#WorldMentalHeathDay: Strong Organizations Prioritize Mental Health

The World Health Organization has determined that we are in “a global mental health crisis, fueling short- and long-term stresses and undermining the mental health of millions.”?

Since 1992, 10 October has been designated?World Mental Health Day ?— a global advocacy program created to raise awareness about mental health and mobilize efforts to support those experiencing mental health issues. To recognize Mental Health Day, YPO spoke with two insightful thought leaders — Janine Grainger, Chief Executive Officer at?Easy Crypto ?and Daniel McCarthy, Chief Executive Officer at?Mobile Mentor Ltd ?— about the benefits of being stewards of mental health in the workplace. They also shared their own experiences with mental health struggles.?

Mentally Fit Leadership?

According to a recent study on stigma, one of the biggest challenges around mental health is the deep-rooted stigma around it. While the public accepts the reality of a medical or genetic health disorder, a mental disorder is often dismissed.?

“We don't have the language to describe our mental health like we do our physical health,” says McCarthy. “We don't know how to speak about it or how to recognize it, so we don’t know how to deal with it.”?

This domino effect can have serious repercussions on our overall health — studies show that physical and mental well‐being have a major impact on one another and that no physical disease should be viewed in isolation from potential mental issues.?

“We need mental fitness the same way we need physical fitness to handle stress,” McCarthy continues. “That’s what most of us are missing, exercising our minds and learning how to keep them healthy. When I took on my current role nearly six years ago, one of the fundamental things I focused on was creating a culture of psychological safety, which you can only do if you are open and transparent yourself.”?

For McCarthy, that meant weekly staff updates in which he openly discussed his wins and losses — how a meeting didn't go as well as he’d hoped, how his kids, home from school on vacation were wreaking havoc with his time … and that was pre-COVID-19.?

“Once COVID hit, we really saw the benefits, because people were looking for safe places to be,” says McCarthy. “The world was a dangerous place and people felt safe being at work.”??

Paying Mental Health Forward?“If you're looking after your staff, they will look after your customers, and your customers will keep the shareholders happy,” says Grainger. “If you're not starting with your staff, you've got all the priorities wrong.”?

“If you're not starting with your staff, you've got all the priorities wrong.”?

Grainger, who started Easy Crypto in 2018, was intent on protecting their culture of “we care” and “we're human” as they grew. And they grew fast — from an initial staff of six, to 20 during COVID-19, to more than 100 over the past 18 months.?

“Relatively early on, we realized we had a culture that was really worth protecting,” says Grainger. “We wanted to make sure that it remained as we became a bigger company and that our values were actually alive and not just posters on the wall.”?

For Grainger, those values were based on past experiences, years of not feeling mentally healthy herself.?

“I was a middle-rung employee for a long time and had huge workload expectations from leadership,” Grainger recalled. “We were rewarded if we were online at 2 a.m. and were expected to give up our nights and weekends. But no one never thought of giving the time back. The work/life balance only moved in one direction which was really unhealthy and not sustainable.”?

But mental health in an organization is not only the purview of leadership. Employees at Easy Crypto are given unlimited "wellbeing days," empowering each and every staff member to define their own work/life balance.?

“We need to recognize that people don't work 9-5 anymore,” says Grainger. “There are ebbs and flows and a lot of our staff go above and beyond when they’re on deadlines … we want them to have full control over when they take time for themselves.”?

The kind of trust has engendered significant bonds across the organization.?

“I see people really looking out for each other now,” says Grainger. “It’s great to see them taking action, because it’s not just for employers. I think considering the mental health of others is something that employees need to practice as well.”?

“I’m going to use rugby as an analogy,” adds McCarthy. “If you turn up on the field with a torn tendon and you don’t tell your teammates, how’s that going to work for the game? If you aren’t able to function because you are struggling mentally and nobody knows, you're doing everyone a disservice. You want to make sure your whole team is fit and ready for the battle!”?

Telling Mental Health Stories?

The stigma around mental health has made those suffering from it, suffer in secrecy. The more stories we share about our challenges, the more those challenges become normalized and the healthier our world will collectively become.?

“I struggled with depression for many, many years and never wanted to take medication because I felt like there was a stigma around it,” shares Grainger. “I tried different things — meditation, exercise, changing my diet — nothing helped. One day my friend reminded me, ‘You've been saying for years you'd try medication if nothing else worked.’”?

Grainger started taking medication in 2020 and she says, “It immediately made a big difference in my life.” Which didn’t mean life became a bowl of sunshine. Taking medication is still mentally challenging for Grainger, but now she has the tools and the support to manage it.?

“Whenever I talk about it with my partner, he reminds me that he takes medication for his cholesterol, I take something for my brain, it’s no different,” Grainger says. “It's not an unusual analogy, but for someone struggling with their mental health, it really helps normalize it.”?

It wasn’t until later in life that McCarthy came face-to-face with the effects of an untreated mental illness.?

“My father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his mid-50s after a major psychotic episode,” McCarthy shares. “I saw firsthand the effects of mental illness on someone I love and understood that it was not a ‘weakness,’ but as real as a physical illness and just as destructive and painful.”?

And that destruction and pain, as McCarthy explains, affected generations.?

“I came to understand the mental and physical toll my dad’s illness took on my mother over the 30+ years it went undiagnosed,” he says. “I often think how different their lives and our family life would have been if my dad had received treatment in his 20s and lived a mentally healthier life.”?

The conversation makes McCarthy recall something a friend told him the other day — that the role of parents is to model good mental hygiene.?

“And I thought, wow, yeah, that's a really good point,” he says. “Just like my kids see me coming home from my 6:30 a.m. swim, they need to see me model my mental well-being. We need to give the next generation the tools, the attention and the intelligence to deal with mental health differently in the 21st century.”

About the Author:

Deborah Stoll’s first book, Unvarnished, was published by Harper Collins, June 2020. Her second book, Drop In, is forthcoming from Harper Collins, Spring 2024. Stoll’s work as a journalist has appeared in the LA Times, The Economist, LA Weekly, SF Chronicle and Punch Drink; as a musician, her songs have been featured on American Idol, Glee, Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars and in Ralph Lauren campaigns. Connect with Deborah?here .