By way of introduction, I am Richard Paterson – the one entrusted with the dream of creating this Charity to help blokes to “take ownership” of their own health.

I am an ordinary bloke who has been on a bit of an extraordinary journey. But I want to make my journey count. So I am using my experiences to serve as the foundation of learning how to help other blokes cope a bit better with their life –if/when they encounter health challenges, but more importantly to act proactively to avoid this.

My life as a dad is somewhat unusual, in that I have raised my son on my own since he was 4 ( in 2004 ). My journey has included 8 years of litigation in the Family Court, whilst raising my precious boy alone. That was tough for everyone involved. Simultaneously I had to hold down a well paid job to finance the process.

Not surprisingly, I found myself with an array of less-than-ideal health conditions. The worst was the discovery of a “precancer” condition. As life was hectic, as many men do, I put my health at the lower end of my priorities. And I chose (typical bloke!!!) not to discuss the diagnosis with anyone. I just “sucked it up” and moved on.

However, one morning, 2 years after the diagnosis, I woke up and my immediate thought was “what happens to my son if this becomes cancer?” That catapulted me into action.
I shall spare the minute details but suffice to say the condition was more serious than if I had have attended to it earlier. I heard a saying “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is NOW”. I applied this to my health, and I knuckled down to taking back control of MY HEALTH.

I have got back in the driver’s seat (displacing fate) and choosing to live my life by design rather than default. I have dropped 50 kgs and negated the need for most of the prescription drugs I was needing.

My mission now is to raise the volume on the need for us blokes to talk about our health and help each other toward better health. I want to add years to men’s lives, but also life to men’s years. I am full of passion and I will get this done, whatever it takes. Already my passion has drawn some amazing resources to enable this significant work to save and improve the lives of Aussie Blokes – dramatically!

I started out with ZERO knowledge about health, but my WHY was so compelling that I just found a way. From my experience I now realise that “when I found my why, HOW found me”. And I reckon this experience is available to anyone who finds a powerful enough drive to make change. My mission is to help blokes find their reason to take ownership of their health – and they will find the right process for their given situation.