How I got here.

In recovery. Working it every day, one honest step at a time.

I'm a Counsellor in Training at Torrens University, with plans to offer reduced-rate sessions once I'm qualified. I work as a disability support worker. I produce podcasts - my own, and a network of stories about resilience and transformation. I write a weekly newsletter. I make music.

This page is the long version. The honest one.

I grew up in Sarina, a small town in north Queensland. In 2002, in my final year at St Patricks College, I was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for community service through the Sarina Youth Council. I was seventeen.

After school I studied Hospitality & Tourism Management at the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School, and the career that followed had real chapters. I worked for TFE Hotels in Sydney. I flew long-haul as cabin crew with Qantas out of Auckland. I came back to Australia in 2008 to join my dad at Phil Doring Insurance Brokers in Mackay. From 2008 to 2015 I worked alongside him, and as he wound down toward retirement, I took over as Managing Director and ran the business day-to-day. I sat on the Young Insurance Professionals Victorian Committee. I was a finalist for Young Manager of the Year. I helped run a young professionals group in Mackay.

I thought I was the kind of person whose life only goes one direction.

In July 2016, I went bankrupt.

In February 2017, ASIC permanently banned me from providing financial services.

Both are public record. Both are mine.

I'm not going to detail this part for you. Not because it's a secret - it's not - but because it's not the part of the story that helps anyone.

What I'll say is this: I lost a lot of years. I caused harm I'm still making amends for. I learned that you can spend a long time pretending you're fine before something finally makes you stop.

If you've been there, you know.

I'm in recovery, and I work it every day. NA and AA, both - neither one optional, both equally important.

I don't post about it constantly. I don't lead with sobriety dates. The point isn't the calendar. The point is the practice.

Recovery isn't the absence of the old life. It's the slow construction of a new one, on different foundations, with different people, and with the truth - finally - pulled all the way to the surface.

When the business ended, I had to start over. I worked at Fitness First. I sold energy plans at Origin. I joined Virgin Active and learned what it felt like to show up with my struggles still visible. I worked in retail recruitment. I sold furniture at Freedom. I became a Disability Employment Consultant at WISE Employment - the first role that pointed me toward the work I do now. I worked as a Service Delivery Officer at the Australian Taxation Office. I trained as a support worker and have worked with KoalaKare, Connected Support Group, Greenstaff Medical, and now Aligned Horizons.

Every one of those jobs taught me something. Mostly humility. And how to keep showing up.

Today, four things sit on top of all that:

The Bailey Support - disability support work today, counselling and coaching when I'm qualified. NDIS sector. Built around lived experience as much as theory.

Bailey Code - human-first AI for businesses where the human stakes are real. Consultancy and custom builds, with NDIS and consumer verticals in development.

Fall From Grace - my podcast about loss, truth, and rebuilding. Paired with This Week, Honestly, a weekly newsletter on LinkedIn.

Music - I write songs and use AI as the tool to bring the lyrics to life. Music has carried me through a lot. Lyrics give me words when I don't have them, and listening to the right song at the right moment has helped me process more difficult emotions than I can count. It's been one of the ways I got here. Two albums on Spotify, with more on the way.

I'm not building this to make a fortune. I'm building it because the comeback is real, and other people are out there trying to make theirs.