I’m Worth It

In this bonus episode of Subject to Talent, we address how to protect your emotional and mental well-being amid COVID-19. We wanted to focus on the human side of the pandemic to highlight ways to help heal yourself while also looking out for others – whether colleagues, friends, or family members. In this episode, AGS’ Head of Diversity and Inclusion Ian Moses engages Birmingham Mind’s Training Manager Mike Jeffries in an insightful conversation about mindfulness, resilience, and steps to being well, sharing tools we all can benefit from during these difficult times.

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F: Welcome to Subject To Talent, brought to you by Allegis Global Solutions. Similar to you, we're always trying to learn more. On this podcast, we speak to talent experts around the world, covering workforce management, market trends, technology, and our forever evolving dynamic industry.. 

Hello. Hello. Thanks for joining us on a bonus episode of Subject Talent. My name is Frank Edge. It was very important that we provided you with a COVID episode, and we thought long and hard about what direction we wanted to go. As we discussed this topic further, we knew we wanted to focus on the human aspect during this time. We wanted to bring you an episode, that no matter what role you're in or what industry you belong to, we could all relate. And we wanted to take a step back and focus on each person individually, believe that this is more important now than ever to take care of yourself. AGS always encourages its employees to focus on their wellbeing and one of the things that we have is an employee resource group called, Myself. And through this resource group, we were able to learn more about an organization called, Mind. 

We invited Mike Jeffries from Mind to join us on our podcast today. Mike has worked for Birmingham Mind since 2003, and is currently the Training Manager there. He brings experience and expertise of service user involvement, and has helped Birmingham Mind to embed service users in the co-design and co-delivering of its training modules. In this role he has delivered training courses in a wide variety of settings, including bank sector, universities, local authorities, and many more. Mike is a qualified and experienced Mental Health First Aid Instructor. For this interview, our head of Global Inclusion and Diversity, Ian Moses, had a chance to learn more from Mike. Let's hear more about it. 

I: All right. Hello, Mike, how are you doing? 

M: I'm doing well. Thank you, Ian. 

I: Good. Thank you for making some time out of your day. I'm super excited to have this discussion with you and learn a little bit more about Mind Birmingham, and I really appreciate you making time out of your day. 

M: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation, looking forward to it. 

I: Very good. So, to start things off, tell us a little bit about how you got into the industry. 

M: Okay. I've always worked in people-related work really, so I've spent my whole working career in, what England would be called, the public sector and the voluntary charity sector. It will be some 17 years I've worked for Birmingham Mind in a few weeks time, actually, well, it will at the start of August. And one of the major motivations for even applying for the job really, is my own personal experience of mental health issues. And the fact that the job advert had at the bottom of it that they welcomed applications from people with, what these days gets called, lived experience, mental health issues and the jargon. It was a big encouragement to fill it in, I hadn't worked full time for a number of years. So that sparked my interest, and then I've learned a lot since about myself as much as about mental health I think really. The two things have gone together. 

I: Yeah. That worked nicely. So, can you tell us a little bit more about Mind Birmingham? 

M: Yeah, certainly. So Mind's a charity, nationally in England it's the largest mental health charity. Plays a role working with government and kind of changing governmental policy and health policy, sometimes lobbying government actually. And locally for us, in Birmingham where I live and work, it's a kind of federated approach really. All of the local Minds in our jargon, LMA's (Local Mind Associations), are affiliated to the national charity, but separate with separate charity numbers. So we support something in the region of 4,500 people in the Birmingham area with their own mental health issues from residential properties, right? So it's people who dip in from work for a short period of time. And my kind of training, part of that is, it's just part of the wider part of what Mind does around mental health in the city. 

I: Okay. So elaborate a little bit more on your role within that company. What are some of your responsibilities? 

M: Okay, so I'm the Training Manager in terms of job title. What that means is I'm responsible for our offer to business, to companies, to organizations, around mental health. So, I'm responsible for everything that we take into companies in terms of formal training sessions, it can be conferences, workshops, you name it really, and I deliver a percentage of those things. To give you I suppose a very brief idea, six years ago I'd say, I did all of it, now I do a small percentage because it's exploded in such a huge way, that the growth of interest in mental health, particularly in the workplace, has been enormous and brilliant to see and we love being a part of that. 

I: Yeah, I'm seeing that mental wellbeing is more prevalent now than ever. So can you tell us a little bit about the importance of awareness, as well as maintenance, of mental wellbeing and how to look after this? 

M: Absolutely. Yeah. One of the analogies I like to use is the comparison with our physical health, really. And I think, and in this country, there's a wide awareness of the idea of your five a day for your physical health, what you need to do to keep yourself physically healthy. I'm not going to claim I manage to do all of those things all the time, like lots of people is the truth. 

But it's, I think traditionally has been seen differently around mental health. I think what we're driving for, and we've come a long way, and probably a long way to go still, is that getting people to think about, watch your five a day for your mental wellbeing, what other things you can do to keep you mentally just as well as you are physically. And some of those things are the same, exercise, good nutrition, good sleep, etc, etc. But some of those things may be different really, it's about getting to know who you are, really, what makes you tick. Not just what gets you through the day, but what helps you thrive and be successful, really. 

I: Yeah. So we had the pleasure of having you speak to our Birmingham office, and one of the things that kept coming up in that office or that session that you spoke about was the stress container, right? So can you elaborate on that stress container and also share with the people on how to notice that your stress container is overflowing? 

M: Okay, and that's lovely to hear. I don't want to claim any credit for the stress container, to be honest if anybody listening to this puts the two words into any search engine, they'll find it, and that's great that people can get easy access to it. Really what I think it describes is, there's a saying that gets used, I think I've heard most of my life in England anyway, I don't know whether this translates to America and other countries, but people saying, "I've had it up to here." And what they mean by that is, "I can't take anymore, it feels like my head's going to burst. I've taken on too much, I'm not dealing with things very well." 

And I think what that sums up is, we all have an internal ability to contain the stress, the stress in our working lives, our personal lives, the interaction of that. And different people have a different sized stress container, and that's based on life experiences, the amount of support you have around you, your ability to understand your own mental health and deal with that, really. So it's the idea of an internal capacity, lots of different things impact on that, impact on the size of the stress container, but it's about learning to spot when that container is actually becoming quite full or potentially full. And that's when sayings like, "I've had it up to here," or I guess the way it can sometimes come out unfortunate is that we scream or we shout or we cry, or we are not as kind of proactive with our coworkers as we'd normally be, those kinds of things, really. So yeah, the internal ability to control stress, because stress, it's not always a bad thing, it's a good thing. 

There's a level of stress for me now talking to you, not because of you, Ian, because you're lovely, but because the level of nerves you can have about just talking to somebody on a podcast or a training course, that's natural, useful, and a good thing. But the buildup of stress, particularly over a longer period, is that can be more damaging and difficult for being around certain people. So the idea of a stress container is that it has taps and valves on it. 

 I suppose a good analogy is with, I don't know, you might have a system on your drainage at home where you collect rain water, and water the garden. This can be lovely, but without some taps and valves on that container, where are you attaching the hose? How are you using that water to actually water the garden? And the taps and the valves on the stress container is our pressure valve, how we let that stress out. How we give ourselves some breathing space. How we get from, "I can't take anymore of this," to, "You know what? Actually I've dealt with this really well, maybe I could do some more. Maybe I should give myself a break and a chance and maybe I'm better than I thought I was. Maybe I'm more capable than I thought I was." So that the taps and the valves on the stress container are really, really important. 

I: Yeah, I like that analogy. So are there pillars or standards that you think someone should focus on as it pertains to, either to stress or even the wellbeing focus? 

M: One of the ones that I like to use, because it chimes with me really, and it seems to, that we get good feedback from audiences in our work, is there's a thing called the five ways to wellbeing. I think there's originates, in terms of England at least, came from a body called, The New Economics Foundation, a think tank if you like, very simple, very clear. And the five parts of that are connect, which is connecting with human beings, relating to people, not being completely isolated, being able to talk in some shape or form, whether that's over Zoom or video cameras or whatever it might be. Being active, so that's the fitness piece if you like, that's the activity, that might be going to the gym or running a marathon, but maybe walking the dog, and it's about what works for us really. Give, which is giving a compliment to a coworker saying, "Well done," to somebody, maybe volunteering your time as well, it hugely benefits your mental health but also the person on the receiving end. 

The fourth one is keep learning, whether that's a new language or to play the guitar or learn more about your mental health, whatever might work for that really. And last but not least is taking notice. And I think what that means is actually stopping and actually looking out the window and seeing what the weather's doing, taking a breath maybe, getting up from your desk and walking around to give yourself a new focus, a shift of focus maybe. So, I think that's the one I like to use, the one that kind of connects most with me. There, I've used one of the five, by saying the word, "Connect," there for start. So yeah, I think that's the one I'd offer. 

I: Yeah. I like these, and definitely can see different ways that I can implement those into my daily life, so. Are there common signs of stress? So, we have these five ways to wellbeing that we could utilize, but are there some signs that people can notice when they're getting to that container being full? 

M: Yeah. I think people classically think of things like where someone may shout or they may scream, or they may withdraw from other people, they might isolate, they may pull out at social gatherings, whatever it may be. I think the wider thing for me is that what we're often looking for, what I'm looking for in myself when I'm struggling, is some small change. Something that says, "That's not who Mike normally is." In a workplace it might be things like, "Well, Mike's someone who will take things on and run with things and develop things, but actually suddenly he needs micromanaging. He's lost confidence. He is not able to take his own decisions." And maybe I'm coming back and asking whether I'm allowed to spend small amounts of money on a budget when actually I've been spending thousands very confidently, and obviously with approval and backing but, so it's that change in people. 

 Some people may become actually more louder and more confident, and that might stand out in a way that says, "What's going on here? I need to find a way of just checking in and saying, 'How are you doing and what's going on? What's going on for you,'" really? So that, that, that change, I think, is something that... And being able to say to people, being able to feedback somebody a change, particularly behavior, is possibly a safer way to start these conversations, because that's real and you can kind of prove that when you start having a conversation with somebody. 

 I: Yeah, those are really good suggestions for leaders, partners, friends, to pay attention to when you're working with colleagues or your peers on recognizing some of those common signs of stress, so thank you for sharing that. Now let's transition to the, how to, right? How do you help colleagues who need support? What is some advice that you would give to those leaders, friends, partners, on how to help those colleagues? 

M: I think that the start point for me is honesty. It's some honesty about yourself sometimes as well. I think sometimes kind of phrases can sound quite cliché, but I really like the phrase, "It's okay not to be okay," because none of us are 100% all the time. I certainly respond to leaders that are able to share some of their vulnerability appropriately and at the right times, that can actually be a very powerful thing, a very useful thing in lots of ways. Lots of sensitivity, yes, but I think preparedness to talk, preparedness to take maybe both heads, both people, however many people, out of the immediate situation and go for a walk and not try and make things too formal. Sometimes the workplace maybe just isn't the right place for this conversation, but maybe a local cafe is, maybe the sidewalk is, maybe the local park is. It's those kinds of things that... Honesty and integrity I think are huge things. But yeah, being prepared to listen. Also, I think it took me too long in my working career to kind of accept and understand this, that sometimes I'm the wrong person for this conversation. Sometimes maybe I'm, I don't know, I'm too male, I'm too old, I'm too white, I'm too English. All of those things might be possibilities. And the ability to say, "You know what? I think we can help you and I think we should help you. How about you try conversation with X person or Y person." Knowing your people and knowing who they relate to, I think can make a big, big difference. And the thing, and it's not a defeat or a weakness on your part if you can't solve everything, we've all jobs to do, we've all businesses to run as well. 

I: Right. 

M: It's about how we involve lots of people, and I think diversity becomes hugely important here, having a diverse of people who can make these offers, because sometimes, like I say, I'm just the wrong person. I found over the years of working for a mental health charity means that lots of people will talk to you about these things, some people won't and some people are scared of the implication of talking to me because of who I work for. I think maybe sometimes people think I might be able to section them under the Mental Health Act or something like that. I can't and I wouldn't want to, but people think those things and anything that's a barrier to people talking I want to remove as swiftly as we can really. 

I: Yeah. That's something that I struggle with as well, is I'm always wanting to come up with a solution when people are struggling or need help. And sometimes just listening to your point is all the help that you can provide in that moment, or giving them the right person that will listen to them, that can connect with them. So definitely something that I can continue working on. Now, I got to think that there's some risk factors to consider, right? Even when you go down this road, what are some of those risk factors to consider or keep in mind? 

M: Yeah. I think that's a really important question. And a couple of different ways you can look at risk factors, I think one of the things, one of the ways I look at risk factors is that people have lots of things going on in their lives. And I think as we, and particularly in the workplaces, we know our people get to know our people. Knowing who of my team, if you like, who the workforce is, I don't know, caring for a dependent, maybe disabled dependent who is currently moving house, who's having a child, etc. These are wonderful things often, but they bring new pressures, and dynamic pressures, that can help us develop, but also sometimes can mean that the stress container is filling up again. So we kind of list these as... it can sound awful, I think, sometimes we list these lovely life things as risk factors, well they can be, really. Who amongst your people is balancing, who's juggling a lot of balls in the air at the moment? Maybe I'm just keeping a slightly greater focus on them. 

Clearly, if anybody expresses anything, whether it's a suggestion that they may be harming themselves, or they have any thoughts about suicide in particular. Those are risk factors that we must push up and not hold to ourselves and talk to somebody and make sure that people get help, and connect people with the business offer, but also maybe with emergency services in extreme situations. So yeah, I think it's those kind of two aspects for me around risk for actors. And it's not presuming though, lots of people juggle amazing things that I probably would never cope with, but they do it really well because maybe they're just much better emptying their stress container. Maybe they've been here lots of times before and they're just more skilled than I am, that has to be a possibility. So, the honesty, the integrity, the listening to people, all huge around all of this really. 

I: Yeah. And so for us that are less skilled, do you have any advice on how to approach the topic of mental wellbeing with others? Do you have some advice for us? 

M: Yeah, certainly sensitively, I think we have to have an eye to history, don't we? Certainly in the country, I've lived all my life. It's relatively recent that... I think I still meet people who still find it quite striking that a man, in particular, will talk openly about accessing counseling or I've taken antidepressants at times, I've needed that kind of input, that kind of help at time. So sensitivity to the kind of history and the stigma that there still is around mental health and people. I didn't grow up being able to talk about this, that's why I left it far too long to ask for help is the truth of the matter, and being aware of that is important. So yeah, lots of sensitivity, lots of subtlety. But I think the preparedness to get it wrong. I've heard some amazing example in workplaces where managers said, "I observed behavior in a person. I was very worried about them. I hadn't necessarily had a particular training around this and felt not so skilled in dealing with it, but I tried." And actually having a conversation with a person where you say, "Well, I don't know what the answer is here, but let's work together because I value you as a person. And this company values you hugely for your input and your work and your effort." I don't need to have someone managing me with a perfect answer all the time because they're human beings and I need to respect that too, but your honesty, your preparedness, and the preparedness to seek help from others when it's needed I think goes a very, very long way for human beings. 

I: There's a lot that you just said in being prepared to get it wrong. I don't think I've ever thought about it from that lens, but it makes a lot of sense, right? Because you're not always going to get it right, and if you're prepared for it you can know how to pivot or transition to what's next. 

M: Yes, absolutely. I had to do that so many times and we'll do it many times again. 

I: Very good. So I want to stay well, right? So what's the advice on ways that our audience can stay well? What can we do? 

M: I think it's about the, I mentioned earlier, I like the idea of watch your five a day for your mental wellbeing. I'd say for myself personally, the stress container is not something I would check in on every day. I think that would be too much. That would be too much of a focus on that. But I come back to it every few months and say, "Where's this at?" Maybe the last time I looked I was doing really well, maybe the next time I'm not doing so well. And that gives me the room to think, "What's changed. What was I doing that was effective previously and have I stopped doing some of that? Have other life pressures taken over that?" So keeping an eye on your exercise, personally speaking, I have to do about an hours cardio a day, otherwise I really do feel the difference I think. 

 It's more subtle than being able to tell how full your stress container is that easily, but I think I can feel it. So I need to think about that. I need to be very observant on whether I'm talking to people and opening up or not, whether I'm shying away from having conversations. I think those are things to watch for. And I think in the workplace, it's about, "Am I getting stuck on particular things? Have I been very successful in particular in an area, and then suddenly I'm not feeling so able, is that a sign? Is that something to have a look at really?" So it's that balance of things, that checking in on a regular basis my exercise, my nutrition, my sleep, but also my thinking, "Am I beating up on myself? Am I giving myself a particularly hard time now? And why is that? Is that worth a conversation with someone if I can?" 

I: Yeah. I think I'm going to have you and call you daily to help me with some of my areas of opportunity, so. You just mentioned about sleep, right? And that's a big one. I know for me personally it is as well, but why is sleep a huge contributor to that mental health? 

M: Lots I think. And I'm no scientist, there's lots of science behind this, I've never claimed to be, but in terms of the kind of education piece I'm involved in really. Certainly sleep, the lack of sleep, the struggling with your sleep, it's much harder to be rational. 

 It's much harder to have a clear focus on things. Things that are relatively small can look so much bigger when we struggle with our sleep. And it's a kind of chicken and egg effect in a sense, a domino effect maybe you could call it, maybe that's a better description. That we then focus on, "Why aren't I sleeping? Why am I so tired?" And it becomes difficult then to potentially to address that. I suppose one of the simplest and powerful messages I've used in training sessions is that the idea that, and it's an awful idea in a sense, but the fact that sleep deprivation is virtually a really highly successful torture technique. 

 And in a sense, if we're losing sleep, and it's probably not our fault, it'll be a combination of factors, but losing sleep, there's an element of torturing ourselves. The human body tends to collapse quicker through lack of sleep than through lack of food, so sleep is so integral to our wellbeing and our functioning and our cognitive ability. My memory is not the greatest at the best of times, it has to be said, but it certainly seems worse when I'm struggling with my sleep, there's no two ways about it. And how I perform at work, I think, is measurably not as good when I'm struggling with sleep. 

I: Yeah. Yeah. Got to get that rest, so important. So, I have a confession and I know many others have this same addiction around technology, right? Just addicted to technology, either whether it be on your laptop, phone, tablet, whatever it is, right? Have a hard time shutting it down. So why is having that detox from technology so important to our mental wellbeing? 

M: I agree with you. In terms of, I wish I could be as good at it as I'm encouraging people to be. So much easier to tell other people than it is to do it yourself so often I find. But yeah, I think some of the things we've just said about sleep as well, again, there's a level of science beyond my kind of position if you'd like, of knowledge, but certainly I've done things around looking at the emission of blue light from my phone and going into the settings, and having to play with and seeing how that impacts on me. Trying not to charge my phone in the room where I'm aiming to sleep. Certainly the advice seems to be that you need roughly about two hours off digital devices before you're going to get any quality level of sleep, and I don't achieve that all the time, and it is very addictive. 

 I've kind of questioned myself a year or two back and said, "Well, I've got all these apps on my phone, I'm getting all these notifications, I'm finding myself worrying that, "Well, what if I'm missing the message from my family or a colleague that's in app number seven." And actually what I've done is turned off all the notifications, other than the essential stuff, phone calls and text messages pretty much. I mean, there may be other things in a workplace context of course, but because I can disappear down the wormhole of searching through all these things, I lose focus and I will lose sleep. So yeah, really important idea of a technology detox, I think is obviously relatively new, some of the technology's new. Also important to say that I think sometimes this comes across as a, "All technology is bad," and that's clearly not right. 

I: Right. 

M: It can be incredibly supportive. I can think of lots of people I've met for whom technology has made a vast positive difference to their mental health and wellbeing, has connected them with people in ways they've not been able to connect before. So, I don't think it's technology bad, it's thinking about how we use it and its impact on our health, both mental and physical really. 

I: Yeah, so just taking a break. Yeah, because we need technology, right? But we have to find that balance and be able to take that break from it. 

M: Absolutely. 

I: So yeah, definitely an area of opportunity there. What are some of the different ways people manage their own levels of stress in and out of the workplace? Have you have used seen any patterns, any best practices in and out of the workplace? 

M: I think kind of combined in the two and looking at a combination of approaches across kind of life and work can be really successful. Is really successful. It's very individual, different things work for different people. I often give an opportunity and it often gives people a laugh when I deliver a training course by saying that certainly one of my coping mechanisms is very heavy and very loud music. That works for me, it would be the worst thing in the world for many people. And we're all different, the way we relate to things is different and our life histories are different, of course they are. That's where diversity becomes so important again, doesn't it? But I think looking across the piece of life and how life and work balances... 

 Very quickly we did a short kind of panel with the banking industry actually, or a bank, one of their offices in Birmingham, and it was a panel piece around man and the birth of their first child and how they often found that balance of life and work really difficult at that point, maybe other people's expectations of their job role alongside being a new father. And some of the things that some of those men said to us was, yes, it was about exercise, yes, it was about space and time. But also it was about conversations with work about, "Well, I'm just as committed to this company, I'm going to put just as much in as I can, but actually I have this new thing in my life that's central and really important." So the other people understanding that, that changed, those balance. Because actually I think when you understand that and give people support, a chance to come and talk or cry or whatever they need to do, you engender huge loyalty. 

 When I've been supported by employees and managers, they get a lot more out of me, is the truth of the matter, because it matters. It makes a huge difference that people give you room and time and respect. And oftentimes I think we really do want to pay that back tenfold, is often the way it goes, really, so. But I think our respect for how individual that balance is, is just so important. And maybe be able to offer examples, I think my leaders offer examples from their own experience, that can be a very, very powerful thing. 

 One brief example of that is I'm an instructor for a thing called Mental Health First Aid. There is a version of that for the armed forces in England, I don't deliver that, I've never been in the armed forces. I don't know their life, their training, I've never been under fire, but there's a level of whether it's fair on their part or not, a level of a barrier. So people are trained in the armed forces to deliver that training, hearing it from your own, from your peer group, I think can make a huge, huge difference to people. 

I: Yeah. There's a lot of value in those connections, right? And then when you see someone who's going through it, who's similar or like you, it allows you to make that connection and actually get the help that you might need or the support that you need, that you brought up. 

M: Absolutely, yep. 

I: Yeah, we all need support. And I think that's so important, and that's why this is such a really good topic because you just never know. You never know what support someone is needing, you don't know what they're going through. And we appreciate organizations like yourself, like Mind Birmingham, that provides some relief because you just never know, so. So my last question for you is, is there any advice that you would give those who may be struggling with mental health? Is there things that you would suggest on ways to get through it, similar to maybe some of your own personal experiences? 

M: Yeah. I think, again, as I say, it can sound like a cliché, but that phrase, "It's okay not to be okay." I think it really is an important one, to accept that we all have vulnerabilities in some areas, we all have better days and then other days, that doesn't make us weak or unprofessional in the workplace in particular, but it makes us human, it makes us who we are in lots of ways. So, the preparedness to try, I think honesty and integrity from the person needing the support is vital as well, it's vital from a manager, but also vital from the person. Their willingness to try. To try and have a conversation, to seek that out. To maybe, I think a big thing for a lot of people is maybe they've tried before and maybe it hasn't been successful, they didn't feel listened to. There's an element of kind of learning from Latin and being prepared to try again. The feeling that, I'm worth it as a human being, I have something to offer this company. 

We need to use those as drivers to say, "Well, however difficult this may be, and this may not be part of my background, or I wasn't brought up to talk about this." It is actually the professional thing to do. The professional thing is to talk and to seek help, to seek advice, find the right people to talk to, and keep trying I think is the other thing. But also that it's about maybe a willingness to hear different offers, different things work for different people. Some people medication may be an important part of recovery from mental health issues, other people that might be counseling, some people find things like mindfulness, relaxation therapies. 

That actually, they benefit more from more exercise, different things. Different things work for people, but the encouragement to try. The encouragement to talk. The encouragement to believe that there's a future and that people want to hear. Because I'm finding more and more people do want to help. That burst of energy around this piece of mental health in the workplace. It's a joy to deliver the training in whatever shape or form we do that, whether that's over the internet or in person, because you rarely get on willing participants. People want to make change. When you hear people saying, "You don't want my job." And I like being at my company more because they encourage me to do this, they see this as important. 

I: Right. 

M: I think it almost can become a retention issue, that it becomes such a positive. This is a place that encourages me to talk about my mental health. This is a safe place. This is a place I see a career with and I see a future with. Anything we can do to encourage that, encourage people to talk to each other I think. It's creating that atmosphere where it just becomes normal. 

All of my best catchphrases are stolen from audiences, like most presenters I guess, really. I really like examples I can give, really quite seeing your man in particular, in corporate organizations who has said things like, "The way I really got my male friends to understand this is I said things like, 'You have regular physio on your knee that you injured on a football field or a hockey field or whatever it may be, basketball court. I sometimes have physio for my head.'" It's a different type of therapist, but sometimes it's precautionary, sometimes it may be more crisis related, but actually why we see them as different. It's our health overall. That's what it should be, really. So, but yeah, it's about encouragement, but trying. Believing that people will listen, that there are people there who want to listen to you and want to help. 

I: Yeah. Well, you're an example of someone who tried, right? And without you trying, I don't think we would be here right now. We wouldn't have the ability to have or leverage you as a resource. And I think you bring up a very valid point about the company's willingness to make this a focus for their employees, and so kudos to those companies who do that. I know personally that I walked away with a lot of key takeaways from what you shared with our audience. And I hope that many of our folks that are listening to this podcast have an opportunity to walk away from some of the really amazing points that you brought up and shared with us. So Mike, thank you so much for making time out of your day to share some of your knowledge and insight in some of these best practices. We know they all won't work for everyone, but one of the key things that I heard you say was, "Hey, we have to try and we have to be willing to listen" and those are some of the first steps in really helping people get to a healthy mindset. So thank you very much for making the time out of your day. 

M: Yeah, you're most welcome. Thank you, Ian, really enjoyable from my point of view. Thank you. 

F: Thanks for joining us today and a special thanks to Mike from Mind. If you would like to learn more about the mental health training offered by Mike and the work undertaken by Birmingham Mind then please visit them at Birminghammind.org. As always, you can learn more about AGS at allegisglobalsolutions.com. And if you have any questions for Mike or AGS, feel free to tweet us @AllegisGlobal with the #Subject to Talent. Also, you can email us at subjecttotalent@allegisglobalsolutions.com. If you enjoyed our podcast today, please subscribe, rate us and leave a review. Until next time, cheers.