Tag Archive for: The Run Within

The Run Within 17: Uncertainty Is Not a Sign You Are Lost. Here Is What It Actually Means.

Last week I posted my flops. And the response blew me away.

Messages from people saying they needed to hear that. That they had been carrying their own version of the same flops and hadn’t given themselves permission to acknowledge them yet. That seeing someone be honest about the imperfect parts of the journey made them feel less alone in theirs.

That response reminded me of something I said in last week’s newsletter. People don’t connect with perfection. They connect with honesty. And this week I want to keep that thread going because something happened to me recently that I have been sitting with ever since.

On August the 14th, I flew to the Philippines for what was supposed to be a 9 night, 10 day trip.

I visited Camiguin Island for 5 nights, met my two VAs in person in Lian, Batangas for the first time which is a whole story in itself (I’ll write an article dedicated to that), and spent a weekend genuinely disconnected from the noise of everyday life. It was exactly the kind of reset I needed.

Mantigue Island, off Camiguin Island, Philippines.

As you probably already know, when I’m not delivering a keynote or facilitating a workshop, I’m an online running and strength coach for busy professionals and dedicated athletes. Over the past five years I’ve transitioned from a personal trainer on the gym floor to the online coach I am today. The beauty of this career is I can work from anywhere with internet.

So six hours before my scheduled flight back to Australia, I looked at my calendar and saw the next two weeks held nothing but calls with clients and my VAs, calls I could take from anywhere. I thought: I may never get the chance to adventure through the Philippines like this again. As I get older, life will fill up with more responsibility. More keynotes. A family of my own one day. None of it will leave room for this kind of spontaneity.

People who know me always say the same thing. That I never stop. That I never slow down. That I should take a moment every now and then to smell the roses and either rest or adventure. That life doesn’t always have to be so serious. This felt like the chance to actually do that. So I did something completely out of character. I changed my mind, rescheduled my flight, and booked the next one to Siargao Island instead.

It felt exciting in the moment. Voice Two being bold. Choosing adventure over the plan. Saying yes to the unexpected.

Then, a few hours later, it hit me.

The anxiety crept in quietly at first, then all at once. I’d booked a 28K trail race for Saturday the 29th, one I genuinely wanted to run in on the Gold Coast. It would have been just my second race back from my near career-ending foot injury. The decision that felt so liberating the night before started to feel like a huge mistake. “You’re an idiot,” I told myself. “You worked so hard to get back to racing, and you’re trading it for two more weeks away?”

I sat with the knot in my chest, wondering if I’d let Voice One disguise itself as Voice Two. Whether what I called courage was actually avoidance. Whether the bold choice was the right one.

For someone who speaks about purpose, direction and doing hard things for a living, it was extremely hard feeling so uncertain and anxious in that moment. I haven’t felt like that for a long time. It couldn’t escape me and it was a crippling feeling.

And that is exactly the point I want to make this week.

I’ve reminded myself that uncertainty is not a sign that I’m lost, and that’s the same for you too. It’s a sign that you are making real choices about a real life. The people who never feel uncertain aren’t the most confident people in the room, they are the ones who stopped making bold decisions a long time ago. Because bold decisions come with doubt, every single time. And the only way to avoid that doubt is to stop choosing anything that actually matters to you.

I talk about Voice One and Voice Two in my keynote, The Run Within, and I want to add something to that conversation this week. Sometimes Voice One doesn’t sound like fear, laziness or excuses. Sometimes it sounds like reason. Like practicality. Like the sensible thing to do. And sometimes Voice Two doesn’t sound like confidence or clarity. Sometimes it sounds like a quiet but persistent nudge toward something you cannot fully explain yet.

The hard part is that in the moment they can feel almost identical. And the only way you get better at telling them apart is by making the choice, sitting with the discomfort that follows, and trusting that the uncertainty itself is part of the process rather than a sign you got it wrong.

I don’t regret changing my flight. And I’ve now given myself some grace for the hours I spent anxious about whether I had made the right call, instead of being present in the decision I had already made. I realised the anxiety wasn’t telling me that I had made the wrong choice, it was just Voice One catching up to a decision that Voice Two had already made.

And then something shifted. After a good night of sleep and a clear head, I found my feet again. I met local runners at the Siargao Run Club and that familiar feeling came rushing back. The community. The movement. The reminder of who I am when I strip everything else away. And now I’m loving it. I’m heading back to Australia next Monday morning (7th of September), and I even signed up for a local half marathon race on another island in Siquijor, this coming weekend, so I’ll still get to race after all.

But the best thing I’ve been able to do over the extra week, is learn to surf. Siargao is the surfing capital of the Philippines and it has felt incredible to be in the water, so present and out of my head. So I am doing the real work on the waves too.

Voice Two is alive and well out here.

I know I’m still on track, just taking a slightly different route than I originally planned. And honestly, that feels very on brand.

That is something I am still learning. How to make the bold choice and then actually let myself live in it without immediately pulling it apart. And I think that is something most of us are learning together.

The flops post resonated because it was honest. This one is honest too. I am not someone who has it all figured out. I am someone who is deeply committed to figuring it out in real time, sharing the journey as I go, and trusting that the uncertainty along the way is not the enemy of a meaningful life. It is actually proof of one.

So here is your question this week. Where in your life right now are you sitting with a decision you have already made and letting Voice One pull it apart instead of trusting the voice that made it?

Because sometimes the bravest thing isn’t making another choice. It’s staying in the choice you have already made.

That is the run within. It doesn’t always feel certain, but it is always worth it.

Thanks for reading.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 16: Flops Are Not the Footnotes. They Are Part of the Story.

Last week I did something a little different on social media.

I posted my flops. See here.

Not the highlights. Not the race wins, keynote stages or the milestone moments. The actual flops. My horrific golf swing that should never see the light of day. The ankle injury I sustained playing basketball four days before my first race back, that set me back another six weeks. Comparing myself to where I think I should be. The moments I let Voice One win and I didn’t show up.

And the post resonated with a lot of people, because people don’t connect with perfection. They connect with honesty. The setbacks. The self doubt. The grief. The seasons where you are not growing rapidly but simply trying to get through it. We all go through periods like that. Not everyone wants to post them and that’s ok. But the reason I did, is to show people that those seasons are a normal part of the journey too.

Flops are an important part of the stories I tell. When you’ve done something most people can’t fathom doing for one day, let alone 5.5 months straight, it can be hard to connect. The flops are the bridge. They shouldn’t be the embarrassing footnotes that we hide until ‘we are successful enough’ to laugh about them. They are the actual story. The part that makes the wins much more meaningful. The part that shows what it actually takes to keep going when things aren’t going to plan.

Here is what I know about flops from everything I’ve learned on the road, on the stage and in the quiet moments in between.

Every single flop is Voice One having its moment. The comparison. The perfectionism. The overestimating. The caring too much about what other people think. The belief that a setback means you have gone backwards. That is all Voice One. Loud, convincing and very good at making ordinary feel like the only option.

But here is the thing about Voice One. It is not the end of the story. It is just the first draft.

Voice Two is the one that looks at the flop honestly and asks what can I learn from this. The one that says give yourself some grace, you aren’t going backwards, you are rebuilding. The one that keeps showing up even when showing up feels pointless.

My confidence took an enormous hit after my run around Australia. 2025, the recovery year, was the hardest year of my life. Not because I went soft. For 5.5 months I’d been writing cheques my body was always going to have to cash. The crash was it collecting. That part wasn’t a flop. It was the cost.

Voice One showed up later in my recovery. The transition from the biggest physical challenge of my life to building a speaking and coaching career was much harder than I anticipated, and Voice One had plenty to say about it. You should be further along. Look how slow this is. You’re letting yourself and people you love down. That was the flop. Not the crash. The story I told myself about the crash, when I should have reminded myself that great things take time, and shown myself some grace for the ringer I’d put my body through.

But things are changing. I am doing the work. I am showing up consistently. I am back to a place where I feel genuinely good about the direction things are heading, with a lot less care or fear of what anyone else thinks about my journey and my decisions.

And sharing my flops last week was part of that, because The Run Within is about the battle of the two voices, not just about the moments you chose Voice Two and everything worked out perfectly. It is about the moments you chose Voice One, felt the cost of it, and then chose Voice Two anyway the next day.

That’s the real story. And it is worth telling.

So here is what I want to leave you with this week 👇

What is one flop you have been carrying around that you haven’t yet let yourself learn from? Not the polished version you would share in a meeting. The real one. The one that is still sitting with you.

Because that flop is not evidence that you are behind. It is evidence that you are in it. And being in it is exactly where The Run Within grows.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 15: Real strength is being willing to talk

Last week I talked about what real strength actually looks like. This week I want to take that conversation somewhere more personal, because the timing of what I am about to share feels like more than a coincidence.

In October I will be speaking at the St Patrick’s College, Ballarat MENtal Breakfast. I want to tell you about it because this one means a great deal to me personally.

The MENtal Breakfast is now in its tenth year. It is the major fundraiser for the Chris Yeung Fund, which raises awareness of men’s mental health and steps in for families in the St Patrick’s College community where a father’s mental illness has meant he can’t work. In practical terms that means covering school fees so the kids don’t lose their place at school on top of everything else going on at home. Since it began, the event has raised more than $155,000, providing relief to more than 20 students, keeping them connected to their school and their community at one of the hardest times a family can face.

The theme this year is Pull Up a Chair. An invitation to start a conversation about men’s mental health. And I cannot think of a more important invitation to accept.

I don’t take this one lightly. Standing in a room built specifically to support fathers and families through something this hard is not just another keynote to me. I am going to give it everything I have.

Here is why this event means so much to me.

Growing up I experienced firsthand what it looks like when the challenges at home go unspoken. When your dad is carrying more than he should have to carry alone, and doesn’t feel he has the words, or the permission, to talk about it. I saw what that silence cost, and I felt the weight of it too.

That experience shaped me in ways I am still uncovering. It is one of the reasons I turned to running from a young age. Getting outside and moving my body gave me a way to process what I was carrying when I didn’t have the words for it yet. It gave me purpose, structure and space mentally when everything around me felt uncertain. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already experiencing the run within.

What I know now is this. The barrier between a person and the help they need is almost never a lack of love or support around them. It is the story they have been told about what strength is supposed to look like. That real men don’t talk about things they’re struggling with. That asking for help is weakness. That keeping the mask on is the brave thing to do.

It’s not. It never is.

Men are taught early that the mask is easier to wear than to take off, that achievement and results are the currency of respect, and that if you just keep pushing, you never have to stop and process how you’re actually going. So a lot of men build their identity entirely out of what they do, rather than who they are, and they let that identity carry more weight than it was ever built for. The moment results dip or life throws something unexpected at them, there is nothing left underneath to hold them up.

Protecting who you are outside of your work and your achievements is not indulgent. It is essential. It is what lets you show up fully for the people who love you, instead of just the version of you the world sees on a podium or a payslip.

I am not a dad yet, but I plan to be one day, and I plan to be the best one I can be. That means I will always speak up. I will always ask for help when I need it, and I will never stop training. Of course the amount of training I’ll be able to fit in will inevitably shift once I have a child, that is just reality. But the practice won’t stop, because it can’t. It sounds cliche, and we hear it all the time, but it is true. You have to put your own oxygen mask on first. Looking after yourself is not selfish. It is what lets you actually show up, fully, for the people who need you at home.

November is Movember, the global movement dedicated to men’s mental health, suicide prevention, and physical health. It is one of the most important conversations we have as a society each year. But I think we need to be having the conversation more often. Not just in November. Not just at fundraising events, but in our workplaces, our sporting clubs, our families and our friendships. People should feel comfortable to have these conversations every single day if that’s what is needed.

Men’s mental health is not a niche issue. It is a leadership issue. A culture issue. A community issue. And it starts with people willing to pull up a chair and say “I am not okay”, and truly know, that is alright.

That’s what I talk about in my keynote, The Run Within. Because the run within isn’t just about being disciplined and pushing through discomfort in the times where that is required, it is also about doing the inner work which involves taking ownership of your wellbeing. Choosing Voice Two when Voice One is telling you to stay silent, stay tough and keep it together.

Real strength is being willing to talk. To ask for help. To seek professional support. To take ownership of getting better, even when that feels like the hardest thing in the world.

I am genuinely honoured to be speaking at the St Patrick’s College, Ballarat MENtal Breakfast in October, because events like this are proof that the conversation is changing. That communities are choosing to pull up a chair rather than look the other way. And that the next generation of young men coming through at St Patrick’s College will inherit a different story about what strength actually means. That is worth showing up for. Every single time. I hope more schools follow their lead.

If the message in this newsletter resonated with you today, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for someone you care about is simply remind them they don’t have to carry it alone.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 14: Real Strength Is Not The Mask. It Is The Person Underneath It.

Strength has a branding problem. Don’t worry, no spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet. But if you have, you will understand exactly why it fits.

For generations we have associated strength with the person who never cracks. Who has the answer for everything. Who powers through without complaint and makes it look effortless. Who keeps the mask on regardless of what is happening underneath it. And somewhere along the way, that image became the standard that leaders, athletes and high performers measured themselves against.

But that version of strength is not strength at all. It is performance. And there is a very important difference between the two.

Performance is what you show the room. Strength is what you draw on when the room is empty.

I have worked with enough leaders and athletes to know that the ones wearing the mask the tightest are never the strongest people in the building. They are the ones carrying the most weight alone. And that weight, unshared and unprocessed, makes them more brittle. More reactive. More disconnected from the people they are supposed to be leading.

Voice One loves the mask. It whispers keep it together. Do not let them see you struggle. Stay strong. And on the surface that sounds like discipline. But underneath it is fear. Fear of judgement. Fear of appearing weak. Fear of what happens if the people around you see that you are human.

Voice Two knows something different. Voice Two understands that real strength is not the absence of struggle, it is the honest acknowledgement of struggle combined with the decision to keep going anyway. That combination of honesty and action together, is one of the most powerful things a leader can model for the people around them.

Here is what I have observed consistently in high performance environments. The leaders whose teams trust them most aren’t the ones who project certainty in every situation. They’re the ones willing to say “I don’t have all the answers right now, but here’s what I do know, and here’s how I propose we should work through this together.”

That doesn’t undermine authority. It builds it. Because it’s real, and people can feel the difference between a leader performing confidence and a leader actually leading through uncertainty.

Keeping the mask on has a cost that leaders don’t account for. When you never show struggle, never admit a mistake, never let the team see the human behind the title, you teach everyone else to do the same. Problems get hidden. Mistakes get buried. People stop asking for help, because asking feels like weakness. And the whole team performs below its potential because everyone’s too busy managing their image to actually do their work.

That is not a high performance culture. That is a high pressure culture.

A high performance culture is one where people feel safe enough to say “I am struggling with this”, or “I got that wrong”, or “I need support.” Where honesty is met with respect rather than judgement. Where the leader has made it normal to be human by going first with their own humanity. And where that psychological safety translates directly into better thinking, better communication, better ownership and better results.

This is exactly what I talk about in The Run Within. Voice One tries to keep you safe, and in a leadership moment that often means telling you to hide the struggle, protect the image and act like you’ve got it figured out, even when you don’t. Voice Two doesn’t let you off that easy. Voice Two’s the one that says, “say it anyway. Ask for help anyway. You can do the hard thing, and right now the hard thing is being honest.”

The leaders who can do that, who can be honest about the hard stuff and keep going anyway, are the ones who build teams that are genuinely resilient, not just resilient-looking.

Real strength is not the mask. Real strength is the person underneath it who is willing to take it off, tell the truth, and lead from that place anyway. That moment is available to every leader reading this. Not on a cinema screen. In your next team meeting. In the conversation you have been putting off. In the moment you choose to say “this is hard and I need support” instead of “I’ve got it covered.”

That is the kind of leader worth becoming. And it doesn’t start with a strategy or a framework, but with a simple and courageous act. Telling the truth about where you actually are.

Because The Run Within isn’t won behind the mask. It is won in the moment you choose to remove it.

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 13: She Was Terrified of Flying. Then She Remembered Something I Said on Stage.

The best keynote I deliver is one that changes how someone thinks, acts, or decides two weeks after they’ve left the room, not how they react in the moment. I know it landed when the messages and conversations keep coming back weeks after the keynote ends. That’s the number one metric I use to measure a keynote’s success.

That’s the standard I hold myself to. It’s why I pour everything into every single talk I give.

A few weeks ago I received two messages that stopped me in my tracks. Both from people who had attended recent keynotes. Both unprompted. Both about The Run Within, the battle between Voice One and Voice Two.

Messages I received after the ASTMA x GMA National Conference (left) and from the Metricon Homes Construction Forum QLD team (right).

The first was from a woman called Naiomi, who attended the ASTMA x GMA national conference. I usually block out names to protect people’s privacy, but Naiomi has given me full permission to share her story alongside her name, because she said the impact was so profound. She had been invited to play golf at King Island, a bucket list destination for any golfer, but almost said no because fear was holding her back. She is scared of flying and only small planes service the island. Her first instinct was no way. Voice One loud and clear. But then she remembered something I had said about not letting fear stop you from doing something incredible, and Voice Two took over, reminding her “how amazing an opportunity” she had. She told Voice One where to go, got on the plane, and had “the most amazing trip”.

The second image came the evening of the day I spoke to the Metricon Homes QLD division, at the Metricon Construction Forum. This message came from a man I had personally inspired to believe in himself more, and to consciously understand his own war with Voice One. He said that on the bad days, he would remember what I’d shared and use it to back Voice Two. I’m grateful I was able to impact him, and that my Two Voices framework could support him through his bad days.

These messages are why I do what I do.

Not for applause. Not for likes on social media. Not for status. For the moment someone takes time out of their day on the evening of a keynote, or weeks after it, to tell you that something shifted for them. That they got on a plane they were terrified of. That they are going to remember your framework and personal story on their hardest days. That is the aftereffect I am chasing every single time I step on a stage.

And I want to be honest about something. Public speaking is not a skill I was born with. I am still learning it every single week, still developing my stagecraft, and my ability to connect with a room to leave something in it that lasts. Warren Tate has been helping me with communication since 2020. Chris Fudge is helping me bridge my athletic world with the corporate one. The work will never end for me, and I am proud of that. The moment you stop seeking advice and practicing your craft, you’ve lost.

There is a saying that athletes make the best motivational speakers because they understand endurance. Not just physical endurance but the mental kind. The kind that keeps you going when every logical reason to stop is staring you in the face. The kind that has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with the decision to keep showing up. There’s real truth in that. Because when you have lived the hard thing, when you have been through the darkness and come out the other side, your words carry a weight that is hard to manufacture.

That is what I bring to a stage. Not a polished script. A lived story. And the connection that comes from sharing it honestly with a room full of people who are carrying their own version of the same battle.

Because here is what I know about Voice One and Voice Two. They are not unique to me. They are not unique to endurance athletes or elite performers. They live in every person in every single room I walk into. The leader who knows they need to have a hard conversation but keeps finding reasons not to. The team member who has a goal they have been putting off for years. The person sitting in the back row who came to the conference already checked out and left with something they did not expect.

That is what a great keynote does. It meets people where they are and leaves them somewhere different.

She got on the plane. He is going to back Voice 2 on his hardest days. And somewhere out there someone is training for their first marathon, finally applying for the promotion they have talked themselves out of for two years, or having the conversation they have been avoiding with a loved one.

That is the aftereffect. That is what I am building toward with every keynote, every newsletter, every coaching session, and in every story I share.

This is why I love what I do. And I’m just getting started.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 12: The Most Powerful Mental Health Tool I Know Is Free and Available to Everyone

I’ve noticed something consistent across every athlete I have ever coached. And it has nothing to do with pace, distance or race results.

The ones who run consistently almost always show up calmer, clearer and more in control of themselves. Not just physically but emotionally. The ones who go several weeks without training almost always come back more anxious, more scattered and more reactive than usual.

Running does something to the mind that is hard to fully explain until you have experienced it yourself. For me personally it has never just been about fitness. It has been about clarity. About processing. About taking whatever is sitting heavy on my chest and moving it through my body until it becomes something I can actually work with. The simple act of lacing up my running shoes and heading out the door has done so much for me, for as long as I can remember.

When you run, your body releases the chemicals that regulate mood, reduce anxiety and create a sense of wellbeing, but beyond the chemistry there is something else happening that I think is just as important. Running gives you a problem you can solve. A distance to cover. A finish line to reach. And in a world where so many of our stressors feel uncontrollable and unresolvable, that simple act gives your nervous system something it desperately needs. A win. A moment of agency. Proof that you can do hard things and you can come out the other side.

I see this in my athletes all the time. The ones going through difficult periods tell me that their training is the one part of their week that feels completely theirs. Where the noise stops. And that feeling does more for their mental health than almost anything else they do.

This connects directly to what I talk about in my keynote The Run Within. I get the audience to write down one goal they’ve been putting off, or even better, text it to someone close to them. It doesn’t matter what it is. Then I make the case that the hard part is never really about that goal. It’s about who that goal makes you become in its pursuit. And what consistent movement does for you on the inside over time that gets you there. The emotional resilience it builds. The mental clarity it creates. The sense of identity and self belief that grows every single time you show up for yourself and do the thing you said you were going to do.

It’s called The Run Within because there is a run that is happening within all of us. The Run Within is the battle between the two voices we all carry. One that talks us out of hard things and pulls us toward the easy road (Voice One), and one that helps us take the harder path toward who we’re capable of becoming (Voice Two).

Voice Two is our greatest ally. It’s the mentor within. It wants the best for us, but we have to earn it.

Every run you complete when Voice One told you to stay home is a vote for the person you are becoming. And those votes compound. Not just in your fitness. In your emotional strength. In your ability to handle pressure, regulate your reactions and show up as the best version of yourself when the people around you need you most.

That same principle applies at work, and it’s on the leader to set it. We have gotten better at talking about mental health. More workshops. More resources. More boxes ticked. But a mental health workshop once a quarter does not build a mentally healthy culture alone. The leader does, by actually living the standards, not just talking about them.

The culture of any team is set by what the leader models every single day. As leaders, our job is to produce results. And the fastest path to sustainable results is not pushing people harder. It is creating an environment where people can bring their whole selves to work.

Where someone can say I am not okay today and know that honesty will be met with support rather than judgement. When people feel that way, they think more clearly, communicate more honestly, take more ownership and care more deeply about the outcome.

That is the culture worth building. And it starts with the leader being willing to go first.

So here is your challenge this week. If you are not moving consistently right now, commit to three sessions this week. Not for your fitness. For your mind. For the version of you that your team, your family and your goals deserve.

Voice Two gets stronger every time you lace them up and go.

I appreciate you reading.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 11: What happened after my keynote reminded me exactly why I became a speaker.

There is a moment just before I walk on stage where everything goes quiet inside me. The preparation is done. All that is left is to go out there and give the room everything I have got. I live for that moment. Two weeks ago, closing the ASTMA/GMA national conference with the final keynote, reminded me all over again why I love what I do.

Closing a national conference is one of the most significant opportunities you can be given. You are the last voice the delegates hear. The last impression they take home. I did not take that lightly for a single second of my preparation.

I worked relentlessly to get this one right. Because that is what the moment deserved. And because that is just who I am. Whether I am preparing to run around Australia, preparing to stand in front of a room full of leaders, or preparing one of the runners I coach for a race that means the world to them, the application does not change. I want to give everything I have got, every single time. That standard is non negotiable for me regardless of the arena. Total commitment to the person or the room in front of me.

The brief was clear. A highly story driven keynote touching on ownership, pressure and resilience. Three themes I have lived deeply and am genuinely passionate about sharing. They are not just concepts I talk about. They are the way I have approached every challenge of my life.

What I love most about what I do is getting to walk into a room full of people I have never met and share something real with them. Not a performance. Not a rehearsed word for word script designed to impress. A genuine story. Honest moments, the hard ones and the triumphant ones. And somewhere in the telling of that story, along with the frameworks that go with it, something shifts in the room. People start connecting what I have lived to what they are living. That connection means everything to me.

I am not the finished product as a speaker, but I am growing every single week. I believe the moment someone thinks they have it all figured out, they have lost, so that will never be me. I am working with Warren Tate on my communication and craft, and with Chris Fudge on bridging my endurance world with the corporate one. I prepare for every keynote with the same obsessive attention to detail I brought to running around Australia. Not only because the opportunity is a privilege, but because the standard I hold myself to as a speaker is the same standard I ask of the leaders and teams I speak to.

That is The Run Within in action. Voice two showing up in the preparation long before it shows up on the stage.

A comment from an ASTMA/GMA delegate on Instagram, following the keynote.

What I experienced in that room reminded me exactly why I do this.

After my keynote, three people came up to me separately and told me they had set a new goal during the talk. One was going to get back into running 10km regularly. One was going to run a marathon. One was going to complete a triathlon. I want to be clear about something. I never encouraged the room to set a fitness goal. I encouraged them to text a personal goal to their partner, a friend, or someone they love and trust, whether in the realm of fitness, relationships, or anything else. The only rule was that it had to matter deeply to them. But those three delegates chose a physical challenge, and I think I know why.

Somewhere in my story they saw what movement had done for me, and they felt a pull toward, or perhaps a reminder of, what movement can do for them. Physically and mentally.

It didn’t stop there.

One delegate told me that averaging two marathons a day for nearly five and a half months straight had completely opened his mind to things he had been putting off in his own life. He said he was done waiting and was going to take the steps to level up. Another delegate came up and told me they were going to have a difficult conversation they had been avoiding for too long.

That one hit differently. Because we have all been there. It is hard. It is a battle. But it is about showing up and having the hard conversation anyway. The Run Within is the battle between the two voices we all have, and that is voice two winning in someone’s real life. In their relationships. The place where it matters most. Knowing that a story about running around Australia gave someone the courage to have that conversation is why I do what I do.

That is the moment that gets me every time. Not the applause. Not the feedback forms. It is the person who walks up afterward with something lit up in their eyes and says, I needed to hear that today.

That is why I love what I do. That is why I pour everything into every keynote. And that is why I am so grateful to be on this journey.

I want to say a massive thank you to Mark Unwin, the CEO of The Australian Sports Turf Managers Association and Paul Vardy CCM, the CEO of Golf Management Australia for selecting me as the closing keynote. It was a genuine honour to be involved in this incredible event, and one I will not forget. And to the Saxton Group for facilitating everything so seamlessly as always. I am grateful for every opportunity you help make possible.

I’m just getting started, and I can’t wait to see where this goes.

If you are an event organiser or a leader looking for a keynote that will leave your audience with something real to hold onto long after the event is over, I would love to have a conversation about bringing The Run Within to your next event or organisation.

Reach out directly. Let us make something great together.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 10: Why the Hardest Person to Lead Is Always Yourself

Last week I introduced you to the two voices inside all of us.

Voice One seeks comfort, excuses and the easy path. It speaks first and it speaks loud. It accepts ordinary without argument because ordinary feels safe.

Voice Two demands discipline, courage and growth. It’s always there, sitting quietly on your shoulder. But it never speaks first. You have to call on it deliberately. And when you do, it changes everything.

I ended last week with a question. In the area of your life or your leadership where it matters most right now, which voice has been winning?

This week I want to take that question somewhere most people never think to look. Because here is what I have learned after years of running, coaching and speaking to leaders and teams all over the country. The hardest place to let Voice Two lead is not in a race. It is not in a boardroom. It is not even in the pressure moments when everything is on the line.

It is in here. Inside yourself. When no one is watching, when there is no finish line, and the only person holding you accountable is you.

That is where the real battle lives. And that is the battle most leaders are losing without even knowing it.

I know this because for a long time I was exactly that person.

I ran around this massive continent in record time. I have coached athletes from their first half marathon to winning ultra marathons. I have stood on stages speaking to rooms full of business leaders and sporting teams about pressure, resilience, ownership and what it means to find the run within. And for most of that journey, I believed that because Voice Two won for me on the road, I had self leadership figured out.

I did not.

For most of my life I have dealt with hard things by burying them and keeping moving. Head down. Next step. Do not stop. It is how I survived tough periods in my personal life. It is how I got through the darkest days on the road around Australia. When the pain was at its worst and the setbacks hit hardest, Voice One kicked in. Switch off the feeling. Survive the moment. Keep going. Do not let it touch you.

And for a long time I thought that was Voice Two winning. Discipline. Toughness. Execution under pressure.

But it was not. It was Voice One in disguise. Protecting me from having to feel the very things that would eventually make me a better person, a better speaker, a better coach and a better business owner.

Here is what I did not realise until recently.

When I stood on stage to tell my story, to really connect with an audience, to bring people inside the moments that matter most, I found I could not access the very thing that would let me do it. The emotion. The vulnerability. The raw honest truth of what those moments actually felt like.

Because I had buried it so well for so long that I did not know how to unbury it on demand.

That is Voice One protecting me in a moment where I no longer need protecting. And recognising that, naming it honestly, sitting with the discomfort of it, that is Voice Two doing its most important work. Not on a race course. Not under stage lights. In the quiet honest moments where I ask myself what am I actually carrying and what is it costing me.

That is the inner work. That is what The Run Within is really about.

Because self leadership is not just about discipline and showing up and doing the hard thing. That is Voice Two at its most visible and most celebrated. But the deeper work of Voice Two, the work most people never get to, is knowing yourself honestly enough to understand where Voice One is still winning in ways you have never stopped to examine.

  1. What patterns are you running that are serving you in one area of your life and quietly limiting you in another?
  2. Where are you letting Voice One win in ways you have convinced yourself are actually strengths?
  3. Where are you leading everyone else while neglecting to lead yourself?

These are the questions that separate good leaders from truly great ones. And they are the hardest questions to ask because Voice One will do everything it can to talk you out of asking them.

Here is what I know for certain. You cannot build a culture of ownership in your team if you are not taking ownership of your own blind spots. You cannot ask the people around you to be resilient if you are not doing the inner work that builds genuine resilience in yourself. And you cannot lead anyone through pressure if you have never honestly examined how Voice One shows up in you when the stakes are highest.

The hardest person to lead is always yourself. Not because you lack the ability. But because it requires a level of honesty that most people are never brave enough to apply to themselves.

I am still learning that. Every single week.

So here is your challenge this week. Not a question. A challenge.

Pick one area of your leadership or your life where you know Voice One has been winning. Not the area you would talk about publicly. The real one. The one you have been avoiding. And do one thing this week that is a vote for Voice Two in that area.

That is where self leadership starts. Not in the big dramatic moments. In the quiet honest ones that nobody else sees.

That is The Run Within. And it starts with you.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 9: We all have two voices. Which one are you listening to?

Even at the very start of your day… one voice says, “stay in bed, sleep in”, while the other one challenges you. “Get up and go to the gym like you said you would.”

I have spent years studying this. Not as a theorist in a classroom or from a textbook, but as a practitioner. On the road. Running around Australia, in the six years of training leading up to it, and now on the other side of it. In the middle of races when everything hurts and quitting feels more reasonable than taking the next step.

What I have come to understand, more deeply than almost anything else, is this. The battle between those two voices is the most important fight of your life.

And it never stops.

Last week I wrote about the mentors who have shaped me and the ones I am actively seeking now as I grow into corporate speaking and business. And at the end of that piece, I said it was something that I want to pull apart further this week, because it connects to everything I believe about what makes a person and a team truly great.

This is what The Run Within is really about.

Voice one is the default. For thousands of years our bodies and our minds have been built to conserve energy and take the easy path. So voice one always speaks first. And it is loud.

Not today. I will start tomorrow. That is someone else’s job. It is too hard right now. The timing is not right. I have done enough. Nobody will notice.

I believe voice one isn’t lazy. It is just doing the job it was built to do. For most of human history, survival meant conserving energy and staying safely inside the tribe. Standing out was dangerous. If you put yourself out there and failed, you risked judgement, and judgement could mean being cast out. So voice one learned to keep you small. To keep you blended in. To talk you out of the risk before you ever took it.

That instinct kept our ancestors alive, but it is the same instinct firing today when you hesitate to speak up, to put your work out there or to chase the bigger goal. It is not danger anymore, it is just fear dressed up as caution, and the problem is, every time you listen to it, you leave a little more of your potential on the table.

So voice one is not your enemy. It is just outdated. It protects you by keeping you exactly where you are, accepting ordinary without argument, because to voice one, ordinary still feels like survival.

Voice two is different. It is quieter. It does not shout the way voice one does. It is the one sitting on your shoulder reminding you that you can do the hard thing and that you have more in you than you are showing. It never leaves, but voice one is louder, so you have to choose to hear voice two. And when you do, it sounds like this. Own it. No excuses. Get to work. The standard does not drop because things got hard or because you don’t feel motivated right now. Keep going. You know you could be great, so go and prove it.

Voice two is where ownership lives. It is the voice that refuses to point the finger outward and instead asks, what can I do differently? What is my role in this? How do I get better from here? Teams that operate from voice two do not have a blame culture. They have an ownership culture. And that starts with every individual making the daily choice to let voice two lead.

Voice two is also where resilience is built. Not on the good days. Not when everything is going to plan and the results are coming in. Resilience is built in the moments when voice one has the loudest case it has ever made, and voice two shows up anyway. When the injury hits. When the quarter goes badly. When the team loses three in a row and the easy thing would be to drop the standard and wait for things to turn around. Resilience is not something you find in a crisis. It is something you built long before the crisis arrived, by repeatedly choosing voice two when it would have been easier not to.

And then there is pressure. Pressure does not create character. It reveals it. When the stakes are high, the outcome is uncertain and everything is on the line, whichever voice has been winning in the quiet moments is the one that shows up loudest when it matters most. This is why the work you do on yourself every single day, the inner work, the run within, is the most important performance investment you will ever make. Because under pressure you do not rise to the occasion. You fall to the level of your preparation. And your preparation starts on the inside.

Every breakthrough, every achievement, every transformation happens when voice two rises above voice one and leads the way. But here is what most people misunderstand. Greatness is not your natural state. It is the override. The deliberate daily decision to let voice two lead even though voice one got there first.

That is The Run Within. The inner work. The growth that happens quietly on the inside long before anyone else sees the result on the outside.

I think about it this way. When I was running around Australia, covering 13,964 kilometres around this entire country, voice one showed up every single morning. Without fail. It had every reason in the world to make a compelling case. The pain. The exhaustion. The setbacks. The days where the weather was unforgiving, my body was broken, and stopping felt not just reasonable but sensible.

But voice two was always there too. Quieter. Steadier. Reminding me of why I started. Reminding me of what I had already overcome. Reminding me that the person I was becoming through this process was worth every hard moment.See content credentials

My real thoughts during the run. The battle between voice one and voice two, playing out in real time.

The run within is not a running concept. It lives in every boardroom, every training session, every difficult conversation a leader keeps putting off. It lives in the team member who knows they need to lift their standard but keeps finding reasons not to. It lives in the moment you decide whether today is the day you finally do the thing, or the day you let voice one win again. And this is where it connects back to last week in a way that I think is really important.

Mentorship is voice two from the outside. It is someone else calling up the best in you when your own voice two is not loud enough yet. Every mentor I have ever had have done exactly that at different points in my journey. They saw something in me that I could not always see in myself and they refused to let voice one win on my behalf.

That is what the greatest mentors do. And that is what the greatest leaders do for their teams too.

Because when you understand the battle between these two voices, your whole approach to leadership changes. You stop wondering why your team lacks motivation and start asking a more important question. What environment am I creating that is calling up voice two in the people around me? Am I the kind of leader whose presence makes voice two louder for everyone in the room? Or am I unknowingly making it easier for people to stay comfortable?

Those are the questions that build cultures worth being part of.

The Run Within is the daily fight to let voice two lead. In your training. In your leadership. In your standards. In the moments where no one is watching and it would be so easy to let things slide.

The Run Within is the daily fight to let voice two lead. In your training. In your leadership. In your standards. In the moments where no one is watching and it would be so easy to let things slide.

And the beautiful thing is that every time you choose voice two it gets a little louder. A little easier to find. A little more natural. Until one day the override becomes the default.

That is the transformation and what I talk about on stage. That is what I want for every leader, every team, and every person reading this.

I am no different to any of you. I just listened to voice two for 165 days, 13 hours and 26 minutes around Australia. That voice carried me an average of 84km a day, or two marathons, for five and a half months straight with no rest days.

We all know voice one. It is the one that speaks first and always has a reason ready. Mine is almost always, “I can’t be bothered.” I hear myself say it, and these days it almost makes me sick, because I know I am capable of more. So I catch it, then I go and do it anyway.

I want to know yours. What does your voice one say to you? Drop it in the comments.

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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The Run Within 8: The moment you think you no longer need the help of others is the moment you stop growing.

One of the traps I believe people fall into, is they achieve something significant, and then slowly, almost without noticing, they stop seeking. They stop asking. They start believing that where they are is enough and that the next level is something they can figure out alone.

It is one of the most expensive mistakes a person can make.

I’ve built my entire career on the back of people who gave me their time, their knowledge, and their belief before I had earned it. I’m still doing it today. No matter what I achieve, I’ll always believe I can get better, and there is always someone out there who can help me. Someone who genuinely wants to. And this applies to all of us.

I see it all the time. People can even pinpoint the exact mentor who could help them do something great, in work or in life, but they are scared to put themselves out there and ask. Here’s what they forget. To reach that level, those mentors had mentors of their own. Someone helped them get there. So more often than not, they love paying it forward. They want to share what they know with the next person.

That is what this edition of The Run Within is about. The mentors who shaped me as an endurance athlete, and the ones I am actively seeking now as I grow into more corporate speaking, because the principle is exactly the same regardless of the arena. If you want to grow, find the people who have already done what you want to do, and ask for their help.

MY MENTORS

Samantha Gash

The first mentor who changed my trajectory as an endurance runner was Samantha Gash. In 2016, she ran across India for World Vision. The impact she made through that journey inspired me deeply. Reaching out to her felt like a stretch at the time, but she generously gave me her time and her perspective. She showed me what was possible when you combine endurance sport with genuine purpose. And it was Samantha who connected me to the two people who would go on to shape my athletic career more than anyone – Coach Jase and DJ. More on them later.

Dave Alley

My next mentor was Dave Alley. The previous record holder for the fastest run around Australia. I remember being a nervous but excited 20 year old when I called him. I had a dream to run around Australia, but I knew it was years away. I believed in myself but I still felt out of my depth reaching out to someone who had actually done it. Dave didn’t see me that way. He gave me every chance to succeed. He shared his logistics, his preparation and everything he could. He didn’t have to do any of that. But he did. And I have never forgotten it.

Last week I had a phone call with another young man who has the same dream. Run around Australia for charity. Break the record that I now hold. I’m not going to share his name or the details of his mission because I want to let him do that. But like Dave helped me, I made it clear I’m in his corner and I’ll support him as I pass the baton on.

Matt Daniels

To build my mental toughness and my body, the first charity challenge I set was back in 2019, to run 50 marathons in 50 days as a 21 year old. I had heard the story of Matt Daniels on The Hidden Athlete podcast. Matt is an inspiring dad from Geelong, Victoria, who ran 55 marathons in 55 days in 2016. So like I did with Samantha and Dave, I reached out to him. Matt was a crucial voice in my corner. He shared his training philosophy, his recovery strategies, the real logistics of what that kind of challenge demands of a human body. And most importantly, he believed in me. That belief, from someone who had done what I wanted to do, and five marathons more, meant everything at that stage of my journey.

All of these people have become more than mentors. They have become friends I deeply cherish.

My first photos with mentors Samantha (left) and Dave (middle) in 2018, and Matt (right) in early 2019.

Coach Jase Cronshaw

I don’t even know where to start with Jase. Because if I’m being completely honest, Jase changed my life in ways that I’ll never be able to put into words. He pushed me into the athlete I’d dreamt of being since I was a little boy. I came to him with a solid fitness base and a strong mindset, but he helped me grow in ways I didn’t know I needed. Within four months of working together, he helped me run 50 marathons in 50 days. Then 4000km in 60 days from Cairns to Melbourne in 2022. Both were critical stepping stones toward my run around Australia, alongside several other races and multi day simulation events. Jase devastatingly passed away in 2022. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel grateful for everything he gave me. He believed in me deeply and I carry him with me everywhere I go 🧡🕊️.

David Jones

DJ and Jase were best friends and business partners long before I came along. So it was the two of them who took me on as an athlete to prepare for my run around Australia, with Jase in the active coaching role day to day. DJ is a father, husband, lawyer, endurance athlete, coach and philanthropist. After everything they gave me, with my running, but also my mental health and as a person in general, I wanted to work alongside them. Because like them, I also wanted to improve the quality of people’s lives through running. So when COVID hit in 2020, I asked them if they would consider also becoming business partners with me. The three of us went into business with First42K from 2021 to 2024.

When Jase passed away in 2022, carrying First42K forward without him was emotionally too hard for both DJ and I. In early 2025, we decided it would be best for me to take the reins of the coaching business. After my run around Australia, I rebranded the business to Sean Bell Run Coaching. To this day, DJ continues as a coach for some of our runners, and a supportive and inspiring member of our community.

But DJ’s role in my life has always been far bigger than business. He is my greatest life mentor, like another father figure for me. The person I turn to not just when I need coaching advice, but when I need perspective on life. On who I am becoming and on the kind of person I want to be. I am genuinely grateful to have him in my corner.

DJ is the perfect example of something I want every person reading this to understand. Your most important mentors don’t always need to come from inside your industry. Sometimes the person who shapes you most is someone whose life looks different from yours on the surface, but whose wisdom, values and belief in you quietly changes everything.

Jase running with me during my 50th marathon in 50 consecutive days in 2019 (left), and DJ and I proudly repping our First42K singlets after a run in 2022 (right)

Here’s the thing. I didn’t wait until I was ready before I put myself out there. With Samantha, with Dave, with Matt, I reached out because I wanted to grow and I knew they could help me. And putting myself out there with Samantha opened the door to Jase and DJ. One brave conversation led to the people who changed everything. That took humility. It took putting my hand up and saying I don’t have all the answers and I’m not too proud to ask for help. And every single time I did that, something good happened.

Today my running mentors are still part of my life, but I’m also actively seeking mentors in a different arena. As I grow into speaking and building a business in the corporate world, I’ve had to be honest with myself about what I don’t yet know. I have never worked a single day in a typical corporate role. I built my career as a personal trainer and online coach before becoming a corporate speaker. So I sought out people who could help me bridge that gap.

Warren Tate

Warren Tate has been in my corner since 2020. He is a communication expert who has been integral in building my confidence and stagecraft as a speaker. The craft of communication is something I take seriously. Warren has helped me grow in ways that go far beyond what I say on stage. It’s how I say it. How I carry myself. How I make a room feel something that lasts long after I’ve left it.

Chris Fudge or as I call him, Fudgee

And this year, as I step further into the corporate keynote space, I’ve been working closely with Chris Fudge. He is helping me bridge the gap between my athletic world and the corporate one, because I never wanted to be a speaker who could only inspire people with a story. I want to get better every single day at drawing the real parallels between my world of endurance and the challenges that businesses and sporting teams face. Chris is helping me do exactly that. And I prepare for every keynote with the same obsessive application I brought to running around Australia.

And this Thursday (25th June), I’m closing the ASTMA/GMA The Australian Sports Turf Managers Association/Golf Management Australia national conference in Melbourne, and it will be my biggest keynote yet.

Warren and I in 2023 (left), and Fudgee and I, moments after I finished my run around Australia (2024)

I think about mentorship the same way I think about The Run Within.

The Run Within is the battle between our two voices. We all have them.

Voice one is the default. For thousands of years our bodies have been built to conserve energy and take the easy path. So voice one always speaks first, and it is loud. Not today. I’ll start tomorrow. It accepts ordinary.

Voice two is the one on your shoulder. Discipline. Courage. Growth. It says do not be soft. Get to work. You can be great. Voice two is quieter at the start. You have to call it up. It refuses ordinary.

Every breakthrough, every achievement, every transformation happens when voice two rises above voice one and leads the way. Greatness is not your natural state. It is the override.

The Run Within is the daily fight to let voice two lead, even though voice one got there first. The inner work. The growth that happens quietly, on the inside, long before anyone sees the result.

Mentorship is voice two from the outside. It takes humility to go looking for it, and commitment to keep listening. And the people who benefit the most from it are the ones who never stop seeking it, regardless of how much they have already achieved.

Whether you lead a business, a sporting team, or a classroom, I want to ask you something directly. Who are the mentors in your world right now? Who inside your organisation is further along the path than you, and willing to share what they know? And who in your personal life, like a DJ in your corner, is helping you become a better version of yourself beyond work?

Because the best leaders I have ever encountered are never the ones who have all the answers. They are the ones always out there looking for better ones.

Never stop seeking. The Run Within grows every time you do.

Who is one mentor that has shaped you and your career?

If you’d like to follow my ‘The Run Within’ newsletter in live time, you can subscribe on Linkedin here:

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The Run Within

Sean

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Sean Bell is the fastest known person to have run around Australia, verified by Fastest Know Time (FKT). Today, he is a keynote speaker and online run coach, helping individuals and teams build resilience, take ownership and win their own run within.

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