Thank you very much, Bruce, always a very pleasant intro, and I think the last time that we spoke, I said I think I should stop while I'm ahead, but I will continue. Well, hello, my name is Philip Dyer, and I am passionate about business improvement. The overarching objective of this Healthy Leaders programme is to improve your bottom line.
If you get it right, you'll also see remarkable benefits in all the other metrics and measures which dictate whether you prosper or not in your highly competitive market. But done properly, you personally will also emerge healthier, less stressed, or point of focus, much more in control of your life. And the good news is that there is little in the way of costs.
Many of you simply reflecting on this series of webinars and following the recommended actions will be sufficient. I have to confess it's not easy. The programme simply relies on you doing things differently, not incrementally.
There are no big upfront costs and there are no investments other than your time, or expensive advice, although, of course, if you need assistance, please feel free to call me. I founded Healthy Leaders with the sole purpose of supporting and advising business owners and company managers with regards to 4 key strands of business life that are routinely neglected. None of the four modules of this programme are radical, earth shattering, or even new.
But because we in the world of business in the 21st century are so busy in our working lives, few organisations have the foresight to fit them together. But when you do, rewards are phenomenal. So healthy leader, what I aim to do is to provide you with a window into the world of the healthy leaders with the objective of you either feeling that you are a healthy leader or you aspire to become a healthy leader by the time I finish speaking, and all in 4 webinars.
In my thousands of conversations with business leaders from organisations big or small, public or private, I've never had anyone disagree with the logic behind healthy leaders. It makes sense and it works. It always works.
The challenge always comes from tackling the deeply ingrained habits that we all form within our lives. One of those habits is the fixation on the view that business is about hard metrics. This belief drives behaviours which negatively impact on our personal well-being and our colleagues' well-being, and ironically, business performance.
So, what about the programme? What are the what are the deliverables? You will not achieve everything at once.
Over time and with a little patience, you will find the desired change taking place. The beauty of this programme is that you can move at your own pace and progressively make lasting change. Ideally, this should be done as a team-based effort so that experiences can be exchanged and lessons shared.
So please share the ideas. We are exploring with your colleagues, but only when you feel comfortable with the proposition. Having gone through this process many times, I can tell you that this is not only effective but highly stimulating and enjoyable.
But then I would say that. Our first deliverable is a better performing company. Healthy leaders is not social engineering or a short-term back slapping attempt to merely improve morale.
The process will ultimately influence the financial performance of the business. If that does not occur, we are doing it wrong and need to go back to basics. The second deliverable is a more manageable and less stressful environment around you.
We hear so much of issues like burnout, nervous exhaustion, and so on within management and leadership roles. We will learn how so much of this negativity may be self-inflicted and how to overcome it this evening. Third deliverable is personal, physical health and well-being.
Here I will explore the principles around making us not just fit for work. But for life. New businesses acknowledge the win-win opportunities here.
The apparent absence of time or opportunity are just two of the barriers preventing people from leading a physical life. We'll investigate how to incorporate a healthy lifestyle alongside managing effectively. We will explore those long ingrained habits, which delivered the opposite damage both you and your business.
The 4th deliverable is a sense of perspective. Leading to a balanced life. Running a successful small business can be at times excessively absorbing.
The programme will encourage you to prioritise the long-term benefit. So healthy leaders. Mental health, our 2 webinar.
Let me start by looking at the big picture. Mental health is a complex topic. I would not do it justice in the short time we have available.
However, with the aid of three characters based on actual situations, I feel I'm able to convey the nature of the problem, which is faced by many on a day to day basis, how these individual experiences can often seem to be out of control. And finally, what techniques to employ to enable you to move forward? Each person that I'm describing.
Is a blend of several people. My way of ensuring that we maintain anonymity. But before we start, I have a question.
Presumably that's not anybody in that bottom right-hand corner that you recognise. I asked the question, how many days lost in UK PLC to stress, anxiety and depression? There's no prizes for this.
12.5 million absence days attributed to stress, anxiety and depression. I won't read all the other statistics, but needless to say, they're quite scary.
So, in truth, the scary bit is the feeling that this is the tip of the iceberg. The statistics reveal what we know. The the stuff we don't know matters even more.
Issues with mental health, nutrition, and physical well-being hide in plain sight. We will cover the subject of nutrition in the final model, but it is an important module I should say, but it is important to note that there is a possibility that the two, stress and poor nutrition, might be related. But the reality is, this is the world you work in, and you and your employees are just as susceptible as anybody else.
It is important to understand it and prepare for it. So we're going to do this by sharing the experiences of a few case studies. Some typically unhealthy leaders.
I will read through the slide. So Harry is 49, he used to run his own business, but sold out to a group and now acts as a managerial capacity running a branch of the conglomerate. He is accountable to an aggressive and unforgiving regional manager who is tasked with delivering the synergies and profits of the new company.
Harry is under constant pressure to deliver against targets. These targets are set by the company and are increased arbitrarily every year without any consultation with Harry. He has a small team working under him who finds it difficult to retain staff.
The problem is compounded by him being on call in the evenings and at weekends. When he's left without suitably trained support, Harry finds sleep elusive and has been to the doctor several times to talk about his tiredness and lethargy. Nigel is 55.
He worked for many years in a struggling multinational corporation. In his twenties, he was identified as the go to man to sort out ailing operations. The work was unbelievably pressured, as it involved contention, restructuring and redundancies with the occasional closure.
However, Nigel claims he never felt stressed. He was deemed by all to be exceptionally good at what he did, and his career was considered to be highly successful. In his mid-40s, Nigel was given what he described later as the ultimate hospital pass.
A company which was beyond repair. The first time in his career, he experienced an extended failure as he spent 3 years and several iterations in a fruitless effort to save the the operation. Psychologically, he lost confidence in himself and began to question his capabilities.
By his late 40s, he was, by his own admission, burnt out, although his colleagues would be surprised by that confession. It's now group MD. Finally, the third unhealthy leader, Norma, 46, runs her own business employing 10 people.
She worked in a group practise until she was 30, but then branched out on her own. She puts in very long hours, often in the late evenings and at weekends. The social life takes second priority to work and her family.
I've accepted that financially, things are tight, but she is solvent and able to pay herself a reasonable salary. Her management style would be described by people, by her people as micromanaging. She's a perfectionist and insists on making major decisions and scrutinising the work of others regularly.
She's scrupulously fair and acts in a paternalistic manner. As the business has grown, she is progressively working longer hours and is feeling at times that she doesn't know whether she is coming or going. Mhm.
So there we have 3 managers, leaders, who we could probably identify with some of the situations described. There is nothing unusual about these three and their stories. Anyone involved in private sector management in a competitive environment would know someone who has similar experiences.
Or you may even have some of your own. However, the interesting part of their tales is how they cope with these challenges in terms of lifestyle and relationship. Coping mechanisms.
Harry gets into work every day, about an hour before business starts. Unless he has been on call when he will come exactly on time. He rises half an hour, yeah, 3 hour, 30 minutes before setting off for work and compresses a shower, change your clothing, and a rushed bowl of the dreaded cornflakes into that time.
He immediately has 2 cups of strong coffee upon arrival to ease his caffeine deficient headache, and then drinks another cup approximately every 90 minutes. No mention of water. Lunch is on the hoof, usually a cheese sandwich from Subway with a chocolate biscuit and a cola.
Biscuits are on tap throughout the day for all staff and the customers. Dinner is more often than not taken after the family have eaten. He then reads the paper or watches television as he awaits the dreaded call out.
If not working at the weekend, he provides a taxi service for his two teenage children. He's about 20 pounds overweight. Not just coping mechanism.
Well, he's divorced. As his wife felt he cared too much about his job and not enough about his family. Has a sim similar caffeine addiction to Harry.
Lunches are at the working variety, lots of pies and carbs, and he visits the various plants under his domain. At least 3 evenings a week are spent with colleagues, lots of alcohol, food, and late nights. Driving 2 and 4th takes a big chunk out of his life, especially weekends, ruling out Friday and Sunday nights.
Like Larry, Nigel doesn't sleep well. They both finish their evenings checking on emails and writing up reports. Exercise is limited to a walk to the rugby club on a Saturday for a relaxing session with his mates.
His diet at the weekend is similar to that during the week, heavy and boozy. He is about 4 stone overweight. Finally, coping mechanism for Norma.
Norm is known as a workaholic. She rises early and immediately reviews the orders of the day while she eats her branded muesli on the hoof. She's always first into work and doesn't stop for lunch.
She may eat an apple if hungry. She also keeps going with plenty of coffee. When business finishes, she stays behind and finishes up for an hour.
In the evening after dinner, she invariably ends up on the computer until after midnight. She rarely sleeps well. Norma's business works Saturdays and although she has cover, she will invariably be in attendance most of the day.
If not, she will join in domestic duties with her two children. She rarely drinks and doesn't smoke. The weight is fine, it would seem, but she has high blood pressure and irritable bowel syndrome.
So, here we have 3 different individuals, but all 3 responding unhealthily to the pressures and stress of business. Harry is struggling due to his perceived inability to control his own destiny. In contrast to his previous life, where being self-employed gave him precious autonomy.
He is reacting by working harder, but his management style and constantly negative persona results in few employees staying for long. People don't leave companies, they leave managers. This is a vicious circle, as without support, he's having to cover a major proportion of the out of hours calls.
His response to pressure is unhealthy on all counts. He works too hard and too long. He doesn't sleep, he eats badly, and he's dependent on caffeine.
He's overweight and takes little in the way of exercise. Work is all consuming, so he has been unable to develop an alternate coping mechanism outside work. The causal factor of his problem is his inability to deal with the stress of his situation.
Nigel has perhaps suffered more from pressure than Harry. His testosterone fueled style of taking on the biggest challenges. And beating them gave him both his reputation and his self-esteem in his 20s and 30s.
The rush he got from being constantly under pressure disguised any ill effect he may have endured from stress. He was suffering, but he certainly wasn't aware of it. But a long extended period where nothing he did worked challenged his self-perception and self-belief, to the point where he began to see himself as a fraud.
The burnout came with the exhaustion. The panic attacks and the worsting sleep deprivation. His response was to immerse himself in the job entirely, both operationally and socially.
His family life suffered, and his health deteriorated as his weight ballooned. Nigel is on a spiral with little in sight but an early retirement, if he is lucky to survive that long. Norma's situation is very different.
She is experiencing the classic symptoms of moving from one man and his dog operation into effectively running a small business. Her initial style of being in charge of every little detail hasn't changed, but the sheer size and scope of the tasks seem to be increasing exponentially as the company grows. Her inability to see the need for delegation and for trust is progressively absorbing all her resources.
Although she has the lean hungry look, the lack of sleep, high blood pressure and IBS are all consequences of not managing an out of control and escalating burden. He is also riddled with guilt about not spending enough time with the children. Three very different individuals, but one common theme, recognising and controlling stress.
In this cold analysis, this probably looks shocking. The truth is, you will all recognise the Harrys, Nigel's and Norma. This is an all too familiar story, but one which may actually include some of you.
Stress, a simple definition. Read it out, it's a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. Which might be pointing out the obvious for some people.
But let's first be clear about what it actually means. Seems fairly straightforward, but a bit of reflection might be useful. So these are rhetorical questions.
How many people watching this know of somebody that is taking antidepressants? Second question, how many people watching this know somebody that is using alcohol to get through the working week? Just reflect on that.
And finally, How many people watching this feel frequently stressed, and think of the definition. Where frequent is meaning at least once or twice a week. Now, whenever I ask these questions in front of a live audience.
The response, subject to honesty, of course, can vary from an audience 50%. Which is the minimum I've ever received, a 50% response roughly on all of those questions. To a startling 100%.
It tends to reflect the nature of the work, which may be negatively compounded by the culture they are working in. Worrying, isn't it? So I'm not being a heretic when I put this slide up.
The truth is, stress is not the enemy. Stress is actually good for you. The caveat is in small doses.
Stress is a symptom, not a cause. Sadly, the focus, particularly with medication and several other interventions like cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, exercise, etc. It's geared around dealing with the symptom rather than addressing the causes of stress.
Phrases like having a few drinks to take the edge off the day, or if time allows running off the excess adrenaline. My interest is in what is causing the stress and how can we exert a reasonable level of control over the cause to reduce the pressure, or at least the frequency. So still under the heading of stress is not the enemy, usually raises a smile when the key comment here for good stress is that the only people that are not stressed are people that are deceased, which is true, or asleep.
Good stress, I was looking forward to making this webinar. I've not had a reason not to continue that feeling if you forgive the double negative there. I still produced adrenaline.
My heart raced when it was time to speak. However, the healthy leader's message matters more to me than the pressure associated with presenting. The message makes a difference and acts as a driver for me to keep doing this.
The feeling will pass because it is a high. Bad stress tends to be continuous. The sad fact is continuous stress has a negative cumulative effect on the body and the mind.
An example One business owner that I spoke to has a young family that he does not see very often due to the fact that he works long hours in his business, which is highly profitable. By the time he gets home, he's wound up and snappy and drinks several large cans of beer to chill out. His phrase.
He used to run He's gained 4 stone over the past 3 years. He's heading down the same path as Nigel, Harry, and Norman. On paper His business looks good, cash generative and very profitable.
But it's going to beg the question, why does he push himself so hard to make those millions? This is a question I asked him. The truth is, he cannot articulate why he continues.
He has as much money as he could possibly spend in a few lifetimes, but he's on a treadmill, which he doesn't feel he can get off. Now the key here is the formation of bad habits. Bad habits creep into our lives and become very destructive.
So bad stress is often a symptom of bad habits or loss of control. The culprit is stress, but stress is not the enemy. The enemy is poor coping mechanisms.
We need to adapt to the situation so that we remain in control of our destiny, physically, emotionally and mentally. The question is, how? It's very important that we understand the nature of stress at work.
If you just take time to look at the, it's a fairly simplistic diagram. If you look at the diagram, it's from Professor John Oliver. So for those of you that listen to to the the last presentation, as a reference point, John Oliver talks about culture, in his book Grow Your Own Heroes.
Professor Oliver asked us to imagine the area within the triangle as the totality of every individual's motivation in the world of work. Like all the hours to be going in one direction, but it doesn't work like that. Whilst management's task is to have all employees focused on the business objective.
Vis a vis the large arrow in the middle. Some people will be less motivated and more distracted than others. Conventionally, We see the stress at work arising from the dysfunctionality in the workplace, as some employees react to certain aspects of working life.
Whether that be discomfort with the way that they are managed, concerns about the tasks they are set, or any number of other issues. He argues that the truth, and he being Professor Oliver, is more complicated. Can we separate stress from the workplace?
Well, the reality is that it's impossible to distinguish between stresses imposed inside work. From those imposed outside. John argues that in many instances, the prime cause of individual stress may actually be outside the workplace.
For example, with relationships, difficulties in balancing budgets, health, and family issues. However, it is much easier to blame the workplace in situations where individuals succumb to pressure. How many times have we all counselled people citing workplace stress, want to find that life outside work has been pretty unpleasant as well.
However, that is no reason to deny the unpleasantness caused by difficulties at work. The lesson here is, But as well as eliminating the most common factors involved in stressing employees at work, our task may be to provide help and assistance in identifying coping mechanisms which will help the employees deal with all stressful situations. This means dealing with problems psychologically outside work as well.
This is one of the key benefits of following healthy leaders approach. It not only works for you, it will also work for those around you. So step one, recognising the issue.
The starting point in this journey to resolution is simply to understand what is going on. These bad habits creep up on us and become the norm. Our unconscious behavioural tics are by definition a mystery to us, to be honest.
We're often blissfully unaware of the consequences of our conscious behaviours as well, but the unconscious stuff is simply beyond us. A good starting point may therefore be to understand clearly how we are perceived by our colleagues. This may need some independent support though, for example, a peer review.
I suspect that finding a trusted mentor or coach who can rigorously question how you operate may be essential for many in this situation. Taking our case study subjects as an example, Harry. Needs to develop quickly an empathetic and positive management style.
Which will promote longevity in those who work for him. Addressing his labour turnover will solve many of his concerns. He needs to discover how to delegate the detail and some of the decision making, so he can free up some time.
He then needs to look forensically at his lifestyle and make changes in his response to stress, both dietary and exercise. Nigel needs to take a long hard work-life balance, a long hard look at his work-life balance and adjust his priorities. Retirement is heading his way if he survives.
And I, I don't make light of that particular comment, having worked with several senior directors who have had heart attacks in early life. And then what is left with him. Only then will he understand that there is much more to life than the artificial environment created by work, which will no longer be available to him.
And Norma needs to understand that she cannot operate in the same way as she did when the business was simple and uncomplicated. Sustaining her natural approach means that there's a problem looming for her and her business. A good mentor will be able in a couple of sessions to draw out these points and give each a sense of direction and a plan of action.
But we still need a coping mechanism for stress, and here we want to explore. And now familiar concept, which we know works. Jack Black.
Amazing mentor and coach. I find this approach to understanding how successful people apparently cope. Interesting and good starting point for beginning to get to grips with the stress that many of us succumb to.
Might be useful to simply review what Jack has to say here and reflect on how we and our colleagues, individually, compare against his norm. Firstly, successful people seem to have energy in abundance. They seem to fully embrace life and all its challenges, including stress.
Secondly, they have a consistently positive outlook. They think about what they want and are optimistic, dynamic, and solution oriented in their pursuit of their goals. Successful people do not seem to recognise comfort zones.
They're not constrained by what Jack terms as limiting beliefs. The rest of us are boxed in by what we perceive we can achieve or influence. This may be due to background, environment, or upbringing.
Successful people seem to recognise these limitations for what they are, unhelpful, preconceptions which constrain our ambitions. Most interesting of these four characteristics is what he describes as using their brains differently. Most of us are left brain focused in the world of work, being logical, reasoning, and literate.
More successful amongst us seem to have that capacity for tapping into their right brain, the creative zones. Bringing into play their imagination, intuition, and artistic qualities. The lesson here for us in managing stress is that we have tools at our disposal which we can use beneficially, once we familiarise ourselves with them.
While Jack might be looking at these as individual traits, within healthy leaders, we wish to pursue them as organisational characteristics. In other words, this is how we wish to do business around here with energy, with positivity, without limitations, with lots of creativity and imagination. If that necessitates encouraging people to meditate, so be it.
The process of avoiding negativity. I was teaching at a conference a few months ago. In a breakout session, I attempted to get to the participants to reflect on barriers to getting employees really engaged in the world of work.
One of the participants was South African, who had worked in the UK for a few years. He stated that he loved working here and found people great, once she got to know them. However, it could not understand the habit you Brits have of slipping back into negative mode at every opportunity.
We had not experienced this in any other country to the same extent. It has a point. I suggest you try this.
Tomorrow, when you sit, sorry, when you see a group of people gathered around the water cooler, just go alongside and gently start moaning about something. Within seconds, everybody will join in. It seems to be a national pastime of avoiding openly embracing a positive outlook at the expense of a negative one.
Brexit as an example. Whenever I openly challenge negative comments, particularly made by men, I get the typical fallback position that is just banter. However, banter can often be a very thin veneer for acceptable bullying.
However, negativity stifles creativity, ambition and aspiration. It also makes being positive seem unfashionable. In organisations we often talk about the voice of the silent majority.
The bulk of the workforce who are naturally more positively inclined or who defer to the moaners, growers, and generally whingeing minority. As a consequence, we self-talk ourselves down. Combined with stress and its consequences, negativity becomes a very unhealthy cocktail.
Positivity will make them in turn, think about how they speak, clients and suppliers. So, Negativity will not go away without a fight. It is part of the culture.
You will remember from the last session with Edgar Sheen, they declared that leadership behaviour, conscious and unconscious, was the key driver in setting culture. It's worth repeating, but in declaring that leadership behaviour, conscious and unconscious behaviour, was the key driver in setting culture. So to change it, The initiative has to come from you and the other key influences in your workplace.
Start something as simple as good morning. Think about how you might be perceived. When you say those simple words.
Are you seen as being hangdog and fatalistic fatalistic, discouraging? Or do you throw your shoulders back and say with energy and joie de vivre? Your projected persona is all important to the ambience of your company.
If you wear the worriors of the world on your shoulders, then that's the message you will convey. Smile, focus on the bright side, and even you will feel better after a few iterations. Think about your language.
I'm not referring to four letter words here. Somebody asks you how you are, do you say not bad, as many do. Conveying perhaps an unintended but lazy negativity, try great or even fantastic, and watch the response.
Phrases like I'm tired could be replaced by I could do with more energy, and so on. Have a bit of fun here as well, by telling people about the cancer of negativity and encouraging them to pick you up if you say something unnecessarily negative or an inefficiently positive way, insufficiently positive way. Challenging them to monitor your ability to influence.
This is a key recommendation. But one we cannot do justice to in such a brief session. But if you are stressed.
Practising mindfulness through meditation is strongly encouraged. Mind Store, with Jack Black's company, run occasionally two-day courses which have been highly recommended to me. Alternatively, there are lots of opportunities to learn from other sources.
We'll mention one or two next slide. Well, why should you meditate? Firstly, it is known that such relaxation techniques affect your autonomic systems, including blood pressure, oxygen consumption, and other areas for the good.
Secondly, the meditative state allows you to access your brain and its potential for creativity, imagination, and lateral thinking. Now you think through matters you may find troubling when locked in your left brain logic. Thirdly, it feels as if it's doing you good, and that can be bad.
Once the basics are mastered, you can do it very simply and effectively by just getting 15 minutes and a bit of privacy. With a bit of imagination, this can be conducted in the most unlikely places. This slide just shows you a few alternatives to Mind Store, and there are lots of other various apps that you can gain access to which will assist with meditation and mental state, very important.
So back to our unhealthy leaders. So, given what we've learned about stress. What do we say to our three unhealthy leaders?
Harry loses people with with regularity because basically people don't like working for him. He is negative, critical, and micromanages. He needs to look at working life from their perspective and ask himself, would I enjoy working for this guy?
He might have all the excuses in the world for why he behaves like he does, but that doesn't matter. Adopting all the recommendations here cannot possibly have any downsides but could, if applied correctly, have a swift upside in creating positive and more harmonious ambience. And he will benefit enormously from the clarity and balance that meditation will provide.
Likewise, Norma could generate mutual benefits. To her and her staff by moving away from micromanagement and towards a more delegatory style. The meditation will provide her with the opportunity of getting off the treadmill and taking a different perspective on working life.
Her IBS and blood pressure could also improve. Nigel is locked into really bad habits, which will ultimately damage him. He needs to do all this for himself, and this should be his number one priority.
So in conclusion, The healthy leader's approach to stress management may not be earth shattering and may be commonsensical. However, when it comes to the world of work, common sense in behaviours is a rare commodity. The processes are simple to understand, but need to be adopted habitually.
There lies the challenge. Thank you. Phillip, that was absolutely fabulous and excuse me, very thought provoking.
I think for me, one of the big key factors on this is the fact that it's both good news and bad news, but it's up to us. Ultimately, it, it's making, making yourself aware of what of how you're living because we, we do tend to actually bumble from one day to the next, suffering problems and just finding sticking plasters. I really, I, I, I really do have a big thing about identifying the cause.
Yeah, yeah, cause I mean with the, the three people that you gave us examples, I'm sure all of us can look at them and see little bits of ourselves in them or see them in ourselves. And it, it's sometimes easy to know that you've got to look for the cause, but when you're in the middle of it, it's really hard to step back and go, hang on, stop the bus. You know what's going on?
Yeah, that, that just tends to become all consuming. Are you, are you familiar with the story of the boiling frog? Oh yeah, yeah, way too familiar with it.
Yeah, no, we didn't, but I think when people ask me things I should just croak the answer because I'm a bit like the boiling frog. And it's true, you know. I, I always start when when I'm about to tell the story of the boiling frog, I always start by saying I've never done it.
So that's really important because you say how do you know this thing, you know, but, for those of you that that that are not familiar with it, basically if you put a frog into hot water it will jump out. If you put a frog into cold water and put it on the heat, it will stay there, boil and die. And psychiatrists and psychologists look at that as the way that the brain works.
But if you actually step into an environment, and there are companies that I work with where they, they bring me in because they, they're not retaining the staff. And what it is that people are coming in and they're looking at it and they're walking in as a boiling frog into hot water. They walk in and they, it's hot water, and they get straight out again.
Everybody else is in there boiling because the environment's completely wrong. So it's really important to understand what you're frying in there. And if you're doing it, Bruce, we need to talk.
But you know, it's, it's a, it's an interesting comment that you also made about the the negativity story. And it, it definitely is something that is, is so real and I, I love your thing of, you know, going into a group of people and just spin out something, even just vaguely negative and it spirals downhill so quickly. Yeah, it's, it's it's astonishing.
11 of the things to take into account is, I mean this may sound a little unusual. Yesterday I was watching a programme on the menopause. Yeah.
Now, very interested, it was on the BBC, a fascinating programme and one of the things that they're doing to assist people that were going through the menopause was to give them CBT. Well it was cognitive behavioural therapy, and it was about actually how they think about what's going on in their body. So how you think and what you say has a profound impact on how you feel.
And that's forgotten. It's almost like you, if you take a tablet, you know that that's supposed to affect how you, you, if it's an antidepressant, it's gonna affect you. If you have a drink, it's going to affect you.
We have more control over ourselves than we realise. So your words are very important. If you're around people that are always being negative, it will impinge upon your working day and and add to your stress.
Even you might even be unaware of the fact that it's compounding how you feel. Well, there was many years ago I, I, I heard a great saying that says 5 years from now, you will be the people you hang around with in the books you read. Yeah.
Yeah it's very, very strong, it's a very strong statement. Yeah, because it is, it's, you know, it's it's very easy to get drawn down into that negativity when when that's what you're around all the time. A very strong person and a healthy leader to step up and go, hang on, let, let, just let's not do this anymore.
And it's not easy. Yeah, well, the, in terms of being, being a strong person, it's, it's surprising how, how much resilience we have, within ourselves. We can develop it, it is very important.
Now, as we build our resilience and personal understanding, excuse me. It provides us with more flexibility. You don't have to be a genius, you just have to learn to understand how you tick.
What your habits are, and follow the right things, read more around the subject, and it's, it doesn't have to be that you become an expert, just, just more aware of yourself, and it will make you considerably stronger and less stressed. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, Phillip, I, I, we could, we could buzz on all night about this but I have to say we, we're halfway through and I, I'm really looking forward to sessions number 3 and 4. Thank you very much, very kind of you for having me. So thank you very much for your time tonight, Philip, for the attendees.
Thank you for joining us and don't forget these sessions are all recorded and they will be up on the website. So if you missed the first one, go back and listen to it and look forward to seeing you on the next one. Good night, Philip, and to my controllers in the background, Peter and Philip, thank you for all your help and goodnight to everybody.