Filming the latest Disciple Diaries episode with 54-year-old father Stuart Brady, as he creates a mini dust storm doing doughnuts in a truck on his property, was an act of faith in itself.
This disciple of Jesus is also one of Australia’s top precision truck drivers, a stunt man who has worked on some of the biggest films and television shows in the country.
“I get paid to do things on TV that you get arrested for, driving on the street,” he tells me, keeping his truck on a perfect circle in the centre of his man-made maelstrom.
As puts his Scania R620 Prime Mover through its paces, he has a grin as big as his resume.
He wasn’t always this happy. And his razor-sharp instincts behind the wheel weren’t always taking him down the right road.
“I was purely on the road to success. I came to an intersection. I could turn left and continue making money—money being my ‘God.’ But I was able to turn right, to see where this takes me,” he reflects.
Unlike many other Disciple Diaries stories, Stuart isn’t a lapsed Catholic, nor a convert. In fact, this “cradle Catholic” can count on his hands how many times he’s missed Mass in over five decades.
“But hand on heart, I can say I wasn’t present a lot of those times,” he admits.
“Being a dad and being a husband should be priority number one if you’re in that space. but it hasn’t always been that case for me.”
As a young father, Stuart’s priority was building wealth.
With an aptitude for building businesses, Stuart began washing trucks, growing his enterprise to a six-business empire selling, moving and transporting trucks across the country.
“I was successful in business, but I wasn’t successful in life,” he recalls.
Every waking moment was spent building his trucking empire.
“I neglected myself my family and friends for the nice cars, boats, clothes, shoes. I thought that’s what Stuart’s identity was,” he said.
His life changed when he reluctantly accepted an invitation to attend a men’s retreat in 2014, hosted by menALIVE, a national Catholic men’s ministry started 20 years ago to bring men together and renew their faith in God.
Stuart found himself surrounded and consoled by men with similar stories—successful in business but adrift when it came to meaningful connection with their families and faith.
Apart from the brotherhood and fraternity, the sacrament of reconciliation was also offered at the retreat, which proved to be the real turning point.
“It was a time for me to unload. I was able to walk out of that retreat a different man,” he remembers.
He immediately sent his family a text:
“I am not the husband that you signed up for and I’m not the dad that you deserve. But from now on, I’ll do the best I can to be that person that you should have in your life.”
True to his word, Stuart’s pledge saw him sell his many businesses and begin prioritising his family and faith.
He honed his skills driving trucks, a far cry from the days when the trucks drove him.
Which is where we find him today, doing doughnuts in the middle of a paddock.
“It changed the way it should have been, and still is today,” he proclaims.
Today Stuart is a regular speaker at menALIVE events, where he shares his story to help other men become better fathers
“It’s important because we are the head of our domestic church,” he said.
Honouring his initial pledge led to one of the proudest moments in Stuart’s life, when his eldest son Harrison told him he was entering the seminary.
“I was only serving on the altar as an acolyte on the weekend, when I began thinking how special will it be, the day Harrison becomes an ordained priest and I can serve him” he says, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Thank God, I made that right turn! Now, I’m a granddad and I get a second chance at being the dad and grandfather that I should have been and that I, now, have time to be.”