46 min
Rob Stephenson on smashing the mental health stigma | BCP010 COACH/LEAD™ with Sehaam Cyrene
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- Management
My guest today is Rob Stephenson, a mental health campaigner. He’s the creator of FormScore that helps you work out how well you’re feeling, and he’s about to pull off the first global 24 hour mental health virtual summit — by the time you listen to this episode he should be fully recovered!Rob has his own story of mental ill-health which he shared with me and what’s remarkable is that he only recently came clean about what he spent so many years hiding from people he worked with. Once he accepted his condition and found a way to talk about it, he felt a burden lift -- he says being open about it is by no means a cure but it certainly relieved the burden of keeping it a secret.He’s campaigning for change about attitudes and support for mental health — he wants to smash the stigma and he’s enlisting the help of senior leaders, some of whom he invites to be listed on LeaderBoard, an annual list of leaders who are open about their experience with mental ill-health.So, I was curious about how his conversations sound, what they look and feel like. He describes himself as a strong man who has learned to be open and authentic and to talk about his vulnerability in a way that is disarming and gives others permission to share their struggles too.One of my questions was what he would say to leaders who would like to demonstrate the same vulnerability that he has found but are apprehensive about how that might change other people’s perception of them and another question was how well equipped he believes our teenagers may be in expressing their emotions ...but I began first by asking Rob who he needs to influence on the mental health agenda.To connect with Rob Stephenson, check him out on LinkedIn, InsideOut for the LeaderBoard, and FormScore is here.Click here for more episodes of Better Conversations with Sehaam Cyrene.
My guest today is Rob Stephenson, a mental health campaigner. He’s the creator of FormScore that helps you work out how well you’re feeling, and he’s about to pull off the first global 24 hour mental health virtual summit — by the time you listen to this episode he should be fully recovered!Rob has his own story of mental ill-health which he shared with me and what’s remarkable is that he only recently came clean about what he spent so many years hiding from people he worked with. Once he accepted his condition and found a way to talk about it, he felt a burden lift -- he says being open about it is by no means a cure but it certainly relieved the burden of keeping it a secret.He’s campaigning for change about attitudes and support for mental health — he wants to smash the stigma and he’s enlisting the help of senior leaders, some of whom he invites to be listed on LeaderBoard, an annual list of leaders who are open about their experience with mental ill-health.So, I was curious about how his conversations sound, what they look and feel like. He describes himself as a strong man who has learned to be open and authentic and to talk about his vulnerability in a way that is disarming and gives others permission to share their struggles too.One of my questions was what he would say to leaders who would like to demonstrate the same vulnerability that he has found but are apprehensive about how that might change other people’s perception of them and another question was how well equipped he believes our teenagers may be in expressing their emotions ...but I began first by asking Rob who he needs to influence on the mental health agenda.To connect with Rob Stephenson, check him out on LinkedIn, InsideOut for the LeaderBoard, and FormScore is here.Click here for more episodes of Better Conversations with Sehaam Cyrene.
46 min