Proud Indigenous man Jeffrey Morgan has compressed 30 years of experience living on the streets and behind bars into a transformative program to create his business and brand.
Jeffrey Morgan lost both his parents to cancer whilst in custody. Recognising missed opportunities, he came home in 2010 and started to change his life.
Jeff now has certifications in health promotion, nutrition, personal training, anger management, conflict resolution, violence prevention, drug and alcohol counselling, and mental health first aid. In 2012, he started to build a profile with the Jeffrey’s Healthy Tips TV show on NITV and working in gyms, before adopting a more holistic approach to his coaching program, which helps corporates, elite soldiers and young people – especially those in Indigenous communities.
Jeff’s conversion to a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing came when he realised that to achieve an outcome in health and fitness you need to address more than just training and nutrition.
“You need to address the total sum of the symptoms that are stopping people from achieving their desired result,” he explains. “One of the biggest variables is your mindset – that drives your focus, your motivation, and the reason why you are doing things that aren’t the best for you. Instilling new rituals into your life one habit at a time means we shift the lens of how we perceive problems and put more focus on the solution. If we look through the same lens that got us into the problem, we will continuously find the pain of the issue at hand.
“This is the most effective way of connecting the oldest living culture with the modern evolution of today’s world.”
“People are like a business – there are various elements that oversee different things, yet all are vital to its success,” Jeff explains. “Imagine having a business without marketing, sales, administration, production, logistics, etc – it would be catastrophic. Slowing it down to speed it up means we address everything with a layered approach, which allows due diligence to take place and saves us time, energy and effort [that can] be directed into the right spaces, towards obtaining the benefits and values of the outcome.”
‘Cut the Bullshit’
The ‘Cut the Bullshit’ program Jeff developed uses that holistic approach to assist in building capacity in all the various areas of an individual’s lifestyle, so they can function at their highest level. As the name of the program suggests, he holds people accountable to the words that come out of their mouths so that integrity is built into their actions, causing the reactions they want within their life.
“The solutions we found have been created from lived experience, face-to-face conversations, scientific data, peer-reviewed studies, and educational resources,” Jeff explains. “All the information has been collated and aligned with an overarching solution to create the Cut the Bullshit program, which is supported by over 5000 resources that have been plugged into the app for users to access as they need.”
The program is delivered to corporate clients and communities to build capacity in a quantitative approach. “We are working with Indigenous and remote communities across Australia, so it’s important that it’s delivered in person, using the traditional Aboriginal principles, enabling us to build rapport by getting to know people face to face,” Jeff says. “In our communities, it’s best to try to understand what’s happening in them by listening and learning from the people within the community collectively, [so you can] work together to find solutions that are culturally appropriate. This is the most effective way of connecting the oldest living culture with the modern evolution of today’s world.”
The program has managed to help over 650,000 Australians through Jeff’s sharing of his passion, lived experience and expertise in mental health, wellbeing and leadership. He has implemented his program for many organisations, from corporate to government bodies, including Mission Australia, the Australian Defence Force, the NRL, NSW and ACT Health, Sydney City Council, Westmead Hospital, Healing Foundation, NEAMI and many more.
The bravery to begin
The Maliyan Resilience Project provides education to improve quality of life and create healthy habits and rituals through thriving environments. It aims to establish leaders and role models for members of the Aboriginal people living within the Sydney communities of Redfern, La Perouse, Waterloo, Glebe and Woolloomooloo. Jeff joined the project as a way of giving back.
“It’s about community, building resilience and changing destructive rituals, one habit at a time,” he explains. “If we can stop one person turning to drugs to regulate their emotions, or one person turning to crime, or help one person realise they can create their own wealth, that’s important. But it needs to start with accepting accountability and enabling self-determination. This project aims to help members within our communities start this journey, and as the project’s name suggests – maliyan in Gamilaraay means eagle – be brave enough to take flight.
“I didn’t have role models or the education to keep me from going down the destructive route I took for a long time,” Jeff laments. “So, [we’re] showing people that through knowledge, education and lived experience you can create an environment that is sustainable, maintainable, realistic and – most importantly – something they enjoy.”
Jeff wants to show the community that people like him exist, and that it’s possible to break the cycle of poverty, to become a game changer.
“No one wants to live in stress and poverty,” he avers. “You can make that choice [to avoid it] by committing to building the best version of yourself; your personal reality will come through the changing of your personality. The Maliyan Resilience Project is offering a guiding lamp to a better quality of life, helping those attending become their own beacons within their communities.”
The program is delivered in 90-minute sessions over 10 weeks and addresses ways to manage stress and improve time management, facilitate better mental, social, and emotional wellbeing; undertake life planning; and create high-performance habits and rituals with a focus on nutrition, goal setting and value systems. Jeff invites other leaders and elders from within the communities to share their stories, experiences and knowledge of lores.
“Value systems are essential to our success. Our communities have lores, and we’re using this opportunity to have conversations about what they are, write them down and discuss how we can best live this value system,” he says. “We have lost our cultural equity, but the Maliyan Resilience Project is starting these important conversations.
“The greatest lessons I have ever learnt have been from lived experience and from conversations with professionals in every industry. The art of upskilling myself in all available aspects means in an ever-evolving world I am committed to elevating myself, compressing that knowledge and sharing those learnings as far and wide as I can to create positive and powerful change, ultimately living by our mission statement of ‘changing and saving lives’.”
This article first appeared in issue 42 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
