On this page
1. Who we are
This website is operated by Gordon Douglas Smith, trading as Break State Coaching, ABN 60 761 712 139 ("Break State Coaching", "we", "us", "our"), of Level 16 & 17, 1 Denison Street, North Sydney NSW 2060, Australia. Coaching services are delivered personally by Gordon Smith.
By using this website, taking the Break State Snapshot or any of the Break State Profiles, or browsing the free resource libraries, you agree to the disclaimers and terms set out on this page. If you don't agree with them, please don't use the site.
2. Disclaimers — what coaching is and isn't
In short: Break State Coaching provides personal and professional coaching. Coaching is not therapy, and it is not medical, psychological, financial, legal or any other kind of professional advice. It works alongside qualified professional care — it does not replace it.
Coaching is not therapy or healthcare
Gordon Smith is a coach. He is not a registered psychologist, psychiatrist, counsellor, medical practitioner, dietitian or other registered health practitioner, and coaching is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment by one. Nothing on this website — including any questionnaire, profile, result, article, book synopsis, song note or film description — is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any physical or mental health condition.
If you are experiencing a mental or physical health concern, please speak with your GP or a registered health practitioner. If something in your life feels bigger than coaching, we would always rather you sought the right professional support first, and we'll say so.
If you need help right now: in an emergency, or if life is in danger, call 000. Lifeline is available 24 hours a day on 13 11 14. A fuller list of free Australian support services is on our support page.
Wealth Mindset coaching is not financial advice
This is worth being especially clear about. Our Wealth Mindset coaching, the Wealth Mindset Profile, and any related material deal with the psychology of money — your beliefs, patterns, habits and emotional relationship with wealth. They are mindset work, and nothing more than that.
We do not provide financial product advice, investment advice, credit assistance, tax advice or accounting advice, and nothing on this website should be understood as a recommendation to acquire, hold or dispose of any financial product. Break State Coaching does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence and is not authorised to provide financial services. We do not consider your personal financial circumstances, objectives or needs.
Before making any financial decision, please obtain advice from a licensed financial adviser, and consider whether that advice is appropriate for you.
Not legal advice
Nothing on this website is legal advice. If you need it, please consult a qualified Australian legal practitioner.
Health, vitality and habit coaching
Coaching relating to energy, eating, movement, sleep, stress, habits, compulsions or fears is mindset and behavioural coaching. It is not medical, psychological, dietary or addiction treatment. If you have a medical condition, an eating disorder, a substance dependency, or you're taking medication, please work with your treating practitioners, and speak with them before making significant changes.
Results are not guaranteed
Coaching outcomes depend on many things we do not control — most of all, what you choose to do. We do not promise, guarantee or warrant any particular result, outcome, income, health improvement, relationship change or timeframe. Any example, story, testimonial or case study on this website reflects one person's individual experience and is not a promise or a typical result. Your experience will be your own.
Testimonials
Testimonials published on this website are genuine and are shared with the permission of the person who gave them. They have not been paid for. They describe that individual's experience only.
General information only
Everything on this website is general information for a general audience. It does not take account of your individual circumstances, and it isn't tailored to you until you're actually working with us. Please use your own judgement, and seek appropriate professional advice for your situation.
3. About the images on this website
We think you should know what you're looking at, so we'll be straightforward about it.
Photographs of Gordon are real
Every photograph on this website that shows Gordon Smith is a genuine, unaltered photograph of him, taken at a real time and place. That includes images from his firewalk, from the dental charity mission in the Apurímac region of Peru, from Machu Picchu, and his studio portraits. We do not use artificially generated, synthesised or digitally fabricated images of Gordon anywhere on this site, and we won't.
Illustrative and scenic imagery is computer-generated
Much of the decorative and scenic imagery on this website — including the library, music and cinema wall artwork, the landscape and nature scenes used to illustrate the coaching profiles, the writer's study, the gecko scene, and other atmospheric backgrounds — is artwork created using generative artificial intelligence. These images are illustrative. They depict imagined places rather than real, photographed locations, and they are not representations of actual premises, facilities, events or people.
Where a location, credential badge or document is real, it is shown as it genuinely is.
4. About the free resource libraries
Our reading, music and film libraries are offered free, as a general educational resource. A few things worth understanding about them.
The books, songs, films and documentaries listed are the works of their respective authors, artists, film-makers and rights holders. We do not own, host, sell or distribute any of them. Titles, summaries, descriptions and commentary are our own words, written to help you decide what might be worth your time. Listing a work is not a claim of affiliation with, or endorsement by, its creator, publisher or rights holder — and it is not an endorsement by us of every view expressed within it.
Where we summarise research — for example, a note about why a piece of music may support relaxation or focus — we are describing published research in general terms for interest and education. Those notes are not medical, psychological or therapeutic claims, not advice, and not a promise of any particular effect on you. Research is often provisional, and summaries are necessarily simplified. If a topic matters to your health, please go to the underlying research and to a qualified practitioner.
Some listed works deal with mature or confronting themes, including addiction, trauma, grief and mental illness. Where we're aware of this we try to flag it, but please use your own discretion.
Play links open third-party platforms such as YouTube Music. We don't control those platforms, their content, their advertising or their terms, and your use of them is a matter between you and them.
5. Privacy Policy
We take your privacy seriously, and we handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
What we collect
- Contact details you give us — your first name, email address, and phone number if you choose to provide it.
- Questionnaire responses — your answers to the Break State Snapshot and any Break State Profile you complete, including the scores and results they generate.
- Preferences — such as how you'd like to be supported, and the times of day that suit you for a call.
- Technical information — standard website data such as your browser type and general location, collected in aggregate to help us understand how the site is used.
Sensitive information
Some of what our questionnaires ask about is sensitive information under the Privacy Act — for example, your spiritual or religious outlook, and information relating to your health, habits or compulsions. We only collect it with your consent, you can always decline to answer, and we use it for one purpose: to make what we share with you relevant and appropriate. We do not sell it, trade it, or disclose it for marketing by anyone else.
Why we collect it and how we use it
- To give you your result and, where relevant, the matching Break State Profile.
- To contact you about a Discovery Call if you've asked for one.
- To send you emails you've consented to receive, and which you can stop at any time.
- To improve our coaching, our resources and this website.
Email consent
We only send marketing emails to people who have consented to receive them, consistent with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). Every such email includes a way to unsubscribe, and we act on unsubscribe requests promptly.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information. We may share it with service providers who help us operate — for example email, form-handling, scheduling, hosting and analytics providers — and only so they can perform those services for us. Some providers may store data outside Australia. We may also disclose information where we are required or authorised to do so by law.
Confidentiality of coaching
What you discuss in coaching is treated as confidential. Please be aware that coaching does not attract legal professional privilege, and that confidentiality has limits — for example where disclosure is required by law, or where there is a serious and imminent risk to someone's safety.
How we store and protect it
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We keep information only as long as we need it for the purposes above, or as the law requires.
Cookies and analytics
This website may use cookies and similar technologies to help it function and to understand how visitors use it. You can disable cookies in your browser, though parts of the site may not work as intended.
Accessing and correcting your information
You may ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email coach@breakstatecoaching.com.au and we'll respond within a reasonable time. We may need to verify your identity first.
Complaints
If you think we've mishandled your personal information, please tell us first at coach@breakstatecoaching.com.au so we can try to put it right. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Children
This website and our coaching services are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18 without the consent of a parent or guardian.
6. Terms of Use
Using this website
You may use this website and its free resources for your own personal, non-commercial use. Please don't misuse the site — for example by attempting to interfere with it, gain unauthorised access to it, scrape it at scale, or use it for anything unlawful.
Our intellectual property
The content of this website — including the Break State name and gecko logo, the Break State Snapshot, the Break State Profiles, the Break State Blueprint, our frameworks, questionnaires, scoring models, written copy, commissioned and generated artwork, and the curation and commentary in our libraries — is owned by Gordon Smith, trading as Break State Coaching, or used under licence, and is protected by copyright and other laws.
You're welcome to read it, use it personally, and share links to it. You may not reproduce, republish, adapt, sell or commercially exploit it, or present it as your own, without our written permission. Third-party names, titles and trade marks referred to on this site remain the property of their owners and are used for identification and commentary only.
Coaching services
This website is an introduction to our coaching. Where you engage us for paid coaching, that engagement will be governed by a separate coaching agreement covering scope, fees, scheduling, cancellations and related matters, which will be provided to you before you commit.
Third-party links
This website links to third-party sites and services we don't control. We provide those links for convenience and information. We're not responsible for their content, their practices or their availability, and a link is not an endorsement.
Availability
We aim to keep the site available and accurate, but we don't guarantee that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or current at all times. We may change or remove content at any time.
Liability
Your rights under Australian Consumer Law are not affected. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), including the Australian Consumer Law, or any other law where doing so would be unlawful.
Subject to that, and to the extent permitted by law: you use this website and its free resources at your own risk; we are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, general information published here; and where we are permitted to limit our liability for services we supply, our liability is limited to re-supplying the services or paying the cost of having them re-supplied.
Changes to this page
We may update this page from time to time. The date at the top shows when it was last changed, and the version published here is the one that applies.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia, and you and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that State.
7. How to contact us
If anything on this page is unclear, or you'd like to exercise any of the rights described above, please get in touch:
Gordon Smith — Break State Coaching
ABN 60 761 712 139
Level 16 & 17, 1 Denison Street, North Sydney NSW 2060
coach@breakstatecoaching.com.au