A talk on men's mental health and why companies should care. The speaker reflects on lockdowns' impact on men and his experience speaking at Barclays about supporting male wellbeing around International Men's Day.
Okay, so walk and talk for a Tuesday. It is only a couple of degrees in the Cotswolds, but don't worry, I will survive because I've got my warm coat on and we've got helicopter going overhead. Who knows what they're up to. But let's talk about International Men's Day now that is coming up in a couple of weeks in November. And I go back to a brilliant time I had when I was asked to go and speak at Barclays, Barclays bank in Canary Wharf. And that was a real special experience because we were on the, I don't know, whatever is something like the 32nd floor or something. And it looks right out across London. So it's an amazing venue, amazing location to do a talk. And here's what was cool. It wasn't necessarily about them bringing in someone to talk to the men in the company. Here's what was cool about it was them thinking outside the box. They brought in around 150 kids from, from the local schools to hear from myself and, and someone else about, you know, what it meant to be a man. And we gave them some very simple exercises to just thought provoking stuff. But I remember it being funny because you know how many years I've banked with Barclays for since I first had a bank account, to be honest. So that is many, many years ago. My dad also worked for Barclays until he was, I don't know, in his 40s or something like that. And he worked up where the Wolvesley is now, just next to the Ritz. That was one of his offices he was in for a while. And it just seemed funny where I'd been banking with them for so many years and that dad had worked for them that one day I'd be invited in to speak in a stunning location to, you know, some, some great kind of kids who would be there to kind of learn from us, take away some good ideas and concepts to go away with. And it was just one of those great moments where you think, you know what, things with the whole man academy have never always been easy as with launching anything, you know, it's long hours and you're not always getting everything right and some people won't like what you do and some people love it and that's okay. But it was one of those great moments where you look around, you're like, this is cool. This is really, really meaning something. And it's something I will always remember. The annoying thing was I didn't get any really good photos from it, which is Always a bit shit, isn't it? Because you're like, if I could have just got one good photo, I'll have to dig some out and see if I can share them online. But that means, again, International Wednesday is coming up and some people joke and say, oh, it's International Wednesday all day, every day. And you're like, yeah, yeah, fair enough. But, you know, we're talking more about men's health. You know, we know the suicide rate is ridiculously high, skewed for the male to female ratio, and also it's just high generally. And I was talking the last, let's say the last two years. No matter your thoughts on whether lockdowns were good, bad or whatever, you cannot deny that they were going to have a massive effect on mental health for, well, everybody, basically. But, you know, you've got. If we take men specifically, you have some men that were working from home and didn't want to work from home, some guys that lost their businesses, some guys that were alone and working from home, you know, during lockdowns, which we know from talking to several men myself did not do them any good at all because, to state the obvious, it's very dangerous. Moonwalking into a contactless society and being, you know, in isolation all the time kills. You know, we've spoken enough about that and even spoke a couple of months ago at Havas Media with some of my lovely ladies who were on the panel about how, you know, for loneliness, it is such a big. Can have such a big effect on your mental health. So anyway, have a think about your company, whether you are doing something for International Wednesday. And if you're not sure, feel free to hit me up and give me a shout if you want to have a couple of little ideas and suggestions. Always happy to help. Local farmer checking his flock. So that should be it for today. Again, International Wednesday. Even if you haven't ever done anything before for your company, have a think. What could you do, you know, what impact could it have on the men there and also the men that they would then go home and depart or impart some kind of message to. That will be it for today. We've got a belter of a walk and Talk coming up tomorrow. I've got a big day ahead. Can't tell you all about it, though. Maybe you'll find out someday soon. But apart from that, I wish you a fine day. Thanks for the messages. For the people that watched the Walk and Talk yesterday, I got several messages from guys I used to work with in City. One of them was like, I didn't know you had a collapsed lung. And it's surprising. Often you can work with people and you don't know much about them. But we will talk about that more tomorrow and link that to the whole Man Academy events. Anyway, remember, the world needs strong men, and I'm out of here.
