I am very flattered to receive many emails following my mental health workshops but the one below I received last week demonstrates far better than I could ‘why I do what I do’. I have completely anonymised it to protect the identity of the person who sent it and also have their permission to share their story with you. It read as follows: I attended your breaking the silence workshop in our boardroom a couple of weeks ago and following the…
Time to Change do an amazing job at raising the awareness of mental health and I am proud to be one of their Time to Change Champions. Nearly 100,000 people have now pledged their support to Time to Change to help end the stigma. However, recently I found myself at odds with the advice being given out by their CEO Alice Baker and felt compelled to send her an email from Breaking the Silence. Alice was advising mental health sufferers to…
This is the first blog that I have written at over 30,000 feet and I’ve chosen to write it now to try and take my mind off the pain in my ears. I was in a lot of discomfort on the descent into Bulgaria a couple of days ago and my ears clearly have not recovered in time for this flight back to the UK. I admit to feeling very anxious about how I will cope with today’s descent into…
I have recently returned from a very productive couple of days working in Dublin although I will admit to also having a fabulous night out which involved Irish dancing and several local beers. You didn’t really expect me to stay in my hotel room did you when staying in this wonderful vibrant city? I did work hard during my days with the real highlight being a talk to the Irish Rugby Football Union in a hotel on Lansdowne Road opposite…
For the last six months I have been on an incredible journey and spoken to many amazing people about employee wellbeing. These include hundreds of mental health sufferers, some who have spoken openly about their health to their colleagues and many others who are still too scared or embarrassed to share their suffering. I have also spoken to hundreds of business leaders and HR teams who genuinely want to end stigma and create environments for their people where they can…