote to despair is action.

In this episode we cover:

• What mojo means to Matt and why it fluctuates
• His journey through burnout and the profound self-discovery it triggered
• Why nature is one of the most underrated leadership tools available
• The shift from ego-driven leadership to heart-led stewardship
• Why difficult conversations are a gift, not a threat
• How to reclaim your agency when the world feels overwhelming

Connect with Matt: Website: matthocking.eco LEAP Agency: leap.eco LinkedIn: Matt Hocking

Hope you love it
Richard 🦋

And if you'd like to book a free 30 minute discovery call with me to talk about some coaching can help get your Mojo back - just drop me an email.
richard@mojo-leadership.com
I'm also opening the doors for a new Mojo Men's Group - starting in Feb '26. It's a powerful and safe space for Men to open up and grow together. https://www.mojo-leadership.com/mojo-men-s-group

The Mojo Podcast Hosted by leadership coach Richard Stokes from Ibiza @mojorichard on Instagram
richard@mojo-leadership.com www.mojo-leadership.com (http://www.mojo-leadership.com)

David McQueen works with CEOs and boards when decisions start to carry more consequence than certainty. He's someone who sits in rooms where the stakes are high, the information is incomplete, and there's no margin for error.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What mojo means when you work at the sharp end of leadership
• The role of humanism and treating people with genuine respect
• Why silence creates space for deeper understanding
• Navigating change and the courage required to evolve
• Bravery in leadership - having the conversations others avoid
• Executive presence as a tool for judgment, not performance
• What gives David hope for the future

Find out more about David's work on his website - https://davidmcqueen.co.uk/

Hope you love it
Richard 🦋

And if you'd like to book a free 30 minute discovery call with me to talk about some coaching can help get your Mojo back - just drop me an email.
richard@mojo-leadership.com
I'm also opening the doors for a new Mojo Men's Group - starting in Feb '26. It's a powerful and safe space for Men to open up and grow together. https://www.mojo-leadership.com/mojo-men-s-group

The Mojo Podcast Hosted by leadership coach Richard Stokes from Ibiza @mojorichard on Instagram
richard@mojo-leadership.com www.mojo-leadership.com (http://www.mojo-leadership.com)

Ben Branson built Seedlip into the world's first non-alcoholic spirit brand. Five years after our first conversation, he's back - this time with a new venture (Sylva), recent autism and ADHD diagnoses, and a completely different understanding of himself.

We talk about what the pandemic taught him about pivoting fast, why he's now extracting flavours from wood, and how discovering he's neurodivergent has changed how he leads. Ben's honest about what it's like to finally understand why his brain works the way it does - and how that's made him a better founder, father, and human.

If you're curious about leadership, neurodiversity, or what it means to become more yourself as you get older, this one's for you

Hope you love it
Richard 🦋

And if you'd like to book a free 30 minute discovery call with me to talk about some coaching can help get your Mojo back - just drop me an email.
richard@mojo-leadership.com
I'm also opening the doors for a new Mojo Men's Group - starting in Feb 26. It's a powerful and safe space for Men to open up and grow together. https://www.mojo-leadership.com/mojo-men-s-group

The Mojo Podcast Hosted by leadership coach Richard Stokes from Ibiza @mojorichard on Instagram
richard@mojo-leadership.com www.mojo-leadership.com (http://www.mojo-leadership.com)

Davie Gowans built the business, hit the numbers, ticked all the boxes society said mattered, and felt emptier than ever.

In this conversation, Davie opens up about the moment he realised that "success" as the world defines it wasn't the finish line he thought it was. What followed was a journey of stripping back – the control, the expectations, the identity tied to achievement – to find something more real underneath.

We talk about what happens when you stop chasing and start listening. About the freedom that comes from letting go of who you're supposed to be. And about the quiet power of being in service to others rather than in pursuit of more.

If you've ever wondered whether there's more to the game than winning it, this one's for you.

Hope you love it
Richard 🦋

And if you'd like to book a free 30 minute discovery call with me to talk about some coaching can help get your Mojo back - just drop me an email.
richard@mojo-leadership.com

The Mojo Podcast Hosted by leadership coach Richard Stokes from Ibiza @mojorichard on Instagram
richard@mojo-leadership.com www.mojo-leadership.com (http://www.mojo-leadership.com)