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The speaker is a member of the global leadership team at a company and has been working there for about 8 or 9 months. They express their commitment to normalizing conversations about mental health and neurodiversity. They talk about being the executive sponsor of the company's neurodiversity group and mention their first meeting with about 100 participants. They introduce another speaker, Geoff McDonnell, who is an advocate for mental health and well-being in the workplace. Geoff shares his personal experience with mental health and emphasizes the importance of creating supportive environments where people feel comfortable asking for help. He discusses the stigma surrounding mental illness and his own journey with anxiety-fueled depression. on the global leadership team and I joined a company about 8 or 9 months ago, last summer. So that does not make me a new boy anymore because of course we probably had about 3,000 people join the company since then. So like everybody I'm relatively new like many people and have been through that sort of journey of discovering this incredible firm that we all work for that is remarkably human and supportive. So it's enabled me to be a bit more open about some of my own journeys with mental illness and mental health. And so for my own all of us commitment, I said my commitment was to completely normalise conversations about mental health, mental illness and neurodiversity. And Howland is a company that gives one the confidence to be able to do that. And when I said that to Hayley, she said, oh good. And then I suddenly found myself to be the global leadership team sort of executive sponsor of Neurodiversity, which was great. And of course, there's lots of interesting meetings with people around the firm from HR, but also our Neurodiversity group, which is thriving. I have to say I had my first meeting a couple of weeks ago and I think there are about 100 people on the call, mainly from the UK, but around the world. And it will get much bigger. I think at least half of Howland are neurodiverse. And what a shame for those who aren't. But anyway, listen, great to be here. I'm so thrilled that in this wider mental health week across the country, Howland is, as always, doing its bit. So but I'm not the star of the show. I'm just really the guest. Michael, great chat show, is the real star, is the person who's actually giving the talk. And that's Geoff McDonnell, who's right here in front of me now. I'm just going to introduce you, Geoff, to come and do a talk up again. And then I think we're going to have a bit of a double act. Geoff used to be part of the corporate Unilever. Was it 10 years ago or so, Geoff? How long ago was it? A bit longer. Yeah, 10 years or so. He was a senior member of the HR team at Unilever. And then I think through some of his own experiences, which he'll share, he decided to focus, to campaign and educate on the importance of health and mental well-being, particularly, I think, in the workplace and has had an illustrious journey doing that at some of the highest levels of sort of policy and politics, as well as obviously a very important consulting work across corporates, but also in media and profile. So some of you may well recognise him when he's up here in a second. But, Geoff, thank you so much for coming and sharing, if you like, your wider experience today. We had a call on the phone with Vusa and the team last week. It was lovely to get to know you. And so I can't wait for everyone to learn from your experience. I think we'll have a chat. But it's so good that the company is seriously investing in this space. And Geoff's contribution today is perhaps the first step in that, or the latest step. Geoff, over to you. Thank you so much. I'm definitely not the star of the show. All right? I'm definitely not the star of the show. And when I was reading the briefing about today, it also said that I would do a session, a mental health expert is going to come and talk about mental health. And I can tell you, I am not an expert on mental health. I'm definitely not an expert. But what I am is somebody who is driven by a very deep sense of purpose. I think it was Mark Twain who once said, the two most important days in your life, what are they? And by the way, this is a discussion, right? This is not going to be set up on PowerPoint. Your first day at Howden. What's that? Your first day at Howden. First day at Howden. The day you were born? The day you die. Oh, no, come on. Who said it? The day you? Die. What? Is that it? Living in the UK, Conway, for the second most important day of your life? The day you die? So let me be born, sit me on the incubator, day two, let me die, and we'll all celebrate. So important. And of course, Mark Twain didn't say it's the second most important day in our lives, it's the day we die. He said it's the day you find out why you were born. Two most important days in your life. The day you were born, the day you find out why. And you know, I'm very, very clear on my why. And it's a very simple why. And it's to try and create workplaces. And yes, Howden is a workplace. You know, a nursery school is also a workplace. A university is a workplace. An NHS trust is a workplace. A regiment in the army is a workplace. A charity is a workplace. I want us to have workplaces all over the world. Where every single person in that workplace feels that they genuinely have the choice. Genuinely have the choice. To put their hand up and to just ask for some help. If they're struggling with a common form of mental illness. It could be depression. It could be anxiety. It could be obsessive propulsive. I know they put the word disorder at the end. I wonder why they say disorder. Post traumatic stress disorder. I think we need the word disorder. But anyway. But I want us to have, and maybe not only workplaces. Families. Friendship groups. Where you feel that you genuinely have the choice. To just put your hand up. Turn to somebody and say, you know what? I need a bit of help. I'm struggling. And I don't think it's a hugely audacious purpose. I don't think it's hugely noble. And let me tell you why. Because in every workplace. In any friendship group. In any family. If you have a common physical illness. Common. Physical illness. You turn to a friend. You turn to a line manager. You turn to your husband. You whine to your partner. You turn up feeling well. But if you were struggling mentally or emotionally. You'd think to one. What can it be? When all of us here are mental. One of us in this group is not mental. We are all mental. What do I mean by that? We've got cognitive ability. We can concentrate. We can focus. We can analyse some data. We can make a judgement. Cognitive ability. Mental health. Wonderful things to have. We're all mental. We're all emotional. We're all physical. And some of you would say we're also spiritual. If we live in a world where as I talk to you right now. There are billions of people. Not millions. There are billions all over the world. Suffering in silence. Too scared. Ask for some help. Burdened by what I call stigma. Now you might say to me. I had a 25 year career working for Unity. Why did you leave Unity 10 years ago? To go out into the world driven by a very deep sense of purpose. And the reason I decided to leave Unity. Is because I had my own crucial moment back in 2008. Never forget the date. 25th of Jan 2008. Evening before my eldest daughter Jennifer. Was going to turn 13. So you can imagine how much excitement there is in our household that night. This young girl at midnight is going to go through a light passage. She's going to become a teenager. Now some of you in the room can resonate with that. It's a really happy exciting day. No I don't want to be a teenager. And at midnight on the 25th of Jan 2008. I get woken up. With a massive panic attack. Never experienced a panic attack in my life. Don't think I had ever even used the words panic attack. I don't think they were part of my vocabulary. I don't think I've ever had a conversation about anybody. Or with anybody about this thing called a panic attack. Ends of my fingers are tingling. Ends of my toes are tingling. Struggling to regulate my breathing. Heart is beating profusely. And because I'm so naive to this experience. I bump my wife Debbie and I say to her. I think I'm about to have what? I think I'm about to have a heart attack. Debbie says why don't you get up. Walk around the room. Take some deep breaths which I do. Slowly slowly the levels of anxiety begin to subside. Get back into bed but I can't go back to sleep. The adrenaline is pumping through my body. Secondly I'm petrified that if I fall back to sleep it will happen again. And the third reason and I don't know where this came from. But I built this capability to catastrophize. Over the most insignificant issues in my life. Why was I good at catastrophizing? I get up at about 3 in the morning. I've got a sore on the inside of my mouth. I interrogate the sore. I've got the beginnings of throat and mouth cancer. I'm going to die. 7 o'clock the next morning. Who comes running into our bedroom? Jennifer. It's her 13th birthday. We have a tradition at home on birthdays where we put a few presents at the end of the bed. And we all knock in together and open presents. Her little sister Anna comes running in after. She's got this 13 year old sister. And all I can say to Debbie, to Anna and to Jen. Is please, please just leave me alone. Please go away. There's no way I can engage in anything with this joy. With this laughter. With this noise. With this excitement. I just want to pull it over my head and for the life of me I can't get out of bed. Long story short. At midday on Jennifer's 13th birthday. I'm in a doctor's room diagnosed with anxiety fuelled... Depression. Depression. Depression. Me? Me? Depression? You're not understanding the word depression was up until that point? I remember when Unity first moved me to the UK in 98. To do a job across Africa, Middle East and Turkey. Around about January time. I'd been here for about two years. People would talk to me about a thing called F.A.N.T. I used to say to them, what's F.A.N.T.? They would say, no seasonal effects, disorder. I'd say, well what's that? They'd say, no it's the weather, it can influence your mood. I used to think to myself, what a load of crap. The weather? The weather influences your mood? No, no, if you smoked like as Piers Morgan would probably say. The weather, the weather. And here I am, on my daughter's 13th birthday. Diagnosed with anxiety fuelled depression. Diagnosed with anxiety fuelled depression. As I leave the doctor's room that day, I make a decision that saved my life, ladies and gentlemen. I walk the doctor's room, because I wouldn't be burdened by a stigma. Now I had a few things in my favour. I had a diagnosis. I've got the sort of personality where my heart's in my sleeve, so what you see is what you get. I'm not very good at masking my feelings. I was 20 years into a career with Unidiva, built lots of credibility. And the fourth and the most powerful is I had a line manager at the time who had a compassionate relationship to mental ill health. You know how lucky I was. A line manager who had a compassionate relationship to mental ill health. And that empowered me to be able to tell my family, my friends, my colleagues at work, what was wrong with me. I had to take two months off work. There was no way I could be at work. I had moments when I didn't think life was worth living. I was a burden to everybody around me. But the only thing that kept me alive in my darkest moments, which is when I got back from almost everybody who knew about my illness, was the most powerful emotion in the world. It's called love. And you know, knowing that I had a 10-year-old who loved her dad kept me going. Together with a sense of hope. I used to meet with a colleague of mine every 10 days who two years prior to my illness had been admitted to the priory. I was never that ill. I used to meet with Martin and I saw he was better. He gave me that bit of light at the end of the tunnel. And a combination of love and hope were probably the two most powerful ingredients that contributed to my ongoing recovery. I go back into Unilever, I spend another six years working for the business, but four years after my crucial moment in life I lose a very good friend to suicide. And like he dies, I lie in bed and that's not fair. I was flourishing four years after my crucial moment and now my friend was gone. And I thought, what's the difference between him and me? And I came to a very simple conclusion. I could talk, he couldn't. Stigma had just killed my friend. And I felt that was an injustice in the world. And I had to do something about it. In 2012, he's beginning to campaign, he's beginning to be an ambassador for mental health in this country. And I find his website, there's an email address, bottom right hand corner, and so I write to him. And I say to him, I've just lost a friend of mine to suicide. I had my own crucial moment in 2008. Please, please will you meet with me? Because I knew if I could meet with him, I could take tiny footsteps on this journey. That person happened to be Alistair Campbell. Within 10 minutes, I had a response from Campbell. A week later, we met up in Melchised Park, close to where he lives, here in North London. And ever since that day, he began to open some doors, introduce me to some people, which allowed me to take tiny footsteps on this journey filled with a deep, deep sense of purpose. There should not be one family, there should not be one friendship group where we don't feel comfortable to be able to talk about a common illness like we do a common physical illness. And so I totally had a piece of work in Unilever for about two years around breaking stigma, saw some of the success of that work, and then decided to leave the organisation and go out into the world. And part of the brief today was to just share with you some of my perspectives on mental health. What are some of my perspectives over the last 10 years as I've been so fortunate. You know somebody once said, essential purpose in your life will take you to people and places you could never imagine. People and places you could never imagine. Wow, that's happened to me over the last 10 years. I'm no expert. I'm just trying to do some good in the world as a result of that lived experience. And what are some of the perspectives that I've gained over the last 10 years. And I'm going to talk specifically from a UK point of view. I think in the UK we're going to make some amazing progress. If I think about 10 years ago, this conversation was not happening in workplaces. Weeks like this week were not happening. Days like World Mental Health Day were not happening. Or if they were, nobody knew about it. And so I think we've made some amazing progress in beginning to at least have the conversation around mental health and around mental ill health. But I do believe that we are only at the, I would say, base cap of Everest when it comes to addressing stigma. I sometimes think there's a real perception gap in terms of the degree to which stigma has been broken within a workplace. Often very senior people will think, oh, we've created wonderfully open wonderful organizations where we can talk about our mental and emotional ill health. And then you talk to the people on the front line or young graduates and they're finding it really, really difficult. So I think we've still got a lot of work to do in our attempt to truly normalize the words that Rowan was using, truly normalize this conversation. You know, I think your campaign calling all of us, is it? All of us? This campaign that you have and this organization. I was talking about a sense of purpose. I honestly believe that every single person, every one of you in this room was born with a unique gift. And when you uncover that gift, you can bring it to the world to make it a better place. It's an amazing thing to have as an opportunity in an organization to try and uncover what that is and what difference are you going to make within this organization. And it might not be an area of mental health, but just trying to create a kinder, a fairer, a more human world that we can all live in. I also think that when it comes to stigma this whole piece around stigma is in order to address stigma I think there's got to be sort of three things in place. One is I think it's so, so important that everybody in an organization gets some kind of training around mental health. What is depression? What is anxiety? What is stress? What is distress? What are the symptoms to look out for? How do I have a conversation with somebody who I might be concerned about? How do I integrate somebody back into the workplace? And so yes, we've begun across the UK organizations have started to do some training in this area through various organizations, having mental health first aiders but I would challenge organizations to go one step further train everybody. I often say we spend billions in health and safety in organizations around the world. It all goes to safety. It all goes to keeping people physically safe at work. I think we also want to keep people mentally and emotionally safe and it gets the same amount of money in trying to keep people mentally and emotionally safe so training I think is really important. Campaigning, creating awareness and having those campaigns. And I want to see a shift in campaigns It's the most damaged breath. When you hear the word mental health, people immediately go to illness. Immediately. They go to depression, they go to anxiety they go to schizophrenia, they go to all sorts of illnesses. When you hear the word physical health people don't immediately go to cancer, diabetes if you were to go to Regent Street and walk into a Nike store what would you see all over the walls in a Nike store apart from the emblem or an Adidas store or a Reebok store what would you see all over the walls? Athletes. You'd see? Athletes on the wall looking good. And what do those athletes look like? They look pretty good. They are chiseled wizards. I call them chiseled wizards. And I look at my own body and I think to myself I want a body like that. I'm going to go and buy a pair of running shoes. When it comes to mental health, what are the images you see? Jeff McDonald with his hand in his head some black and white photograph, some guy in a mental asylum with a white coat I mean what's inspirational and aspirational? And so how do we begin to create campaigns where we can encourage our people to look after their mental and their emotional health? Let's begin to shift the narrative around mental health. Let's make heroes out of people who have struggled in the past. Winston Churchill was a depressive. Abraham Lincoln was a depressive. Ruby Wex Stephen Fry Robin Williams How do we create a more positive approach to mental health? How do we begin to shift the narrative to a more positive, proactive We're going to work for Harvard. You know why? Because they're going to help us prevent getting ill in the first place. They're going to encourage us to go for that walk around the block at lunchtime to go and keep ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally fit That's what they're going to be doing. And of course we've got to have the support services in place for somebody who might fall over That's what we have too late. How do we really encourage and have a more positive maybe even the language you use Some people talk about mental fitness and begin to shift the language and begin to shift the language So those are just some of the insights that I've had around this whole topic of mental health The other question that often gets asked is So what is it that we should be looking out for? What are some of the symptoms? How do we have a conversation with somebody? And all I would say is that we're all very different which makes us unique and wonderful The fact that we're all so different And the fact that my tolerance to stress might be a little bit lower than yours doesn't mean I'm weak It just means I'm different I'm just different It's about difference And it's about embracing that difference Truly embracing that difference And so I can't tell you all what to look out for in particularly individuals because we're all different and we manifest these things differently But what I would say to you is please, please get in touch with those you love those you work with, those who are your friends and understand what's their normal behavior And we often know that I know Rowan's normal behavior If I notice that Rowan is just not Rowan and he's been like that for about 2 or 3 weeks It's persistent It's worth a conversation It's worth a coffee with Rowan Not if he's in a bad mood and irritable for a day Because we all have bad days We all have bad weeks We all live on a spectrum But if I notice that Rowan is just not Rowan and it's lasted for about 3 weeks It might be worth a conversation A coffee downstairs And the question to him would be How are you sleeping? And in that conversation start it by being vulnerable a little bit yourself Be a bit vulnerable yourself I'm not going to be vulnerable with you if I think you've come into this conversation as some alpha male metro guy Show a bit of your own vulnerability Bring some data to the conversation What did I notice about Rowan over the last 3 weeks Careful I've noticed these things about you And then just listen And then finally What can we do in corporates to create more supportive environments And what I believe we need to be doing in corporates and I think is now the next phase in the whole well-being mental health journey Ever since Covid what I've noticed is that organisations have stepped up to make sure that they provide their employees with resources to enhance their physical, their emotional and their mental health Organisations have really stepped up in providing those resources But what's happened is it's become a little bit like Ok I'm going to be doing, we as an organisation will do well-being to you Go and use the Headspace app and sort out your mental health I'm sorry, if I've got a boss who's bullying me Sort out the bullying boss and tell him he's got to use some app And so I think the time has now come for organisations to really think about how are they going to do well-being to themselves, to that organisation What are we going to start doing to truly shift the culture and having a campaign like you've got How do we start creating a culture and mention an employee-led proposition which says, you know what, come and work for Howard, you know why? Because we're going to enhance your life Those workplaces I go into, people's lives are diminished these days by coming to work, not enhanced, they are diminished And mention, come and work for us And so I hope, I think the whole concept of mental health and well-being needs to become a strategic imperative And let me tell you why I think it should be a strategic imperative Because the most critical enabler of performance of me, you and everybody in this room what I believe it to be, is your energy When people are energised they give of their best Think about working for that team where there's energy where there's flow, where there's passion Think about working for a leader who brings energy versus some of those leaders who suck every bit of energy out of you And you know what, none of us can be energised if we're not healthy, physically, mentally emotionally, and we have a sense of purpose and meaning in our life If mental health is such a critical enabler of performance it should be a strategic imperative And as it becomes a strategic imperative over time, we begin to shift the culture of the organisation where there's a degree of organisational accountability and individual accountability in enhancing people's lives giving them that energy So in a quick 20 minutes those are just some of the perspectives some of my perspectives I've shared a little bit of my story with you I've given you some perspectives of where I see mental health going here in the UK and some of the amazing progress that we've made I've tried to give you some thoughts on what are some of those things to look out for And then finally I think the next phase in the whole wellbeing journey is that we do wellbeing to organisation We begin to shift, truly shift the culture whereby we enhance the life of every single person who works for the organisation Having said that the most powerful driver of addressing stigma in an organisation is storytelling Yes, you can have training Yes, you can have the campaigning But the most powerful driver is listening to stories Because you know, every story that we tell is like sending a lifeboat out into the ocean and the billions of people that suffer in silence And what they do They cling on to the lifeboat They realise two things One, they're not alone And two, they might just be normal human beings Like me and like Rowan who's now going to share a bit of his story Thank you There we go Thank you Jeff So we're going to just have a bit of a chat the two of us And it's not scripted at all I thought of these questions this morning even though we spoke to one another on Friday afternoon But I suppose what we'd like to do is have a conversation between the two of us but then definitely pull you in and take some conversation from you So some of the questions that you might have things that haven't been answered for you today But why don't we just start with my question to you being why have you chosen to take on this role Why is it so important to you Well Jeff because in a sense when listening to your story there are some similarities and there are some differences and when you've really been at the pit of despair through mental illness and I'm not going to dress it up I was very mentally ill but when you get through that and you thrive and you prosper then you realise and then like you I've had two colleagues, friends who have committed suicide in the last three years with children while I went to university another one just 8 or 9 months ago a whole set of reasons become filled up in you I've never treated my mental illness as a secret but there's levels of openness and I can see when I came here there was an opportunity John Gascott is well known in the industry so I just thought that was my opportunity and Hayley is very convincing in the All of Us campaign So tell us a bit about your story I'll share a bit about my story I just wanted to also highlight that everyone's story is different and I was lucky enough to get over it it was just my story and the last thing I want to suggest is that my story or what worked for me is relevant directly to anyone in this room or anyone online so this is just a personal testimony but I think maybe there's a more general lesson to be learned The similarity is it was May 2012 Olympic year I was on a trip to New Zealand and I was going to see the New Zealand government the following morning I was helping them with a big catastrophe program for their earthquakes I had a feeling of overwhelming anxiety I'd never felt like that before Why am I feeling like this? I'm not particularly concerned about tomorrow's meeting and I know what I'm doing Why do I feel this sense of anxiety It wasn't quite tingling but it was pretty bad and I wasn't going to sleep much more that night You put it down to whatever and I'll be alright in the morning somehow you put on an act I couldn't have been further from home I didn't really get better for the rest of the week I got back home I told my wife I just put it down to tiredness as one does I was on another trip Long story short I was supposed to go from Atlanta to give a presentation I was at Atlanta airport I was so utterly nervous and uncomfortable and demonstrably so I thought 1. I've just got to go home and 2. If I'm not careful I'm going to be pulled to the side by a policeman and my life's going to change I was that stressed without any reason to be stressed At the same time I just couldn't form thoughts I just couldn't think clearly So eventually I got home and part of this is about being able to talk to people I was not being supported It was an illness So I got home and called my doctor and he got me to see a psychiatrist and just like you you have what's called general anxiety disorder you need to take it easy a bit we'll give you some medication to help So that lasted for a few months do the next 15 months really fast but this all started in May by September I can't tell you the constant terror I was living in I could not form thoughts I could not act take a panic attack all the time The company was incredibly supportive I was kind of off-duty but at the same time they were helping me to try and maintain a normal I'd been taken off a number of tasks I was not well but then I became probably at risk to myself when you feel This has gone on for now 3 or 4 months I was absolutely at my wit's end terribly worrying for my wife and our kids at that time I was so ill that I was admitted to the Priory I was admitted to the Priory for a couple of months I was given all sorts of new range drugs and talked to lots of doctors I was given a neurotherapy You know what? I was again to set the scene like many of us in the room I'd been pretty successful I was on the board of Willis-Ree I was lucky enough to be serving on the most senior science committee in the country I'd usually figured most things out and I just couldn't understand what was going on but I could also tell that all these treatments were not having any effect at all but I'd been in there 2 months it was time to come home and then I tried to carry on and you start having very dark thoughts Am I going to be very open with you? Feelings of love for your kids and your wife are not sufficient at certain times I got to the point where I genuinely felt that horrible though it would be my sense of shame and inadequacy was so strong that despite the short term grief that they would go through my wife was young enough that she wouldn't remember me and they would be able to have a new life with a new family things got that bad I remember I was struggling at work one day and I was so bad that I just phoned up and re-admitted myself to the Priory by this time they were also at their wits end and I remember, don't forget, my 44th birthday there was a knock on the door it was 6.15 in the morning on my 44th birthday my family and our kids were in Spain preparing to buy a flat so that she could look after me as a vegetable for the rest of my life it was that bad my mother had disowned me and the knock at the door was the nurse one of the two or three remaining electro-convulsive therapy machines in the country because my brain was now so frozen and unable to function they thought the only thing they could do is give me electric shock to try and get things going I'll never forget the relief I used to feel every time I had one of these seven episodes that they would stick a little needle into my hand and just for a few seconds I would wake up feeling utterly brained so after two months I went back home they'd done everything they could do I was not getting any better and I really felt the time was that was it and struggled on and I'll never forget it was the end of June we're on 15 months later I just want to again this isn't to dramatise it I just want everyone to realise how bad it can get every time I left the house Anna would not know whether I was going to come back it was that bad and I'm not dramatising so she sat me down and said I think I know what might be wrong with you and I said oh really my wife is a very bright lady and she would not stop researching listening to my own rambling and she was managing a terrible situation herself not knowing what her future would be and she said I think I know what you have and she said I think you have ADHD and this was 10 years ago ADHD wasn't quite so well known and I said ADHD? I don't think so darling I've been to every doctor I've been at hospitals for 4 months no one's mentioned that at all ADHD? I don't think I've had previous symptoms perhaps and I've seen programmes about ADHD and she said I'll tell you what darling why don't you just do this for me go and see someone and then we know we've done everything actually in the UK it's not very easy to go and see a psychiatrist I mean I had one already but he hadn't been doing much good but there's a hospital in London and there you can actually look on the website look at consultants and see one who is into what you think you might have and you can go and arrange an appointment and I thought well I remember sitting in the Westfield shopping centre with Anna having a cup of tea thinking I can go and see this doctor then I've done everything I have to do and then I'm free it's like that and after 15 months the physical pain you go through it's indescribable so I sat down with Bhaskar who I see every 6 months when I'm feeling still bad I explained why I was there my wife thinks I've got ADHD and after about 15 or 20 minutes she said Rowan I can tell you've got ADHD it's obvious I said great Bhaskar he said yeah I can give you some medicine ironically it's a stimulant and you'll probably start feeling better in about 2 weeks time and I said to him I've been through hell for the last 15 months including electroconvulsive therapy and you're saying a bunch of pills are going to make me feel better he said I think so so anyway I took the pills and later I remember I was sitting away from home and I could feel my brain reordering itself my brain had been like a snow globe all shaken up completely unable to settle down and suddenly it began to form imagine the stars in the universe and once you do that you then have a map of your brain again I remember calling Anna I said darling I don't want to say false because we've always had false doors I said but I think something's happening I saw Bhaskar on the 7th of July 2013 2 weeks later I woke up and I felt for the first time I mean it was night and day and actually I almost then went into a hyper drive for a couple of months and I went back to work and they said my god Ryan you're back and since then and once you have ADHD it is a disorder the way my brain processes dopamine is not the same way that many people's does it kind of has some advantages it's good to be a master of it not a servant of it so it does give you some attributes which probably explains some of the things that I've done well and maybe some things that I've not done so well you can see the essence of things you can make connections really fast you can be quite quick but at the same time if it gets out of kilter a lot of people are not on this earth anymore because of ADHD it can get you into some trouble but I've managed it since then and once you know what you've got every so often I get a knock at the door and I think that's alright and I'll manage it and it doesn't work sometimes you need to go back to Baskerville and get the medicine otherwise it's pretty grim I just wanted to highlight that I'm taking medicine now because there's an awful lot going on I do not want to put anything at risk for me my colleagues or my wife and family so why exactly just why not, there's no issue about taking drugs so that's my story one sort of postscript to this and this is just really the complete irony of everything so I had that knock on the door on 7th or 12th my birthday 2012, 44 I was and exactly 2 years later I was lucky enough to be going to Buckingham Palace with my wife and family it was the New Years Honours of 2016 to receive a CBE for services to the economy for risk, insurance and sustainable growth and awarded primarily for things I had done since I was ill, so basically 2014 to 2015 if you had told me when I was sitting being knocked up to go to the ECT machine that I would be alive in 6 months time that I would have a family in 6 months time that I would be going and getting a CBE in Buckingham Palace I would have thought I really am mad so I'm only conveying that since then the company was great they said what are you going to do I said I think I've got an idea they gave me some money, some staff and incredibly brave of them after what I've been through to create a climate team probably some of the story behind that led to my illness actually but really I just wanted to let everybody know that it can get really bad and talking and love is often 90% enough there are some cases where it's not enough I'm afraid, but you can get so low you can get the right support diversity risks and challenges can become huge assets so to be able to be here at Howden and really open up and share about this is a tremendous privilege I do not want to go to any more funerals of friends and colleagues who have gone through this it is horrific you just sent another lifeboat up into the ocean thank you how do you think what you've been through has impacted you first as a person and then secondly as a leader well as a person I was always reasonably confident as a person I was never arrogant I think I've always had a reasonable level of emotional intelligence but nevertheless I kind of had that feeling that fundamentally I could pull it off I set up a company when I was 23 I sold it to Willis when I was 30 I was reasonably able to pull things off and then all of a sudden I wasn't and I realised that I was absolutely dependent on the critical institutions near my life 2012, 2013 the most important institution in my life was my wife if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be alive it wasn't just because she diagnosed what was wrong but she absolutely never doubted her commitment to our love and she fought harder for me than I fought for myself with me and also my company maybe they've done some things which may have helped bring the thing on I don't know but they were amazing in 15 months they never gave the slightest indication that they were losing patience in taking care of me and without those two things I would probably then be on the street I lost my job and my income I lost my marriage I realised how easy it would be I was doing alright and I realised how easily you could suddenly be on the street once you've fallen off, you've fallen off so I think as a person it made me realise how dependent we are on the institutions around us and then as a leader both as a human being I started managing risk much more carefully self-awareness I hope I became a more empathetic leader there's a few in the room who have worked with me for a while they're probably better qualified to speak about that than me you can't go through something like that and be lucky enough to then continue in a career or whatever other role in life and at an elevated way and not take full advantage of what it's taught you I can never be embarrassed about anything really now I couldn't have gotten lower and more publicly lower I have nothing to hide nothing to prove I was aware of it my father had suffered from mental illness he'd actually attempted suicide when I was 12 so I was tuned in he probably had ADHD it can be genetically it can be genetic but I was aware of it I was aware of it it can be passed on looking at him I can imagine he might have had that but in Devon in the 1970s you weren't going to get much help so I was attuned to it I was aware that I thought differently to other people sometimes I could see that I was vulnerable to feeling I don't know if the word depressed is correct slightly somehow detached but at the same time life being okay socially professionally and all the rest of it but I'd always been sympathetic to mental health issues but at the same time not particularly engaged and then all of a sudden you are engaged and then of course when you open up and tell people your story people then say actually I've actually been through X, Y, or Z and what you've said has resonated with me or actually my boyfriend, my girlfriend, my children and of course you realise that everyone is suffering from mental stress to some degree when does being normally mentally stressed begin to end and being something worse so of course then you realise that it's all around us My last question to Rowan and then I'm going to take a couple of questions from the audience or anybody who's online I mean what support or advice would you give to somebody who might be struggling mentally or emotionally Well I think you've obviously given some great advice about absolutely not being concerned about speaking up to people about certainly here in Houghton this company is 110% behind supporting people obviously everyone's got a different home context I'm not going to make a broad statement about that talk to people you feel comfortable talking to certainly here at Houghton of course mental health is driven by all sorts of issues it can be work related, it can be personal related it can be just simple brain function related but here at Houghton, just talk I would say above and beyond what you very helpfully conveyed at the neurodiversity session we had of the working group One thing I really would say is that there are times when receiving a diagnosis is absolutely essential and actually receiving a mental health diagnosis in the UK at the moment is not a trivial exercise the waiting list can be very strong very long, the process is very complicated and until in certain circumstances when you really are ill and you need treatment no amount of therapy and talking is going to be enough and so we are looking at the moment at ways to for the company to find approaches to help people get diagnosis whether it's for colleagues themselves or their families or loved ones it's a real challenge and I would say that if I can be open about it we have the blurb people say we're only talking about mental challenges and I say no, mental illness because we've still got a slight awkwardness we can talk about mental challenges and mental wellbeing but actually many of us will suffer from mental illness like physical illness which needs medical treatment and I don't want there to be a final hurdle of openness because it's when you're into mental illness that actually lives are at stake and I don't want us to go 90% of the way but not have a mechanism and openness about dealing with a critical final support which is essential in certain circumstances and wasn't mine Some questions from you or from those that are online How do you manage your ADHD symptoms on a day to day to keep it a check what coping mechanisms do you use when you're not taking medication ADHD has become quite well described in the press sometimes not actually described but there is actually something going on in one's brain it is the way one processes dopamine you can just fix by behaviour you can fix the symptoms so once you know that with ADHD you can be a bit disorganised some people would say creative but essentially what you realise is you can put structures into your operating modus that actually make life much easier so that deals with a lot of it as well as the wider things like how you manage money but all sorts of ADHD conditions are different I'm not particularly hyperactive I don't think I'm particularly hyperactive I can have attention deficit which is I focus on that but I would say that behaviours can really for me probably 80-90% of the basis but as I said, there are times when something happens in my brain and my wife can see it in my eyes immediately she just says, my god you just go grey and I can feel it it's almost a feeling of terror it's an anxiety feeling and I thought in the past now I know what's wrong I can manage my way out of it actually I can't I can try but it would be really hard after a few weeks I thought let me go back and see Vasca so a bit of both everyone's different I really want to be careful about giving a testimony where people would interpret that to be right for them I'm just wanting to give my own approach I wouldn't dream of implying that that's the approach for the person Why do you stop taking your medication? Because I'm fairly tuned in to my condition and I know when I need it or I don't and I don't have any issue I've spoken to Vasca, my doctor is there any problem being on this long term without a break no there isn't necessarily does it impact weight so if you're on 20mg everyday in 3 years time I need to be on 40mg a day to have the same effect no not really but I said is there any problem coming off it when you don't need it as long as I'm self aware I don't think any of us like to necessarily be on medication when we don't need to I pay for it myself which is actually quite expensive as my wife is saying no price is too much I do that because in my own circumstances I don't necessarily feel I need it all the time I tend to err on the side of caution and certainly ever since I've come to Howden in July last year you can imagine so much new hiring lots of people a million and one things in a new complex area I thought this is the sort of situation which is probably right for flipping the switch in my brain even though I feel fine maybe I feel fine because I'm on the medication I'm very conscious of that I see Bhaskar every 6 months whether I feel good or bad and if ever I have a sense that I'm not quite in the right place I go and see him but it's not necessarily the right thing I've gone through it with him a lot but that might not be the right thing for anyone else I go to the nightingale as well and I'm on medication as well but I'm looking to try and reduce mine I don't know what your condition is but in my own circumstances we prefer to explore the right approach but as long as you're doing it openly with your medical team that's alright people try to get off peace themselves they feel better you're feeling better because you're on the medication I don't need to be on the medication anymore that's denial this will be the last question I'm quite interested in the insurance industry long term insurance people how you think about using addiction as a medication whether it's alcohol, gambling, excess eating it's almost like self-medicating to disguise an underlying issue how do people acknowledge that I've had an eating disorder for a long time and it's taken me a long time to realise because I had other areas that I needed to work through and so I've worked with some apps and food things to get that and that's been really helpful I'd love to have had it 15 years ago or 10 years ago when it first appeared I'm not an expert in this area but what I can tell you is that in addition to something there is some underlying issue that's not being attended to and one gets the comfort that you are looking for through either alcohol, drugs, eating or whatever the case might be so I think addictions are very much a manifestation of something deeper that is happening that needs to be attended to Rowan I think, shall we take one more? Oh yes Question to you Rowan you mentioned that your father had ADHD I don't know if he had ADHD he had mental illness and you yourself knowing that you've got children knowing that the genetics play a part is there anything that you have considered doing for your children to just check that they're ok or do you just allow them to live their lives straight through and at the point where you see a change then you do something or do you do something well in advance I've been super sensitive to I've got two children, a daughter who's now 16 and a son who's 14 and have been super tuned in to their mental characteristics and have taken the appropriate steps at the appropriate time and they're both really thriving and all the rest of it without going into details I would say that maybe without Anna's perception that may not be the case I would also say that in my own case, my children know absolutely what I've been through I use the word continual recovery I don't claim to have recovered I am susceptible to anxiety and I work very very hard every single day very simple routine to maintain my health, my overall well-being it's very very important to me but because we've been so open with my children about my condition what that has meant is that they know that if ever they are feeling in a particular way, they've got a mother or a father that they can just come and have a conversation with Yeah, that's exactly how we've approached it too as they get older in the right way but that's essential it also makes my life easier and I'm not hiding anything but just before we wrap up for those in the room and on the line and those you work with please feel very encouraged to come to the neurodiversity group which is available for time we meet every couple of months or so and if anything you've heard today is of interest or concern or you want to follow up whether it's about you or people you care about or you work with, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me directly or perhaps the HR team just wanted to make everyone feel very comfortable this is a meeting with a purpose and an openness So I think on behalf of everybody in the room everybody online, Rowan thank you so much for sharing your story I think for me the most powerful lesson out of your story is one of hope and recovery is possible in the darkest of darkest places Thank you Thank you Jeff Thank you Vusa for organising all of this Vusa's got a few things to say So thank you both Jeff and Rowan and as Rowan said, if you wanted to join the disability or neurodiversity forums, you can find them on Workplace here also there's a link to the Retail Hub as well so you can find information on them there but also this is a great opportunity to reflect on everything that we've discussed today and if you feel inspired from the back of that to make a pledge to join Rowan in his campaign to remove the stigma around mental health in the workplace you can join and look at all of our websites but we just want to say thank you so much for your time and for your attention today and as Rowan said, there is support out there so if you were moved or you're looking for reflections at the back of this session please feel free to contact your HRVP we also have employee assistance programs that you can reach out to as well as within our benefits, there are lots of different things so please have a look and see what's available to you but again, thank you so much both to Rowan and to Jeff and to everybody in the room and online Thank you
