MY STORY

I was born on 17 September 1998 at 7:00 am, weighing 7 pounds 7 ounces, Named Jordan Michael Harniman. I didn’t know it then, but I was born into a story that had started long before me.

I grew up in a family of seven. Two older brothers, two older sisters, Mum, Dad and me. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. My mum carried more pain than most people will ever know. Before I was born, she survived unimaginable trauma that no child or woman should ever experience. My dad met her when she already had four children and chose to stay. He stepped into a life that wasn’t easy, and together they did the best they could with what they knew.

Our family moved house five times before I turned three. Drugs, alcohol and broken relationships meant stability was hard to find. Eventually we landed in a Housing Commission house on Marshall Street.

Marshall Street became home.

It was where I grew up, where I learnt life’s hardest lessons, and where the foundations of the person I would become were unknowingly laid.

As a kid, I was always described as rebellious. I challenged authority, pushed boundaries and seemed to find trouble wherever I went. But there was another side to me. I was mature beyond my years, curious, and when someone genuinely believed in me, I grabbed every opportunity with both hands. Looking back, I don’t think I was a bad kid, I think I was trying to navigate through a world that rarely made sense to me.

Growing up around addiction shaped the way I saw life. Watching intravenous drug use in my own environment made me hate drugs. I promised myself I’d never become part of that world.

Life has a funny way of humbling you.

Years later, I found myself becoming the very thing I believed I’d never be. Although I never used needles, addiction still found its way into my life. One decision became another, then another, until I looked around and barely recognised the person staring back at me.

The hardest truth I’ve ever had to face is that, at one point, I nearly lost my life, not because of someone else, but because of the life I’d built for myself.

That wasn’t the end of my story.

It became the beginning.

Recovery wasn’t a single decision. It was thousands of small ones. It was learning accountability instead of excuses. Choosing discipline over comfort. Choosing tomorrow over tonight.

Brick by brick, I started rebuilding.

Today, I’m the proud father of an incredible little boy who reminds me every day why this journey matters. Becoming his dad changed the way I look at the world. It gave me a reason greater than myself.

Life also gave me another gift I never expected.

After my father woke from life support, I had the opportunity to take him in and rebuild a relationship that had once felt impossible. Somewhere along the way I realised something that took me years to understand: my parents weren’t perfect, but they loved me in the only ways they knew how. Forgiveness didn’t erase the past, but it gave me a future.

After eight years in my trade, I made the biggest decision of my life.

I walked away.

Not because it was easy, but because I knew there was something inside me that would never leave me alone if I ignored it.

Music.

Storytelling.

Connection.

Building something that means more than a pay cheque.

Today, I’m building a life centred around creativity, fatherhood and purpose. I’m creating music under the name Harnsy, building a community through content, creating clothing that represents resilience, and working towards a dream that once felt impossible.

People often ask me what The Rebuild means.

It isn’t about pretending the past never happened.

It isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about taking everything you’ve lived through, the good, the bad, the mistakes, the victories, and using it to build someone stronger than yesterday.

Every song I release…

Every conversation I have…

Every person I meet…

Every challenge I overcome…

They’re all another brick.

This isn’t a story about surviving.

It’s a story about rebuilding.

And if you’re reading this while trying to rebuild your own life…

Welcome.

You’re in the right place.

I don’t need to rewrite my history to change my story.

I’ve done things I regret. I’ve hurt people. I’ve fucked things up. I’ve made decisions I wouldn’t make today. There were times when I was surviving instead of living, reacting instead of thinking, and becoming someone I didn’t necessarily want to be.

I own that.

But that isn’t the end of my sentence.

I stayed alive long enough to become somebody different.

I don’t need to hate the person I was to prove that I’ve changed. I can understand him. I can take responsibility for him. I can learn from him.

But I don’t have to keep being him.

I became a dad to a son I never planned to have, and somehow he became the best thing that ever happened to me. I get to love him, teach him, protect him, laugh with him and show him through my own life that a person can change direction.

I worked a trade for years. I knew how to survive. I knew how to work hard and collect a wage.

Eventually, that wasn’t enough for me anymore.

So I quit.

Not because I had everything figured out.

Because I finally believed my dreams deserved a real attempt.

Right now, I’m low on money.

That’s true.

But strangely, I feel richer than I ever have.

And I don’t need to talk myself out of that feeling.

I’m learning that money and wealth overlap, but they aren’t the same thing.

My dreams are full.

My heart is full.

I have a son I adore.

I have music inside me.

I have businesses and ideas I’m trying to bring into existence.

I’m studying.

I’m creating.

I’m learning.

I’m trying, genuinely trying. 

For the first time, my external circumstances don’t get to decide whether my life is valuable.

I might have less money than I used to, but I have more direction.

I have more purpose.

I have more ownership over my life.

I have things worth waking up for.

And I have a future I actually want to participate in.

I’m also learning the difference between guilt and accountability.

Guilt tells me:

“I did bad things, therefore I’m a bad person.”

Accountability tells me:

“I did bad things. I own them. I cannot change what happened, but I get to decide what those experiences produce in me.”

I don’t have to acquit my younger self.

And I don’t have to prosecute him for the rest of my life either.

I can acknowledge what happened and keep walking.

When something goes wrong now, I don’t need to tell myself:

“See? Same old me.”

I can tell myself:

“No. This is the person I am today encountering a fucking problem.”

A setback isn’t evidence that I haven’t changed.

A mistake doesn’t erase my progress.

Being broke doesn’t make me unsuccessful.

A business failing wouldn’t make me a failure.

Someone rejecting me doesn’t determine my worth.

Having a bad day doesn’t mean I’ve returned to my old life.

My direction matters more than any individual day.

And I don’t need to tell myself that I’ve made it.

I haven’t.

There are things I desperately want that I don’t have yet. There are things I still need to learn. There are parts of myself I’m still working on.

That’s okay.

I’m becoming.

I’m becoming the man I used to wish would come and save me.

I’m becoming the father I want my son to remember.

I’m becoming someone who builds instead of only dreams.

I’m becoming someone willing to try things that might fail.

I’m becoming someone who can look at himself properly, admit when he’s wrong and change his behaviour.

I’m becoming someone who deliberately chooses what voice gets to live inside his head.

I’m not finished.

This is what transformation looks like while I’m inside it.

And I don’t need my new story to be:

“I used to be a piece of shit, but now I’m a good person.”

Because then my past is still the main character.

My story is bigger than that.

I’ve lived enough different versions of myself to know that I’m capable of becoming someone I barely recognise, in either direction.

So now I choose my direction deliberately.

I will still stuff things up.

I’ll doubt myself sometimes.

I’ll make bad decisions.

I’ll lose things.

Some ideas won’t work.

There will be days when I wonder what the fuck I’m doing.

But those moments don’t get to decide who I am.

I decide what happens next.

Today I might not have much money in my account.

But I have a son I adore and love more than I knew possible.

I have dreams big enough to scare me.

I have ideas that didn’t exist until I decided they should.

I have things I’m building.

I have people I love.

I have another chance.

I have tomorrow.

And for perhaps the first time in my life, I’m excited to find out who I become.

I’m not proud of every chapter.

I don’t need to be.

But I’m proud of the direction my story is going.

I don’t need to erase the person I used to be.

I can bring him with me.

He survived enough to get me here and boy am I grateful for that. 
what a soldier of a young old soul. 

one day I’ll look back at this and know, this was where I made the decision to stop making excuses for not being who that scared little boy dreamt of being and become it.

I love you all to bits, 
Harnsy x