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For my dad,
Peter Matthew Rogers:
May your soul and spirit fly into the mystic
PREFACE
This book is the product of working inside and alongside businesses for the last 20 years. But it's not just my career experience that I've poured into the book, it's also my personal experience. I've seen what a lack of ‘mental fitness’ and even basic mental health can do to people. I grew up in a small fishing village in the north of Ireland where thinking about your thoughts, emotions, or behaviours was not a done thing (still isn't). I was a teenager during ‘the troubles’ where bombs and shootings were a routine part of life. Self-actualising, or any form of personal or professional development, was not generally on the top of people's lists, nor was mental and emotional well-being. But people fought, they believed that more was possible, that what you had wasn't all that there was. There was always hope.
My childhood was idyllic. My two brothers and I spent our days outside exploring, climbing trees, swimming in the sea, building makeshift huts, plotting against imaginary foes, inventing submarines, and flying go-karts. Yet, at the age of 11, I distinctly remember my twin brother, Johnny, slipping into a form of childhood depression which lasted for a year or so. There were many potentially contributing factors; reflecting on it today he believes it was because academically he was a square block being forced into a round hole. It was also the first year we had ever been separated (as I went to an all-girls secondary school at 11). The teacher who told him he was ‘only good enough to build walls in the mountains’ didn't help either. Small and not so small things can have a disproportionate impact on our life. One single comment can impact our belief in our capabilities and subsequently our performance, if we let it. But it was my parents' firm belief in him and his own inner resolve that saw him through that period.
My mum and our older brother Naithin were determined to find him something practical to focus on (none of us are what you would call ‘natural academics’). Naithin discovered a film and photography course and, even though it was miles away, my mum drove Johnny there every day. It was this course that gave him a glimmer of hope, a chance to do something practical instead of theoretical like most of what is offered in academia. He flourished. Today he is one of the most successful people I know. He's a wildlife cameraman and has travelled the four corners of the world, working on natural history documentaries like One Strange Rock, Earth's Natural Wonders, and Blue Planet for the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, Netflix, and Apple TV. You name it, he's done it. He could have easily fallen through the cracks. Many of my friends and family (including myself) have experienced a mental or emotional challenge at some point in our lives, one that has had an impact on how we show up in life and work. You have too.
How do I know? Because you have a mind, and you know very little about it. Besides, if you met someone who told you they had never ever had any form of physical illness in their life, not even a cold, would you believe them? Of course not. It's the same for our emotional and mental well-being. But I don't want to focus on how and where things go wrong. I want to focus on how and where we can set ourselves up for success.
I've spent much of my life in despair at how little is done to enhance, strengthen, and leverage our inner resources, and how little is even known by the general public about our ‘inner game’. I'm on a mission to change that, because the knowledge, the exercises, and the tools all exist. They are just not easily accessible or packaged in a way that is engaging, practical and, dare I say it, enjoyable!
That changes with this book.
My business, Symbia (www.symbiapartners.com), has been working in this space for the last decade. We work with senior leaders and their teams at Unilever, Coca-Cola, L'Oréal, Mondelez, and many more. Our company vision is to positively impact the lives of one million people in the next 3yrs, and we are on track to achieve that. Everything we do is based on the belief that there is untapped potential in everyone. We are our own brakes and our own accelerators. I've spent years shaking and waking people up to their limiting beliefs, the thinking traps in their minds, the emotional patterns playing out in their lives. If we only knew a fraction as much about our minds as we do about our washing machines, we'd be laughing!
In this book, I've sought to curate and blend a number of schools of thought from neuropsychology, behavioural economics, emotional and social intelligence, positive psychology, and so on. I've packaged it in an ‘easy-to-grasp’ way and brought it to life with real-life case studies, data, anecdotes, and stories from my life and my work. My career began in qualitative and quantitative research; as such, I've interviewed tens of thousands of people over the last 20 years. Every project we work on for our clients starts with a diagnostic phase. Therefore, we have gathered a lot of insight and can see the macro patterns and trends playing out in the companies we work with. I've weaved that insight into the book so you can see how the viewpoints are validated.
It's worth saying though, that I'm not coming to you as an expert, I'm here as a fellow human. I'm championing Mental Fitness because I truly believe in it, because I've had to practise it and rely on it as a way of life. Like you, I'm not immune to life's challenges; life throws us all curveballs, no one can change that.