Kintsugi Heroes
James Pearson · 58 min
A man who masked decades of depression behind corporate ambition discovers that his darkest moments were actually signals pointing him toward his true purpose as a coach and teacher.
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James Pearson came to Australia for the Olympics in 2000 and stayed. For 25 years, he chased promotions in recruitment, measuring his worth in titles and income. His 20s and 30s were driven by achievement. Then everything collided at once: a job change, a difficult manager, the birth of his first child, and the weight of being the sole income earner. That's when his depression, which he'd managed alone since his late teens, hit its lowest point. No one saw it. At work and in public, James was the extrovert, the life of the party. At home, he was drowning.
What shifted him was fatherhood. Becoming a dad changed how James thought about time. Instead of 3 and 6-month goals, he suddenly saw 40 years ahead: he wanted to see his grandchildren. Seven years after attending a Tony Robbins event with his wife, James went back alone and realized something crucial. His mental health, his emotions, his life, were his responsibility. Not the world's. He started small: getting up early to dance, meditate, and journal. Small repeatable actions that moved him from a minus-10 towards a plus-1 or plus-2.
After two decades in corporate, James left six months ago to coach and teach full-time. He now uses his own story to help others understand that depression isn't a defect. It's a signal. Dark days are feedback, telling him he's deviated from his path or is holding unrealistic expectations. His mission, he realized by looking back at his life in five-year chunks, has always been teaching. Teaching combined with his lived experience of mental health is where his purpose lives now. He's building a life aligned with what energizes him, not what secures him.
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Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗