About Us

Livin' the Dream is something I am so proud to share. To explain how we got here, I've got to take you back in time. 

As a lifelong creative, all I could ever do is make stuff. I was urged to ignore those silly ideas, go to uni, get a safe, stable government job. 

My dad who worked for himself told me how good it would be to have that safe income and job security. 

Turns out I wasn't cut out for that. Building my own business was the most painful, yet amazing path I chose. Something crazy happened. I never imagined I'd get any good at it and land real clients, but I did. 

Simultaneously, the job of building a business, a family and a life took its toll. I forgot to take care of myself. I forgot to nurture my friendships. I stopped enjoying my existence. 

I had a terrible spiral of my mental health over many years that culminated in an emergency intervention. I'm only here because of the love of my wife, saving me as I was about to fall over the edge and into the abyss. 

Five years of therapy, medication, self care and learning acceptance and advocacy brought me to a point where I not only had the courage to interact with the world around me, but also to enact change. To quite literally be the change I want to see in the world. 

It was having a beer with friends I've had for 30 years, and we were sharing stories of stuff we did 20 years ago. I realised we we're letting life pass us by, we stopped making new stories. 

I helped to organise a camping trip to Straddie,to celebrate my brother and business partner as he prepared to marry. 

We had such an amazing time, we asked why we didn't do this more often. Since that time over three years ago, we now go away together as a group of old friends and new, to spend time on ourselves and with each other. 

We laugh, tell stories and enjoy a few days off the wires. It's therapy, it's joy, it's the best parts of life. Our wives see its as silly blokes on the sauce, but I assure you, for us it is a wellness retreat. 

I regularly reference the Harvard study, that has spent decades following individuals to track their existence and to measure their quality of life by their own accounts. It's an astonishing study, I encourage you to read it here: 

The main thing that I took away from it? 

You quality of life has less to do with how much money you have or any other external measure. 

The key to a happy life? The strength of your friendships. 

This is the essence of Livin' the Dream. It's whatever it means to you, but I urge you to think about the quality of your friendship whenever you think about our brand. 

Keep Livin' the Dream! 

Scott Nelson