Meet Brett Connellan
Interview
Following a shark attack in 2016 that turned his life around, Brett went through a journey of both physical and mental recovery.
Discover his story, and especially all his incredible uplifting insights on how to bounce back from your struggles and use it as a catalyst to lead an incredible life.
1. You have been in a very rare shark accident in 2016 when you were the first person in 70 years to be bitten by a shark in the area where you live in Australia. Following the accident you were told you couldn’t surf again and there was also very understandably a big sense of loss and loss of identity. Since that time you have been through a remarkable journey of growth, mental awakening and resilience. For people reading this interview, please can you let us know what has helped you the most to get back up and build up a new life in the months and years following the accident?
I think you’re right in describing that process as a journey because it really was more than just the shark attack and the physical recovery as you mentioned. The physical recovery was one part of the journey that was difficult, but injury is a part of surfing and I’ve been through plenty of physical recoveries before. Albeit none as significant as this but that loss of purpose and identity was what really caused me to struggle the most over the early parts of my recovery and the main reason for that is because I had never been in that situation before. I felt very alone and isolated in what I was going through and couldn’t work through it all by myself which is why I was lucky that I had a great support network around me to help me turn my mental recovery around. That support was so important as it allowed me to not only have people to talk to on my down days, but some of the individual conversations I had allowed me to look at the way we struggle differently. This was so helpful because as I heard more and more stories of struggle I soon realised that going through these struggles is something we all do at some point in life and the most important thing that stood out to me in hearing these struggles is how people bounce back from them. For me this was the moment where I decided that I didn’t want to be defined as the guy who was bitten by a shark, but remembered by how he bounced back from that to overcome all of the odds to not only walk and surf again, but to live a full and incredible life afterwards. And I understand that may sound strange to some people because I am still known as the guy who was attacked by a shark, and to be honest I use that to be able to share the important parts of my story and what I’ve learned. But my journey also isn’t complete yet… I’m still in the process of building something, and want to show people that the best part of my story is all the things I’ve done and achieved after the shark attack which was merely a catalyst that led to so much more.
LOOKING AT STRUGGLES DIFFERENTLY
The most important thing is how people bounce back from them
2. Mental health has gained momentum and has been taking more and more space in conversations in the last few years, yet as we discussed it can still be very difficult to open up and also to get out of a victim mentality. Did you experience this yourself in the beginning? And now that you are yourself offering mental health support through your work, please can you tell us how opening up about your own story is actually helping others?
If I knew as much about mental health as I do today, I would have had a much easier time dealing with my struggles and the victim mentality early on. But at the end of the day, we only know what we know and without experience it’s often so difficult to look at our situation differently. Due to the circumstances of a shark attack and the odds associated with that it’s very easy to take on a victim mentality and it’s hard to overcome adversity when you’re so focused on the negatives. Like I mentioned, having support around me was so important in getting me to realise that we all go through struggles and that was instilled in me through the stories of others. The work I am lucky enough to do in the mental health space is really based around story and how powerful that is in communicating as a human being. Because story was such a catalyst for change within myself, I decided that I wanted to use my experience to help other people by giving them the chance to learn the importance of making your mental health a priority and becoming more self-aware without the need to hit rock bottom or face major adversity. The more we know, the more we understand and the better choices and outcomes we will be able to have in both good and bad times.
3. You are someone very competitive and actually before your shark accident you were training to become a professional surfer. Against all odds, both mental and physical challenges have taken a big place in your life since the shark attack and you’ve gradually taken steps to challenge yourself again. Please can you tell us why it is important for you to keep pushing yourself and what are the challenges you have taken on?
I’m a very competitive person. Competition has always driven me as a motivator through life and it’s not necessarily because I like the feeling of success, otherwise I would have given up competitive surfing years ago (there’s only one winner in a surf competition and half of the field goes home after 20 minutes, it’s brutal!). Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of competition and one of the best things I learned through my recovery was that my greatest competitor is the notion of “No”. I was told I wouldn’t walk again, I wouldn’t surf again and rather than view these as a final prognosis, I eventually viewed them as a challenge which sparked that competitive spirit which drove me every day in physiotherapy and rehab. Getting back to a point where I’ve been able to challenge myself again, I started finding all these other versions of “No” in front of me. I shouldn’t be able to walk 100km, run a marathon or paddle between islands in Hawaii but the idea of challenging that notion of “No” is what excites me. Being able to look past what should be possible is the way I want to push myself and in the same way I viewed surfing where I wasn’t motivated by success or results, I’m not focused on completion of these challenges. Of course, it’s nice to accomplish what you set out to achieve but when the reason for setting these challenges comes out of gratitude it’s a lot easier and more rewarding to focus on the process rather than the outcome.
Challenging the notion of “no’
Being able to look past what should be possible is the way I want to push myself
4. Talking of challenges, you are working on and producing your first documentary narrating your own story with a release planned later next year. Please can you share with us why it was important for you to create it yourself, what you would like people to get out of it and also can you tell us more about what your plans are in the video production area for the future?
Creating the documentary had been on my mind from pretty early on when I was approached to “sell my story” to a television corporation which would pay me a sum of money and they would get to produce an over sensationalised version of my story that would do 3 things I firmly disagreed with: they would focus purely on the attack, it would ignore the longer term story which is where the real value comes from, and it would demonise sharks in a way that would add to the negative perception that already exists of them. It wasn’t a difficult decision to turn down that opportunity which let me focus on my recovery and the important parts of life that had taken priority. But being able turn down that offer kept the door open for me to do something where I would be able to tell my story in the way I want to, when the time is right and when I have the right people to do it with.
The idea of the film is around “what it’s like to live life with a second chance” so one of the main lessons I’d like to portray is around the idea that the viewer doesn’t have to be like me and nearly lose their life in order to truly start living. I hope to tell my story not only through my own perspective, but also through the perspective of important people in my life that have been on this journey with me from the day of the attack, through the recovery, to the present day as they all have such an important role to play and their own lessons to teach. A large focus will be in overcoming adversity and living a full life, but I also want to include important messages around mental health and shark preservation to reflect all the parts that make up my whole story, not just the attack. It’s called PYROPHYTIC which is a nod to some of the native fauna we have in Australia which requires fire in order to germinate and regrow.
I’m lucky to be producing the film under an independent film production house that I have created with my friend and filmmaker Sam Tolhurst. We talked about doing this documentary for a long time and being able to do this with a good friend that I trust who is also extremely talented adds more meaning to the project for me. As I’ve mentioned, story telling is so important. Not just for my personal story but the act of storytelling is essential for us as humans to pass on information and learning through generations. I’ve come across so many stories that are amazing that need to be told and that’s something Sam and I hope to do more of in the future.
5. We spoke together about how nature can be uncontrollable and that we don’t own it, which also means it does include risks and accidents can happen. We also spoke about the learnings one can get just by surfing a wave as a metaphor of life. Can you tell us more about your interpretation of it? I find it important, especially at a time when people are relooking at and reconsidering their relationship with nature.
I was unable to have this view on surfing when I was so involved in the sport competitively because for me it was a vehicle or a means that was required in order to live out my dream. But after being distanced from the sport I recognised how it has this amazing connection to nature and is a very valid metaphor for life. The connection to nature is what makes surfing so difficult, the ocean is unpredictable and in order to be good at surfing or enjoy it, first you have to understand nature and work with it to catch waves. My Dad always had a great view on this, he used to say, “Imagine playing tennis, but the court is always moving”. That adds a whole other dimension of things to understand and deal with which increases difficulty, but makes it so much more satisfying when you get it right, the most satisfying things in life don’t often come easily.
Because of this, no matter how good you are at surfing, you will always have wipeouts. Even the best surfer in the world falls off, all the time! It’s incredibly humbling to know that you’re at the mercy of mother nature and you can be put in your place on a regular basis. Finally, surfing is a sport that you will never master, in part because you fall so much but one of the most incredible things about surfing is everyone does it differently, there is no perfect approach to how to surf a wave. Life is similar in that everyone approaches it differently and because someone doesn’t have the same approach as you that doesn’t mean either of you are doing it incorrectly. One of the beautiful things about life is that we are all on our own individual path and who knows if it’s the right one. But if what you are doing feels good to you then that’s all that should matter.
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE WIPEOUTS
The most satisfying things in life don’t often come easily
“We all have 2 lives… The second begins when you realise you only have one”
I suppose in essence, everything I do comes back to this one quote I heard which changed my view on everything. “We all have 2 lives… The second begins when you realise you only have one”. I learned this the hard way, but many people don’t have to. The sooner we can acknowledge that we only get one shot at life, the sooner we can really start living. Not just for ourselves but for the people we care about too. First of all, we need to be happy and fulfilled as individuals and after that there’s 2 things I care about: Will my parents be proud of the person I’ve become? & Have I left the world a better place for my children or those who come after me? Every single day I wake up I get the chance to contribute to how those questions are answered.