How does our understanding of gender change who we think we are?

As a young boy growing up with his multi-cultural family in a small country town in Queensland, Rudi Landmann always felt a bit out of place. A self-described nerdy kid who loved reading, science and technology, but shied away from sport, Rudi found it difficult to relate to other country kids, so jumped at the opportunity to move back to the big city for his university studies in space engineering.

When his engineering opportunities didn’t eventuate, he turned to the arts, which would take him on a career path that ended up spanning stints as a speech and drama teacher, a ghost writer, and an office manager before re-entering the world of digital and tech, marrying the love of his life and raising two beautiful boys.

While navigating his career, Rudi also led a very sedentary lifestyle so he eventually decided to do something about his health and fitness, and discovered a love of exercise, to the point where he would eventually own his own pilates studio. But when he’d lost the weight and built the muscle, he realised he still wasn’t happy in himself and who he portrayed himself to be. And this started an ever-evolving quest of discovering his gender identity, and getting himself to a place where he was truly happy in himself.

Rudi is an incredible human and I feel absolutely privileged that he chose to share his story on this podcast. If you’d like to connect with Rudi, you can find him on Instagram at @rudilandmann or Facebook and LinkedIn.