Elliott Hagen hosts Mind Your Head, where he's been really open about his own mental health. A while back his wife Jordan gave him a choice, and he went and did the work. He's just become a dad, on the same day I did, so there was no better time to sit down together.

Two new dads reflecting on learnings and life on no sleep. We get into the ultimatum his wife gave him a couple of years ago. Why he had never held a baby until he was 32. And why now was the time, after years of thinking he didn't possess "the qualities to make a good dad".

This episode touches on suicidal thoughts and the death of a baby. If anything it brings up for you, Lifeline is 13 11 14.

For more just like this:

#186 Alexis Fernandez The Neuroscience of Connection, Creativity & Heartbreak: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#131 Geoff Wilson: A Life of Adventure: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube The mentor Elliott and I go and see straight after this conversation.

#185 Kori Sampson: You Can't Outthink Your Mental Health, Sobriety, ADHD & the Marathon Majors: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Elliott has a great podcast of his own. Go and listen to it too: Mind Your Head on Spotify Mind Your Head on Apple Podcasts Mind Your Head on Instagram

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I spent the last few days going through the research on what actually stops us when we think we are done. This is Part 1 of a 3 Part Series on it, and it is one I have been waiting to make.

In this episode I get into what 8 years of NRL pre-season actually teaches you about the conversation you have with yourself when you want to stop. The study from 2012 where cyclists were tricked into racing a virtual avatar set 2% faster than their own personal best. Johnny Gannon on being curious whats on the other side of fear. Courtney Dauwalter on the pain cave. And a challenge for your next hard session.

Part 2 next week is Lowering the Effort, Part 3, the week after, is Raising the Willingness.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks to DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show.

For more just like this:

#198 Johnny Gannon: Bra Boy to Black Belt on Grit, Self Respect and Staying Curious: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube The breath hold story in this episode is his.

#153 James Newbury: Why Most People Quit Too Early: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#162 Jake Barraclough (RanToJapan) : 280km Weeks, Running in Japan & Finding Your Limit: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode includes discussion of suicide and voluntary assisted dying. If anything in it brings something up for you, Lifeline is 13 11 14.

Matt Formston lost most of his vision at five years old, and the doctors told his parents his life was effectively over. He has since won world titles on a bike, been named Australia's best big wave surfer, picked up an Order of Australia medal, run sustainability at Optus and written a book called Why Not. This is his second time on the show. He came back in the same year he lost his dad, and I'm grateful he sat down and went as far into it as he did.

In this episode Matt and I discuss why a kid with five per cent vision would tackle anyone on a footy field, and what he was really trying to prove. We get into the cycling coach who told him no, his formula for trust, standards times consistency times time, the diagnosis at five that his parents accepted and the prognosis they refused, losing one of his best mates at seventeen and the ten years off the rails that followed, the list of twelve things he wrote down in a dark apartment that turned his life around, the two weeks he spent with his dad before his voluntary assisted death in March, the I ams his three kids say out loud before they go to sleep, and the fishing hook that gave his book its name.

If you want to listen to the first episode we did with Matt:

#99 Matt Formston: Blind Surfing. Big Waves. Bigger Vision: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

For more just like this:

#124 Mark Mathews: Recreate the Fear: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#164 Jai Arrow: Fatherhood and What Really Matters: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#105 Jake Baker-Daish: Addiction, Identity & Finding Purpose: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two weeks ago my wife Em and I had our first baby, a girl. She arrived a fortnight early, a couple of days before the Sydney Marathon we had spent the year planning to run. This week's solo episode is a bit of a life update.

In this episode I get into why her coming early turned out to be the biggest blessing in disguise, what it took to run a marathon on two hours and forty five minutes sleep, what a night with a newborn actually looks like, trying to get a set of squats in between settling her, update on the three majors still to run this year in Berlin, Chicago and New York, and the thing that surprised me most: it is the least I have ever slept in my life and my recovery has been in the green all week.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks to DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show.

For more just like this:

#187 Adam Elliott: Injury, Grief & Fatherhood In One Year: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#164 Jai Arrow: Fatherhood and What Really Matters: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#170 Grace Grove: Doctor, Runner & Content Creator | Being Yourself & Ditching Toxic Productivity: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube On letting the standard drop on purpose, and what happens when you do.

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jaz Sloane had never run when she signed up for an Ironman. Ten months later she won her age group at Busselton and qualified for Kona. The year that followed was the most chaotic of her life, and she made the podium at the world championship anyway. 

In this episode Jaz and I discuss the challenging last 12 months; a breakup after five years, getting hit by a car in March, training in a sling, moving cities, house hopping because she could not find a rental, and building a whole new group of friends while she did it. She reckons she is good at positive reframing, and the interesting part is that she had to learn it. She spent two years and real money on mindset work before she started her business as a coach, and that is what carried her through. We also talk about the eating disorder she had in year eight and the trainer who pulled her out of it, why she signed up for a full Ironman with no background in running or cycling, what she does on the days she is not motivated, and why consistency is the most important thing.

For more just like this:

#176 Jacqui Bell: Youngest Person to Run an Ultra on Every Continent: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#170 Grace Grove: Doctor, Runner & Content Creator | Being Yourself & Ditching Toxic Productivity: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube A doctor who runs, on reading your own body instead of pushing through it.

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the part of my chat with Emily Capodilupo that we keep coming back to. The full episode came out in September 2024, and after sitting down with Lydia O'Donnell it felt like the right time to pull this section out on its own. Emily leads research and data at WHOOP. She was studying pregnancy while she was pregnant, watching her own resting heart rate climb by 15 beats and knowing exactly why. She went for her first run after her daughter was born and was surprised by how comfortable and how fast she felt. Most of what women are told about their bodies after a baby turns out to be social rather than physiological, and she has the data to show it. I'm grateful she talked about her own numbers this openly.

In this episode Emily and I discuss the WHOOP study with West Virginia University that followed 18 women from preconception through postpartum, why a resting heart rate 15 to 20 beats higher in the third trimester is normal, and why recovery afterwards can be better than baseline. She explains what actually needs care on the way back, from a caesarean to diastasis recti and the six week check, and why VO2 max and lung capacity can both come out higher on the other side. We finish on training with the cycle rather than against it, what changes in the follicular and luteal phases, and why you cannot simply move your cycle so a big race lands in the right week.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show. https://www.denzagoldcoast.com.au/

For the full episode:

#66 Emily Capodilupo: WHOOP$3.6B Growth, Sleep Consistency Boosts GPA and Alcohol’s Effect on Recovery: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

For more just like this:

#170 Grace Grove: Doctor, Runner & Content Creator | Being Yourself & Ditching Toxic Productivity: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#176 Jacqui Bell: Youngest Person to Run an Ultra on Every Continent: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#160 Andy Buchanan: Finding Purpose In Running: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lydia O'Donnell is a professional distance runner from New Zealand and the co-founder and CEO of Femmi, a running app built around the female body. She was Nike's Head Run Coach, has been running marathons for over ten years and coaching athletes for more than five. Femmi came out of something she and her co-founder Esther Keown both went through: they lost their periods training the way they had been taught to. I'm grateful she came in and talked about it this openly.

In this episode Lydia and I discuss why less than 6% of sports science research is conducted exclusively on females, and what that means for every coach you have ever had. She takes me through running 160 kilometres a week at 25, cutting carbs out entirely because a fad told her to, and ending up in hospital with her body shutting down. We get into RED-S, why losing your period was treated as a badge of honour, and the graph she saw for the first time at 27 that changed how she trains. She thinks cycle syncing is faddy, and she explains what she does instead. Femmi was built while less than 1% of venture capital was going to women, and she tells me what pitching close to 200 investors did to her running. Her dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. She talks about the six weeks in hospice, and the signs she believes he has been sending her since.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show. https://www.denzagoldcoast.com.au/

For more just like this:

#176 Jacqui Bell: Youngest Person to Run an Ultra on Every Continent: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#160 Andy Buchanan: Finding Purpose In Running: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

#170 Grace Grove: Doctor, Runner & Content Creator | Being Yourself & Ditching Toxic Productivity: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Hauser is an Olympic triathlete from the Gold Coast. He came home from his first Olympics not satisfied and decided he needed to go all in if he was going to compete at the top of the sport. A few months after we recorded this, he became World Champion.

In this episode Matt and I talk about the choice he gave himself, grow up or step away, why he stopped calling any of it sacrifice, and the question his partner sent in that he struggled to answer. Describe yourself as a person without using triathlon.

We sat down with Matt in early 2025. We are re-releasing this section now as a Moments episode because it is the part people keep coming back to.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show. https://www.denzagoldcoast.com.au/

Listen to the Full episode here:
#96 Matt Hauser: Triathlons, Tackling Challenges & Finding Community: Spotify · Apple · YouTube The full conversation this came from.

For more just like this:
#155 Jeremy Howe: More Than AFL: Spotify · Apple · YouTube

#83 Jordan Kahu: Balancing Family & Business, Life after NRL, and Mental Health: Spotify · Apple · YouTube Life on the other side of the sport, which is where Matt's question is pointing.

Listen and subscribe Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gretel Bueta grew up on the Gold Coast playing everything she could get her hands on. She signed her first professional basketball contract at 17, played three junior world championships and was named WNBL Rookie of the Year. Then she got glandular fever, stopped enjoying it and walked away from the sport entirely. Three months later she started playing netball socially with school friends, and did not make the district team. She went on to play more than 100 games for the Queensland Firebirds and over 50 for the Diamonds, won Commonwealth Games gold and the Liz Ellis Diamond as the best player in Australian netball, and came back after her first child playing some of the best netball of her life. She is now a mother of three. Grateful she came in and talked about all of it.

In this episode Gretel and I discuss what happened when she came back to netball after having Bobby and found she was hungrier than she had ever been, why she decided she would either come back and be the best or not come back at all, burning out at 17 and her parents telling her to go work at the local bank and be happy, the netball trial she did not get picked for, how trying to play the perfect game cost her a Commonwealth Games, the quote she used to force selection, the 15 minutes a day nobody ever saw, her mum running the house as the family CEO, and whether motherhood is harder than professional sport.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show. https://www.denzagoldcoast.com.au/

For more just like this:

#191 Charlotte Caslick: 3x Olympian Rugby 7s Player on Training Through Pregnancy & Why Trying Hard Is Cool | Apple | YouTube

#33 Allie Smith: Swifts Cult, Perfectionism and Building Confidence | Apple | YouTube Another netballer on perfectionism, and the New South Wales Swifts, the club Gretel played for in 2014.

#27 Kelsey Browne: Journey with Body Image, Clinical Depression, and a Glass Half Full Perspective | Apple | YouTube A former professional netballer on what the sport took out of her.

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode I get into bids for connection, the Gottman Institute's term for the small moments when your partner reaches out to you, and why how often you turn towards them is one of the biggest predictors of whether a couple stays together or gets divorced. I go through the newlywed research that followed couples for six years and sorted them into masters and disasters, and the part that actually matters, which is not catching every bid but going back to repair the ones you miss. I talk about the emotional bank account, Alexis Fernandez's tennis ball, the bird theory trend and Robert Irwin's answer to it, and why the phone is the biggest killer of all of it. I go into the year I spent making big grand gestures while missing the small ones, and what changed in the two weeks before I recorded this.

This one was made with Denza. We packed the B5, drove up into the hinterland and set camp for the night, and that is where the episode was recorded. The cooler in the centre console kept the sandwiches cold on the way up, the boot is spacious and fits everything we need and this car is just such a pleasure to drive. Thanks DENZA Gold Coast.

For more just like this 
#186 Alexis Fernandez The Neuroscience of Connection, Creativity & Heartbreak: 
Spotify · Apple · YouTube 
The conversation this whole episode came out of, and where the tennis ball comes from.

#190 The Psychology of Monotasking: Why Being Bored Makes You More Creative: 
Spotify · Apple · YouTube 
The companion to the phone half of this one.

How to Help People Feel Comfortable | Episode 179: 
Spotify · Apple · YouTube 
The instinct I did not have a name for until this one.

#146 Harry Garside: Masculinity, Vulnerability & Boxing: 
Spotify · Apple · YouTube

Listen and subscribe Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4L7zyEBXeNYBDK4rRjBK0K Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/keegan-and-company/id1695873736 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Keeganandcompany

Follow for more Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keeganandcompanypodcast/ Keegan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keeganhipgrave/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@keeganandcompany

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jesse Campbell grew up in New Zealand, and works full time as an accountant on the Gold Coast while juggling Marathon training himself, coaching and Content Creation. He ran his first marathon in Queenstown in November 2024 in 3:28 18 months later he ran 2:44 in Osaka. That is 45 minutes off a marathon in under two years, done around a nine to five.

In this episode Jesse and I discuss why he started running, which had nothing to do with racing and everything to do with being lost after he stopped playing basketball. He explains what a day actually looks like at 4:30am, seven runs a week fitted around a full working day, and why that stopped feeling like discipline a long time ago. We get into the race he blew up in after Osaka and his honest read on why it went wrong. Most of it lands wider than running though. What putting a goal out in public actually does to you. How he handles comparison when everyone is posting their times. And what he would say to someone who looks at the people ahead of them and decides there is no point starting, which is that if you stick at anything you can progress at it, and that has carried into the rest of his life further than the running has.

This podcast is supported by Denza. Thanks DENZA Gold Coast for getting behind the show. https://www.denzagoldcoast.com.au/

Follow Jesse: 
YouTube 
Instagram

For more just like this

#162 Jake Barraclough (RanToJapan): 280km Weeks, Running in Japan & Finding Your Limit: Spotify · Apple · YouTube

#160 Andy Buchanan: Finding Purpose In Running: Spotify · Apple · YouTube

Listen and subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Follow for more: Podcast Instagram Keegan's Instagram TikTok

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.