In recent years, employers have begun to recalibrate their perceptions and their priorities when it comes to the workplace.

One of the most notable evolutions has been in the realm of mental health and a better understanding of the role it plays in employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

In this episode, we sit down with Sanctus co-founder George Bettany, who is helping companies change their own perceptions of mental health in the workplace, taking what was once a taboo topic and turning it into just another part of the workday.

Our Management 3.0 blog has many great articles by leaders, managers, and facilitators from across the world and how they approach mental health in the workplace. Want to read more? Check out our blog and filter on mindfulness!

Transcript

*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. But remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] We’ve spoken quite a bit here on the podcast about the evolution of work, how employers and employees have relatively recently began to recalibrate their perceptions and their priorities. When it comes to the workplace, one of the most noticeable changes has been in the realm of mental health and a better understanding of the role it plays in employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

Today, we sit down with the co-founder of a company that is helping organizations change their own perceptions of mental health in the workplace taking what was once a taboo topic and turning it into just another part of the workday.

Before we dive in, you are listening to the happiness at work podcast by management 3.0 where we are getting [00:01:00] serious about happiness.

I’m your host, Elisa Tuijnder, happiness enthusiast and Management 3.0 team member. In this podcast, we share insights from industry experts, influencers, and thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated, and productive at work. So that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception.

We are publishing every fortnight on Friday. So be sure to tune in and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Our guest today is George Bettany, who co-founded the company Sanctus with his friend and business partner, James Routledge, back in 2016. Welcome George. 

George Bettany: Hey, how’s it going? Thanks for having me. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Good. We’re good. Thank you for coming on. So Sanctus began with a mission of changing [00:02:00] perceptions around mental health.

And has since begun working directly with companies to provide mental health workshops and even coaching sessions offered onsite during regular business hours. So we’ll get into your work in a moment, but here on the podcast, we always start with the same question. What does happiness mean to you? Yeah, go George, what does happiness mean to you?

George Bettany: Yeah, I love this question. And for me, it’s quite simple. I think happiness for me is being myself, being my truest, realest, most authentic self. Yeah. When you when I’m able to do that, when I feel like I can express who I am. And be my true self be accepted for that and belong that’s when I feel I belong.

And actually it’s when I express myself, it’s when I create the best work that I do do the most. And that’s when I’m happiest. So it’s not easy, actually. I think over the years, I think it sounds simple to just be yourself. I think you have to be in an environment where you [00:03:00] accepted, where there’s no judgment where you feel like you can.

It’s a safe place where you can be truly you, but also you have to do I feel like I’ve had to do a bit of work to just strip back a lot of, the stuff in my head, what I should be doing, where I should, where, what I could be doing, what I should have done in the past, where I should be by now, what I would’ve done differently, what I could be doing, all of that stuff in your head versus just like really bringing it back to now and to who I am.

Happiness is being yourself. 

Elisa Tuijnder: I think we all know those sneaky voices. And I used to have friends who said, I have a work personality and a home personality, and I thought that’s not healthy. that is not healthy, but that’s how it is. So yeah, let’s dive into this whole work thing. So take us through the origin of your company.

So why the focus on mental health and specifically mental health in the workplace love that origin story gives us a little snippet of that. 

George Bettany: Yeah, I think it ties in completely with what I just said. I think I was [00:04:00] working in an environment in a workplace. I was running a fast growing sort of BC back tech company with James.

And we were very young and everything that we’d been, that we’d read that, everything on TV. We had dragons den, we had the apprentice I’d watch the social network. I’d read tech crunch. It was all kind. It felt like you had to present a front to be successful and to do well. And so from a young age, so it’s partly, probably from our perception of what you had to do to be successful.

But two, I think it came from a place of insecurity and not knowing ourselves too well and not really being confident enough in ourselves and in ourselves. So we starting an app at uni, a sports app. We ended up raising money, an investment for it. We dropped out of uni before we knew we had a, essentially, employees, we had a board, we had investors, we had a product and yeah, we went from a dorm to, to that.

And I think from the outside, it looked like we were doing really [00:05:00] office with our logo on the wall. Everything that I thought would make me feel happy. And I just. No, I wasn’t me. And I think, I believe that if I presented this version that I’d get somewhere and I’d then feel happy.

And that wasn’t the case. I think being a version of yourself and not being yourself for too many days in a row, weeks in a row months in a row, years in a row led me to feeling very disconnected from my true self. And yeah, that impacted my mental health massively. We didn’t really know it at the time, but that’s what happened.

And ultimately the business struggled because of that. But also we struggled because of that. And after that business, we were as part of that journey, James especially started to talk about how he was feeling and he actually had an anxiety attack that. Really sparked us to, to face how we were feeling versus avoid it.

I think I was more wanted to run away from it and avoid it, but he stepped into it and actually wrote a post about it called mental health and [00:06:00] startups was the post. And it just, it was a journal blog diary entry, to be honest about how he was feeling, we were feeling, this is in 2015, 2016. And yeah, it was just a wave of literally thousands of other people.

Shared it messaged us, emailed big, long email saying thank you for being so honest. Vulnerable I’m feeling the same way, or I’ve got a friend that’s feeling a certain way and I’ve been through something similar or, yeah, it just felt like a moment of wow, we are not the only people that feel disconnected from themselves and are struggling with their mental health essentially. There’s a lot of other people that are too, and that became our mission and our why and our purpose and that’s for the community was born and. I think yes, from that day it was like, how do we change the way that we talk about this and approach this and work on it, to make it more normal, to make it more accessible, to make it more relatable aspirational.

And yeah, I think the ultimate goal of change [00:07:00] in the perception of mental health, our wellbeing, how we feel about ourselves is to help people connect with their true selves. Our true why is human connection and helping people connect with themselves and connect with others. So yeah, it started from there and from that sort of mission and community we’ve grown ever since, so yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: 

That’s wow. the brave moment, also back in 2015. This was less of a topic than it is absolutely now. A very brave moment from your co-founder there and I’m happy that so many people reacted to it in a healthy way and in a, in an excited way so that you guys actually founded this beautiful company.

So let’s get into Sanctus partners with a company what comes next? What’s the product as well. So how did you approach this and how is it developed over the years? 

George Bettany: Yeah, so our vision that we used to speak to a lot, and I think we’re becoming more clear on this [00:08:00] now is we used to speak to one day.

There’ll be spaces on the high street, mental health gyms was the phrase that people have used a lot for us. But like this sanctuary, this home, this safe space that you can step into where you belong, where you can essentially work on yourself and express yourself and learn more about yourself and grow.

And we run a lot of different things in the early days, but essentially people are coming to us. And then go going back to work. And eventually they said to us, look, could you bring, Sanctus your message or why this safe space, the sanctuary to the office, we’ve got a hundred staff. We really need to change the way that we talk about this and give this space to people.

And that’s where Sanctus coaching was born. So our team founded in some of the best Gestalt therapists and accredited coaches in the country like to work with us and fors. And we partner with the business to not only share some of our story and normalize the conversation and change the [00:09:00] conversation.

But most importantly, put a coach into that business to create a safe, impartial non-judgmental confidential space. People to step into where they can fully express themselves and fully explore themselves and talk about anything really that’s going on for them in their life. That’s what we felt was missing for us.

And I think it was missing still from so many of us a space that’s for you, an hour out of your month or your day or your week to just pause. Process where you’re at, learn more about yourself and hopefully move forward. So that’s what it looks. And to be honest, that remains true today.

So the way that we work now, we have a team of Sanctus coaches, highly accredited experience, qualified, supported team. We partner with organizations and then employees get access to Sanctus coaching and can book a one to one. 50 minute session with the Sanctus coach. And that’s the core of what we do. So we’ve got thousands of employees every month accessing [00:10:00] Sanctus and accessing that space to yeah work on themselves and learn more about themselves and hopefully grow and be able to express themselves in the world. So yeah, that’s what we do today. 

Elisa Tuijnder: That’s fantastic. That’s no, that’s great. And I think it’s very well needed, especially, we both live in the UK. We both know how hard it is to access affordable mental healthcare and how long the waiting lists are.

So this is obviously a step somewhere in between that. It is in the workplace and people. The responses. I’m curious what the responses are like, because obviously attitudes towards mental health are certainly changing, but I can imagine that people are still reticent to raise their hand and in the office they’re like, hello? Yes. I could use some coaching. You already said something about the confidentiality of it, but is there any hesitancy in the offices or workplaces you visit and how maybe how’d you overcome that? How’d you address it? 

George Bettany: Definitely in the early days, honestly. Ran around London, mainly just chat.

[00:11:00] We did it online through our blog, through our social media and then literally going into businesses and speaking to people and trying to tell our story and our why and the world that we see and why it’s important for people and why it’s needed in the workplace. That’s why we spend all of our time and yeah, people can’t close off from who they are.

And also the business loses out from only getting a fraction of their people and people have got a lot to offer. So it was about educating, and, a percentage of those really understood it and got it. And then started work with us percentage of those we always believed that we educate, continue to show them what this means for them and for their people.

Then maybe one day they work with us. And then with the pandemic, I just think it’s fast tracked the world that we’ve seen. We saw it as a 10 year view of this is the, what the world would look like in 10 years. And I think the pandemic just fast tracked that. And it is so difficult for so many people, but it forced so many of us on an individual level [00:12:00] to look at ourselves because we almost didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t avoid how we felt cause we couldn’t go anywhere. So you had to sit with yourself and for many of us, including myself, that was really challenging. And in many businesses they felt that saw that firsthand. And also I saw a lot of CEOs, especially experience it firsthand for the first time in their life.

Senior people in businesses experiencing their own mental health and having their own experience with it. And then that gave them empathy for wow. If I can feel anxious or if I can feel depressed or stressed, how are my team feeling? So I think it fast tracked the conversation massively. And then the second thing that’s happened is we’ve always positioned ourselves as we’ve always believed.

The way that we approach our health, our mental health has always been quite reactive and we believe what needs to change is it needs to be proactive. So it needs to be part of your everyday, everyday life. So we’ve always positioned ourselves as coaching rather than maybe a more reactive service.

Something that people can use all the time to proactively welcome themselves. [00:13:00] I think what’s happened over the last couple of years is the mental health spectrum essentially is your life. And it’s the whole person, the whole human. And I think we support people and help people grow and develop in a certain place.

But I think for many, they actually were looking for higher degree of support. Whether it’s counseling, whether it’s maybe therapy, it’s more pass based. For certain, in some instances, more crisis led support. So I think almost like the market became more educated in a brilliant way because it’s helped people move forward.

But then I think. People’s awareness and understanding of what they need has also developed, which has meant, I dunno, it’s the same in the physical health space. If you look at physical health, you’ve got personal trainers, you’ve got gyms, you’ve got physios, you’ve got doctors, you’ve got, the whole spectrum.

And if that’s what’s developed and is still developing. In this space too. So I think we position ourselves always here and now it’s about what’s right for the individual and for the business. So it’s all that. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. We still don’t know everything [00:14:00] about, how to work with this. And like you said, the reactive actually we should be proactive because if we are at a point where we already feel this.

Like this it’s not an easy fix at that point. It’s not Hey, I sprained my ankle. I need to give it a little bit of rest. But we should actually avoid getting to that point. So yeah, that was, yeah, that was from an organizational point of view that you said educate, and then everybody, all of a sudden needed it during the pandemic.

And even now, because the world is in such constant turmoil that we definitely see a lot more of the need for it. How has it been from like the employee level? Have you seen. A big change there equally or people, because I can imagine that people are afraid to be that vulnerable towards their colleagues.

Not all of them, but yeah. Some so just, yeah. Just to hear 

George Bettany: what, yeah, I think we’ve always led with no judgment with where people are at and where organizations are at, everyone’s on their own journey like between me and [00:15:00] James. He was, it always felt like a few steps ahead. And I was inspired by him to face myself and work on myself.

But if it wasn’t for him, I wasn’t ready to. Face some of the things I was struggling with wasn’t there. And he was brilliant with kind of having empathy for that and listening to me and not judging me for that. And I think it’s the same on for everyone. Everyone’s at a different point on their journey.

Some people are ready. Some people aren’t. I think all we can do is create a welcoming, inviting, inclusive, accessible brand, and place for people to come. And then it’s, we can educate and then it’s up to them, whether they feel ready to step in, that’s all we can do. And our belief is that everyone will value a space for themselves, but it’s whether that it depends where they’re at.

So yeah, it’s the same with businesses. It’s the same with individuals. I think we wanna be there for people. And then. Obviously it’s, it will forever be a challenge. I think that’s the biggest thing that we’ve worked hard on is making it normal relatable aspirational to, to [00:16:00] access. And I think that’s what makes us unique in a way.

I don’t think anyone’s really done that. So we’re trying to continue to build a brand in the space that helps people feel like they want to say I’m rather than what’s wrong with George. Why is he going there? It’s I actually got my Sanctus session now. And you proud to say that you are working yourself.

Elisa Tuijnder: Our management 3.0 blog has many great articles by leaders, managers, and facilitators from across the world and how they approach mental health in the workplace. Want to read more? Go to management30.com/blog and filter on mindfulness.

Yeah, it’s interesting, like it relates a little bit to that psychological safety aspect of things as well. And as you said, you create a brand that is welcoming doesn’t think Hey, [00:17:00] I’m gonna sell all your deepest, darkest secrets to your employer. And I think that’s really hard to achieve, but you’ve been very successful at it and that’s, it’s great.

Great to see that people are using it and should be pride. Say Hey, I’ve got my session, is it normally like a monthly session that people have? Or what, how is it practically? Is it more, yeah, they can just book with you guys or, yeah, just 

George Bettany: works a little bit. We’re developing the platform now. So there’s more and more that can do with us.

We’re trying people and throughout their life. The way it works part of the business. And then there’s the Sanctus platform booking platform that an employee can sign up to and access. And then there’s typically sessions on certain days that are dedicated to that business. So it might be every Monday, every Tuesday.

And we’re starting to open that up out now. So there’s. Even more availability throughout the week. So if an individual wants a session tomorrow morning, tomorrow evening, they can. And then, yeah, I think typically [00:18:00] people access Sanctus on average once a month, once a fortnight, depending on where they’re at and what they’re looking for.

And yeah, I think depends on the size of the business. How many people, engage, sign up are aware of it. But yeah, that all depends on the same point at the last point of where the organization’s at. Yeah. And the individuals are at, within that too. Is it physical 

Elisa Tuijnder: or is it mostly virtual or is it like face to face?

George Bettany: It’s a bit of before the pandemic, we are probably a lot of in person with some online, during the pandemic fully online. And now we’re looking to bring some of that in person back. Accessible easy to you, easy to access online sessions with some of the Sanctus presence, starting to come back into the office.

For example, we did a few talks workshops and maybe taste the coaching days too. So people can drop in, get a sense of who we are, how it works, maybe work with the coach there and then access their sessions when work’s best for them. Yeah, it’s a bit of. [00:19:00] 

Elisa Tuijnder: That’s great. Oh, fantastic. You guys have been doing since 2016 now, so I wanted I wondered whether you have the opportunity to see any impacts on the companies you work with or or have you received reports on how things might have changed after companies opened their doors to, and their minds to, to the concepts and the work that you share and not just the coaches, but maybe the workshops that you did, et cetera.

So have you got any yeah, tips and see what happened? 

George Bettany: Yeah. I think it’s, we’ve always tried hard not to, put a score on someone’s, how happy are you? And it’s I think everyone’s aware that in their life there’s ups and downs, there’s things that happen in your life, whether it’s grief, whether it’s, certain experience, a moment that it’s difficult that you’re experiencing and it’s not straight line.

So we’ve always tried to educate people and businesses on that. However, just by having this conversation and providing this space, I think has [00:20:00] helped so many people. And then we get so many qualitative stories from that and the business gets to hear those stories. So there’s so many where, you know, if it wasn’t for sanctus. I don’t think it’s changed my life. I might not still be at this business or even, yeah, more extreme than that for some people, I think it really has turned their life around and, or help them really understand who they are and then express that. So you get all this qualitative stories and data that the business gets to see, and then some businesses are tracking it really well in terms of looking at their engagement surveys around.

How supported their employees feel, how safe their employees feel, how happy their employees feel, how engaged they feel. And I think some are really connecting us with that, with those, that data, and really seeing how, yeah it’s increasing employee engagement, which equal retention, which reduces cost of churn.

And. It [00:21:00] eventually improves revenue and productivity down the line. And then there’s also the other big pieces been employer brand. So for recruitment attraction, there’s been stories of businesses that, oh cause of Sanctus and you having that in place, I’ve joined your company. And when it comes to recruitment cost, the time it takes to find brilliant talent, it’s becoming more and more of an employee led and individual led market.

So if you can retain and engage, but also attract. It pays itself back a hundred times over. So I think some businesses are really connecting those stories with their data that they track. You’ve got loads of proof points to show the impact. This is having so on some of these businesses. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I can imagine also people wanting to go work for a company that provides these services. I would definitely, if I’d have two equal offers, that would definitely be swinging swing vote for me in that case. So I’m really happy that the service now exist and that this [00:22:00] conversations are more and more out there.

And I really hope that more companies are going to. Adopt it because as someone who spent years seeing a side of the workplace, very few others I’ve ever seen, you must also have like unique perspective on, on work, employee perception, satisfaction, happiness. So basically all the things that we talk about here on the podcast.

And I wouldn’t wanna ask you to divulge in anything specific, but are there any general trends or commonalities between workplaces that you’ve seen or maybe just coming out the pandemic or during the pandemic things that employers and business leaders should understand if they wanna make their employees happier.

Really? Yeah. Intrigued know what you think of that. 

George Bettany: Yeah. It’s a good question. Cause obviously I’ve been running as well and we’ve been grown as a company and learning what works for us. I think the greatest companies and leaders and organizations that in have a high degree, we actually did a webinar last week with Claude silver, who is the chief [00:23:00] heart officer of media. And her entire role is to connect with everyone in the company and to cultivate empathy is what she described, cultivate empathy. And that for me, I think is the. Such a bed it’s difficult to do because it requires listening. It requires understanding of the people’s perspectives and where they’re coming from on both sides, from leaders, listening to their teams and people, but also people having empathy for their leaders too.

And and appreciating it time to how difficult that can be in both ways. And I think when there’s a high degree of empathy in an organization, it means people appreciate where each other are coming from. People appreciate where each other are coming from. And so there’s a high degree of, empathy perspective and yeah, through good listening.

It allows people to move through conflict difficulty change and difference often [00:24:00] if there’s a, almost a divide and there isn’t that level of empathy. It often creates resistance, which then holds the business back from moving forward. And it’s also not an enjoyable environment or workplace.

So I think it often starts with yourself to create empathy. You have to be it’s weird, but you have to almost lack judgment. You have to remove judgment and often on an individual level, the judgment comes from you from yourself. I know from per my own experience, I judge myself that then leads me to judging others.

So I, I then lack empathy in my conversations, the more kind of work I’ve been able to do on myself and understand myself the more acceptance I’ve had for who I am, which means I’m judge myself less, which then means I have more empathy for other people more space to actually listen, hear where there’s coming from.

So I think the businesses that are doing exceptionally. Not just through Sanctus, but in their environment, create space for people to develop that sort of [00:25:00] skill and awareness and behaviour they create that environment and their leaders are often role modeling that and doing that work themselves. There’s no easy fix.

There’s no easy solution to that. It takes time. It takes work. It’s, if you compare it to your physical health to run marathon, you have to put in the miles and, I’ve been doing, trying to do that. And I have to run a lot of miles before I can actually complete a marathon, but that’s then the end result.

And I think it’s the same in these organizations. It’s a lot of work, a lot of conversations, a lot of listening, a lot of trust building, but then they, you see the fruits of that in. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. A lot of two-way streets as well. I guess a lot of feedback yeah.

Feeling yeah, that empathy for each other. And that is definitely not something like let’s put in a new couch or , let’s kinda make the office look nicer or something like that. There’s a lot of work that needs to go into and a lot of culture that needs to change for that. Yeah. So I heard someone say the other day that every leadership program.[00:26:00] 

Should now have a sort of empathy package into it and an understanding of, and how to have these conversations with their employees. Yeah. And how important that is for everything

George Bettany: On that, we’ve the last six months launched a connected leadership program where we’ve got thousands of people access and sense at work.

Some of those been leaders and managers, but I think, especially with the pandemic, we just saw. Influence impact that it had on that person, not only supporting themself, but then also being there to support their teams. And I think we saw that many of those managers leaders have the technical practical skills, but when it came to things like resilience, self-awareness bound managing your own boundaries and energy.

A lot of that is the human, the whole person experience that I think the pandemic showed teams and employees are looking for from their manager and from their leader. So I think we feel. What we’ve done is create a coaching track [00:27:00] for leaders and managers with the same fundamental philosophy and principles of Sanctus coaching, which is human first work with the whole person.

But it’s just speaking more directly to you are a leader in this business. How does that impact you? And you’ve got track of sessions to work through that grow. Yeah, that’s been super interesting, like a lot of our partners and business that we work with. Yeah, I’ve just needed that and that the individuals and their business have as well.

So it’s like a new it’s the modern manager and it’s future. Absolutely. The future of the workplace, creating a place of belonging and high trust starts with leaders and trickles down. So makes total sense. Yeah, absolutely. 

Elisa Tuijnder: We’re very big fans of that here at Management 3.0 As well, of course, of all trusts all trust and trust base.

But yeah, that starts, we’re obviously a flat hierarchy, but in, in more traditional companies that starts with with leaders and implementing that and practicing what they preach, obviously. So well, we’ve all been talking about all these kind of things, and obviously people could come to Sanctus, [00:28:00] but on the podcast, we’re also big fans of tangible practices, things our listeners can start implementing tomorrow.

Maybe employees that don’t have the senior buy-in yet, but maybe can start organizing some smaller things on the floor. So what advice would you offer employers, leaders, anybody out there who might not have the opportunity to partner with Sanctus yet, but may want to follow your head or maybe is in a completely different country wants to, find something similar, do 

something similar.

George Bettany: Yeah, I think the overwhelming thing I’ve seen over the years has been speaking for what you need requires like a level of courage and bravery. Yeah. Like my partner, she, yeah, she would re she was recently struggling at work actually. And she would come home and talk about it. And, but essentially, almost felt that her team might not hear it or listen.

So she didn’t feel like she could say it. [00:29:00] And it got to the point where I think she felt that I have to say something, actually, cuz they’re completely unaware of how I’m feeling, but where else can I go with this? And it took courage. Because the fear is I’ll be judged for this and might risk, the perception of me, my, my job, but.

Ultimately, she was almost there to give a version of herself each then and coming home. And yeah I think it took courage her to step in and say, this is what I need. It wasn’t necessarily, this is what I need to be able to work my best really contribute and do well here and just speaking for yeah.

What her boundaries and what she needs. And actually the response was incredible. I think they. They stepped up and listened and heard her and tried to respond. And I think me being a manager and leader now I’ve realized like, unless somebody really basically speaks clearly to what they need and where they’re at often, I’m unaware, unless I really try to ask.

And I do try and ask, but [00:30:00] often it’s if the person says, yeah, I’m all good. I’m doing well, then often unaware. And yeah. I just think that might be small. It might be sharing, maybe not with a colleague initially, maybe with a friend, how you really feel when somebody asks how you are or if there’s something like you’re working late and you’re doing a lot of work just by going into, and actually being honest about that, I’m actually doing a lot of late sort of hours at the minute.

And I actually find it very difficult to sustain like that if that’s true for you, but it feels difficult to say, I think there’ll be a moment where you’ll know. I might have to have, take a brave step here and be honest with myself and with that person whether it’s in your home life, work life.

And I think. Yeah. My advice would probably be, if it feels big, feels difficult to say, start small and build up to it. Like my, my partner, she started with me, spoke to me and built up. I could tell she was, and then took it to work. And I think that’s brilliant. That’s the way to do [00:31:00] it.

And just believe, that’s where change can come from then you can. Yeah. Yeah. And if we change that. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And if you look where we were at a few only a few years ago, when we were talking about mental health, which was almost yeah, it was in infancy back then, and now it’s, people can discuss it and discuss it more and more.

So hopefully within five years yeah, we will all be there. We’ll all have services in our workplaces, like Sanctus. That can help us through difficult times at work and at home and, and struggles that the world are going through cuz every day, something new at the moment. 

George Bettany: Yeah. Yeah. And I think my other piece of advice would be, yeah, one is take small steps and trust that.

And then secondly would be just to create some space for yourself in your. For you, whether that’s first thing in the morning, a walk, journaling has worked really worked for me where I just write down for 10 minutes, how I’m feeling. I’ve fallen outta that a bit more recently. [00:32:00] Running’s been the one for me, half an hour, just with my feelings, my thoughts, just to really ground myself in how, where am I at?

Where am I at? And how am I feeling? I think that practice of doing that, whether it’s daily or weekly, grows and actually you then got a really strong sense of what is making you feel good and maybe what isn’t, and then you can then start to take some of those small, courageous, brave steps towards stepping closer towards the things that make you feel good and stepping away from or changing the things that don’t.

So I’d say it’s taking small steps and creating space for yourself. Fantastic. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Great. I hope everyone’s get the chance, gets a chance to do that and finds the time in their days to do that. I need to start doing that more as well. I always say that I’m gonna do it, but it’s it’s funny how we have to create those habits and then have to maintain them.

But they help so much. So many small things all right, George, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Thank you so much for all the tips. And I really hope that [00:33:00] people in the UK might come and find you now and people in outside of the UK as well, go and check out their blog and there podcast as well.

There probably are, or I know there are a lot of useful tips on there. And yeah, we hope to speak more about mental health on the podcast and not just on the podcast. In general everywhere. So thank you again, George. 

Brilliant. Thanks so much for having me.

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