Matt Breen speaks with Pip Seldon from The Healthy Tradie Project about losing her brother Dale to suicide, and how that experience shaped her mission to improve mental health outcomes in the construction industry. Together, they explore grief, vulnerability, and the practical tools helping tradies build healthier, more connected lives.

Matt Breen:
We finally teed it up. We wanted to get you on, Pip, I don’t know, maybe six months ago.

Pip Seldon:
Yeah.

Matt:
Because you’ve been involved with Yoga for Resilience, which has been a big hit with our community. But there’s a lot of other stuff you do, particularly The Healthy Tradie Project.

As I now often do in these episodes, I want to take you back to a moment in time. I want to take some words from your TED Talk:

“The 5th of September, it’s 1:00am. In the darkness of my bedroom, I’m on the floor, my head buried on my knees. I’m stunned. I’m in shock. It was just after midnight that my phone rang. Private number. I didn’t answer. Not a minute later, it rang again. And this time, it was my brother, Owen. My brother never calls me in the middle of the night. And the moment that he spoke, I knew something was terribly wrong. Bravely, but in a broken voice, he said, ‘It’s Dale. Dale has died by suicide.’”

Pip:
I don’t think it matters how much time passes. I still remember the events of that day and that night like it was yesterday.

For me, it was complete shock and disbelief to even hear those words coming out of Owen’s mouth.

Dale was our eldest brother. He was 35 at the time. He was a carpenter. He’d worked in the building industry since he was 15. He left school in Year 10, went on to do an apprenticeship and became a chippy.

He was larger than life. He had this enormous group of friends. He was this really casual tradie. From the outside, and what we all saw, he was really always enjoying life.

That moment just completely shattered my world, and that of our family. It was nothing that we ever expected we would ever face.

Matt:
I remember when I first heard about my dad. I was sitting at the top of the stairway. Similar to what you’re saying, tragedy just comes out of nowhere and hits you in the face like nothing you can imagine. It just pulls the rug out from under your feet.

What happened in the moments after you received that phone call?

Pip:
I sat literally just on the floor in the bedroom, head in my hands, just in complete shock.

Then I feel like this autopilot kicked in. I was in Canberra at the time, and my family is all in Queensland. Immediately, this autopilot kicked in: I need to get back to Queensland. I need to be back in Brisbane. I need to be there with Owen.

At the time, our parents had only a couple of weeks before left on their first grey nomad trip. They were travelling around Australia with some friends. For me, it was about booking flights and getting on that first flight out of Canberra to get back home.

I think it wasn’t until I actually got up in the air on that plane that I started to cry. That’s when it really hit me, and I felt that sense of loss.

But up until that point, I was just moving on autopilot, thinking about getting home, getting in touch with Mum and Dad, and how we find them and where they are in their travels.

Landing in Brisbane, seeing Owen, my sister-in-law, my nephews — it was very much this mode of: what needs to be done right now? And talking to those who were either with him that day, or those of his mates who were around him at that time.

Matt:
I remember the first time my tears came was when I had to speak it into existence. I heard it — my mum told me that my dad had passed — and I was shattered. But it really came through when I had to tell my mates that I had to go back home. When they asked why, and I had to tell them, I just couldn’t do it without breaking into tears.

You made your TED Talk around 10 years ago, and I can still see the tears coming up in your eyes now. Dale still lives with you today.

Pip:
He does.

I don’t think it matters how long passes. I think we begin to learn how to live with a new normal. That’s the best way I can describe it.

There are still songs that come on the radio. There are still days during the year that bring up all these emotions. There are moments where I remember him, and I remember those moments.

But there’s always a void.

As a family, we were very big on coming together for birthdays and Christmas. Certainly early on, there was this void there in our family. It was noticeable. It was obvious. You could never fill it.

For me, it was important to celebrate him. It was important to acknowledge his birthday and talk about him.

I’ve got two nephews from Owen. They were six months and two years old at the time Dale died. For them, I wanted to keep that memory alive and continue those conversations.

That’s been my biggest thing throughout all of this: continuing to talk, continuing to have the conversation and honour him.

Matt:
I do want to talk later about Dale specifically, and how you remember him and honour him. But I want to linger on that immediate aftermath.

You said you went on autopilot, but at the same time there’s almost no script you can follow. When you look back on how you and your family either came together or ventured off in your own directions, how do you reflect on how you struggled with Dale’s loss?

Pip:
I think we all dealt with it in our own individual way.

For my parents, Mum and Dad, a part of them died that day. I remember my dad saying that no parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child.

I don’t think Mum ever really could understand or come to terms with the fact that she lost her son.

Dad didn’t want to talk about it. That was his way of coping. Mum did. A bit like me, I guess.

For me, my biggest struggle was not having answers. I think that’s why I wanted to talk about it. I would talk to his mates, and the overwhelming response I got was that no one saw this coming. No one had any idea that he was struggling to that point.

That, for me, was a bit of a kick in the guts at times, because I started to see that there is so much that anyone could have done had we actually known, or had we been aware that he was having those thoughts.

Talking about it for me was a way of healing.

I went on to do Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, and again, that was another reminder of: gosh, these are all the things that we thought were probably just part of life. They were things that we all go through and challenges that we all face.

But for him, the compound of all those challenges was obviously putting him in a place where he felt that was the only option.

While we all had our own individual way of dealing with it, I feel like it certainly brought us closer together. Even though Dad didn’t necessarily talk about it, Mum and I did. Owen and I have become closer over the years as well.

But initially, there was probably a lot of guilt that all of us carried because we didn’t know and we didn’t see it coming. Yet we would have done anything had we had the opportunity.

Matt:
I think about it all the time. The layer of tragedy with suicide is that, as you can see with your work and how you speak about Dale, there was definitely reason for him to still be here. He was loved.

I don’t know the word for it, but the amount of pain that’s left behind, and the amount of pain that caused it — there’s a shame that there couldn’t have been that meeting point that stopped pain on both sides of that coin.

I want to talk quickly about Dale. In my own journey, similar to you, I comprehended my struggle with my dad’s passing kind of out loud. I tried to figure it out and ask questions, but I didn’t do it for nine or 10 years after the fact. I kept it all inside, and in some ways it worked, but in other ways it didn’t.

Now it’s 16 years since he passed, and I kind of forgot who he was because I didn’t address it. I didn’t square it away.

So I want to ask you: who was Dale?

Pip:
Dale was the eldest, and I’m the youngest. He was my protector growing up. He was protective of his little sister.

We had this really beautiful relationship that was different to my relationship with Owen.

He was this really casual guy. If anyone talks about being authentic, it was him. He had a saying: “I’m not out to impress.” If he wanted to rock up in his footy shorts and a pair of thongs, then that’s what he would do, because that’s what he was comfortable in.

I lived with him for a little while at one point in my life, and I always remember that every afternoon there would be people at his place. He would do anything for anyone.

If someone needed something built, he’d be there. As tradies do, there’s always this thing where no money changes hands, but there’s this labour of giving and receiving between them.

He was such a real true-blue Aussie. Rough on the exterior, but with an absolute heart of gold. Absolute heart of gold.

Matt:
Is there a moment where that heart of gold came through that comes to mind?

Pip:
He didn’t hesitate in taking me in when I needed that in my life. I’d gone through a relationship breakup, and he didn’t hesitate in saying, “Come and live with me.”

Matt:
Big brother.

Pip:
Yeah.

Matt:
It’s nice to see that he still brings joy to your eyes and makes you smile.

One of the things you did after he passed was the intervention training. You mentioned in your TED Talk that you were made aware of all the things you could have noticed if you had known.

We’ve just heard what Dale was like in the eyes of everyone at the time. But what did the people around him miss?

Pip:
I think the things that we probably thought were just normal everyday challenges that we face in life.

Certainly relationship ups and downs — on again, off again — I think that had a big part to play.

Career and work. The construction industry, particularly, goes through cycles of lots of work and not enough work, which has a huge flow-on effect to financial pressures.

Often, particularly then, you start to see alcohol coming into play, gambling, all of those behaviours.

I think there was a lot of that in the mix that was impacting him at that time.

This is me piecing together my view based on the conversations I had and what I went through, and trying to come up with an answer for myself, I guess, to find peace in hindsight.

It’s all of those things combined that I feel had a big impact and a big part to play in how he was feeling at that point in time, and perhaps seeing no way out of that. Seeing no hope.

Matt:
I remember thinking about this a while back. It’s kind of like Indiana Jones — everything’s got to line up for the tomb to be unlocked.

You’re talking about all the different things: relationships, diet, work, all of those things. If they all line up at one point in time in a bad way, it can put you in a really vulnerable state.

It’s hard to imagine someone you love in that state because you just don’t want them to be in pain.

At the same time, you’ve got to be kind to yourself because you don’t know what you don’t know. The narrative is clear now, but it was certainly not clear at the time.

My experience looking back is that, yes, I can weave a narrative together that I should have seen it coming. But me sitting at the top of the stairs in that hostel, I definitely did not see it coming one bit.

One of the things I admire about you is that you’re trying to turn your family’s tragedy and pain into prevention for others, but also in a way that honours Dale.

Pip:
In those couple of years after Dale died, and in the conversations I was having, what became really clear to me was that there is so much the everyday person can be doing to support the people around them.

We don’t have to have all the training. We don’t need to be a professional. But we can have a greater awareness first and foremost, then connect with people, have those conversations and normalise this topic.

Back then, in 2009, there was a lot less conversation around mental health and suicide prevention. It was there, but it was still a bit of a taboo topic.

For me, it was just like: gosh, we’ve got to start talking about this. We can all have an impact on someone else’s life in a positive way if we simply take the time.

In this day and age, we glorify busy. We’re all proud to be busy. But if we actually stop and take the time to really listen, and when we check in with someone, listen for the answer — notice what might be going on for them and be there for people — that can have a huge impact.

Matt:
This leads nicely into the work you do with The Healthy Tradie Project.

You talk about 2009 and the culture, or the way people spoke about mental health. I remember my dad telling me one day that he thought he was depressed. I would have been 16 or 17 at the time. I remember saying to him, “Do you really think you should go and get some help?” And he said, “No, I can’t do that. It would be the end of my career.”

There are still flavours of that today, but it is way better than what it was.

You spoke about Dale having that rugged exterior. That contrast of the emotion he would have been feeling would have almost acted like a barrier. He didn’t feel like he could expose his pain.

Pip:
The mask that he wore fooled every one of us.

That’s the thing. This façade never really let any of us see what was actually going on for him.

I think back to that period of time working in residential construction. There would never have been any conversation around mental health, emotional health or how you’re actually feeling. It just wouldn’t have happened at all.

He put on this façade and wore this mask that didn’t let any of us see what was actually going on.

Matt:
Something else is coming to me as well. You spoke about him being your big brother.

Maybe it’s a male thing, but I certainly sometimes buy into it a little bit — and I mean this with a grain of salt — there’s no time for you to struggle because you want to look after others.

Do you think that was at play? That sense of, “Don’t worry about me, I need to look after others”?

Pip:
Yeah, I think so.

He was always focused on everyone else. That’s what’s so tragic about it. He would be there for any one of his mates.

You talk to any one of his mates at any given time and they would tell you a story about the time he supported them when they were going through a rough patch. He was the one who was always there.

The sad thing is that any one of those people would have been there for him had they been able to see what he was going through. They would have done exactly for him what he did for them.

Matt:
A lot of what you’re doing now is creating an environment where people like Dale feel like they can reach for help.

Pip:
Yeah.

I started in construction in 2009. It was actually two weeks before Dale took his own life. About seven years later, I’d been in the industry and I was in New Zealand doing a project over there: the Australian Memorial in Wellington for the ANZAC Centenary.

Being a part of that project, the meaning behind that project, the collaboration between the Australian team and the New Zealand team, and that act of service really lit a fire in me.

I came back to Australia knowing my story, knowing what I’d experienced, and asked: how can I be of service to the community I stand beside every day?

For me, Dale was a blue-collar worker. I work with these people every day. How can I support them?

I knew there was lots of support when it came to crisis time — phone and text counselling services — but I came back and said, “There’s got to be so much more we can be doing a long way before that to make sure we don’t get to crisis point.”

That’s when I started looking at how we create and build really healthy and well individuals, so they’re able to recognise when things are going off track and have some tools.

Tradies and blue-collar workers are very practical people. So what are the tools we can give them that are really easy and free, but will have a massive impact on their life?

For me, it all came back to this holistic view of wellbeing. It’s movement and exercise. It’s nutrition and what we’re eating. It’s recovery and sleep. It’s play — something we do great as kids and forget about as we get older, but it’s the antidote to stress. It’s time in the sun. It’s connection and social interaction.

All of those things have a huge impact on how we show up as individuals and help keep us in a healthier mindset, physically as well.

Matt:
You’re certainly speaking to someone who agrees with you.

It’s funny you mentioned working on a meaningful project in New Zealand and wanting to find that within yourself. There was a quote that almost pushed me into R4R: “When you find your weakness, you find your purpose.”

When something leaves a mark on you, you almost can’t help but find your way to it eventually. It lights a fire and you want to do something with it.

With The Healthy Tradie Project, I can’t help but see it in similar circles, like the rugby league community. There’s this hard exterior of people, and we’re talking about the pain that’s on the soft interior, and there’s a gap there.

I believe in the importance of managing the stuff that people can’t see, but how do you bridge that gap with really practical-minded people who go, “I’ve just got to get on with it”?

Pip:
We’ve used two key tools. One of those is yoga — not that we tell them we’re doing yoga until about halfway through.

The other is breath work and mindfulness.

What I’ve found is that when we actually get people to sit down and do, or stand and do, those exercises, they come away having felt the change immediately.

Often we’ll do three minutes of a body scan meditation and the change in people is visible. The shoulders relax. Most of them turn around and go, “Gosh, I feel so much more relaxed. I’m actually really tired.”

Well, it’s probably because you need more sleep.

But they get that change in their nervous system immediately.

When we do yoga, it’s an opportunity for them to drop into their body and come out of their head. They’re not thinking about work for that 10 or 15 minutes if we do a pre-start session. They’re connecting with those around them. It’s light, it’s fun, we have a laugh.

Not only are they getting the physical benefits of stretching and starting their day in a different way, but the golden nugget is the mental health benefit. They’re not thinking about anything else other than having awareness of their body and where they’re at today.

Matt:
How do you see it ripple?

Maybe I’ve seen too many sitcoms or videos, but I can’t help but imagine the comments: “You’re not doing that yoga stuff, are you?” Then it requires the person who did it to say, “Yeah, bloody oath I am.”

It’s almost like a schoolyard hierarchy. You need strong characters to bring in those new tools and show people, “No, this works.” Then they go, “Okay, maybe I’ll give it a go.”

It’s that positive peer group pressure.

Pip:
Honestly, we often start on site and maybe 80 or 90 per cent are in there going, “Okay.” Then there are a few standing back going, “I’m not having a bar of any of that yoga bit.”

But what we find is that the 10 per cent start to look like the odd ones out.

So it becomes this positive peer group pressure. Then they might get in there and do one move, then they’ll come and do another.

When we’re going back to sites on a regular basis, it becomes the constant conversation happening on site. We might be going fortnightly, and the constant conversation is, “Is it yoga this week?”

They feel those benefits.

More often than not, there are more people taking part than those who can’t. To be honest, I feel like it’s probably ego. Particularly in that environment, they just can’t let themselves do it in case they find they can’t do a particular pose.

For me, I know the benefits of yoga. I know how great it can be, not only physically but also mentally.

So it was about: let’s take this to where they are. Let’s meet them where they’re at. I know most tradies are never going to step foot in a yoga studio. So how can we take it to them? How can we keep it light and fun, and make sure they get those benefits from it as well?

It’s been met well. It’s absolutely one of the most sought-after services that we offer. Everyone loves it.

Seeing a whole bunch of tradies in hi-vis, hard hats and boots doing yoga grabs everyone’s attention.

Matt:
There’s an element of that. It’s fun to be a part of.

I want to do a thought experiment. Imagine you rock up to a work site to do The Healthy Tradie Project, and Dale is there. How do you think he would have responded all the way back in 2009?

Pip:
Am I allowed to swear?

Matt:
Yeah.

Pip:
I think he’d probably say, “I’m still not doing that stuff.”

He probably would have been one of those ones. But I think he also would have been one of those leaders who would have brought everyone along for the ride once he realised the benefits of it. He would have had everyone in there doing the same thing.

Matt:
The way you describe him, that trait of doing your own thing regardless of the abrasiveness — I’ve got three kids, and I think it’s something you’ve got to protect.

As beautiful as it is when somebody says, “I’m not doing that,” I find that quite endearing because they’re being themselves.

But at the same time, it’s that same person who, when they see it works, says, “Alright, I’m going to do it. Oi, why won’t you do it? You’re too cool for us?”

It sounds like he would have played both sides of the fence: no at the start, yes at the end, but bringing people along.

Pip:
Yeah.

Matt:
Now, nuts and bolts of The Healthy Tradie Project. Someone is struggling in life, and they’re at work, and you come in. How does it improve that person’s position? Assuming they don’t need crisis support, how does it help them?

Pip:
At an individual level, what we’re focusing on is how we have that person showing up both at work and at home as their absolute best self.

For us, we get there through the boundaries we set around the things that are really important to us.

Exercise, first and foremost. Exercise has always been my go-to, and it’s something I need to keep me in a healthy space. So we make sure people are getting a level of movement and exercise that supports them physically and mentally.

We look at nutrition — what they’re eating, and how that affects their mood, focus, attention and energy levels.

We talk about mindset. How are they dealing with the pressures and stresses of life, not just at work but at home? They’ve often got competing priorities, financial pressures, all of those things. What practices are they putting in place to help them better cope with those pressures? That’s where we use mindfulness, breath work or meditation to help support that.

We look at sleep and how important recovery is. I think we tend to put sleep last. We focus on sleep once we’ve got everything else done that we think we need to get done for the day.

I really feel like we need to flip that narrative and make sleep a priority, because it’s when we’re getting enough sleep that we’re recovered and able to perform better the next day.

Then sun and play are the two other things we talk about.

Play is social connection, engaging with people, keeping it light, no routine, no structure, no outcome — just doing whatever it is because you enjoy that activity.

Then there’s the importance of sun and vitamin D, and how that impacts our immune system, keeps us healthy and supports our mood.

We’ve focused very much to date on those elements and that individual wellbeing — how we support people to come to work and be the best version of themselves.

That also impacts how they interact with the people around them and their team. It allows them to show up at home and be the best version of themselves, whether that’s as a husband, wife, mum, dad or family member.

Matt:
I want to get to the group aspect as well, but on that individual level, something else you mentioned in your TED Talk is that you rode from Canberra to Brisbane — 1,600 kilometres — and stopped at every Lifeline office on the way.

You said something that sticks with me. Someone came up to you and said, “Is there really help out there?”

That moves you because that’s somebody in your helpless situation.

How have you seen The Healthy Tradie Project change people like that, where they’ve gone from not knowing what to do, to having just a little bit?

Pip:
One of the biggest things that sharing my story and Dale’s story does is that it gives permission for other people to share their own.

I often find that if I go into a workplace and share that story, the amount of mostly men who come and speak to me afterwards and straight up say, “I lost this person,” or “I lost that person,” or “I experienced this,” is incredible.

It’s almost like it’s giving them permission to be vulnerable. It’s giving them permission to share, drop that façade, drop those walls and just have that conversation.

That’s a big part of it.

The other part is that it allows people to sit and look inside, and look at their own life and go, “Okay, what are the things I need to change here?”

Of that whole wheel, what’s just one thing I can focus on and do differently to help me be a better person?

Matt:
What you’re doing is incredible on an individual lens. When you see people’s shoulders relax in real time and they come up and share what they’ve been through, it’s tangible.

Even though it’s little, the cathartic release it gives them is huge. It speaks it into existence. They realise they’re not crazy, for lack of a better term, and they’re not alone.

What you’re doing is also in a part of the world where, if you’re able to get what you want done, it will permeate through society. Some of these people are the ones others look to. When things get rough, they’re the strong figureheads people attach to.

If they’re also the ones saying, “Make sure you get some sleep. Make sure you do this. Make sure you do that,” it holds more weight in some people’s eyes.

Pip:
That ripple effect is huge.

That goes on to have an effect on others, on a team and on a workplace.

Construction is an industry that relies on people, and we need to look after those people if we’re going to be successful and have longevity.

For blue-collar workers, particularly, to have longevity in their career, they need to look after themselves. They need to look after their body.

If they get to a point in time where something doesn’t work, or this hurts or that hurts, it impacts their ability to earn an income. That can then have a greater impact on their mental health as well, especially if they’re a provider for their family.

These are the stories I hear from different people.

Sometimes you get the 18, 19, 20-year-olds who are straight up in the industry and feel invincible. Nothing’s ever happened to them.

Then you get the thirty-something-year-old who has a family, a mortgage, may have gone through an injury and understands the importance of keeping themselves healthy.

And you get a real mix in the older generation. Some are old school: “No, never done that. Never going to even try it.”

But I’ll never forget a gentleman at a precast concrete factory. He was probably in his late 50s. He’d been out of work for a period of time, and they gave him an opportunity.

After the session, he told me his story. He’d come back to work and he said, “You’ve just made me realise how important it is for me to be able to look after my body. Can you print all those poses so I can put them up on the factory wall so I don’t forget them?”

For him, it was: how do I stay in the best shape I can to continue doing what I love for as long as I can?

It’s a real mix within the demographic we work with. But it’s starting to change. People are starting to realise that it’s important to look after not only yourself, but those around you and the environment we create at work.

Matt:
It is a bit of a narrative twist, isn’t it? It’s trying to help people see the reason they’re doing it.

It might not be as immediate as the alternative, but if you want to look after these people, and if you want to look after your ability to do this, you need to play a longer game and a smarter game.

I know Benny, the way he talks about nervous system health, that seems to resonate quite well with people. It’s putting things in practical terms.

Mental health can be existential. It can all be there for you to question and ponder and think about. But sometimes it’s really good to go: let’s just focus on the practical stuff for the moment, and then we’ll get to the other stuff.

The Healthy Tradie Project’s mission is zero blue-collar suicides. What does that look like? How do you get there?

Pip:
From the industry, there’s a lot that needs to shift in terms of culture and focus on wellbeing.

As an industry, we do a great job of focusing on safety and the physical aspects of safety. What I want to do is shine a spotlight on health and wellbeing.

It’s WHS for a reason, but I think we forget the H in between.

For me, it’s about how we really shine a spotlight on wellbeing, and the flow-on effect that has to safety on site.

When we have people who are in a better place from a health and wellbeing perspective, it supports our industry in not only having a safer industry, but retaining people in the industry, and building a workplace, environment or industry that people feel happy and comfortable to come and work in.

But it’s a big shift.

As an industry, it’s very much: if you’re not working, you’re not being productive. If I can’t see you out there on the tools, you’re not being productive.

The six or seven-day-a-week working conditions have got to be in the past. We’ve got to start providing people time for life. We’ve got to start giving people the opportunity to focus on health and wellbeing so that we have a healthier and happier workforce.

Matt:
Got to let the concrete set.

Pip:
Yeah, that’s a good one.

Matt:
How can people help drive that? How can they help The Healthy Tradie Project, or help in their everyday lives with the same mission?

Pip:
For business owners, it’s recognising that people are your most important asset. Ensuring they’re valued, their time is valued and they’re supported from a wellbeing perspective.

As individuals, sometimes the masses can speak the loudest. So it’s about having a voice and allowing that to be heard. Speaking up and letting employers and workplaces know what it is that you need.

At an individual level, it’s just having the conversations. Being open to talk about mental health, no different to physical health, because the two go hand in hand. They blend. We can’t have one without the other.

We just need to normalise those conversations.

Matt:
I agree with you, Pip.

Before we wrap up, this just came to me, but I think it’s the right question to finish with. If somebody is still listening to this, it means your story has resonated with them for whatever reason.

If you could go back to 2009, what do you think you’d want to tell Dale?

Pip:
I love him.

And I only wish he’d let me in.

But he made the choice that he did, and I’ll always love him.

I’ll ensure that his legacy always lives on.

Matt:
You’re a special person, Pip, and you’re doing special work. I have no doubt that you’ve already helped people like Dale, and I hope you can be proud of yourself.

I know I don’t know him, but based on what you’ve told me and what I can see, there’s no other way — he couldn’t be prouder.

Thank you.

Pip:
Thank you very much. Thank you.