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I'm not going to say everybody that attempts suicide is hopeless, but I would say almost everyone who attempts suicide has given up hope, has given up hope that their pain will end and they can see no other way of ending their pain. Because if you have hope like I had hope because I had been through it before, but if I had not, if I had been struggling for a decade and tried all kinds of different treatments and they weren't working, I wouldn't have made it.

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Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do.

Hello friends. Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast where we share practical tips to make flourishing your competitive edge and help you achieve stellar performance powered by well being, not at its expense. I'm Ashish Kothari and I'm on a mission to help a billion people not just experience happiness as an emotion, but use it as a tool to unlock their fullest potential. If you're interested in learning more, please make sure to follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter@happinesssquad.com today we're diving into a topic that affects millions but is still too often met with silencemental health. And there is no better person than to have this conversation with than Michael Landsberg. You might know Michael as the legendary Canadian sports broadcaster, but today his most important work isn't on the screen. It's in breaking the stigma around mental illness. His Journey started in 2009 when he openly shared his battle with depression and anxiety on his show off the record. That moment changed everything, not just for him, but for countless others who finally felt seen. Now, as CEO of First Step, Michael is on a mission to bring the mental health in the workplace to the top of board and executive leaders priorities and pierce the veil of silence that surrounds mental health in the workplace. In this episode we explore why most corporate mental health programs fail, the business case for investing in mental health and and the role of vulnerability and role modeling by leaders if they really want to support their people. Plus, Michael gets real about his own struggles. He shares the power of hope and why he believes that fighting for your happiness is the most important battle of all. If you've ever hesitated to talk about your own mental health or if you're leading a team and wondering how to create a culture of support, this conversation is for you. Let's. Let's get into it. Michael, my dear friend, it is so exciting to have you on our podcast and share your amazing insights. And, yeah. With our guests around mental health, your journey and all the beautiful work that you're doing. Thank you.

Thank you for those words. And it's equally exciting for me. I say this when I get in front of an audience, always. And I preface it by saying, you know, you're not going to believe this. You're going to think he's just saying that he says it because he wants to get over with us. But I would say this, that every chance I get to talk about mental health, my own, my own experience, to share it and to maybe make a difference in someone's life is really an amazing experience for me. So thank you for giving me the chance.

Yeah. So, friends, for those who don't know you, Michael is one of the Canada's loudest voices in pushing for mental health awareness. And it all started with you sharing your own struggle, Right. With anxiety, depression on your show, the off the record. Can you take us back to that moment and what made you decide, Michael, to speak so openly about something that so many people just keep hidden? Right. It's reserved for the therapist office or not talked about at all, like they don't want to talk about it.

No, no. And I had no idea that that existed. So lifetime with anxiety, including something called emetophobia, have found out I am not the only person on the planet with but a fear of throwing up, a fear of being around someone who throws up. I mean, I've given 150 talks and I would say in half of them, someone has said, me too. But I had no idea that there was a problem talking about it, which I can't believe. I was so naive. But I never spoke about anxiety and I never spoke about depression. I had been doing this show, off the record at that point for about a decade, and I had never shared my experiences with severe depression or anxiety because I thought, who would care? What's the benefit? Why would I talk about it, people? Because I kind of rode this, this thin line where it was, do I like that guy or do I think he's obnoxious? And I heard a lot of times, oh, he's so arrogant or whatever. So I just thought people would think, oh, well, he just wants our sympathy and he wants, he wants us to like him. So I never spoke about it until this one day in 2009, when we had a hockey player named Stefan Riche as a guest on record, I had read that he had battled depression throughout his hockey career. So I thought, well, that'll make an interesting question. I wasn't thinking I would share. I said to him, stefan, would it be okay if I asked you about how you're doing with depression and how it affected your life throughout your career? And he said, I don't really like to talk about it. It's painful. And I said, I'm glad I asked you, but if I talk about it, would that help? And he said, well, what would you talk about? And I told him, and he said, let's do it. We went on the air, we talked for maybe 90 seconds, and the reaction that we got to that shocked me to my core and changed the course of my life because I found out doing something that's totally easy for me. I never hesitated to share my experience with mental illness. I was never afraid of what people would think. I found out that just saying it with strength, without being embarrassed or ashamed, just saying, I battle depression and anxiety, could change someone's life.

Wow. It's so powerful, right? And friends, just think about this. You know, we live in this. Such a interesting, paradoxical world, right? Where on one hand, you know, even at the slightest, you know, my back is hurting, or my. I've stubbed my toe, you know, you ask somebody, how are you? And you're like, oh, my back is hurting. Or, you know, even when we have serious ailments, we had Jen Fisher, who was the chief well being officer for Deloitte on our podcast, and, you know, she was very comfortable when. When she got cancer to tell people, like, hey, I had cancer. She didn't keep it hidden. And also was very comfortable taking time off for. Taking time to kind of work through her treatment and heal. But when we suffer with anxiety or we suffer with depression, we feel there's something wrong with us. We don't want to share it. You know, so easy to share physical ailments. Sometimes we complain about physical ailments so much when, you know, when we realize. I always say, you know, if you can't. If you're saying, you know, I can't see very clearly, the fact that you can actually see is a gift. But we have this really. I mean, and it's a huge issue in India, it's a huge issue in the US So I'm so grateful. And around the world, frankly, so I'm so grateful that, you know, you used Your platform to really share and kind of really open up a dialogue. And I'm curious, Michael, on what that enabled for you. Like. So when you did that, you said there was a huge outpouring. It shocked you, what happened then?

It was such a shock that it took me a while to process. And I was asked to give a talk at a hospital in Toronto. There was this young people, sort of, I guess, fundraising for Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, a big teaching hospital, and they asked me to give a talk. So I had never given a talk before, but I'm a professional talker, so the idea of being on stage and talking about this in no way was intimidating and in no way was anything but a joy for me. And that was kind of the start. And then my psychiatrist, because me and a friend produced a documentary for one of the Canadian television networks called Darkness and Depression Sports and me, I interviewed different athletes talking about their mental health struggles, which was totally unique at the time. And I talked about my own, and I talked about theirs in the context of my own. So my psychiatrist said, would you come and talk to a bunch of psychiatrists at the University of Toronto? And I said, yeah, I would love to. So I went down at lunch. There was 50 psychiatrists there. Imagine this. I said, how many of you have battled mental illness like I have depression or anxiety or any of the other sort of garden variety but serious mental health challenges, not one person put up their hand. You can't statistically have 50 people in.

A room and not have anybody put.

Up their hand and not have anyone. So that was like this lesson for me, that there is this veil of silence that exists and that has to be broken and that I can help to break it because this is easy for me. You know, like, very often when I'm giving a talk, I'll say, how many people here think I'm brave? And everyone will put up their hands. And I'll say, look, I. I know you. You didn't have much choice. Like, you know, you're not going to insult me if you don't.

You.

You're thinking, I got to put up my hand. But also, you do think I'm brave, but I'm not. Here's the thing. I asked you that question so I could refute it. If you don't have fear of talking about something, then you can't be courageous to talk about it the way I'm wired. This is very easy. So think about this. My mental illness has allowed me to put purpose to pain by talking about it and has Allowed me to use the worst thing in my life as one of the best things in my life. And how amazing is that? So when people say, like. Like you just did. Very complimentary about doing this, I said, okay, well, you know, there's a real value to it, but also there's a real value to me. To me getting up, doing exactly what I'm doing right now. Like, I feel better about myself than I did talking about sports on television all those years.

You know, it's. It's your reflection, Michael, is sparking a conversation. A reflection. Back to a conversation I had two weeks ago with somebody, because there is another space. You know, what you talked about is, look, I took my pain, my darkest moment, right? And my struggle, and I decided to give it meaning by really talking about it and making it okay and bringing, you know, piercing this veil that exists, this woman, you know, she is in her 70s. She is now sober for the last 50 years, almost 50 years. And she's unbelievable. Like, she's a coach. She does lots of. She's written a couple of books. She reached out to me. I'd gone to know her through this program, and she said, you know, Ashish, we want to bring your rewired program into Alcoholics Anonymous. And the reason we want to do that. I want to do that is it's the same story, I think, people who show up, you know, to Alcoholics Anonymous, she said, you know, there is this whole notion of people don't want to be known, or the people, you know, they're the invisibles. They want to stay invisible. And what a power that. That actually exists. If we were able to give them the tools to use their truth and their personal stories and not be ashamed of it, that I destroyed my relationships, I destroyed my family, whatever happened, right? But use that as a power to inspire others, which is a bit of what you're doing. And there was a second parallel to it, which is, I think you also just reminded me. And I said to her in that conversation two weeks ago, I don't think the people in Alcoholics Anonymous are actually the Alcoholics Anonymous, because most alcoholics who are Anonymous, because there's a large anonymous group of alcoholics, which is 60% of people who drink more than they should and would be classified as an alcoholics. But they haven't said, I'm an alcoholic, I need help. You know, we use it to numb depression, we use it to numb anxiety, we use it to numb all these kind of things. And I think you're alluding to the same Thing you know, There is the 20% that seek help and then don't talk about it, but there is the other 60, 70% that might or might not have some. Some shape or form of a mental struggle that they don't even talk about because they think it's. Talking about it makes them weak.

I guess, for me, I learned early on in this. In this journey of mine from sharing publicly and having the platform to be able to share, that there's a whole world of people out there who aren't living their best lives, who aren't. They're just wasting time that they'll never get back because either they don't know what to do, but more often they don't want to do it because they don't want anyone to know. And they know that help could help, but they're just afraid. I remember. Well, actually, I wore this shirt because one of the first things I said to someone after I'm letting the drama build before I pull it up, I said to someone, we were emailing back and forth after I had done that on television, and they said, you know, I don't know what to do. You know, I'm. I'm ashamed. I'm embarrassed. You know, I. Like there was a whole background to that. And I said to them these words, you gotta fight for your happiness. Because if you don't, who will? Who can? That's what's at stake. It's a fight. And you gotta fight the internal voice in your head which is saying to you, don't let anyone know. You gotta then fight to get the appropriate treatment, to be able to talk to people, to be able to get the help. It's a fight. And sometimes it's a fight that can last 10 years before we win it. You know, many times we treat our depression, and the first treatment doesn't work, or the second doesn't work, or the third, and the fight has to continue. So I think that it's, in a lot of ways, lighting a fire under people, showing them that if you can do it and if it doesn't sound so bad when I say it, when I say my name is Michael Landsberg, I battle an old. It's called depression and anxiety. I'm on medication today. I will be the rest of my life. I understand suicide. Ask me about that tattoo, but I'm not ashamed or embarrassed or weak. You can empower others to begin to think the same way because they hear you say it and they think to themselves, wow, you know, like, didn't sound so bad. When he said it, he didn't sound like he's a total loser. Maybe I can do it.

Yeah, I love that. Can you stand up, show that shirt again? I love that. I want those who are kind of watching this, right? Yeah. And I love the words, fight for your happiness. Nobody else is going to fight it. And as you rightly said, the first battle is with your own inner voice, right? That inner voice that says if you say it, what will happen? Like you're, you know, you're a loser, all of that. And then you got to fight to get help, and then you got to get fight to change. You know, if the circumstances, the situations are getting in the way and it is a fight, it's not easy. And that's why I think your notion of. That's why we need courage. If it was easy, then it's not a big deal, right? Just go do it. You can't order happiness on Amazon. Many people do that, Right. That's the reason the revenue is what the revenue is. You cannot just buy it. This is no quick, easy button.

You know, I love that you said that because one of the things I say in a speech is I talk about hope. That one of the symptoms of depression, that is. That is not. I don't think in the. Is it the DSM V5, you know, like the book, it's not an official mental illness. It's like, it's not an official record in the NFL if it's not in the record book. It's the same thing with that. You're not a real mental illness unless you're there. If you look up depression, one of the symptoms will not be hopelessness. Yet I can tell you, every person that I've ever met has this element to their illness, which is, ah, I'm never getting better. You know, like, this is going to be with me the rest of my life. And in many ways, my life as I knew it is over. So you need to give people help. That's hope. That's how you get people out of bed in the morning. That's how you get people to take that first step to fight for their happiness by saying, you know, it's not hopeless. Just take this little bit of hope. And once you get that little flicker of hope, I believe it's easier to get out of bed and start the fight. So hope, to me is everything.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And in fact, you know, it is interesting that it doesn't show up, right? It doesn't show up. It shows up in The. In the case of, you know, burnout as one of the elements of cynicism. But here's the thing. So we had one of the persons, one of the happiness coaches on our. On our podcast. It was about a year ago. I met him as part of the Gross Global Happiness Summit. I was a speaker there. He was there, too. His name is Dr. Alphonsus Obouyana. And Alphonsus, in the 70s, 70s, Michael, he was a doctor, and he was, you know, treating patients. And there were a lot of patients who were showing up with suicide and depression. And he realized exactly what you just said. So it is crazy that we don't talk about this. Right. He wrote a book. His research, which was funded by the federal government, was actually on hope. Because what he found, what was the common factor amongst many of these, was that they had lost hope, that there is any future, that they would be any different. That no matter what they do, I will not find happiness. I will be in this funk. You know, my weather will always be dark and rainy and cold. And they had just lost their desire to live. I don't want to be that way.

You know, you. You express it really well, and I think that you could draw the conclusion. And I'm not going to say everybody that attempts suicide is hopeless, but I would say almost everyone who attempts suicide has given up hope, has given up hope that their pain will end. And they can see no other way of ending their pain. Because if you have hope like I had hope, I'll explain this tattoo to you. Please do. But I had hope because I had been through it before, but if I had not, if I had been struggling for a decade and tried all kinds of different treatments and they weren't working, I wouldn't have made it. But that little flicker of hope is what kept me alive. And that little flicker of hope is what you have to give people, but you can't give them false hope. People who get to that point have heard repeatedly that there's a way out, but you need, other than suicide, that you need. You need to do certain things. And they have to. They have to see it as viable or they have to have blind faith. I've said this to people who say, you know, I. I think I'm done. I. I can't go on. I say, look, you know, I've tried so hard to give you some hope, but sometimes you gotta go on on blind faith, right? Which is. I don't know. I don't believe it. But statistically, the science says that if I persist and go for treatment. Eventually I will feel better that I will get relief. I may not be cured, but I'll get relief. So I think that's the job that you have to do with people, is to look and find out are they hopeless? And if they are, find a way to give them hope.

Yeah, I love that. Michael, talk to me a little bit. Tell the story of your tattoo of what's on your arm.

Yeah. So I. In the show I hosted, off the Record, we were at the Great cup in Montreal. The Great cup is the Canadian Football Championship. And we would travel as a talk show. We would travel to places where big events were happening. And I was in Montreal, and I had had a really terrible year and a half. I had fallen deeper, deeper and deeper into this dark hole of depression where when I looked up, I couldn't see a way out. And part of that was related to my daughter's chronic eye condition, which, when she's had bad times, I've become obsessed with those bad times where I haven't thought of anything else but Casey, Is she going to be okay? What happens if, you know, I was catastrophizing everything. And what I found was that when my anxiety is unrelenting and severe, it turns to depression. So I had fallen into a depression that was probably a year long when we were in Montreal. And the tattoo says 112408 YUL. MH5210400 November 24, 2008. YUL is the Montreal airport code, Marriott Hotel, room 521 4am in the morning. So I'm lying in my bed and I'm thinking to myself, I'd never understood suicide before, but I thought, you know, I can't live the way I'm living right now. I can't exist with this pain indefinitely because I have nothing. I wake up in the morning and my sole goal is to try to make it through the day and be able to get back in bed. Nothing for a year and a half at that point had brought me joy because one of the symptoms of depression is the loss of the ability to experience joy. So here I was at 4am in the morning, and I said, you know, I understand why people would take their own lives. And it's not the only reason why people do. But for me, it was this idea. This pain is, you know, it's got to end. But you see, I've been through it four times before. I had been treated and then gone off meds and relapsed, and that cycle had played out. So Here I am in this bed at that time and I have a little bit of hope. That hope was maybe I can get better because I had before. It's a very pessimistic illness, depression, you know, it makes a, it's a glass half empty illness. So I thought, okay, well, it's probably not going to work. If I go back on meds, they're probably not going to work because that's the way my brain was feeding me information. But that kept me alive. And I know for a fact that if I didn't have that hope that my life might have been very, very different.

Yeah. Wow, I'm glad, my friend, you are here and you are doing the work that you're doing. And I think this is where, you know, I think one of the ways we can instill hope because depression can be very dark and from that darkness you almost can't. Very little can get through. Right. And your brain is just turned against you, right. With all of these thoughts and the shadows. And I think that's why I think if more people can light a candle and share that it is possible. Maybe all of those lights and thinking, you know, some of that gets through. Because even if there is a little flicker in that moment when you know 4am you're there, that you are able to find, I think that light can take the darkness away, can help you find your way through. Because that for those who don't have it, they find it really hard. I don't get it. Like, yeah, you don't get it because you don't have it. You haven't experienced it.

It's true. You know, those that have made it out of the darkness carry with them the potential medicine for someone who's feeling hopeless. They carry with them proof that hope can lead somewhere better. Those are the people that have a story to tell. Somebody who has attempted to end their life and failed to do so, failed to complete suicide. They have, and gone on to feel better and have a productive life and to feel like, yeah, you know, the thought that you want to share with people is, oh my God, I can't. I can't believe that I gave up on myself, that I was so hopeless that I was willing to die. Because now here I am. And if the story is three years later, you know, I'm taking my kids to Disney World and I'm going to smile and laugh. That's somebody else's hope because it's genuine, because it's real. But even with that, Ashish, even with that, sometimes it's really hard to crack a hopeless brain with a little bit of light. It's not easy.

Yeah. So I think we've got to spread these stories. We've got to help. And that's what you've done with First Step Maika. So I want you to tell the listeners a little bit behind the First Step philosophy. What was your why behind creating that?

So I, I guess a couple of years ago I quit broadcasting because I, I had been on TV every day of my adult life since I was. I mean, I looked like a kid and I had done all kinds of fun things. I had loved what I did, but I wanted to, I wanted to do something else. I, I think part of it was a challenge. You know, no matter what you do, if you do it every day for an extended period of time, it becomes less of a challenge. It's kind of like, you know, this is who I am. You know, I'm approving every single time. So I thought, okay, well, I have this great way to leap out of broadcasting into something that broadcasting gave me, which was a little notoriety and a little bit of fame. That I could combine that with my willingness to talk about my mental health. So I left broadcasting and I started traveling around talking about mental health. My daughter and I started a charity a while back and we were working on that. It's called Sick Not Weak. That's the name of the charity. The name of the charity is our goal to show people that a mental illness like depression is a sickness, not a weakness, because weakness is at the heart of the stigma. So I was doing that and I thought to myself, okay, I have given 125 talks to corporations. Only two, by the way, in America because, because I, I have no recognition in America. So it's not like people would reach out. I'm dying to crack that because the story is universal. So I thought to myself, okay, well, I've done all these talks. I am maybe the greatest. I have been provided with more research about what mental illness is, what it feels like, what it does to us. Not the symptoms listed in the DSM V5, but actually living with it. Because the 150 speeches I've given, I've had thousands of conversations with people about how they experience it. And I have found that there are some things that we all experience. Every single one of us experiences depression and anxiety with some things in common. So I thought, okay, why don't I take that and do something that instead of doing this like one audience at a time to create something that can help people When I'm not there. So I created this, this program called First Step. The name First Step really is the final conclusion of the benefit of First Step. And that is that people in the workplace who have benefits, who have an efap, who have access to a family doctor, who, who have resources but don't use them, because that's the majority of Americans, the majority will, will sit on their mental illness and not use and get the help that, that can give them their lives back. So First Step is what we want people to take that first step, and so few people actually do take it. So put together this program because, you know, TV production and TV hosting was the kind of thing that I did. I had seen all kinds of mental health programs that were there to educate people, and I thought, they suck. Oh my God, they're all corporate, they're all clinical, they're all sanitized. And I went to a Canadian insurance company, Green Shield, and said, look, I want to do a series of videos. I want to call it First Step. I want to educate people about mental health from my inside out. And I want to change their views about mental illness. I want to educate them, I want them to look at their own mental health and consider, do I take, should I take that First Step? And I said, the one thing, I'll promise you it won't suck. I said, the stuff that's out there is terrible. You know, it's clinical. People don't relate to text on the screen that says depression is a serious illness. People relate to it when you tell them, you know, depression is when you do something that you used to love, but now it brings you no joy. Depression is when you're doing a podcast with your friend Ashish and you don't believe you have anything to offer because your self esteem has been taken by this evil thing called depression. That's what people relate to. So I said, I want to build a program like that and I want it to be not so much entertaining, but not dull and dry and to not just look like a typical program. So we did six, six modules, three chapters a module, each one about five minutes. And the goal is to do exactly what I'm doing right now, which is to make people understand better about mental health. And that's something that we completed a couple of months ago. Green Shield launched it on, on their customer website. So they're reaching 6 to 7 million people with it. And now I'm out looking, looking to see who else wants it outside of what we've done so far.

Foreign, Enjoying this podcast. If so, you will be excited to know that Happiness Squad is launching a free online community on International Day of Happiness March 22. This is an opportunity for listeners like you to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness practices that exist in every wisdom tradition and are backed by scientific evidence from the fields of psychology and neuroscience into your daily life and rediscover your well being, balance, purpose and connection. Check out the details on our website or drop us an email. Excited to see you in the community. You know, Michael, I think it's amazing I've had a chance to watch some of the, some of the shots, some of the videos, you know, that are part of this series. And my friend, you know, as I said to you before the podcast last week, I think I am excited to partner, to take this to as many companies as I can, because that's what I find. I think what I find is exactly what you just said. Companies have EAPs, and unfortunately, many companies, you know, take a little bit of a check the box approach. We have a program, and so we're doing our job right. We have the benefit we have provided, we have the program. But I think we need to do more. I think we need to fundamentally destigmatize mental health. We need leaders to talk about it. We need them to talk about their own challenges so people feel it is okay. And we need resources like these, like what you've created that are not kind of, you know, like anybody who's struggling with this is not gonna go through and kind of watch a boring. You know, many of these videos that exist are kind of these, as you said, clinical, but also they're like, just downright like, they bring you even more down, right? Like they, you know, and I think being able to talk about this in a way that is uplifting, in a way that actually instills hope, in a way that tells stories that can relate not to clinical definitions, but personal experiences. I think is such a gift and I think you'll save so many lives through this work. You know, I can tell you, and by the way, it's. And there's so many versions of this that we can create because I think there is an opportunity here. You know, India, it's a huge issue. The McKinsey Health Institute did this research. It's not on depression, it's on holistic health. But here was the stat and it'll blow your mind. Overall, they looked at holistic mental health and burnout. They looked at the four key symptoms of burnout and their prevalence. You know, across 30 different countries, there were symptoms like, you know, do I feel chronically fatigued? Do I have a high sense of cynicism towards my job and my life? Right. Really, that nothing I do matters, and am I at a lower level of cognitive and physical efficacy? I can do less than what is possible for me. 16% of Americans, you know, showed all of these fours, which means you are at a high risk of burnout. 22% was the number globally. I think there were about six or eight countries, if I remember correctly, out of 30 that were in the 30s. And then there was India at 59%. 59% of the sample reported all of these four. Right. And by the way, why am I talking about. Burnout is different than anxiety. Burnout is different than depression and anxiety. But the reality is, even for something that is so visible, that's present, the same is the story, you know, when it comes to depression and other mental illnesses. So I think this, this work can be so powerful if we are able to communicate and have conversations this way. And that's why I love the program that you've created.

You know, I, I, My, my goal in, in a lot of ways is to crack the American market because I don't have the advantage of being recognized now. My recognition in Canada is, you know, like, people know me. I hosted a sports talk show every day for, for decades. Right? So if you're a sports fan in Canada, you would know me, which is not necessarily a compliment. Right. It's not like I'm walking around going, everybody knows me. It's just the nature of the job. You know, you talk on tv, people know who you are. So that is an advantage. I don't have that in the US the only thing I have is the message, and I want to deliver that message. I want to give talks to American companies. And I'm. I'm not, I'm not talking about the money in that. I'm talking about. I want to take what I've learned and expose it to people without the benefit of, hey, I know you. You know, you, you. That show off the record. Oh, man. You know, it's. It's amazing how that will open doors for me. I mean, I don't know. Did you watch on Netflix the documentary Mr. McMahon? It was the. It was about Vince McMahon. WWE, they use clips from a television show of the host asking Vince questions. I was that guy. So they use clips from our show. And I kept, before I watched, I kept hearing from people saying, oh, you know, like, like, you know, like, you're on this thing, and that's an entree into someone's office. It doesn't mean anything to me that I was there. It's not like. It's not like it was a huge accomplishment or anything. But if you can open a door for whatever reason, you can get in front of people, you can do this because you're a beautiful speaker, a sensitive speaker, and you speak from the heart. If you can get the ability or the position to be able to share, then you can change lives. I just love this, you know, like I, I. People say, you know, after you show up someplace, hey, thanks for coming. I was giving a talk to an international company called Colas. Colas are. They build roads in Canada and around the world. They have different names, I think. So. I wasn't familiar with their name, and I gave a talk at their leadership conference last week in Montreal. And people say, oh, thanks so much for coming. And it's like, you, you don't understand. When I leave this room, I will take as much as I'm leaving. I get, I gain, I benefit. I somehow have found a way to use the poison inside me as medicine for someone else. So I feel incredibly blessed. How weird is this? I feel incredibly blessed to have had a lifetime of mental illness.

Absolutely. You know, there's a beautiful poem, Khalil Gibran's the Prophet. And it goes something like this. I don't have the exact words. I wish I had the book in front of me right now. But it goes something like, you know, he talks around joy and sorrow, and he. And he alludes to say, you know, the amount your capacity to hold joy is directly proportional to the hole that sorrow has carved into you. And so your notion of you saying, like, listen, you know, I'm grateful for what I've suffered because it's created in me a capacity. It's connected in me an empathy. I know what the other is, and I can speak my truth with courage to help others speak their truth.

No, not with courage. I told you this, Ashish. I told you. Now you're pissing me off. I told you that it takes no courage for me to do this, to look into a camera or to stand in front of an audience. It doesn't take anything. This isn't me being humble and wanting people to come back and say, oh, yes, it does. It's true. There's things in my life that really scare me. I still have this thing called emetophobia. If I'm on a plane and there's turbulence and the Person beside me looks like they're going to get sick. It takes courage for me to remain seated. That's courage. This, this is a joy and this is allowing me to take all roads in my life. They all lead to this conversation that I'm having with you, to the creation of first step to giving a talk in front of an audience. All I've done professionally is talk. I even get to use the perceived arrogance that people had that I gave off. I even get to use that to my benefit because that arrogant person that you see on tv, you can't imagine that they're actually battling depression. They're the last person that you would think is battling depression. So when that person comes out and says I'm battling depression, that opens doors.

It doesn't take you courage, but you instill courage in the other to be able to take their truth.

Okay, I'm not pissed anymore. I wear pissed, but I'm not.

That's okay. Pissed. Joy are also emotions that come and go. We're after something much deeper. So look, Michael, you've done so many talks, you've spoken to so many companies. Talk to me a little bit about. So many companies acknowledge mental health. That's why they're inviting you in the first place, right? What do you think is the biggest barrier? Why do you think there is still this big gap between actions and talk?

You used the word before and I'm loathe to use the word stigma or stigmatized because it's so, it's so overused. I think we're numb to it. I think it's like a word that used to have impact and now we hear it all the time. The stigma around mental health or mental illness. But I think that's a huge thing. It's not just the stigma that people embrace themselves. The self stigma is the most damaging, right? This idea that, well, you know, I'm really struggling, I don't feel good, I'm not the same person I was, I'm have no joy in my life. I hate everything about what I do. I but I can't share that with anyone because somehow it's self inflicted. Somehow I have brought this upon myself and therefore I'm ashamed to talk about it. It's not seen by so many as a legit illness. It's not like you can take a blood test and say, well I mean look at the results or an X ray, look at the results. That's depression. So I think that so many of us bury it for fear of sharing because we're not sure what it is. And we're not sure we're entitled to help. And we are pretty sure that the struggle we're having is based on our personal weakness. Again, sit. Not weak. That idea of weakness is at the heart of the stigma. So you have that inside employees at companies, but you also have another stigma. And the stigma is, what happens if I come out and share? Am I going to be seen and looked at differently? There's historical precedents for believing that. Right. You know, for years, it would have been career suicide. Bad word. It would have been death to your career if. If you came out and said, you know, I need. I need time off for depression or just mentioning mental illness, you know, there goes the raise, there goes the promotion, there goes the way your boss looks at you. So there is this fear that if I share, if it's found out, I'm going to lose out. And the tragedy of that is the tragedy of that. But beyond that, that's not true anymore. And it's not just the attitude of ownership and management. It's also, if you go to your EAP that is 100% confidential, your employer will never find out about it. If you use the resources you have available to you from your benefits plan and you go and see a psychologist and you get reimbursed for that, your boss will not find that out. That's the law. So this fear that people have that they'll be found out isn't even based on reality. So I think you have this massive stigma, this massive fear. I don't want anyone to know. And as a result, people keep it silent. They suffer in silence. And sometimes, you know, it takes the equivalent of multiple slaps in the face to wake them up. And one of the slaps in the face would be, okay, just tell me this. Just. Just answer to yourself. You're going to lie to me because you've been lying all along because you don't want anyone to know. But if you want to live the rest of your life the way you feel right now, and when I say right now, I mean this week, this month, just if. If this is all there was, would you be okay with that? And if the answer is, I'm not sure, then you need to go and you need to talk to someone. Because no one, Ashish, ever got hurt by saying, yeah, you know, I'm going to go and talk to someone. And they found out. There's no reason to keep talking. There's no loss there. But if you ignore it, there's a loss. And if you come to the conclusion, no, I don't want to live the rest of my life like this, then you owe it to you and all the people that care about you. Because married to someone, you know, who's battling something but is denying it is a tragedy for all involved. Right. You know, it's. It's. You gotta talk about it. You know, it's. You gotta rehearse it. Even, you know, like, hey, I'll rehearse with you. Today's practice, we're gonna say these words. I battle depression.

Yeah. You know, for me, as I sit with this, Michael, you know, I've talked to so many companies, and they'll say, yes, that's why we offer these programs. And frankly, it's up to the employees to take that first step. So, Michael, you know, you so eloquently highlighted the need, you know, for help, for really to help us and for companies to do more to help employees break this veil of silence that exists. Right. To enable them. I'm sure you run into this. Many companies will say, well, we have the EAP program. We have the posters that say, mental health matters. Why do we need to do more? What's the business case for bringing something like First Step or doing anything more than what they're doing? What's the business case? Why should I do it? What do you say to them?

Well, the business case is really easy to make now because of the number of studies that have been done about the benefit of putting money into mental health, whether it's awareness, whether it's programs, whatever it is, there's a return on investment for that. But the return could be even greater if companies embrace the program and personalize it. That's, you know, that's what we try to do with First Step is to make a statement that, hey, your employer actually cares more than simply providing you with something, because it sounds good, that this is a dialogue starter. And to really get the value out of First Step or any other program, management has to embrace it. You know, management has to talk like they want people to talk. You want people to be open, you want people to share with their boss, you want people an environment where people help each other, then you got to offer the same thing. You know, if the CEO of a company comes out and says, hey, I mean, not everyone has a personal mental health story when it comes to themselves, but almost everybody has a story when it comes to someone they care about. You know, the president and CEO of the company that I work for, that owned tsn, the company that I Work for Bell Media. George Cope was his name. He's the guy who created this incredible thing in Canada called Bell. Let's Talk Day. He told me the first time when he said, I want you to be with us on this, because I was the only person on the air who was talking about their mental health. And I said, so, you know, like, what's. What's your hook? Why are you doing this? And he said, when I was a kid, my mom, she would leave for three months at a time, and no one told us why. And it was. It was the secret that we knew. We're never supposed to talk about it yet we didn't know why. Why is our mother gone? Why is she different sometimes? And the idea would be to create dialogue. So by him saying that, though, he makes it easier for everybody at that company to talk about it. That's how you lead leadership when it comes to mental health is being vulnerable. Vulnerable. That's the key word. I have no idea why I said it like that. Vulnerable vulnerability. If you can show that, you can get other people to show it. Like you want people to be vulnerable. Well, you know, practice what you preach. And I think that is one of the ways that you open doors. But also, you know, this is. And this sounds like a sales pitch now, but with First Step, I mean, it's a statement. It's a statement to employees that, yeah, you know what? We do care. And one of the things I'm doing is shooting a video with the CEO before it's launched where the CEO talks about mental health and where the CEO says, I'm going to go through the First Step course because there's a certificate at the end. But he says, you know, or she says, I'm going to do it, and I want you to do it. That's how you get people to respond.

Yeah. And I would actually even further amplify that, Mike. You know, Michael, just in the spirit of our conversation, because, look, every leader today, right? In a company, there are lots of priorities. And so why give this one priority, right? Why. Why really lean in? Because, you know, I fundamentally believe if you want to take. Make the most of it, I. You know, your videos are amazing. It's beautiful. They're touching. But I think they. They will not be enough. You know, they will not be enough unless, you know, as you said, it's personalized. So. Yeah. Starting with a video of a CEO. Fantastic, right? He says, this is important. You know, the CEO every quarter also says, that is important, and that is important, and that is Important, you know, so like what of that is really important? But imagine, friends, if you really want to get the most of it, imagine if as you launch the program, you also allow and create around it, you know, town halls or every leader actually with their team and you cascade it through the organization that we want to talk about it. We're going to talk about it as a team. We're going to tell stories of ourselves or somebody else who struggled and why this really matters. We're going to be vulnerable at our moments when we really felt, you know, at our lowest. And it doesn't just need to be about depression, it can be about a whole range of things that we experience, you know, stress, anxiety, burnout. Think about this as mental well being and illness. It's a continuum. And that's the reason why, you know, you might listen to this and say, wow, like Ashish, there is so many things to care about. Why would I invest in this? You know, I've given the resources. This is not. There are so many other things, you know, I should also do this for climate and I should do this for others. But here's a very selfish reason. If it can't be a selfless reason, here's a very selfish reason to actually double down on this. Because if you do this, here is what you unlock. Today we spend more on people than machines. That's the reality. And for sure this is true for those who are battling depression. You're not getting the best off that resource. The salary that you're paying, you might not know it, right? But even if they're fully present, forget about absenteeism, but even if they're fully present, they are not at their best. This is not, it's a fact, right? You're only getting 20, 30% of their fullest potential individually. But the bigger business case for this is the following. There might only be 5% or 10% or 20% who you would think are falling, you know, that they have depression or severe, you know, mental illness that they might need help with. But you know what, the other 60% who you will create a space for them to open up and take action around this. They all can benefit from, from actually talking about it, from being vulnerable, from sharing when their mental health is struggling. And that's the case for it, right? You know, there is an opportunity for you to actually get a lot more. And that's why really this needs to go way beyond talking to people and telling them this matters. I'm making this available for you. Please watch it. I think we have to lead from the front on this, we have to lead from the front. And I think there is massive gains we create, you know, for all. All involved. Imagine if somebody who's struggling with depression, who's in your customer service, they're dealing with customer. They're your frontline. Imagine if they're working on a production line and they are just not fully there. You know, there's a high risk of an error in a product you're making or lives that can be lost because of that loss. You know, so we have to really support people not just on this end, but actually a much broader end.

You know, Deloitte, right. I mean, Deloitte is a worldwide powerhouse, right, in accounting, which is, I guess, their roots, but also in consulting. And they're in a million different areas. And they. They launched a study about mental health in the workplace. And I am familiar with it. As recently as 10 minutes before we went on the air, I was using it and pulling quotes off of it. Their conclusions, which every single conclusion they came to was like a selling point for First Step. All of the things that they said, the responsibility of the company, this is what you're responsible for. This will be the payoff, the responsibility of the employee. They all pointed to the same thing. The kind of. And I'm not selling this to anyone. The kind of program that can start dialogue, that can make people feel better about themselves, that can open up doors. It was like, oh, my gosh, you know, like, why didn't I see this before? And one of the things I also talked about was return on investment, that for every dollar you spend on mental health in the first year, you make back A$66. And that's lower than other studies have shown. So that's the selfish part of doing it, right? It's good for business.

Yeah, look, I mean, you know, two years ago, I decided to leave McKinsey. By the way, McKinsey Health Institute, very similar study, BCG, Thrive Global Oxford. There's so many studies around this that point to the same. Two years ago, I left with a mission to democratize flourishing, to help companies and individuals make happiness of flourishing their competitive edge. And Michael, thank you for the work that you're doing, because First Step is the first steps towards that. For those who are in the middle, this is great. But for those who are struggling, unless we help them take the first step to get help, flourishing is a very artificial, abstract concept out there, because I think they're just trying to survive right now. So I'm deeply grateful for our friendship for the work that you're doing, Michael. And I'm really excited to bring your message, your work to all of my clients and to all the listeners. You know, if you want, we'll put how to reach Michael in the show. Notes, please reach out. This is not, you know, I think it's critical that we really elevate, especially in this time. Look, I mean, especially in the time right now in the world. I think more people are going to struggle with this. So thank you for what you're doing. I'm grateful that you are here on the show. Thank you. I'm grateful for what you're doing and I'm grateful to call you my friend.

And right back at you. Thank you for the chance to do what we just did. It brings me incredible joy to be able to do it. And my last words to you. Let me count four words. Okay, you ready?

Yes. Fight for your happiness.

If you don't, who will?

No one else will. Thank you, my friend.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us. Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.