From pro surfer to mental health advocate, Cooper Chapman says it only takes 1% of your day to truly make a difference.
By Ara Jansen
When it comes to being good, humans aren’t always great at keeping their word, particularly when it comes to things like sugar, exercise, social media engagement, keeping in touch and our mental health.
But what if you gave just 1% of your day every day to doing better for yourself and your mental health?
Cooper Chapman, founder of The Good Human Factory, says just 14 minutes a day will make all the difference. In his new book The 1% Good Club the Gold Coast-based mental health advocate is showing Aussies across the country how.
Over the last couple of years Cooper’s focus has turned to helping other people with their mental health. Using everything he learnt as a former top 100 pro surfer and the tips he’s gained from other high-performance people and coaches, he’s written The 1% Good Club.
Starting as a Facebook group, it has morphed into a highly successful movement and now a book.
The book makes a case that for 1% of your day – or 14 minutes – you can help, improve and elevate your mental health.
In it, the 31-year-old shares his own journey around mental health and is honest about his own ups and downs. He shares practical tips for what he does daily to help himself.
He shows you his full potential habits charts, which he ticks off every day (and no, he’s not perfect), he talks about sleep (Cooper goes to bed at 8.30pm and gets up at 6.30am) and nutrition, regulating emotions and ways to build gratitude and calm. Things we know, but don’t always give to ourselves.
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He also leverages his podcast to share insights from his guests, all of whom are listed in the back in case you want to take a deeper dive.
“I lost an uncle to suicide when I was six and during my teens saw my dad go through some hard times,” says Cooper. “Because of that I was always aware that my mental health was something I should be careful about.
“In my 20s I went through my own struggles with my surfing career and learnt some valuable lessons both from experience and the coaches I worked with.”
Cooper started on the journey to establishing his company The Good Human Factory when his sister told him about a boy at her school who had died by suicide.
Cooper wanted to do something and to help young men in particular, so he asked a friend at the school if he could talk to the students about their mental health, sharing with them what he had already learnt as an athlete.
A few years on, he has spoken to more than 50,000 students and his podcast has received one million downloads.
“In the back of my head, I think I knew that being a professional athlete wasn’t a forever career, but I did know that I would always be a surfer, I would always travel, and I would always be curious about the world, different cultures and be interested in different perspectives.
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“I never guessed this is what I would be doing. It allows me to follow my own life philosophy that I started to realise when I was surfing. I read a lot about service and generosity and decided I wanted to direct my time and energy in service to others.”
Echoing that first chat he had with those high school students, Cooper now spends much of his time doing workshops and speaking engagements. He works with adults and young people, hoping to spread the message of looking after your mental health.
“The world is changing so quickly with expanding technologies and our ability to regulate ourselves is diminishing. We have to look after and invest in our wellbeing and our mental health in the face of that.
“I talk about having 10 health habits for every day. You might not get through them all, but you want to aim for over half. That helps me build a life by design.”
The 1% Good Club is out now through Wiley RRP $34.95 from all good bookstores.
We have two copies of the book to giveaway to lucky readers. Head over to our competitions page to enter.
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