At 20 years old, Leighton Bradfield fell to the ground and felt a divine intervention enter his body.
“Something just said: mental health is your thing. Just do that. And it was so clear.”
Now almost 29, Mr Bradfield is the CEO and founder of Fremantle-based 20Talk, a mental health charity for young adults aimed at equipping them with the skills to navigate life and its challenges.
The charity was created in 2018 and was already making a mark before its first 20Hour challenge in 2024 took it to the next level.
Participants in the challenge are confined to a two-by-two-metre square with nothing but their thoughts and time to self-reflect.
It’s now become 20Talk’s main fundraising platform, earning $400,000 in last weekend’s event from around 340 participants.
But the idea did not begin with a charity, a CEO title or a 20-hour challenge.
It began with loss.
After finishing high school, two of Mr Bradfield’s close friends died by suicide just months apart.
Their deaths changed the course of his life, eventually becoming the catalyst for 20Talk.
It’s Saturday, August 5, the first day of 20Talk’s 20-hour challenge.
• Around 340 people sat with only their thoughts for the recent 20Hours at Claremont Showgrounds. Photo by Trent Sparkes: trentsparkes.com
Inside Claremont Showgrounds’ exhibition centre, it’s 8am and freezing cold. People sit inside squares marked out with masking tape, wrapped in blankets or curled up asleep in swags.
No phones, books, electronics or speaking. For the next 20 hours, participants have only themselves and guided mental exercises to complete.
The silence is staggering.
Mr Bradfield takes me outside to some foldable wooden chairs for an interview.
I ask him to start from the beginning: Who is Leighton Bradfield?
With piercing blue eyes, a floppy crown of hair and a calmness that wraps around him, it takes a second to respond.
He describes himself as charming as a kid.
“I had grown up in a pretty Christian family. My dad was a pastor of a church, and those foundations set up core values for me.”
But fitting in mattered as well.
The younger Bradfield wanted to be part of the popular crowd and began to see success as the way to get there.
“It started off with wanting to do well at school, because I thought that would make me successful.
“But then it got to a point around year 10 where I was like, ‘It doesn’t matter if you get good grades. The people who are successful in life are the people who make lots of money’.”
At 15, he got involved in startups. Alongside them came study drugs.
“I was taking a lot per day to try and get into a specific course at uni because I didn’t feel like I was smart enough… this led into a depression,” he recalls, making direct eye contact.
He tells me about recreational drugs at parties and on weekends, as the pressure to be “successful” continued to build.
“I was just insecure,” he smiles.
But the smile is sad this time, not quite reaching his eyes.
• 20Talk founder Leighton Bradfield. Photo by Gus Cullen
Mr Bradfield says it was around this time the sudden deaths of his friends “triggered” something in him.
“I had this moment when I was walking on Marmion Ave, and I dropped to the ground randomly, and something just said: ‘Mental health is your thing; just do that’.
“And it was so clear.”
At the time, he was running a clothing brand for young men. He transitioned the business into a men’s mental health company, bringing five friends together to spend six months trying to understand what was missing from youth mental health.
“We realised that there was not much relatable mental health education out there at all,” he says.
Mr Bradfield’s father Stephen noted the change in his son’s drive, calling it remarkable.
“I think he could identify with [his friends] personally and he had a real conviction about wanting to be an influencer to change that for his generation.”
Mr Bradfield left his job and, alongside friend Lachlan O’Donoghue, began building 20Talk.
His father watched in awe as the idea grew.
“Where you stumble and fall, there you will find pure gold,” he tells me.
“What I’ve seen, particularly in Leighton’s journey, is he had a few stumbles, and he had a few falls when he was young, and he took responsibility for it, and he found a whole new world.”
For the younger Bradfield, those “falls” became the foundation for something bigger and that new world became 20Talk.
Today, 20Talk has mental health trainers at universities and TAFEs across Western Australia, with plans to take more of its training and 20-hour challenge interstate.
Back inside, the participants remain in their squares.
The challenge continues.
And somewhere between the silence, the sleeping bags and the hours still left to go, is the idea that first struck Mr Bradfield at 20.
by ISLA TOMLINSON