Alex Carey: When the Setback is Actually the Setup - for International Success

Lexi Edmondson: Running Towards Danger, Finding Love - What Bondi Taught Us About Leadership & Life

When Lexi Edmondson walked down to Bondi Beach to celebrate finishing her master's degree, she had no idea her life was about to change forever. What began as a summer evening by the water for hundreds of people became one of Australia's most devastating acts of violence - and Lexi ran towards it. In her most in-depth interview since the December attack, Lexi sits down with Luke Darcy to take us inside the night itself. She talks about the chaos, the moment her training kicked in, and about how the iconic Bondi community responded in the aftermath. Lexi shares the healing power of reconnecting with the people she helped, and the extraordinary gesture from Rabbi Levi Wolf and the Jewish community that brought everyone together. Armed with fresh surf lifesaving training and sheer instinct, Lexi and fellow volunteer Jimmy McIntosh became part of the community of first responders who helped treat and carry 60 people to safety that night. In the days that followed - amid the grief, the trauma processing, and the slow work of rebuilding - Lexi and Jimmy fell in love. In the six months since Lexi has been able to identify what a tragedy like the deadly Bondi attack can strip away - the corporate ambitions, the performative rituals of modern dating, the conditions we place on living fully. Lexi shares why she has walked away from a path she thought she wanted, returned to clinical practice to help people one-on-one, and said yes to a relationship that moved at the speed of life. Plus: the ChatGPT proposal fail, the ring they promised not to buy (and then bought!), and the moment Lexi's mum clocked Jimmy before Lexi even had a chance. Lexi speaks beautifully about the importance of community, finding courage, championing feminine leadership, and finding the light when everything feels so dark. Learn. Lead. Collaborate. Start your leadership journey today. Head here [https://www.aledacollective.com/program/leadconnect] to find out more about our signature, cross industry collaboration program, Aleda Connect. Curated and facilitated by experts, running for 8 fortnightly sessions, Aleda Connect is the learning experience of a life-time. Empowering Leaders is proudly partnered with Victoria University. Find more information about studying at VU here [https://tinyurl.com/yzcchzea]. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Harry Moffitt: Former SAS Operator on High Performance & What We've Forgotten About Living Well

Harry Moffitt spent decades inside one of the world's most demanding institutions - Australia's Special Air Service Regiment. He's served in conflict zones across the Middle East including Afghanistan, lost friends, mentored some of the country's most elite operators, and now works as a corporate psychologist helping leaders, athletes, and organisations perform under pressure. He's also the author of Eleven Bats and The Fourth Pillar, a book about a pillar he believes most high performance programs are missing entirely. In this conversation on Empowering Leaders, Luke and Harry explore what it means to train the whole human. Not just the body or the mind, but the philosophical and moral interior that most people never think to tend to. Harry traces the idea back to a remarkable Australian coach named Percy Cerutty, who in the 1950s and 60s built what might have been the world's first institute of sport from a tin shack on the beach at Portsea. His STOTAN philosophy blended the best of the Stoics and the Spartans into a radical approach to resilience and human performance. Harry also speaks candidly about the Ben Roberts-Smith war crimes case, one of the most significant and divisive legal proceedings in Australian military history. Harry has worked closely with people on both sides of the investigation and brings a perspective that is measured, informed, and unflinching. He talks about what the case has done to the SAS community, why he believes there is worse yet to come, and what integrity looks like when loyalty and accountability are in direct tension. Harry speaks with the kind of hard-earned clarity that only comes from actually living what you're writing about - the cost of being away from home, what he now understands about presence, about community, about the difference between chasing things and building a life.  He talks about grief for his friend Lochlan Muddle, about leadership under pressure, about walking the floor as a leader, and about why talking to yourself out loud might be one of the oldest and most powerful practices a human can cultivate.   03:29 The four pillars of high performance 05:50 Percy Cerutty and the STOTAN philosophy 09:33 The whole human: Ancient wisdom and modern performance 14:46 A philosophy for living a meaningful life 18:41 Absence, regret and family 20:45 The SAS brotherhood 22:33 Lochlan Muddle: loss and pride 25:42 Ben Roberts-Smith and a divided community 31:51 Fog of war, moral armory and where the line is 35:17 Afghanistan: did we win? 40:37 What great leaders do consistently 45:50 The ancient art of talking to yourself 51:15 Routines, habits and self first 57:05 Walk the floor: the one piece of advice 1:00:14 Who would Harry collaborate with? 1:04:34 The greatest leader in Harry's life   Learn. Lead. Collaborate. Start your leadership journey today. Head here [https://www.aledacollective.com/program/leadconnect] to find out more about our signature, cross industry collaboration program, Aleda Connect. Curated and facilitated by experts, running for 8 fortnightly sessions, Aleda Connect is the learning experience of a life-time.  Empowering Leaders is proudly partnered with Victoria University. Find more information about studying at VU here [https://tinyurl.com/yzcchzea]. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Phil Hopley: The Burnout Tipping Point Every Leader Needs to Recognise

What separates the leaders and athletes who perform under pressure from those who crack? According to Dr Phil Hopley, it comes down to one overlooked discipline: daily recovery. Phil is a consultant psychiatrist and one of the world's leading experts in mental performance. Through Cognacity - the specialist psychology organisation he leads - Phil has worked inside elite sport, global boardrooms and high-performance teams across Premier League football, Formula One, rugby and Olympic sport. His organisation was the appointed specialist team for the London Olympics and Paralympics. In this conversation with Luke Darcy, Phil unpacks the science behind sustainable high performance, the hidden cost of distracted working, and why the greatest predictor of long-term leadership success isn't intelligence or ambition - it's self-awareness. Phil explains the "tipping point" that separates productive pressure from burnout, shares what Kenyan distance runners can teach every corporate leader about recovery, and reveals the Big Five personality assessment his team uses to identify high-risk hires before catastrophic cultural damage is done. He also talks in-depth about building psychological safety, dialling up kindness in competitive environments, and why the greatest leader in his own life is his 90-year-old father. Learn. Lead. Collaborate. Start your leadership journey today. Head here [https://www.aledacollective.com/program/leadconnect] to find out more about our signature, cross industry collaboration program, Aleda Connect. Curated and facilitated by experts, running for 8 fortnightly sessions, Aleda Connect is the learning experience of a life-time.  Empowering Leaders is proudly partnered with Victoria University. Find more information about studying at VU here [https://tinyurl.com/yzcchzea]. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Alisa Camplin: The Extraordinary Mind Behind Winning Gold

Alisa Camplin is one of Australia's most decorated and driven high performance leaders - an Olympic gold medallist in aerial skiing, Australia's first female winter Olympic gold medallist, and most recently, the first woman to lead an Australian Winter Olympic team as Chef de Mission at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. Alisa shares so many of the mental frameworks that powered her greatest performances - and how those same skills carried her through the unimaginable loss of her son Finnan, who passed away after just 10 days following open heart surgery. Together with her husband, she channelled that grief into Finnan's Gift, a foundation that has now raised over $4 million for paediatric cardiac care. She opens up about recovering from two knee reconstructions in the lead-up to her second Olympics - the last one just 56 days before the Games - and why she believes the most important thing you can do after any setback is get up, find a plan, and be all in. She also shares what 16 years at IBM, a boardroom career, and leading an Olympic team have taught her about honest conversations, coaching people as whole humans, and the small daily habits that create real, lasting change. This conversation is a masterclass in what it means to lead with integrity, show up with discipline, and keep going when life gets hard. We’re privileged to have Alisa as part of the Aleda Connect community - connecting inspiring leaders from across Australia and around the world. Learn. Lead. Collaborate. Start your leadership journey today. Head here [https://www.aledacollective.com/program/leadconnect] to find out more about our signature, cross industry collaboration program, Aleda Connect. Curated and facilitated by experts, running for 8 fortnightly sessions, Aleda Connect is the learning experience of a life-time.  Empowering Leaders is proudly partnered with Victoria University. Find more information about studying at VU here [https://tinyurl.com/yzcchzea]. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Alex Carey: When the Setback is Actually the Setup - for International Success

The AFL dream ended in tears at 20. A decade later, he was lifting the World Test Championship. Alex Carey's journey to becoming one of Australian cricket's most trusted performers is one of the sporting world’s great second-act stories. A talented junior who played both codes at a high level, Alex took a chance on AFL and moved to Sydney as one of the GWS Giants' foundation players - only to be let go with barely 24 hours' notice. Back in Adelaide, he drifted through a football pre-season and a stint in finance before a quiet conversation with the South Australian Cricket Association gave him one more shot. He almost didn't take it. He nearly quit that too. But he didn’t and what came next … is all part of Alex’s incredible story. In this episode, Luke Darcy and Alex Carey hit: * Growing up in a sporting household and the father who shaped his values * The AFL dream, and the brutal moment it was taken away * How two delistings and a finance job led him back to cricket… and eventually to Test cricket * The 2023 Ashes 'spirit of the game' incident at Lord's: online threats, mental battles, and what he'd do differently * Working with performance psychologist Ben Crowe, and the value of having someone outside the system * Fatherhood, sacrifice, and how he and wife Eloise make it all work   Learn. Lead. Collaborate. Start your leadership journey today. Head here [https://www.aledacollective.com/program/leadconnect] to find out more about our signature, cross industry collaboration program, Aleda Connect. Curated and facilitated by experts, running for 8 fortnightly sessions, Aleda Connect is the learning experience of a life-time. Book a discovery call today. [https://calendly.com/matt-1756/30min] Empowering Leaders is proudly partnered with Victoria University. Find more information about studying at VU here [https://tinyurl.com/yzcchzea]. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.