Some advice keeps us breathing; other advice keeps us small. Heath Jones spent years hearing “play it safe” after multiple back surgeries, injections, and relentless pain that stole the joy of surfing big waves. A former emergency nurse and army medic, he knew the science, but the spirals of fear, protection, and catastrophizing were stronger than facts—until a physio asked for one bold act: a pop-up. That single movement cracked the armor of doubt and set off a patient, messy, daily rebuild of trust in his body.
We walk through Heath’s long road back. He shares the practices that moved him from weeks on the couch to dawn surf checks—joint care, flexibility work, progressive strength, and cardio that respects recovery. He also shows why none of it sticks without community. That’s the heartbeat of Active and Ageless, his growing network of 50+ fitness gyms in Sydney where members train for life: boxing, lifting, balance, resilience, and connection. The stories are rich—seventies and eighties members defying stereotypes, social nights with talks from clinicians and everyday experts, and a culture where showing up is the real PR.
We also dig into entrepreneurship under pressure. Heath signed his first lease in January 2020 and opened during lockdowns, scarce support, and a cautious demographic. Perseverance and purpose kept the lights on. Through it all, one theme holds: the body adapts at any age, and the mind follows lived evidence, not fear.
If you’ve been told to quit what you love, consider this your nudge to test the story. Start smaller than you think, move more than you fear, and borrow belief from a community that sees your capacity. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s the one move you’ll try today?
To connect or work with Heath follow him on Instagram @heathjones1.618 or visit his website: www.activeandageless.com.au
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
Welcome And Heath’s Backstory
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey Library Host, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release Out Review Purpose. And today’s Heath Jones and he is in Australia. So here we are, Austin, Texas, and Australia, having a conversation. And what I loved about Heath’s story is doctors telling him to play it safe. Uh play it safe after after multiple back surgeries. And I know a lot of you on the other side of this have been in these chapters. It can take you down the darkest and deepest chapters in your life, and you feel like you’re in this cyclical cycle that just doesn’t end. And all you hear is just keep playing it safe. Heath was a medic. He landed, his first act was uh an army medic, and he was an emergency nurse, so he knew medicine very, very well. And just somewhere along the way of his journey, and he’ll get into it in a minute, something just said, no, I don’t want to play it safe. I actually want to live life out loud. And I love that about his story. So without further ado, Keith, thank you so much for joining us all the way from Australia. Um, release that was real purpose.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Sylvia.
It’s a pleasure. It’s really my honor to have you on. And I know that the reason why you’ve landed in the space that you’re in now where you’re helping people, um, 50 plus, I think is what you said in your in the notes, like uh being active and ageless. And I love that because I’m 51. So I kind of want to be ageless now. I’m very curious to know about how you landed in this space as founder of yeah, sure.
Military Peak To Medical Setbacks
Chronic Pain’s Spiral And Identity
The Turning Point With A Physio
Great question. So, yeah, a bit about me. I was, as you said, uh I was an emergency nurse for many, many years, and that took me to several places working in in London for a couple of years, back in Australia. Then um I decided to join the military. Um joined the military at a bit of a later age than probably most people would. Um had a really great time in the military. I um got up to a quite a high level of um in the uh the the area that I was in training with special forces for quite a while, so was extremely fit, but that is quite taxing on your body. Um unfortunately, I I um had to get out of the military just uh due to uh yeah, lower back uh pain or injuries, um which led to subsequent uh uh lower back operations. One was it whilst I was in the army, one when I a few years later, it was still wasn’t there’s still no resolution of symptoms. So two or three years later I went to the they operated on the next level up, still didn’t um really fix it, and then um yeah, finally the the lower level down again, spinal fusion, where they actually take out your discs and um put in a um a titanium disc in there. Well that stage I was I was working luckily enough. I I kind of just say I lied to a certain extent on my application because I didn’t really have any injuries, but I um I was working on the um oil and gas facilities as a medic. Um so um thankfully I was I was able to get into that position and I I was um I really enjoyed my time. We used to work um basically a month on, month off overseas in the middle of the ocean on the um on the oil route. But um in that time I I um did experience a lot of ongoing episodes of you know chronic uh lower back pain, which was which is really tough. I only had to get out of that industry a few times just because I was you know it’s an excruciating pain. Um and it was around that time I um yeah, I started going to through some pretty deep dark places when you’re when you’re in that kind of that hole that’s you know it could be something that starts off with a physical pain, then it manifests into you know into more of a psychological affliction, which and then it’s just that vicious cycle of um you know, you don’t think you’re ever gonna get out of that pain, you think it’s it’s forever. It’s um it’s completely debilitating, it it it affects all forms of your life. You know, me being very physically active, or generally, you know, there was a lot of things that I couldn’t do, and a lot of things that I was told that I couldn’t do by you know, some very well-meaning medicos and physios and friends and family, and you know, pain specialists and surgeons told me I basically couldn’t do anything. Um, wasn’t able to do any any of the things that I loved in life, and my biggest number one love in life is is surfing. And you know, I love surfing big waves and being told that I could never ever ever do that again. Um it don’t even entertain the thought of doing anything or anything like it again, it was you know, that was a shot to the heart. Um yeah, so um, and uh I went through, you know, this probably I actually went through this this phase for for not just a short amount of time, it was for many years. Um yeah, which it was probably definitely not the the the funnest time of my life, and you know, had that kind of flying effect with with friends and family and relationships that I was in, even with with uh my professional career that um I suppose that it’s it inhibited that uh a little bit. Um then I but then I decided to and I had this kind of and I was concurrently also doing um you know fitness training on the side of working overseas on oil rigs and then um yeah I kind of decided to to pull the trigger on uh my uh active and ashes uh training older adults. Um I thought to when I started kind of probably getting a little bit better physically, and I got through, you know, it was a painstaking process, and I’m still got through it. Um you know, getting into the um you know, daily mobility, daily stretches, and and really start to move my body in different ways, newer ways that I hadn’t done before, and start to realize that I actually am more capable and more my body is is stronger, more resilient than I actually thought for a period of time. Um and that’s kind of when I started to um yeah, I started to move away from the oil and gas working overseas and um started my own um gym in specializing in you know over 50s because I was I was aware that there would be plenty of people out there that would have been in a similar position to me, and there is. Um told to basically not do anything, you know, you know, give up any of your physical activities that you probably love. You know, people have been told to tweak to quit golf, tennis, and take pain medications, sit on the couch for the rest of your life, and and and thankfully I was able to see the light and to see that definitely wasn’t the right thing for me, and probably is not the right thing for a lot of other people. So, you know, I took it on myself to to start my gym and now subsequent gyms, and have a re we have a really big focus on mobility, movement, flexibility, strength as well, but a lot of that mobility work that we do is um a lot of those practices that um I now teach other people is what I have um taught myself over the last what maybe 10 to 10 plus years now, and got me back to uh you know, I think now a pretty pretty good level of of fitness. And you know, I’d love to be able to, and I do uh absolutely love helping other people not necessarily get out of pain, but at least manage it and let them know that they are more capable, they’re more resilient, and their body is is so much more than what sometimes we we um we’re led to believe. So yeah, now thankfully I’m in a position, you know, from a professional position that I can you know help other people, um, you know, whether they’re older than me, they’re younger than me, the same age as me. Um doesn’t matter. There’s there’s all sorts of people out there that have you know either are going through some horrible times and you know I’d love to go help help them. And um, you know, and I suppose when you have a a long-standing chronic condition, there’s sometimes you can you can lapse back into it to a certain extent, but I think now I have the tools where I can you know I can help myself so much more than what I ever had been able to be for. But there were some people along my journey that helped me when I couldn’t help myself. So now I’m in the position, it’s a it’s a gifted position that I can actually, you know, uh help other people when sometimes it’s you can’t you can’t get out of that dark hole. It is really, really, really hard. Um, you know, we can be there for them or I can be there for them, which is an honorable position.
I’d like to know more about how you got yourself out of that dark position because you did mention it like two or three times while you were speaking. Uh, because that’s when the deception of the mind kicks in and keeps us in that darkness longer. So can you guide us out of that darkness?
Rewiring Fear And Daily Mobility
Surfing Again And Resilience
I can only put it back to one particular person who was a professor in physiotherapy. I this is after multiple surgeries, back operations. I can’t even say how many different um spinal uh injections that I’d had, or the amount of physios and doctors, and surgeons, and psychologists that tried to get as psychiatrists that put try to put me on antidepressants for the rest of my life because they thought that the the pain was um psychological as opposed to physical, and it probably was to a certain extent, because we do catastrophize when we have um you know long-standing pain pathologies. So, yeah, one particular physio I I went and seen and he kind of just said, you know, what is one thing that you want to do more than anything? Yeah, you know, I said, I want to surf. And he and he goes, How long since you’ve ridden a surfboard? And I was like, probably that stage was about six, seven years. And he’s like, Why can’t you? And I was like, I can’t. My back is when I say the word, but yeah, it was not a good way. And I was actually in this particular uh appointment with this um uh physio one one day, and I had one of my um my old uh military mates with me, so I had to kind of act pretty tough, I suppose. And I was like, I can’t, I can’t do anything. So he put me down on the ground and uh and um he was on you to do the pop-up like you do when you’re you’re paddling a surfboard and you’re in and you stand up, and I was like, I can’t, I I can’t do this, and he’s like, Yes, you can. Your back’s not as what you think it is. And I was like, I can’t. I actually always started kind of crying, I had tears in my eyes, and I was like, I I can not do it. Like I said, I was in front of my army mate as well, so I was trying to hide his tear, and and um he I was paddling and pretending to paddle in the in the the the um on the floor of the physiotherapy clinic and um he pushed me down on the back on the ground and goes no no I want you to do it. We went through this for about half an hour and I finally did the pop-up. Um and I’m like it was yeah, it was it was pretty much a life-changing moment. Um I didn’t think I could do that. Even at the time I was always physically fit, but I was only ever as strong as my weakest link, and that my weakest link in that situation was it was my back. So um, yeah, I might have been able to run or lift reasonably heavy, but if I there’s certain movements that I would make, my back would just go into spasm. That spasm, I would then protect it for weeks and weeks and weeks. I would lie down, I would do nothing, absolutely nothing for for weeks, sometimes months. Um, I’d take pain medications, I’d be extremely depressed, I’d resort to alcohol, any anything, because I just wanted to to to it’s almost like I wanted to stay in that dark place because I just didn’t want to be out there in the world, I didn’t want to be life because I was just in excruciating pain, I couldn’t do anything. So um, yeah, and then I I after the this um chance encounter with this uh uh physiotherapy um professor he was, um I kind of and it’s still it didn’t happen, even though that was probably life-changing that particular time I um went and seen him, it’s still when you’ve rewired your brain for for um for not uh for not um you know benefiting us for it for a run, but we’re rewired in a way that’s you know that those negative self-beliefs, that those that negative um you know destructive patterns, you can’t just not wire it straight away. It takes a long, long, long time to um to come out of that. And um, yeah, it was it was a daily, and it still is. I mean, I still and I maintain the physical side of things nowadays with with my back, I still kind of do the mobility, but I put myself in positions physically um that I would never have even considered years ago because I know now that my back isn’t as bad as what I thought it was, or um, yeah, so I and I do and I I challenge myself every day and I I I’m doing all sorts of crazy stuff now, and I just I can’t so even though I probably I felt I could look at it in a negative way and say I I robbed myself for the best part of it, it’s probably up to 10 years in total, not really doing anything. I was you know, I was still training but nowhere near as fit as I am even now at 47. Um but um I I look I can look back at that time and go, I wasted a lot of time, but then I think now that it’s it’s given me so much more now when I can help other people and I know now that I’m reclaiming so much of my life, and it’s maybe it’s put me in a better position now that I um I just I do really just say embrace life so much more now. I love absolutely love doing all sorts of crazy activities and adventures. I’m actually off to New Zealand in a few days to do um heli mountain biking, um downhill mountain biking and stuff, and this is you know someone’s had multiple back operations. Um there might be days where it’s a little bit achy, um it might even have a little bit of a blowout, but I know if it does, I can bounce back really quickly now or pretty quickly nowadays with the with the right treatment. And I know that, you know, I just it’s given me, we’ll just say it’s given me a new lease of life, and I and so if someone said to me, you know, would you like that 10 or so years back of of chronic pain where you really didn’t do a lot, it’s a tough question because nowadays I think it’s just given me that such an extra zest for life. I still kind of had it anyway, but I think now I I it’s almost like I’m trying to prove to myself that I can do it, and I and that’s not a bad thing, um, because I’m enjoying that process, it’s fun, it’s and I’m constantly challenging myself. Um, and and I suppose I really like to, you know, because there’s so many other people out there that have had different issues, physical, mental, whatever. I just want to show them that they, you know, and inspired and that they can do so much more than what their brain quite often leads them to believe.
I can relate in so many ways, believe me.
I can. I um your story is phenomenal, and I I really want to thank you for having the courage to come on the podcast and sharing this. Um, because stories like the story with your army medic buddy, where you’re practically crying when the doctor is like telling you, no, you can get up and you’re like, but I can’t. You know, not very men do that, put themselves in that position. So I want to commend you for that, number one. Number two, there’s a question that kept bugging at me. You sort of touched on it at the end of what you were saying, but I want you to dive a little bit deeper in it, if you will. What do you think your pain taught you the la those 10 years that you remained inactive? What was the greatest lesson it taught you?
Our brain can sometimes be our worst enemy.
Building Active And Ageless Gyms
Now there there is certain mechanisms in our brain that are designed to protect us. Um but quite often it’s it’s excessive, it’s too much, it protects us, you know, way more than we actually need. Now it is a survival mechanism, it’s w it’s throughout evolution, that’s why it’s there. But it’s a crazy thing, it’s it really is. Um and you know, there’s a certain reason and certain times that we need to be cautious with with um you know what our brain is telling us, don’t do this, you know. We’re we’re why for survival if we if we if we go on, you know, like if if you’re in pain, you know, you shouldn’t kind of, you know, whatever it is that you need to do, you don’t do it because you’re gonna make yourself worse. Well it’s it’s it’s kind of you have this uh we’ll just say a lag in terms of if you know whatever it might be, whether it’s a an injury or some even just some type of anxiety that you know people are experiencing, you know, when that that um actual initial threat may have either subsided or completely passed, like our brain still you know has this at that heightened state of awareness or anxiety, and almost to the point where it’s it’s unnecessary or it’s just it’s just too much. We don’t need to kind of have you know keep hanging on to that, which we do, and that’s what I I I mentioned the word before, which it’s a word I like to use, we catastrophize things, make a lot worse than what they they are, and that and that that but that catastrophization can really manifest into physical pain at times. Oh yeah and just make that that whole vicious cycle, you know, and that’s what we you need to dig deep sometimes. Sometimes it could be using you know an external um uh you know team of people or friends or family and to to help you, or in this this you know, uh instance, you know, say me as a um a trainer or as someone that’s I’m gonna inspire people, you need that person to kind of say, hey, look, you know, it’s okay. Um you do have the power and the strength to to do whatever you need to do. But um unfortunately it’s this uh thing up here that’s um our own biggest biggest enemy quite often. So you’re gonna turn off that little nasty voice in your in your head sometimes. Uh it’s probably is it’s probably well-meaning, like a lot of the medicos that uh over the years that’s that have kind of tried to stop me from doing everything and anything. They probably were well-meaning, but did it serve me in the long term? Probably not if I’d have kept listening to them. It’s the same as if you keep listening to that little little voice in your head sometimes. You just you gotta kind of yeah, um just turn it off or just silence it a little bit sometimes. I think it’s um and it’s still there. Like I I I still when I you have a chronic condition for such a long time, it’s um yeah, it’s still there. But um I suppose you just gotta center your keel and um you know have that uh self-belief if you can dig deep and and uh you know find that voice and that will and that reason, that purpose to to to fall forward.
And for you, it was by getting back on that surfboard. I mean, that was the greatest love for you, right? That purpose was like, I gotta get up on that board because that’s what I want to do. But it also birthed that um company that you’re a founder of, right? The um active and age list. So tell us more about who you work with. We know 51-year-olds like me are probably one of your target people, but do you work with 85 year olds maybe? Or do you have a cap? What kind of activities do you do do you have them do? Can you just share a little bit more about your company?
Community, Classes, And Outcomes
Launching During Lockdowns
Yeah, sure. So yeah, definitely not a cap. Um, but people above the age of uh 50, we’ve got Um three locations, maybe soon to be four locations. And yeah, so we we’ve had many iterations of of what we do in terms of our uh fitness center, but now we specialise in group classes. So we have different types of group classes, we have like flexibility and mobility classes, which are all those practices and teachings and moves in that particular class of the ones that got me back to where I am. So now we we do this as um you know, for for all our members, it was almost a preventative play as well because these kind of movements are going to keep you you know mobile at limber and you know through moving those limbs through the full range of motions. So we do that, we do um strength classes, cardio classes, we do boxing classes, um, I think across the the three facilities now have close to 400 members. Um yeah, and we do, you know, we have a big social push to the and community focus to the to the uh the gyms as well. We just had an event at um at our Hurstville gym on Friday night, which was good. It was a fun event where we have um one of our members actually got up and did a talk. He was an ex-police officer for 40 years, so he talked to us about his career. Um we had one of our members actually, she got up and talked, she’s a horticulturalist, so she got up and talked about talked about plants and um, you know, I suppose the the mental health benefits you can get from you know ha having a lot of plants at home and being in immersed in nature, and we also had a physiotherapist that um he came along and talked to everybody about um certain uh testing you can get to to um yeah assess where you’re at health-wise. So um yeah, we do we do a lot of uh community events for you know, we’ll have a Christmas party in a few weeks, which is always fun. So it’s just a really I I it’s funny, I always say to people nowadays, I was I think a lot of people come to to our locations just to hang out with their friends now, and the the exercise component is secondary. So um it’s um yeah, it is a beautiful thing, but um it was you know, business is tough, you know, you know how how that can be at times. When I I actually first when I um I probably shouldn’t say before, when I first um when I was on the oil rigs and you know, I was around the time like I need to get back, you know, to mainland, you know, permanently. I I really want to start this, you know, this the active and ages, which I’d had the the the um the idea for for many years to do some you know mature adults fitness. Um I um I pulled the trigger and and got a lease for a um a commercial space and the lease I think I uh would have been the first of January 2020. I got the lease, which if you remember it was about probably February, March in 2020 that the whole world kind of changed for a good year or two. Um and it was I I could not have timed it and scripted it more uh at a at a worse time. So I got the keys um pretty exciting and I opened my first proper business and you know build this gym and my dream and then you know COVID happened. It was it was tough times. So I was like, the world is is properly against me. Um I was working overseas on the oil rigs and it was a you know a decent paying job. I didn’t have a lot of purpose working on the oil rigs, so it wasn’t you know it was tough being away for a month at a time. You know, so I’m starting this gym and COVID struck. So instead of opening this gym in, you know, the plan was like May 2020 to open the gym. I think I opened it in December 2020, but then we everyone was a little bit hesitant, especially with the demographic that um we trained. So they were super hesitant. Um and we had you know many restrictions, so we uh we opened for about um I think it’s about four or five months until the following June or thereabouts, and then Sydney where I am and where the gym is, we went into our second lockdown, and you know, I I wasn’t able to demonstrate a loss of income from the previous year, so I didn’t get any government funding or anything like that. So it was yeah, it was pretty pretty tough times financially.
But um, the amount of times I just wanted to throw the keys at the oh it happens, it happens, but you know, when we go through those tests of perseverance, it really it helps our mind in terms of resilience. When we push past some of these challenges and we and we frame them in our mind and say, you know what, I survived, I did pretty good. The next book it’s equipping us right for what comes next in life.
Yeah.
Faith, Family, And Health Threads
And when you sit back and reflect, which is what I did with when I first wrote my very first manuscript in 2020, mind you, when everything shut down, I went back and looked at just how resilient I had been through major turning points in my life and how God had really, God’s hand was throughout it all. In fact, this morning, I have a Facebook group called In Faith I Thrive, and it’s based on the second edition of the book. And I was talking about my medical complication and receiving three miracles in 72 hours and just how much God’s providence helped me through. And I was able to look back at some of these chapters and look at resilience. And I find that in your story, there’s lots of threads of resilience in it. I mean, here you are, you were you came out of the darkness of like, just play it safe, you know, just stay where you’re at. It’s not giving you the joy and the love that you’re seeking, but stay there. And you decided, no, I’m not gonna stay there, and you decided to get back up on the surfboard and not only do that, but just continue to build your dream despite the many challenges because 2020 was challenging for everybody around the world. 2021, luckily, I don’t know how the vaccines played a role in you guys getting back on. I know here in the States we were able to get back to some sort of normalcy in 2021 because of the advent of the vaccines to feel a bit safer. And I gotta tell you, it was scary because um I had leg complications. My medical complication was pulmonary embolism. And I’m not someone that could have gotten COVID and lived through it. My brother, who was on the front lines of this thing, um, he’s a medical doctor in South Texas. He was, you know, helping people through COVID-19. He got sick himself. He ended up almost dying in the ICU because he has major asthma uh complications. He also had major back issues. That’s why I was very curious about your interview because I wanted to know what techniques you were using so I could share those with him and share this video with him. Um, but as a medical doctor, he was just it, you know, it was a tough time. So I I want you to understand, look at all the challenges you face, and yet you are about to open up your fourth location. I find that like such an awesome story, don’t you?
Yeah, yeah, it is. Um, and you know, sometimes you do need to kind of smell the roses as in, you know, appreciate where you’ve you what you’ve done and what you’ve you’ve where you’ve come from. And yeah, sometimes I do need to stop myself now, but I do, I do, and go, hey, look, um I went for a beautiful surf yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t booby, but I mean it was still, and you know, and I was kind of uh I was like, oh, I’m not gonna go out, surf’s not that great. I’m like, you know what, I can.
Big Goals: Ironman And New Ventures
Yeah, you improve it safe. You involve it safe. You are out there in nature. I mean, and Australia is one of the most beautiful countries in in the world, I think. Yeah, just avoid the great whites, you know. But anyways, um I just I’m amazed at how far you’ve come and who you work with. I could totally imagine. My mother, who’s 85, my father passed away unfortunately last year, but but my mom, as an 85-year-old, I’m very proud of her. She goes to a boot camp and she does like weights and she does strength training, and I’m like stuff that I like struggle with. And I’m 51. I remember uh I have to share this story because this story is funny. When I was in high school, my mom was an older mother. She she was 34 when she had me. I was the oldest. So, and there’s three of us. Uh, the last one came when she was 40, so you can imagine, you know, back in those days, that was unheard of. But anyway, so she’s she’s already a trooper in my book, right? So here I am. It’s the advent of rollerblading, you know. Rollerskate, now it’s rollerblading. You know, you require bounds doing this thing, right? And so she decides to go out rollerblading with me, and she’s in her 50s, and I’m in my 20s, right? Um, because I’m already a college, like I’m outside of high school, I’m in college now. I’m I thought I was in high school, no, it was college. And we’re rollerblading in our, you know, in like in our neighborhood in Texas, and she’s like, I hope nobody sees me. And I’m like, I hope somebody does see you. She beat me. She beat me. She was so fast, she’s really petite, but she is so fast and she’s so flexible for her age, you know. And I’m just like, I picture her you being in your clubs just doing things because she would totally be up for it. And you you’re right. It is a matter of the mind. It really is a matter of the mind what you can and can’t do. Either way, you’re right. If you tell yourself you can’t do it, you’re right. And if you tell yourself you can do it, you’re right. Because the mind is very powerful, and it does want to protect you. That’s why it protected you for so long, for those 10 years. But now you see the contrast of what you where you once were and where you’re at today. And you’ll never want to go back there again because you’re what you shine so brightly in this light. I mean, what’s next for you aside from the forced location? Do you do you have a book in you? Like, are you gonna do an ultra like a triathlon? What are you doing? Iron Man, maybe? I don’t know.
Training The 50+ Athlete For Life
Yeah, actually, yeah, funny she’d say that. I said to my few weeks, like I have to do, and I’ve probably done, you know, I I do all sorts of silly things. Like, I’ll I put myself on an overnight hike not all that long ago, where I took off and I was gonna say it in kilometres. Miles is about a 30-mile hike I did in the middle of the forest. And I stayed in the middle of the forest by myself um for the night. Um, and then you know, it was it was it was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Um and I got back, and it’s funny my mum and my sister flew into Sydney the next day. Mum knew I was going on a hike, and then she was like, Well, who did you actually go with? And I was like, Um by myself. So, you know, I do all sorts of of crazy things like that. I I I surfed um Fiji a few months back, and I I go there probably now once a year, and I surf, you know, very big waves. They’re kind of sometimes the the waves look like they’re mini skyscrapers kind of rolling through the ocean. Um constantly physically, I uh I constantly physically challenging myself with different things. An Iron Man is definitely on the cards. I might try and do one next year. Um business wise, uh we’ve uh I’m in the process of uh putting the final touches, we’ve been working on it for two years now, a nutrition, a um nutrition bar, like a protein bar specifically for mature adults that um helps with immunity and digestion and lowering cholesterol. So that’s a big thing that I’ve been working on a lot. Um we’re starting some online programs that’ll start early next year for it won’t be actually through Active and Agents or through uh another um company that’s starting up called Younger Longer, which is really cool. So I’m gonna be an expert or an and and ambassador for them. Um so yeah, lots of different things. I do want to do another gym. I like I really like the business component of of finding a new location, doing all the the due diligence of looking at you know demographics in an area and and um yeah, and even doing the fit out and and um yeah, so that that that really excites me. And I know that some you know if I have another location of some more people that’s um you know that we can help. I’ve had that many people over the years, you know, come up to me and say, thank you so much for talking about our age group and for allowing us to, you know, become better human beings, become fitter, stronger, more mentally resilient and capable because a lot of people out there, you know, don’t seem to really focus on that demographic. They want to, you know, train, you know, younger, fitter, stronger, more beautiful, more Instagrammable people. Whereas I’ve got to train people for life, for functionality. You know, I I’m not so far away from being that age myself, so I’ve got a lot of my members, like the same with your mum, I’ve got a lot of my members that are you know seven in their seventies and their eighties, they’re inspiring me. And I love it. It’s um you know, so um kind of a self-serving way of looking at my gym. I have my gym so my people can inspire me, but they do, and it and it’s beautiful. I um have um you know many really cool members that um that have been with us for a long time, and they’re very loyal demographic as well, as opposed to you know, the younger demographic when a new gym opens, they go and you know, try out this new gym and you know you don’t see them again because then another gym opens it. Whereas, you know, a lot of our guys have been with us from day dot and will hopefully continue to um you know be with us for a long time. So, yeah, lots of things in the pipeline, um, just trying to live life to the fullest at any age, really, and um hopefully to inspire other people to do the same.
That’s awesome. I I’m gonna be cheering you on all the way from Austin, Texas. And if you ever end up in the in the US, I’ll be in the sidelines like just going, you know, because really your story is is is one that needs to be heard over and over and over again. I would highly, highly encourage you to write a book about your experiences, uh, because there’s so many people that go through so many health challenges and they quit, they give up.
Yeah.
Social Links And Book Encouragement
That is very inspiring for everybody. I would be the first in line to purchase your book. Uh obviously, your mother would be the first one in line. Your mom would be first, you know, your family. But but I would certainly be someone that would be in your corner, yeah. Uh empowering you to bush roll it. I’ve been an author, I know what that’s like. If you have come through this, this is this will be a piece of cake for you, you know, to put your words on uh on paper and actually get it published. Just something to think about. If you decide to do it, I will send you one of my books that I collaborated with on with multiple authors. Uh, we were first-time authors in how we put our manuscripts out in the world in the marketplace and just show all of our tips and and just our you know, tips and traps that we fell into that we don’t want people to fall into as they’re publishing their first manuscript. Um and that’d be my honor to be able to do that for you. If you’re enable, I’d love to do that. Uh, even if it takes forever to get to Australia. You could order it because you know, you could order it on Amazon too. It um it is called Write and Publish Your Book, and but I can send you the links and stuff on that because it was published internationally. A lot of our authors were in Greece, um, somewhere around the world. It wasn’t just Texas or the US. Um, and we were just we all met on podmatch.com, interestingly enough. And we had done podcast interviews, and the idea came from from the main uh uh person who started gathering all these people he had interviewed and been in contact with uh through PodMatch. And uh and we did this amazing collaboration, and that’s that’s how the world goes round and round, Keith. Is this how together we can be unstoppable as a human race? And uh I’m not competing with you. In fact, I’m gonna be in your corner pushing you to do more and more because you can, you know, and you have the capacity to do more, and you have the capacity to empower more people and be that magnificent light you’ve been in the world, especially for people uh suffering from these conditions that have given up uh so I if I wanted to work with you as say I have friends all over the world and they want to go to one of your gyms, how do they find you, Heath?
Our gyms, yeah, active and ageless gyms. So we just got the the ones in Sydney, but um maybe we’ll we’ll branch out to the US one day. So yeah, but um my personal journey, I’ve only really just started documenting that on probably uh we just say a late adopter when it comes to the social media side of things. I’ll start to do a lot more on that. But yeah, my own Instagram is is uh Heath Jones1.618. Um Active and Asious is the name of our um Instagram page as well. So um yeah, probably start to publish a little bit more stuff on the on both my personal page and and the gym page as um time progresses. I’ve got a few people helping me out with that now, and I’ve had a lot of people telling me that I need to do more on there, as well as many people telling me to to do my own book, and I definitely will. I a hundred percent will. I actually I get a bit excited about thinking it’s it’s daunting, uh, but I still will a hundred percent will do one.
Final Motto And Closing CTA
I can think of the title right now, play it safe. It’s like play it safe, you know. Uh it’s definitely something that I’ve as you were speaking, the Holy Spirit was kind of nudging me to tell you of like, hey, the book the book, don’t daunting, really? You have served the biggest waves. That’s daunting. The book is not daunting next to that. I know that for some people it’s like, oh my gosh, I’m getting like palpitations just thinking of it. Trust me when I tell you, you’ve got the you’ve got the chops of a writer. You do. You you’ve got you’ve got what it takes. It’s not gonna be hard for you to launch that. We will, you know, friends of yours around the world will help you, you know? Yes. So, um, anyways, for the listeners who released that reveal purpose, I want you to be the light, just like Heath has been the light. And that comes directly from Matthew 5.14 in the Bible. And lots of words of wisdom were written there, and a lot of old psychology was written from the the scriptures. So um I just want to thank you, Heath, for being open and vulnerable and just sharing some of the most intimate stories of your life, really, uh, on the show and inspiring my listeners to not play it safe, to go out there and live life to the very fullest, to not allow your mind to tell you that inner critic to tell you to stay small, but to live big, right? So thank you. Thank you for joining us on release out reveal purpose. Any last words that you want to leave us with?
No, just like I said, my my personal motto is live life to the fullest at any age. And I hope your listeners can do the same and um embrace that and and be inspired by that.
Well, thank you. Thank you once again for your words of of empowerment for the listeners and for me as well. You you have impacted my life today more than you’ll ever know. And um I just want to wish everyone listening to have a wonderful, blessed, safe day. And please don’t play it safe. Go out there and live out loud. There to live out your purpose out loud. Have a wonderful week.
Stay safe. Love y’all.
Bye now. Okay.
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