About Joseph Curran
Short Intro:
I’m Joseph Curran. Athlete, entrepreneur, and student of ancient disciplines. I build, I train, I travel, and I document the process. If you’ve ever felt like you’re capable of more, you’re in the right place.
Lobster House AU
Hospitality came SECOND.
Before Lobster House, I spent two years working with my close friends at Fishbowl. A company that grew from one store in 2016 to 50+ locations across Australia (plus international). That experience gave me a real foundation in what makes a business scale: community-building, responsibility, operations, and financial leverage.
Then, while living in the U.S. playing professional golf, a friend took me to a lobster shack in Malibu. It was packed. Simple menu, high volume, great energy. I remember thinking: “Australia needs this”.
Not long after, I had about $5,000 left and decided to build Lobster House AU.
We started at a Saturday market stall in Bondi and scaled it the way I’d learned through sport and Fishbowl: 1% better every day, ruthless standards, and deliberate discomfort. Markets turned into festivals. Festivals turned into major event such at the Formula One in Melbourne . Then we opened in Sydney CBD, ultimately growing into a business doing $1.5M+ in turnover within the first 18 months.
Lesson: “raise the standard, then raise it again”.
Professional Athlete
Sport is my FIRST love.
I grew up the youngest in a big family and learned early: you earn your place. That mindset took me deep into sport. First track & field, then golf.
The ultimate test as you’re “Battling yourself in a mirror” - Michael Jordan
In 2022, I qualified for PGA Tour Latin America, a pathway toward the PGA Tour. That 15-year chapter taught me the foundation behind everything I’ve built. It’s strange, you work so hard toward something, and when you finally arrive, you move in a new chapter.
“Master one craft, and you learn the formula to master anything”.
Golf gave me a transferable discipline. The ability to commit fully, iterate, and stay focused when nobody’s watching.
Monk Living
Monk life was THIRD.
After business, I went looking for a different definition of “success.”
I’d spent years chasing performance, operations, growth. It worked. But it also made something obvious: you can build impressive things and still feel disconnected from yourself.
So I changed the environment.
I lived and trained with Shaolin Monks in China under Shifu Shi Yanjun, following the kind of daily structure most people never experience. Shaolin training isn’t random ‘HIIT workouts’. It’s disciplined movement systems, taught through animal forms. Each one trains a different quality: balance, timing, strength, breath control, and intent. You’re not pretending to be an animal, you’re borrowing its mechanics.
From there, I went deeper into yogic living in Rishikesh, India. Partly because the Shaolin story itself traces back to India. In Chan tradition, an Indian Monk Bodhidharma (Da Mo) is most associated with bringing that mind–body approach into China and into the Shaolin orbit. Meditation first, and later the legends of physical conditioning that supported it. [insert link]
So I went to the source: breath, nervous system regulation, and the inner game of attention, clarity, and restraint. The same foundation that makes discipline sustainable.
Biggest takeaway? “Change your environment and your rituals—and your entire life shifts”.
Biography:
I grew up in a small town in central west New South Wales called Canowindra—about 1,500 people. We lived on a large property with sheep, horses, and vines. That environment gives you a certain wiring: responsibility early, standards high, and a belief that you reap what you sow.
Even though we lived on the land, our grandparents raised us with old-school standards, like a “Royal English” family. They were big on how you carried yourself, and they’d drill pronunciation with phrases like “how now brown cow,” on long car rides to remove the country slang we had picked up at school. It sounds small, but it shapes you: pride in doing things properly.
A big part of my creative expression now is passing on life’s learning so others can do the same. I think of it like “Pay It Forward” and creating a chain reaction.
The theme
As a kid, school was tough. We later found out I’m dyslexic, and traditional classrooms aren’t designed for everyone.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since is this: there are different styles of intelligence. Not just academic intelligence—there’s social intelligence, emotional intelligence, creative intelligence, and neuromuscular intelligence. For some people, the body understands what the classroom can’t explain.
So if you’ve ever felt scattered or behind, sometimes it’s the environment you’re in. Change the inputs and you change the output. Start with the basics: diet, training, structure, and the people around you. That creates a new baseline for focus.
For the past decade, my life has been about converting drive into discipline through self-teaching & building a system that makes progress inevitable. “The true definition of intelligence is getting what you want out of life.”
Family ties and giving back
Service matters. We’ve long had ties to St Vincent’s through the St Vincent’s Curran Foundation, established in 1984 by Paul and Elizabeth Curran my great-grandparents to help fund the kind of healthcare innovation that government budgets often can’t move fast enough to support.
The Foundation has helped bring major breakthroughs to life, especially in heart health like the “heart in a box” organ care system, which supported St Vincent’s ability to perform a world-first heart transplant using a donor heart that had stopped beating.
It has also supported infrastructure and capability that changes outcomes at scale, including the Advanced Cardiac Imaging Centre, hybrid operating theatres, and robotic surgery units.
What’s next
This year is about building a platform that proves change is possible. I’ll be returning to India and China to keep learning from these deep traditions and then sharing what I learn in a way that’s practical and digestible.
Community is a huge part of it. Through Amplify, through the people I meet, and through building something that helps others step into a bigger life. I’ll be documenting everything: sport, business, ancient discipline, and modern tools so you can take what works and apply it to your own life.
If you’re here for mastery, welcome.
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