Meet our inspiring Gotcha4Life presenters: Sharing tales and tools to build mental fitness in others

Hugo Toovey

Gotcha4Life Ambassador

Australian Army Captain, proud new dad, and Gotcha4Life Ambassador, Hugo Toovey lost his best mate to suicide and fought two cancer diagnoses by age 26. Here, Hugo shares how he inspires others by sharing his personal story of survival and hope in the face of physical and emotional challenges, through Gotcha4Life workshops.

“My best mate joined the army at the same time as me. For the first couple of years, he was always the life of the party. Everyone loved him. But he had struggles, and he didn’t really know how to deal with those things. He got very good at putting on a front, pretending he was completely fine, always cracking jokes. 

One morning he came in and gave me a big hug. Later that afternoon, he took his life in the room next to me. 

He was only 22. I was 20. That was my first exposure to suicide. I didn’t know how to deal with those things back then.

Being a pall bearer at a military funeral in front of hundreds and hundreds of people with your best mate on your shoulder at the age of 20, especially when he was the guy you thought would be alright, was difficult.

I talk about Pete in every one of my Gotcha4Life presentations. I often get people to raise their hands if they have been affected by suicide. A lot of hands go up. We know the alarming statistics. There are real people behind them, like Pete.

That’s why we do this. To make sure there are less people like Pete in the world, who when they feel like suicide is the only way out, hopefully realise it’s not.

It’s about connection and reaching out to your village, and strengthening those meaningful relationships with people, your Gotcha4Life people, so you don’t worry alone.

The other driving force in my presentations is my health challenges. To put it simply, it’s physical versus mental fitness.

I’ve experienced a lot with my physical health challenges for over 10 years - cancer diagnoses, treatment, recovery. I still face them. I’m still on active treatment, my quality of life is impacted and that absolutely impacts your mental health.

But over the years, while I was doing everything I could on the physical side of things, I didn’t really do anything for my mental fitness.

I realised how much harder that made it. Some of the pain I was in going through with difficult times, depression and anxiety was harder than the physical pain.

It was a real lightbulb moment when I started looking after my mental fitness, my mental health.

Now, doing Gotcha4Life talks and workshops knowing I’m helping others, helps me too, especially when I’m having a bad day or in pain and discomfort.

There’s nothing more rewarding than sharing your story in a workshop and having someone come up at the end and say that really helped me. 

It’s a nice feeling when people thank me, but it’s not the reason I do it.

Knowing there is a positive, that despite everything I have gone through, I can use that to help other people, is a powerful thing.

That’s what I love about the workshops.

I want people to walk away from a workshop with a changed perspective, a realisation that they can start doing more to look after their mental fitness. That they can start strengthening those meaningful relationships. That they can reach out to someone in their life and don’t have to worry alone.

It’s what I love about Gotcha4Life, and what I try and do in my presentations is simplify the message.

If you’re struggling, if you’re going through a difficult time, which unfortunately I’ve gone through over the years, knowing you’ve got someone in your life who’s there for you, makes it that little bit easier. Don’t go it alone.

Hugo’s impact

"Today we had the absolute pleasure of having Hugo Toovey speak with our team and share his incredible journey. He spoke about his health, and the importance of holistic health, and that our mental health should be treated the same way as any other part of us. He shared how he has worked on this over the years and also encouraged us to do the same. Sharing the gains made and putting a practical application and lived experience to it. 

“To say we were blown away would be an understatement. Two days later and it is still the topic of conversation amongst all our staff. 

“Every person who attended without exception has taken something away, it is a line in the sand moment for them and our site. There have been conversations had, and ice broken around the stigma of mental fitness for all of us. Further to this a young guy has taken on board seeing his GP as a direct result of this. I cannot thank Hugo enough and look forward to doing more with him and the Gotcha4Life Foundation."