Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.
Yiuwin Tsang
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy, and soulfully grown.
Yiuwin Tsang
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business Podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the Beautiful Business team. And this week, we were joined by Amelia Wrighton. Amelia is a passionate public speaker and founder of Suicide & Co, a charity established in 2020, to provide support to bereaved individuals and raise awareness about suicide related grief. Amelia's personal experience of losing her mother at 19, while studying at university, has given her profound understanding of the challenges faced by those affected by suicide, suicide and cause a national charity with a core purpose to support those bereaved by suicide and open up the conversation around suicide related grief, suicide and core provide support and one to one bereavement counselling. They enable individuals to access the right information as quickly as possible, welcoming them into a non judgmental community. Amelia, let's kick off with a really serious question. Why is it that suicide awareness is an investment that you've got to make? So let's start off with find out a little bit more about you and what you do at Suicide & Co? And what does the organisation provide? What is your role in it?
Amelia Wrighton
So yes, I'm Amelia Wrighton. So I am one of the cofounders of Suicide & Co and I now sit in the CEO role, and have done full time since sort of November of last year. And because we are less than three years old, as an organisation, I'm sure you can imagine my role encompasses pretty much everything, head of it one day, the next fundraising, it's a lot, but so my kind of personal story. And the reason that I do, what I do is I lost my mom to suicide when I was 19, which, at that time, you know, I was at university, I just turned 19, it was a completely life shattering experience, one that, you know, I got support from family from friends, but really no access support for quite a long time, experienced very heavily the stigma that surrounds suicide, and the kind of difficulty that we have as a society talking about suicide, but ultimately went into a bit of, you know, kind of a mode where I just wanted to get through it get into the workplace. And so I then spent sort of 10 years in the corporate world. And it wasn't until eight years after I lost my mom to suicide that I met my co founder Anna, who lost her father, and we had a conversation that really changed it all we had a conversation about again, how presence for stigma was how lacking the space was in services for suicide, bereavement, and that conversation kind of sparked the whole creation of the charity. So starting Co we operate across England and Wales, we are there to support those who have lost loved ones to suicide. And we do that through a variety of services. The core one is that we provide a counselling service. So anybody in England and Wales who's lost a loved one to suicide can access 12 sessions of free counselling through our service with an assessment upfront. We also now have a helpline in place open 9am to 9pm, Monday to Friday. And we have a load of digital services as well on our website that can help navigate suicide loss and also signpost to other supporting services. Alongside that we also now support organisations and have a b2b offering as well. That's kind of who we are.
Yiuwin Tsang
And I guess just to kind of delve a little bit deeper in terms of your background media that to lose your mum at such an early age is I can only only imagine how painful that is just in the sense of losing your mum, for it to be a suicide. I just add that an additional layer of things. And as a 19 year old, I can only sympathise what an awful situation to have to get yourself through. As I say, just dealing with any sort of family bereavement is heavy enough. And some of us are lucky enough where we haven't had to deal with yet. But it's an inevitability that all of us will meet at some stage. But that additional layer of I mean, how would you articulate that? It was it's not like exactly a complication, but it's just an additional weight, almost the suicide element as well as the death itself that you have to handle.
Amelia Wrighton
Absolutely. I mean, I would articulate it in terms of complexity, right? Ultimately, all grief is terrible to navigate and every situation is so unique, but there are aspects to suicide loss that are commonplace. And part of that, you know, I would say the two kind of or maybe the three defining kind of aspects would be shot and sudden death. And even in my case, my mom had struggled with mental illness for years before but due to my to age and due to just kind of it not being a common subject, there was still a huge element of shock, which, you know, translate into trauma and into a lot of, you know, miscommunication and abandonment and feelings of, you know, confusion. Another kind of E complexity is feelings of guilt, you know, when your loved one dies, and they had been struggling, and they had been keeping things inside. And it's to do with mental health, everybody feels some level of guilt, blame, however, that manifests, you just wish you knew what you could have done at that time. And until you have professional support, and you, you know, read shared experience, and you understand how common that is, that's a very complex emotion to navigate. And it really deeply can, you know, deteriorate one's own mental health. And the third aspects, I would say, is sort of the pain that, you know, mental health really has, if you haven't been through any mental illness yourself, you're forced into an education about what mental illness is, what does it feel like to consider suicide and to process your grief, you're having to kind of learn about that and understand more about it, you then realise the scale and the size of the problem. And going through that education journey is also really challenging, it's horrible to go through. And it's a complex kind of level of that gets added to the grief that you're processing.
Yiuwin Tsang
I can imagine the challenge of having to take yourself through those emotions, and at the same time understanding why they're happening, and which is part of that process. I imagine there's understanding it and seeing you know, what the next steps might be, but having to I suppose, kind of rationalise that education as it's a and processes and consume it, whilst you're experiencing the grief itself, must be incredibly difficult. And I guess that's what suicide encode does, in terms of helping people through that. But just to kind of pick up on, you know, again, lucky enough to not have experienced suicide cut directly into my friends and family. But an old boss of mine lost his other half to suicide last year. And I think what struck me on reflection was just how it was unexpected from my perspective, and it looked very kind of selfish in this context here. But, you know, from my perspective, they were happily married couple going on amazing holidays together, you know, their Facebook page was always to die for and things like that a terrible phrase, but you know, just look dreamy, the lives looked like they couldn't be much better successful careers and things like this. So it was a shock for me. And I imagine it must have been a shock for many of his friends and family who perhaps weren't inside that loop, as you say, and whether he was a he wasn't I don't know that but just knowing and having to deal with if I try and think of myself in his shoes having to deal with the fact that, you know, if I knew, then firstly, how do you handle it of other people? And if you didn't know, then how do you kind of handle that one of the people?
Amelia Wrighton
Yeah, I mean, it speaks to a few things like, right, the ripple effect of somebody dying by suicide is massive, you know, those waves go out to a lot of people. And it's a completely normal feeling to be looking at somebody's life from the outside and going well, especially with social media these days, this looks like such a, you know, perfect situation. And that horror of being like, then that person's died by suicide, it deeply affects everybody. And it really leaves a lot of people questioning mortality, what is mental illness? You know, it's a very, it's a difficult subject to navigate, I think, you know, ultimately, as I said, like, every situation is so unique, and the, what we try and do the suicide and COVID, like for the loved ones, and anybody who's feeling affected by that loss is just trying to work through some of those emotions and some of those aspects of the loss in your own time, so that, you know, you can come to terms, not necessarily accept, but just kind of process some of that through on your own terms can be really beneficial. But I think it is, especially at a broader societal level, you know, the mental health space and industry is still new, like it's not mature. And that is not like a fact, that is my opinion. You know, I see I running a charity working within government working with another third sector organisations learn every day, there's new studies coming out, there's new opinions on different things like we are still growing as a sector, and ultimately suicide sits of that, you know, byproducts within the sector, we are there. And so I think when the rest of the space is still very on mature and developing, processing a suicide loss and understanding the different aspects of it is so challenging and remains challenging to do. And then there's also the dichotomy of like our external proposal of ourselves. On social media online or even not online versus what we're really going through. And I think that comes down to a fundamental root concern that everybody has, how real and authentic? are we presenting ourselves in any situation? And you know, when then somebody dies by suicide, and you then potentially feel like that wasn't the glamorous picture that was being shown. That's an affirmation that these things can be separate. And you know, that's a truth that none of us really like.
Yiuwin Tsang
Yeah, no, indeed. And suicide is still such a taboo subject, but I think it was you kind of brought the phrase to me of it being a secret pandemic, how would you articulate in your experience, the size, and the scale of suicide in the UK,
Amelia Wrighton
I don't think it was me the super secret pandemic, but it is definitely being used as a phrase. Again, it's a very difficult kind of thing to wrap our heads around, because you have the statistics from the ONS, which though six and a half 1000 people in the UK are dying by suicide each year, you then have the global statistics, which are showing that 800,000 people across the world are dying by suicide each year. And then within that, you do have slight trends that are being shown and slight kind of understanding within that, I think we are in a terrible place at the moment around service provision and support for those who are feeling suicidal, and those who are bereaved by suicide. Now, especially in the brief by suicide sector, it's very small, you know, we are very in demand, and are going to be on a journey of real tension in that demand area as awareness starts to increase suicide prevention, you know, there is a lot of funding in the third sector, there's a lot of options there. But it's more of a societal issue, that we need to start on picking to really be able to understand how we can tackle this because mental health broader Yes, we are in a seriously bad situation. You know, we're also coming out at the back of COVID. We're dealing with a backlog of society, not talking about mental health, people not feeling comfortable accessing services, you know, there's, but it is also like, a wish I could be like, here's the vaccine, but there just isn't, you know, there isn't that lockdown on the vaccine to do there is like so many things that we need to kind of start to really work out. And there's a lot of work going on. And it's brilliant to see more investment, more awareness. But I think, you know, the size of the issue cannot be underestimated. This is affecting 1000s 10s of 1000s of people, you know, every week that are, you know, finding out about these news stories that are losing loved ones that are feeling suicidal, that are struggling with mental illness, it is imperative that we start making this sector more mature, more substantial, and therefore more effective.
Yiuwin Tsang
I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners, Krystal Hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services are super fast and super reliable. And they're genuinely really nice. People were super picky over who we work with as partners over at Beautiful Business and we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them.
Yiuwin Tsang
Back to the podcast. And do you think to come back to my question at the front there about it being still a taboo subject to discussing I mean, they've been lies. You know, one of the key challenges there, as you said, mental health on a broader scale is getting more more recognition, people are understanding the benefits of looking after your own mental health and mental health of your workforce, and so on and so forth. But even that feels like it's still really early on, I was having a really interesting conversation with a culture specialist. And we talked about how slight tangent here, so forgive me, but we talked about when do you have your good ideas? You know, when do you come up with good ideas. And it tends to be during your non productive parts of the day when you're not kind of got your head in something right delivering this or writing that recording, while the other, it's when you've got a bit of space? So if you're most creative, and if you come up with your best ideas, and why don't we booked some time out on our calendars for that, you know, thinking time or reading time, yet, there are still plenty of people that we know who would frown upon that type of space booked out, you know, in your calendar, why aren't we doing that we're gonna do the other way. There's still a preconception, almost an almost like a machoism of just get on with it. Just pull your socks up and tough it out. And you'd feel like there is a shift or I mean, how much of the problem is exacerbated by this type of kind of mature mentality?
Amelia Wrighton
Yeah, like a lot. A lot. I think a lot of it is that I mean, the thing about the taboo of like suicide, you know, mental health, also death, you know, in reality, like there's taboos Laid out everywhere. And you know, I think I've sometimes really struggled to understand how D stigmatise even mental health is because we're in a bubble of news of social media, of our communities that we work with, right? I can spend days where I'm like God, when people are feeling so confident in using the right language about suicide and making quite innovations within mental health, and then I can go and talk to an organisation that's maybe the first mental health speaker, you know, doesn't necessarily have a lot of support there. And I'm like, Oh, my goodness, this is, you know, we haven't moved anywhere. So I think that, you know, we shouldn't underestimate the fact that there's still a lot of taboo to be broken. And, you know, ultimately, when it comes to mental illness, when it comes to suicide, like, especially for our community, those who have lost loved ones to suicide, mental health is thrown in their face, the stigma is there and broken and smashed. Day one, that's just a reality, you are now dealing with it, you are now in that space, right? And I think as soon as people go through that, they understand that actually, you know, why is it a taboo, why we easier to talk about it, because the fact that we're not talking about it is making my experience so much worse, it's subliminally telling me not to voice how I'm feeling not to reach out for support, and not, you know, to talk to your communities about it. Those little like social permeations of that happen everywhere, they still happen in TV programmes, they still happen on the news, it's still very present. And ultimately, to build a level of comfort on a scale across the UK, for us to be able to hold some of these conversations and feel open, I think, you know, is a long journey.
Yiuwin Tsang
I guess that takes us on to the next kind of question I've got for you in terms of business owners and business leaders, for them to start thinking about how suicide might affect that teams, the way that you just articulated that was really powerful. As soon as you go through it, then the taboos don't exist, because you're in it, I guess, is what you're saying. So how, I guess the challenges are imbalance from somebody who's in it and living it right there. And now to somebody who perhaps hasn't experienced it, but if not directly, then even kind of even a distance? How can business leaders and leaders within teams, I suppose kind of bring a bit more balance to how do they move out of that kind of abstract because even though as I speak, it is quite abstract to me. So how, what can businesses do and what kind of shifts do they need to make?
Amelia Wrighton
That is like a great place to like hone in on right, the divide between somebody who's been affected by suicide in their lives, and people who haven't, and maybe supporting way because literally, what happens is that stigma that taboo builds a wall around those individuals, because it manifests as fear. It's literally as simple as people are afraid that they're going to say the wrong thing, they are afraid that they are going to make that person feel worse. And that fear leads to silence right now, that as a small it is an abstract space, though, like the battery that is abstract. Because we're talking about a lack of communication, we're talking about a lack of support. But that is what we've worked on with organisations to create, you know, tools and guidance and things that can make that situation easier, right. If you take a legit example, if you have come back from bereavement leave having lost a loved one to suicide, let's say you had the best bereavement policy possible, it was flexible, they took three weeks off and took a month off however much they needed. If they come back into the workplace, and then managers and their colleagues don't feel comfortable talking about suicide know they've been through something so awful, which sometimes the hardest time to ask someone how they are and doesn't have that conversation, then they are walking around on eggshells. And that is an awful culture to be experiencing for all people involved. Right. So I think the importance for businesses is to start like thinking when I have conversations with business leaders, it's literally putting it into that physical example of imagine being at that desk. Imagine being in that situation where everybody's walking on eggshells, because they don't know what to say, well, there are tools or guides that can be sent, which once that person is educated, understand the prevalence of suicide understands good language to use useful questions, their confidence in that environment can directly impact the support that that person who's been affected by the loss can have. And those small movements and tweaks that we can make, when you start to ripple that out can have a massive impact. It really can. So I think for me, it's the importance of thinking about, you know, those moments that can be changed, that will create the big difference.
Yiuwin Tsang
I guess, again, it's that whole kind of hypothetical abstract thinking, but those moments where there could be an awkward silence I guess you know, those moments when the first sit down at the desk after coming back from leave or first handle at the coffee, water cooler moments and things like this is what you're saying, for teams, because this would include not just managers, ultimately, it'll be all the colleagues that are involved that might work alongside on a day to day basis. But it would be about making them think ahead of time, think about those situations. And as you say, using the tools that you've got the advice that you give a to Sonico, in terms of how to handle them, because it must be so difficult as well, not just for the bereaved themselves, but also for the co workers as well. And I feel like you mentioned early on about that sense of guilt, that sense of almost kind of responsibility. And again, projecting myself You always think, oh, was there anything I could have done to help at the time? Or, you know, could I have supported them a bit more or things like this, the co worker that is, so the advice that you give is in around thinking about those mums is thinking almost like a bit ahead of time and looking for those moments in time?
Amelia Wrighton
Yeah, so I think like so we, I would recommend two things. One, like I roll out an organisation like presentation around how to have better conversations around suicide related grief, right, we tend to get bookings and Mental Health Awareness Week and suicide prevention week like that is a broad thought leadership presentation, just like hearing from a domestic abuse speaker or anybody on a stigmatised tricky subject to be talking about upskill in some like life skills, and how to make those situations better, is obviously a fantastic thing to do. But what we've created as an organisation support membership, right, this is such a niche, specific subjects that we've created a membership for organisations, it's 72 quid a year for any organisation size, and they get access to a platform that has this specific information, so that when an employee is bereaved by suicide, their HR, their people manager can actually get those resources in the moment and send them out to the manager and send them out to the colleagues for that reminder of like, how to act and what to do, they can also send a guide, sort of a workbook, specifically to the person who's bereaved, which is really beneficial to go actually, what do my warning signs look like when I'm doing really bad? Like, do I just actually completely power through my work, and I'm working all the time? Or am I somebody who, you know, really needs a break, and you know, is going to be needing to take, you know, less of a workload on it's those types of things that I think, you know, in a reactive space are really important. And so what we want to improve is access to that information. Right? That's, like, as simple as that. It's just being able to access that information when you need it. So my recommendation is definitely to do that. I will also caveat, you know, I speak to the majority of well being in HR teams, and when you talk to them about what broader bereavement support do they have, we're not talking about a lot, it's just not in place. So I think that's being able to have the like, niche resources for when it's relevant is probably the best support that somebody could put on offer. That sounds
Yiuwin Tsang
really, really good. It's almost like knowing where to go, you know, knowing what to kind of pull out in that moment in time, in terms of handling, raising suicide awareness in the workplace, as a manager as a leader. Again, it's that challenge, I suppose, in terms of that kind of imbalance. So people who've experienced it directly or not, will be well aware of the challenges that come with it. But those that haven't might, again, feel quite distant from it. How do you advise leaders bring the teams along when it comes to raising suicide awareness if they too have had minimal exposure to it?
Amelia Wrighton
So I think a couple of things like the first thing I'd say is that suicide could affect any organisation. So the importance of having it on the agenda is crucial. But I think wherever it's before launching into sort of an awareness programme, it's important to kind of analyse where the organisation is, in terms of awareness activity that's already happened within broader mental health, but also your support provisions. You know, the worst case scenario is to go out and be late as well. So it's adventuring day, like, you know, we're thinking of people and not have the support services there and not have like, you know, the reasons behind kind of raising that awareness. So I think doing that analysis piece first is really important. And then from that, being able to judge what level of education you're starting at with because, you know, a broader Mental Health Awareness kind of activity is really key, right, understanding more about anxiety about depression, about, you know, the difference between mental illness and mental health problems. There's lots of things that can be done there, which will ease into the topic of suicide, right? I personally always recommend like going on a longer programme like this is a subject that affects, you know, broadly mental health, everybody in the organisation and it's really important to have it as a long programme throughout that can take people on that journey. A couple of other things I would say is get thing you know, 10 people in the organisation Mental Health First Aid trained is not done and dusted tick box, like, it's just not the case, you know, that's fantastic asset to have. But thinking about how those people work within the organisation and thinking about, you know, what that can actually look like moving forward is really important. And the other thing I would say is like a watch out for business leaders on this journey is work is a huge part of our lives, right work can also deteriorate our mental health, I run a mental health charity, and I have had periods where I'm working 80 hour weeks, I am burning out, I am dealing with a lot of like responsibility, right? That is a cause to my own mental health. But within organisations, sometimes it can be a difficult line to walk between defensiveness of current culture and current working hours and current working policies, when it then comes to mental health and how that is being raised awareness, sort of because we're saying, especially within some of the kind of more proactive side of things like, you know, wellness and journaling and Yoga people can, you know, feel like if their employee team and they're being like, well, when am I supposed to do that, because the deadlines are so tough, the you know, all of a sudden, it can feel like a tension to actually do that work. But I would say, getting comfortable in, you know, the fact that raising awareness is always adding massive value to your teams, and you don't need to be taking responsibility for all of those aspects, I think is really powerful
Yiuwin Tsang
100%, people would argue that that kind of comes with the territory when you run your own business, and you know, the kind of pressure that comes through. But I think we often kind of lose sight of that as leaders and you kind of take this responsibility on. And some people thrive working 80 hours a week, I'm sure you've had times when you've absolutely smashed it. But the question is, How sustainable is that isn't and that's the thing, you know, there are an incredibly rare breed who could do eight hours, weekend, week, out 52 weeks a year, it's just not sustainable, be that kind of physically, spiritually or emotionally, something will eventually give, and it's how much protection do you have for yourself. And then it's a really interesting quandary that you have about then that tension that exists between, you know, the success of a business and the burden you have to bear in terms of the sacrifices you make for your own mental health and the expectation on your teams. And it's how can we let go of that, as a society, even, you know, how can we kind of like move away from that, I feel like it is, and I don't want to kind of speak too soon. But more and more people, this might be the bubble that we work in. But there's more and more recognition, that it's an investment that's worth making, into protecting the well being of your employees, and it's an investment, you're investing in them anyway, in terms of the salaries and everything returned to work in the development, why would you not protect that investment by looking after their mental health.
Amelia Wrighton
And I think it's because of the newness of, you know, when I first out of work, like wellness was like a bowl of fruit, or like a pancake day, like it wasn't like access to coaching or access to counselling, or talks on anxiety or talks on domestic abuse, it just wasn't there as much, it was still new. And I think people are getting comfortable with where they feel like levels of responsibility are, especially in COVID, when there's so much about online working isolation, burn out, it's a difficult space to feel like comfortable in, when you know, there is really the rights and the wrongs yet. But I think, you know, this investment piece is 100%, where we need to be thinking about it right? You know, when we think about setting up situations, we're not thinking, you know, okay, I'm gonna give, instead of giving chairs to my employees, they're going to sit on the floor, the lighting is going to be bad, I'm going to give them you know, technology that they can't use, and there's going to be no running water. You know, that's an environment thing. It's an environment thing that we don't even think about anymore, right. And there's an environment aspect to this, which is, our environment is inside and outside of work more than it ever has been. And if we think about our mental health, which we all still are learning so much of our own mental health, but now we should both says that. There are so many aspects that affect how we feel each day, and what builds and builds and deteriorates, whether it's a trauma like suicide loss, whether it's a mental illness that develops over time, you know, there's a big variance. So, at a base level, investing in the environment of an organisation when it comes to mental health is just should become a basic. So having a programme of awareness talks on different topics that are going to be relevant for different people, having a culture where actually you we actively put in place appropriate support when things have happened, ie somebody being bereaved by suicide, we think about actually for zero money basically send two quid a year we could put in something in place for allows to spend five minutes sending out a guide to someone which they can then read in 10 minutes. And that can improve a conversation. It's those little things in an environment that I think we need to start thinking about, right? It's not, it's that level of broad awareness, that is what needs to be invested in more
Yiuwin Tsang
100%. And I love your analogy about you know, giving people a chair to sit on or, you know, a desk and workout. It's just, it's a hygiene point, isn't it? So you expect that to be done. And we need that level of expectation when it comes to mental well being as well. You just made me think of this. I didn't work there, thankfully. But there was a company that I knew in Bristol, where they wouldn't even give you a chair, believe it or not until you made your first sale. You know, so you'd have to Yeah, it was brutal. And you think, Oh, my goodness, you know, it's borderline abuse. But if you were to translate that into kind of like a mental example, then you just think that's absolutely unacceptable. So you know, these standards, these hygiene points need to be brought in. And the last question I got for this section is, and this is gonna sound really unfair to men by touring with the same brush, but typically, certainly I find emotionally challenging topics of ox so far outside of my comfort zone. It takes real effort, as it should, of course, but what advice would you give to managers or indeed colleagues who do find it hard to talk about deeply emotive topics such as suicide bereavement?
Amelia Wrighton
I mean, wow, that's the big question. Right? It like goes back so far to you know, I mean, not brushing them with one stick. But, you know, in the suicide world, like 75% of suicides are men, it has been proven through countless studies through countless like SERVICE PROVISIONS being created in the UK that, you know, we do have a specific issue with men talking about their feelings and their mental health. And you know, that definitely needs to be tackled. I think it comes down to like a really root commonality across all genders across all age groups. Like, I feel like everybody can resonate with the thing of when you're holding something in about how you're feeling. And you're in the echo chamber, that's just you, that builds and deteriorates and sits there until it's causing pain until it's causing distress, right? Like, what we want to do is start feeling like when a little things are coming up, that we can talk about those more easily, right, that's where we want to get to, we don't want to get to a place where I can stop you on the street and be like, Hey, I'm really depressed. This is what I'm going through. This is my trauma. And I think that's where, when we think about, you know, trying to build confidence, we want to try and build confidence in two things. One, you know, feeling more comfortable in yourself with voicing how you are feeling, how you are struggling with things, that is something that everybody needs to find their own unique way to do. It can be, you know, education, reading different mindfulness activities, that's a really unique journey that I really want everyone to go on. If they do in their having conversations about difficult topics, I think, you know, the first thing is dropping sense of fear. Because if you are scared of it, or if you find it uncomfortable, the likelihood is people aren't going to do it with you. Because they will be able to sense that right. So, you know, dropping that fear, because the real thing that I believe should give everybody confidence is nobody thinks that anyone is a friend, or is a professional trained person to deal with mental health problems, right? A conversation with a friend or somebody that you know, about their mental health or a difficult subject. The core purpose for that is to things listening, huge value, literally listening, not giving any advice and letting somebody speak through that stuff. Huge value. And the other one is to bridge to support, literally, to be able to say, Have you thought about calling Samaritans? Should we research something together? Should we try and find I've just heard this book or I follow this podcast or whatever it is to be able to just bridge out to support that is, again, a massive value add. And I think going into any conversation, knowing that those are your two weapons that you can use, and you don't need the advice, you don't need the answer and you don't need anything else should hopefully feel really empowering. And I think it's those types of messages that we need to start promoting more because at the moment, a lot of the messages are like we need to talk more. And you're like, okay, cool. How do I do that? And actually, if I don't know how, on that first part that I've said, how to talk more myself, you know, how am I then going to be there to listen to another? So I think yeah, I don't know if that's answered your question.
Yiuwin Tsang
It really it really does. That's wonderful advice actually in listening and bridges. Oh, because I think, again, not wanting to generalise, but maybe it is just a bloke thing. But I feel like I'm pre programmed to try and fix stuff. You know, like, if somebody comes up to me and said, I've got a problem, like my missus, absolutely. I do her nothing. Because she taught me and she's just, I don't want you to fix it you and I just want you to listen, you know, and I think this is maybe this is one of the things you know, maybe and again, it's a big generalisation. But do men take it upon themselves? Or do they kind of assume some sort of responsibility, when really they could be more helpful would be more helpful, as you say, listening and then breaching to support rather than in perhaps that feeling of I don't know what to do. I can't help I can't work this out. And maybe that's what causes that shrinking away?
Amelia Wrighton
Yeah, I think when it comes to men, I think there's I firstly, obviously, we work with men in the service, every time I get a male, African to the capsule service, I'd like you go, that is amazing. I think when I think about charity founders, I know in this space, doing incredible work, you know, what they really see efficacy with is changing at a societal level, how mates and groups and communities can talk to each other. Because, you know, that is almost like a language that isn't spoken in some very generalised way, right? If you're going to your football game, or your local pub, or whatever, and you're speaking English the whole time. And that's, you know, about lads, what's the football going on? What's all of this stuff, right? And somebody comes in, they start speaking French, they start talking about the fact they're really struggling at home, their wife, and then keep fighting, that child is going through real anxiety. And every sat there being like, I'm not even sure what that guy's saying, like, I don't speak French, genuinely, like it can be that President of like to get that movement and to learn a new language is really hard. And I think it needs more advocacy, so that it's cooler to do. And we've had a lot of that, which is brilliant. But ultimately, everybody individually, could make a change today, to start having more of those conversations and starting with the smaller things that feel easier to talk about. Because it's like learning a new skill. You know, like the language thing if you start doing it, and you start with your verbs, and you're, you know, a couple of the hat Boser and things like that actually gives you some of the skills that you can keep building so that when somebody came to you with a problem, or when you were faced with a trauma like suicide loss, you suddenly had a little bit more of a skill set, to talk to cry to do all of those things that is, you know, very powerful for stopping mental health deterioration.
Yiuwin Tsang
Thank you for listening to this week's podcast and a massive thank you to Amelia Wrighton from Suicide & Co. Thank you for joining us for this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk