For ocean conservationist Damien Cole, protecting the planet was never a career choice so much as an inheritance. It was there in the house he grew up in, in the people who passed through it, and in the unspoken understanding that if you love something, you stand up for it.

But Damien’s path into purpose wasn’t straightforward. It wound through self-doubt, the mining industry, nervous system burnout, and two life-altering brain injuries that stripped away not just his capacity, but his trust in himself altogether, leaving him unable to rely on even his own thoughts or decisions.

What emerged on the other side wasn’t the same man, but perhaps a truer one: softer, wiser, and more certain than ever that healing, like activism, is built one small choice at a time.

Damien was born in France to Australian parents. His father, world famous Surfboard shaper Maurice Cole, and mother Anne, raised their family deeply connected to the ocean and community.

That orientation shaped everything. Long before Damien had language for environmentalism, he was already living it.

The drift away

But even the clearest childhood values can get blurred by life.

Damien’s teenage years were marked by upheaval and movement: from France to Australia. The instability shook something loose in him. 

Looking back now, he can see how deeply self-doubt had rooted itself in those years.

He grew up in the orbit of a larger-than-life father - successful, well-known, driven, while also being quite eccentric, which sometimes caused instability and chaos - and somewhere along the way, Damien began forming quiet, damaging beliefs about himself. 

“I remember thinking, ‘I’m not smart enough to go to university.’”

Those beliefs, once internalised, have a way of directing your life from behind the scenes.

For Damien, they eventually led him into the mining industry.

It began practically enough. The work paid well. It didn’t require a degree. The money was good, so you kept going. That’s what everyone did.

But beneath the surface, something was eroding. Eventually, he saw it for what it was and sat with that truth, feeling it land.

“You’re on the wrong side of history and and this work is crushing your soul.”

So Damien walked away.

When his workmates asked where he was going, he half-joked: “I’m going to go save the planet.”

Then he returned to Torquay, Victoria and began an environmental science degree.

The life he built - and the one that stopped

Before the accident, Damien had built a life around service.

He was working part-time with Surfrider Foundation and part-time running the environmentally conscious surfboard company Varuna. On paper, they were two part-time jobs. In reality, they were two full-time passions crammed into one nervous system.

He was planning campaigns, speaking with politicians and partners, running events, working on surfboard R+D, making sales, managing stakeholders and juggling back to back meetings from morning until evening without stopping to eat. He could go and go and go. He had a huge tank, and for a long time, he mistook that ability as a superpower.

Now, with hindsight, he sees something else.

He sees a profoundly dysregulated nervous system being normalised by achievement.

Then, in 2022, everything changed.

A drunk driver hit the car Damien was in while he was in the United States for work. Damien was knocked unconscious for more than twenty minutes. He suffered bleeding on the brain and a traumatic brain injury. It was the second major brain injury of his life, following a surfing accident in Indonesia three years earlier that had fractured his skull and nearly killed him.

The second injury hit harder.

What followed was not just a difficult recovery, but a total dismantling.

“I lost my memory… I lost my ability to think clearly or make sense of the world…”

He could no longer access the very capacities that had structured his life: critical thinking, memory, speech, momentum.

And perhaps hardest of all, he lost trust in himself.

No one is coming to save you

Damien decided he did not want to spend the rest of his life identifying with victimhood, using injury as an explanation for every limit, every mistake, every place he felt stuck. 

He decided that the only path forward was to do the work.

“I realised no one’s coming to save me. I have to do this myself.”

And so he did.

Not one thing. Not one miracle cure. Not one silver bullet.

Everything.

Psychology. Yoga therapy. Walking. Surfing. Nature. Ice baths. Jigsaw puzzles. SuperFeast Lion’s Mane and Reishi. Better food. Deeper rest. Nervous system support. Honest reflection.

He learned what many people only learn after being stripped back to the bone: healing is not built on one breakthrough, but on hundreds of small, unglamorous acts of devotion.

“There’s no silver bullet… it’s all the little things that build you back up.”

He began taking SuperFeast Reishi and Lion’s Mane after an osteopath recommended them early in his return to Australia. He didn’t expect them to fix everything. That wasn’t the point. 

The point was that if one thing could support the next thing, and that could support the next, then perhaps a stronger foundation could be built.

And that’s exactly what happened.

A different measure of strength

There’s a tenderness in the way Damien now talks about recovery. Not because it was easy, but because it forced him into a new relationship with himself.

He has had to learn patience. Grace. Self-love. He has had to stop spiralling every time symptoms flare or his capacity dips. 

“Instead of asking ‘what’s wrong with me?’ I’ve learned to give myself a break.”

That shift - from self-judgement to self-compassion - may be one of the deepest parts of his healing.

Because the old metric of worth - productivity, endurance, output, proving himself - no longer holds the same power.

“I don’t need work to give me self-worth anymore… I’m enough as I am.”

That may be one of the quietest and most radical transformations of all.

 

Damien’s take on a SuperHuman

For Damien, being SuperHuman has nothing to do with invincibility.

It’s not about grinding harder, pushing through more, or pretending pain doesn’t exist.

It’s about choosing.

Choosing the right side of history. Choosing service over self-deception. Choosing healing over helplessness. Choosing to participate in your own life, even when it would be easier to collapse beneath what has happened to you.

It’s about meeting challenge with curiosity.

And perhaps most of all, it’s about remembering that worth is not something earned through exhaustion.

It is something you return to.

SuperHuman Habits

Damien’s routine these days is less about optimisation than it is about building a solid foundation.

He rises early, makes a cup of tea, and goes to watch the sunrise. He walks. He surfs. He practices yoga. He lets nature regulate what stress once dominated. He creates structure that supports his brain, his body and his nervous system before the demands of work begin.

More than anything, he protects the morning.

“That morning routine has become non-negotiable for me.”

He also keeps coming back to a quieter habit: giving himself a break. The kind of inner environment that makes healing possible.

And then there are the supports that help strengthen the whole structure: SuperFeast Reishi, Lion’s Mane, therapy, surfing, yoga, rest, reflection. Not as magic fixes, but as allies.

Because Damien has learned the truth the hard way:

No one thing saves you.

“But enough small things done consistently… they can change everything.”