The Just Checking In Podcast
The Just Checking In Podcast is another step in VENT’s mission to give people a voice, change the conversation around mental health and provide an outlet where everyone, but especially men and boys, can express themselves. In each pod we check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health as well as anything and everything else they're passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we'll discuss it!
The Just Checking In Podcast
JCIP #373 - Sarah Roberts
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In episode 373 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Sarah Roberts.
Sarah is a communications professional and has over 25 years of experience in global communications and business strategy.
She is currently Senior Managing Partner at PR agency Vane Percy & Roberts, which she co-founded, and is also Executive Director of Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute (RGHI).
We came across Sarah through a LinkedIn post she published after she attended the Women’s Business Forum at the Institute of Directors (IoD). In that post, she questioned the echo chamber nature of the event, how male and female relationships in the workplace can improve, and highlighted how the glass ceiling is not always held up by men in powerful positions, but women too.
She also opened up a conversation about the difficulties men face in the workplace in the post-Me-Too era.
In this episode we discuss Sarah’s professional journey, how she balances holding the very senior dual roles she has today, her views on men and women in the workplace, and what needs to change to facilitate better conversations, without fear of reprisal.
For Sarah’s mental health journey, we discuss burnout she experienced in the second half of 2024 and the unresolved trauma which was the trigger for it, including a miscarriage she had gone through earlier in her life and the death of her father-in-law.
We finish by discussing the death of her father, who died in February 2026, his life, her relationship with him and how its forced her to rediscover who she is and what she stands for.
As always, #itsokaytovent
Support Us:
Trigger warning. This podcast contains a deep discussion about grief and loss, which some listeners may find distressing or upsetting. So please listen with caution. Hi Venters, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is Sarah Roberts. Sarah is a communications professional and has over 25 years of experience in global communications and business strategy. She is currently senior managing partner at PR agency Vane Percy and Roberts, which she co-founded, and is also executive director of Wreckett Global Hygiene Institute or RGHI. I came across Sarah through a LinkedIn post she did after she attended the Women's Business Forum at the Institute of Directors. In that post, she questioned the echo chamber nature of the event, how male and female relationships in the workplace can improve, and also highlighted how the glass ceiling is not always held up by men in powerful positions, but women too. She also opened up a conversation about the difficulties men face in the workplace in the post-Me Too era, where some may feel that one misplaced comment or wrong move can result in being disciplined by HR or even cost them their job. For me, it was refreshing to see a woman in Sarah's position build bridges through her words and not adhere to the lazy stereotypes about men's mental health or demonize men either. In this episode, we discuss Sarah's professional journey, how she balances holding the very senior dual roles she has today, her views on men and women in the workplace, and what needs to change to facilitate better conversations without fear of reprisal. For Sarah's mental health journey, we discuss burnout she experienced in the second half of 2024, the unresolved trauma which was the trigger for it, including a miscarriage she had gone through early in her life, and the death of her father-in-law. Fitting with this idea that anyone can be a barrier to success, when she went to see her GP, her female GP was very dismissive of her when she disclosed what was going on, and it was thanks to her husband who gave her the support and encouragement to disclose again and seek professional support privately instead. We finished by discussing the death of Sarah's father, who sadly died in February 2026. His life, her relationship with him, and how it's forced her to rediscover who she is and what she stands for. So this is how my conversation with Sarah Roberts went. Sarah, welcome to the Just Check In Pod. Thank you so much for letting me check in with you. When I came across your fantastic LinkedIn post, I knew your viewpoint and men's mental health aligned with what I believe here at Vent and the podcast, and we had a lovely chat off-air. How are you on this Saturday morning?
SPEAKER_00I'm great, thank you. Yeah, it's lovely to be here too. So thanks for inviting me. The sun's shining, which helps, doesn't it? And I think that connects quite nicely to mental health. I think, you know, the sun shining, birds singing, all good mental health things, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've realized I'm really not built for this weather, as is the country. So I'm looking forward to sort of 20 to 22 degrees going forward. We have got lots of exciting things to talk about, and any conversation I have on this podcast is unfiltered and authentic. So without further ado, are you ready to start the show and talk all about your amazing journey?
SPEAKER_00I absolutely am. Let's do this.
SPEAKER_02We're going to start your podcast, Sarah, by talking about your professional journey. So I'm sorry to reveal your age, but take me back to the beginning if you can. It's the late 90s. You graduate from university, you've already done some work at a communications agency during that period to get yourself on the ladder, and you get straight onto the corporate ladder full-time. You must have been pretty talented to do this because you joined Saarchi and Saarchi, very prestigious, and the health arm of their consultancy. How did that come about and why comms in the first place?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I guess I think you could say I've probably always been really determined. I wasn't somebody that necessarily had this sort of grand master plan, you know, didn't have my life all laid out, but I guess I was curious, ambitious, willing to work hard when opportunities came along. And I think communications has always appealed to me because you know it sits at the intersection of people, ideas, influence. And even back then, as a much younger individual, I think I was just fascinated. Why do some messages really land? Why do they resonate? Why does some brands, organisations build trust? And why don't others? What's the difference with that? So when I was at university, as you mentioned, I was really lucky to be given a scholarship at communications agency, and that gave me real insight into the profession. It was something that I felt really passionate about. I love the pace, I love the fact that no two days were the same, and it just really suited how my brain worked. And the agency that I was given the scholarship at had the opportunity to partner with Saarchi and Saatchi. So that was a fantastic timing that aligned with me graduating. And I think, you know, looking back in my early 20s, I was probably too young, too naive to be terrified, and instead was just genuinely really, really excited. It was a great place to sort of start my career. It was full of really smart people, high expectations, and I possibly look back on it a little bit sort of romantically, but it did really feel like a sort of a Netflix drama about agents of life. You know, it really was. It was fast-paced, it was exuberant, it was glamorous. It was fantastic. But I think what sat behind that glamour was, you know, you had to think quickly, work hard, continuously develop. You really had to step up. And I think what I didn't realise at the time was many of the themes would continue to define my career, you know, understanding people, navigating complexity, helping organizations communicate and build trust. And so, yeah, more than 25 years later, you know, they're the things that genuinely still motivate me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, hopefully a Netflix drama like Drive to Survive rather than Devil Wears Pride. But we might get we might get to the latter in a bit. You then join an organization called Vane Percy and Associates, and then you set up a new business with your previous boss, the company rebrands as Vane Percy and Roberts, with your name in the headline, like Broadway, like the West End, very prestigious. How did that come about, first of all, and what services does the business offer? And how did you decide whose name went first on that company name as well?
SPEAKER_00That's interesting. Yeah, so Simon, my now business partner, ran Vane Percy and Associates, and that was the agency that actually gave me the scholarship and that I went to Sartheets with. And that really links really nicely, I think, to the sort of theme of this podcast, because Simon, my now business partner, has always been someone incredibly kind and supportive. I think, you know, when I joined the business, I was 17 years old, probably knew far less than I anticipated I did. And you know, Simon's continued to be one of the most important mentors in my career. And I think what made him such a fantastic mentor was that he was so willing to tolerate my curiosity. You know, I always wanted to know how things worked. I wanted to be involved in everything. I was forever asking questions, looking for opportunities to learn. And, you know, what was fantastic was rather than seeing that as annoying, he genuinely really encouraged it. And so over time, our working relationship has evolved into a genuine partnership. We share similar values around clients, the quality of work that we want to deliver and the kind of work that we want to do. 32 years later, we're still working together, which I think says a lot about both of us. And I think that's one of the things I really learned from Simon that good leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's also about creating space for others to grow. And that's what he genuinely allowed me to do. So today, Lane Percy and Roberts, we're a strategic consultancy. We primarily work with senior leadership. We help them and their teams navigate sort of change, reputation, stakeholder engagement, but ultimately for growth. That's what sits behind all what we do. And I think a lot of our work is helping organizations communicate or communicate more effectively, particularly when the stakes are high, and that can be internally, externally, or sort of both. And I think the funny thing is that over that period, you know, the industry, the products have changed a lot, but the essence of what we do hasn't. I think what sits at the heart of communications is people and it's trust. And with regards whose name went first, I think to be fair, that was never really a discussion. I think you know, Simon had founded the business, more importantly, had given me an opportunity to prove myself. He took a chance on me, you know, he sort of invested in me and helped me grow professionally. So I'll be honest, at the time I was just genuinely delighted to have my name on the door, whether it went first, last, or anywhere else, you know.
SPEAKER_02You spoke earlier there about challenges, right? So can you give me an example of a challenge that you worked together on and overcame, and also what you learned from it as a result?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess I think this links really about once again the essence of this podcast and around mental health. I think my instinct has always been to push through, to fix things, to keep moving. And I think you know that's a useful trait in many situations and something, a trait that Simon and I both share. But I think for me, when it became a problem, he was genuinely there to support me. He understood we operate in a really fast-paced world. Simon and I both share the same trait as well, that we're both doers. And so whilst we lead the organization, we do far too much. So we, you know, we both operate in a really fast-paced business, but in the same way that he'd always been willing to sort of support me professionally, he was also willing to create space personally as well. So I think, you know, when some of the mental health challenges I think what I started to do was I confuse resilience with endurance, and they're not the same thing. And I think as that started to switch, he became somebody very easy to talk to. So I think we've gone through many, many professional challenges, but for me that was really the most profound and defining of our relationship.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like you were really fortunate to encounter Simon and have that mentorship for such a long period of time. And although communications now is is a sector, and I can speak from personal experience because I'm I'm also a communications professional, it does tend to skew more female-dominated. I imagine in the mid-90s it wasn't, and there wasn't a lot of female senior leaders in plays either. So, how have you seen that growth and progression in the workplace in the last 20 to 25 years?
SPEAKER_00It's funny, isn't it? Because I've never really viewed my career through the lens of gender. I was reflecting on this. I'm not sure if that's deliberate or just how I'm built, to be honest with you. And I think, you know, that's not because gender isn't important or because barriers haven't existed, but I think it's simply that I've always just been more focused on the job in front of me and proving that I'm capable to do it, regardless of what my gender is. But you're right, when I first started out, particularly in Saarchis, the leadership teams were most definitely more male dominated. And I think, you know, reverting back to that sort of Netflix drama analogy, there were certainly dynamics that existed within Saatchis that reflected the culture of the time. But I'll be honest, you know, I never really looked at the environment and thought, gosh, you know, how on earth do I succeed as a woman in this place? I was always really determined to say, what how do I get so good at what I do that I can't be ignored? You know, that was always the lens that I wanted to throw on it. And that's been interestingly, as communications has shifted to become far more predominantly female. I think that's one of the things that I've reflected on more recently is that workplace dynamics are never as simple as men versus women. And that's what we've got to be really careful with, you know, that we start to believe and adopt a narrative without really scrutinizing it for what it is. You know, and as I've already mentioned, you know, talking about Simon, some of the most supportive people in my career have been men. You know, my business partner, the person that gave me the opportunity was a man. And I think equally, some of the more challenging experiences I've had professionally have involved women. That's not a criticism, and that's not me looking to sort of challenge the situation. It's simply an observation that actually people are people, you know, support, kindness, competitiveness, insecurity. These are all qualities that aren't owned by one gender. You know, and I like what's changed significantly, regardless of the gender piece, is that we're all actually willing to have more open conversations about flexibility and well-being, and also caregiving responsibilities. And I think that's been hugely positive. And I think the biggest progress for me isn't simply that there are more women in leadership positions, it's that we're actively starting to challenge some of the assumptions about what leadership should look like in the first place, you know, because the old model absolutely wasn't serving women particularly well. But if we're honest, it wasn't serving men particularly well either. And I think you know, that's why these conversations are most useful when they're about creating better workplaces for everyone, rather than simply reducing it to a battle between men and women.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very much so. And although there's still issues with maternity pay, we're seeing a lot of progress and change now with paternity leave and paternity pay, organization like the Dad Shift. I've had previous guests on George Gabriel, who's leading that movement, which is great to see and great to hear. Before we talk about the reason I came across you, you also, as well as everything else you do, you also took on the role of executive director of the Wreck It Global Hygiene Institute, bit of a mouthful, where you took on the role of director of external relations there. How did that come about? What does the institute do? And how on earth do you balance these two roles? Because that's quite a lot to do.
SPEAKER_00That's very true. And yeah, and I think interestingly, you know, the length of the name there is why we often shorten it to RGHI. But yeah, I think RGHI is actually a really good example of how closely Simon and I work with our clients, but also how varied my career has been. As he mentioned, so I started initially working with RGHI as the director of external relations, helping to shape its sort of stakeholder engagement, its broader strategy. But over time I became sort of increasingly involved with the organisation itself. And I was, you know, really chuffed when the board approached me and asked if I'd be willing to take on the executive director role. They were looking for a change of leadership and offered me the position. So it wasn't something I'd planned, but it was an opportunity that I found incredibly compelling. The first six months were probably some of the most challenging of my career. I think I do suffer a little bit with, yeah, I can do this, you know, without thinking about the consequences.
SPEAKER_02So it was a Catherine Tate sketch about that. I can do that, I can do that.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And that is me, yeah, much to my husband's dismay on regular occasions, you know. But basically what we did was we, in simple terms, we knocked the organization down and we built it back up again. We reviewed the strategy, the governance, the operations, the policies, the processes, the ways of working, everything. And it was challenging. It required some really difficult decisions. You know, we had to make some quite significant operational changes, but it was also genuinely really rewarding because the result of the work meant that we were building something that was ultimately stronger and more sustainable as a result. So RGHI is an independent research funder focused on hygiene, and the mission is to strengthen the evidence base around hygiene and support research that can improve health outcomes around the world. I think you know, in its simplest terms, COVID is a really good example. There was all these sort of hygiene behaviour mandates, wear a mask, stand this far away from people. But the challenge with those is there wasn't a lot of evidence underpinning those mandates. They were easy to dismiss. So, in really simple terms, that's a lot of what RGHI does. In terms of how I balanced it, I'm not sure I completely mastered that, if I'm honest. I think the subject matter was different, but a lot of the skill sets were the same. You know, both roles required strategic thinking, stakeholder management, the ability to navigate complexity. So there was a lot of overlap. But I think what I hadn't anticipated wasn't the work itself, it was the mentally switching between the two. And I think, yeah, I hadn't quite anticipated the pace at which I would need to go at that role. But I'll be honest, you know, I genuinely enjoyed the diversity. Now we're at the other end, you know, it's actually something that I'm genuinely really, really proud of.
SPEAKER_02Let's come to the reason we're chatting today, which was your amazing LinkedIn post after you attended something called the Women's Business Forum, which was held at the Institute of Directors or IOD. It's in West London near Parliament. Tell me why you felt compelled to write it in the first place before I dive into the piece itself and some of the issues that you discussed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so as you mentioned, so it was a women's leadership conference at the IOD. It was talking about, you know, the challenges that women face in business, how the workplace environments aren't particularly supportive to women, the glass ceiling, etc. etc. And what really struck me was it was only women in the room. I just had a real issue with that. I thought, how can we ever change things if we are simply preaching to the converted? And there were some really successful women sitting on the panel talking about the challenges that they'd had. But I think the bit that struck me was well, if men genuinely hold power, if the glass ceiling does exist, and don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting it doesn't, but the reflection was but in order for these women and everyone in the audience to have succeeded, they must have come across some men that were willing to support them. Otherwise, you know, we would have all been held back. None of us would have been in leadership positions. It just struck me as such a missed opportunity that instead of inviting men into the room, men that felt the same, men that were supportive of the content, we were kind of just talking to ourselves. And as the day went on, I struggled with what the output and the outcome of that meeting could possibly be when, like I say, we were simply preaching to converted.
SPEAKER_02Did you feel like it was binary then? Or maybe not consciously, but subconsciously placing the idea that if any woman was held back, it was because of a man, and therefore we need to be fighting back against this oppressor class, for example. And that's an extreme wording, but you know what I mean. Did it feel like that, or did it feel maybe less than that?
SPEAKER_00I don't think that was intentionally the thing.
SPEAKER_02Of course, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I think there is always that slight underlying narrative. You know, women have held back and we have to fight back, you know, and like I say, I just don't really endorse that approach. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02You win in a lot of other areas like education, women are smashing it right now. You can you can't win anymore.
SPEAKER_00And that's the reality, isn't it? You know, and I I think this is such a complex issue, and we are never gonna solve it just by, as I say, just preaching to the converted or talking to ourselves.
SPEAKER_02You said in the article, quote, we were told we could have it all somewhere along the way. I translated that into do it all. And we spoke earlier about, you know, believing that resilience was endurance and how you changed your mindset on that. But going deeper, this is something which has been talked about a lot in women's circles online, Sarah, as you know, particularly by someone called Lisa Britson, who's a huge and brilliant female advocate in the men's space. She wrote an article in Eevee magazine called They Lied to Us About Having It All and It's Costing Us Our Children. Very spicy, but very kind of pertinent for the times as well. How have you seen these two ideas coming into conflict, whereby there's the idea of you can have it all, whereas women are giving the advice to young women, which is like you can have it all, but you can't have it all at once, maybe is the more nuanced phrase.
SPEAKER_00I think that makes perfect sense. I think originally the phrase have it all was intended as liberation, and I think it was probably meant that women shouldn't have to choose between ambition, family, career, relationships, or whatever mattered to them. And that's really, really positive. I think the problems have occurred, at least for me, wasn't the message itself, but it was how I interpreted it. Somewhere along the way, I translated have it all to do it all. And let's be clear, that's not because anybody explicitly told me to, but I think many high-achieving individuals, men and women, have a tendency to turn opportunity into expectation. So instead of seeing choices, I just saw a growing list of responsibilities. So, you know, in my mind, I'll build the career, I'll be present for my family, I'll be dependable, I'll solve problems, I'll hold everything together. And I think what happens because I am a capable person, I think the problems occur because people let you. And I don't think that's an exclusively feel. Female experience, by the way. You know, I think a lot of men experience a version of the same thing, you know, the expectation to provide to achieve, to keep going, to be dependent on.
SPEAKER_02Especially in this economy, even more so, I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Most definitely. And I think, yeah, you know, the details may be different, but I think that pressure that we feel is remarkably similar. I think maybe where women have historically faced an additional challenge is many of those sort of traditional expectations around caregiving. And I think they didn't shift.
SPEAKER_02The motherhood penalty, for example. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Most definitely. So I think opportunities expanded, but those responsibilities didn't shift. So I think what sits at the heart of the problem is we added responsibilities, but we didn't remove others. So you know, I don't think the answer is to tell women they can't have successful careers, and I don't think it's to tell men they should carry less ambition. I think the answer is actually we all need to be so much more honest about the trade-offs. You know, nobody has everything all of the time. Your life moves through seasons. Sometimes your career needs you more, sometimes your family does, sometimes your health does. And I think the mistake I made was I believed I could, you know, just permanently operate at maximum capacity across every part of my life. And that's the bit that eventually caught up with me. So for me, the lesson wasn't that I couldn't have it all, it was that I couldn't do it all at once without a cost.
SPEAKER_02No, very much so. And there's also a social class element here whereby I've seen a lot of female commentators talking about the have it all argument or mantra in a binary way, kind of only applies to really a higher class of women, by which I mean kind of very rich who can afford extensive childcare, and they can have it all because they are upper middle class or upper class. That's a whole separate podcast as well. I've been doing this for nine years now, if you can believe that, Sarah, and I try not to be, but I get really annoyed when the mainstream talks about particularly young men in a very patronizing way, a very demonizing way. And you didn't do that, which I really loved about the post. You quoted a friend of yours who said in her speech that a significant proportion of young men believe feminism has gone too far. That is not something to dismiss. If young men feel marginalized rather than engaged, we are not building equality, we are building tension. And I loved that second line because instead of demonizing them for the perceived view, you advocated for engaging and listening to them. And this is something that my friends, Dr. Emily Setti, Dr. Sophie King Hill, all do amazing work on. Why did you make that choice? Because I think it would have been an easy one if you had fallen into the mainstream trap, right?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I I think that's exactly where we get into trouble because we get far too attached to a narrative. And I think if a significant younger of young men are telling us that they feel disconnected, marginalized, or that feminism has gone too far, you know, my instinct isn't to dismiss them. It's it's actually we need to be asking why. And, you know, that doesn't mean agreeing with every conclusion they reach. But I think if we don't understand how people are feeling, we have absolutely no chance of engaging with them constructively. And I think what concerned me about that statistic wasn't whether it was right or wrong, it was that it represented a feeling. I think feelings matter because they ultimately influence our behaviour. And if young men are feeling unheard, then they're going to go away and look for people who listen to them. And if the people willing to listen to them happen to be loudest or the most extreme voices, you know, we really shouldn't be surprised by the outcome. I also think the word feminism has become really complicated because I think if you ask women what they want, I don't think for the most part the answer is dominance or special treatment. It's simply about respect, opportunity, safety, and you know, the ability to be judged on merit rather than gender. And I think most sensible, reasonable people would probably support that. And I think, you know, somewhere along the line, this conversation has become really polarized with people feeling like they have to choose a side. You know, I don't think marginalizing young men is an adequate response to women feeling marginalized. And I think actually it's the complete opposite of what we're trying to achieve. That's what felt really uncomfortable to me about the IOD event. You know, we had a room full of intelligent, thoughtful women talking about what successful, yeah, yeah. Successful women, talking about workplace culture, and leadership. But I think the people we ultimately need to engage in those conversations weren't there. You don't change culture by excluding people from the discussion. You actually change culture by bringing people into it. And if young men tell us they're struggling, they're feeling confused, they're feeling disconnected, then surely our response should be curiosity, not condemnation. We don't build equality by creating groups of people who feel unheard. You know, we build it by widening the conversation. And I think that's true, whether we're talking about gender, mental health, politics, anything. You know, people rarely change their minds because they're being shouted at. They change their minds because they're being listened to.
SPEAKER_02We'll unpack that a little bit more in a second, but I put myself in these young men's shoes a lot, and this is not my own view. I always try and give as much empathy to them as I can because for the last 10 years, let's talk about post-UNILAD culture. So let's say 2015 onwards, right? Toxic masculinity has been the word they've been seeing everywhere. If they live in London, you've got adverts like staring is an offence, plastered across public transport. Netflix made a massive TV show I have lots of problems with. It's a separate podcast, which depicted a working class white boy murder his female classmate, a picture that's not just highly inaccurate in the statistics, depiction of incels, it's also inaccurate in Andrew Tate's audience, for example, but it's also been talked about by some as, you know, indicative of where men are at or young men are at. I completely disagree with that. At the same time, we talked about education, the worst performing school children are white working class boys, boys from traveller backgrounds, and black Caribbean working class boys. Women now form the majority of university graduates. None of this is women's fault, but you can see why some of them, not all, might start becoming pretty apathetic. And the recent discussion in the media at the moment, at time of recording, is about NET, right? So not in education, employment, or training. And I saw a very articulate young man, I think it was on channel four or somewhere else, talking about how we should actually change the word to wanting to be in education, employment, and training, because neat is actually almost like a stigmatizing, demonizing term. Lots to unpack there. How would you respond to that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, personally, I think it's completely possible to understand why young men are feeling the way they do. And, you know, I think it's important that we're able to say that without immediately being accused of every conclusion follows. Sometimes I do. I've heard it, I've had it all on this podcast. I'm sure. You know, and I think one of the things I've learned through my work in communications, and you know, to be honest, just frankly, through life, is that people rarely disengage because they feel understood. You know, they disengage because they feel unseen, unheard, or misrepresented. You know, if you're a young man growing up today, I can see that much of the conversation you encounter appears to focus on what's wrong with men, you know, rather than what young men themselves are actually experiencing. So I can totally understand why some become apathetic or just switch off. You know, and don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean the issues being discussed aren't real. It doesn't mean misogyny isn't real, and it doesn't mean women haven't faced barriers and inequalities. But I think human beings have a remarkable ability to stop listening when they feel they're being talked about rather than being talked to. And I think, you know, what worries me is that we sometimes respond to that by becoming more entrenched rather than becoming more curious. I've written before about, you know, Louis Threw's Inside the Manosphere documentary.
SPEAKER_02I have a lot of problems with that as well.
SPEAKER_00I I agree. And I think, you know, to me, some of what was being said there was deeply uncomfortable. But what I really had an issue with, and what interested me was not just the content, but it was why young men were finding it so compelling, you know. And I think the reason young men find things like that so compelling is generally, as humans, we're all searching for something, whether that's you know, belonging, identity, purpose, direction. And I think for these young men, if these needs aren't being met in healthy places, they'll often be met somewhere else. So for me, the question isn't whether young men should or shouldn't feel a certain way, it's whether we're willing to listen when they tell us how they feel, you know, and I think understanding isn't the same as agreeing. We can still have the space to disagree, but I think if we don't understand what's driving this apathy or this disengagement, we're never going to address it. And I think that principle applies to any group in society. I don't think it's just a gender thing. I think you know, people want to feel seen, feel heard, want to know that their experiences matter. And I don't think young men are any different in that.
SPEAKER_02100%. And, you know, in recent months, something which I've been speaking about, and my friend and author Freya India has been speaking about for a long time, which is the sphemosphere and this idea that there is an opposite to the manosphere in that there are female content creators and influencers who are giving women very, very harmful messaging. There's a very big example, a very, very famous podcaster which I won't name, but has merch such as Cheat on Him, which are t-shirts branded like that. And that is now being challenged in the mainstream, which I very much am appreciative of. But also, as I advocate for, we can't be demonizing the young women who have absorbed these messages. So maybe people need to think on about maybe, okay, if we're not demonising the young women who are absorbing these messages, maybe we need to stop demonising the young men who are absorbing the messages. So there you go. It's another separate podcast. I want to talk about the end of the piece here because you say, quote, I don't want to live in a world where a male colleague is nervous about supporting me. And it took me back to this article in Forwards magazine. It was a very long time ago in 2019, which is linked to it. And the piece said that it showed research by leanin.org, which showed that the number of senior men who are, quote, uncomfortable, mentoring women has more than tripled from five to 16% of male managers in the US now hesitant to mentor women. In Australia, similarly, 25% of men reported to feel nervous. Now, I remember at the time, it's a very long time ago, there was kind of a lot of responses saying, like, this is ridiculous. Why would men feel like this? It's not hard to not be a predator, all that sort of stuff, right? But what you said earlier in the podcast about feeling and exploring the feeling and not demonizing it. What's the answer here? How do we understand and build bridges better? Because if we don't, obviously this is a long time ago. Hopefully the picture has changed and improved. I don't know. But it's not going to be very good long term if we don't sort it out.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely not. And you know, for me, I think the answer starts with recognising that two things can be true at the same time. I think, you know, women can have legitimate concerns around inappropriate behaviour, harassment, discrimination, and also the fact that some men are feeling genuinely anxious about getting it wronged. And I think acknowledging one doesn't invalidate the other. I think what worries me is when the response to that becomes withdrawal. Because what happens if senior men, the men that hold the power, hold these leadership positions, actually stop mentoring women, stop sponsoring women, stop having career conversations with them. Isn't it then the women that lose out because they're no longer able to access that support? So I think, you know, the answer to this can't be disengagement. But to your point, similarly, it shouldn't be ridicule. You know, I think if a man is feeling nervous, my instinct isn't to mock them for feeling nervous. It's actually to ask why. What are you worried about? Where does the uncertainty come from? Because I think that's what happens. Most of us tend to withdraw from situations when they don't feel confident or clear to us. You know, we withdraw because we perceive risk. And that doesn't necessarily mean the risk is real, but I think the point is if it feels real to them, then it's worth talking about. It's worth understanding. And I think, you know, one of the mistakes we've made in some of these conversations is assuming that understanding someone's concern means agreeing with it. It doesn't. You know, I think understanding is simply the first step towards addressing it. And, you know, as I wrote in the post, you know, I want a workplace where people can support each other, mentor each other, challenge each other, develop each other, regardless of gender. I don't want a world where a really talented young woman misses out on mentorship because a male leader feels nervous about that. I also don't want a world where a decent man has to constantly second guess every interaction because you know neither of those outcomes feel healthy to me. I think, you know, the goal should be professional relationships built on trust, respect, transparency, and not fear. Because you know, fear rarely creates anything positive. It just creates distance as we're seeing. And I think, you know, understanding never grows when there's distance.
SPEAKER_02Before we reflect, at the time of recording, there was also a recently published report in March 2026 from the Center for Social Justice. They're a UK think tank. They tend to lean sort of centre-right or right-leaning, and they do a lot of great work. But they published a report, and they published a very, very good report, I should say, as well, which was a few months ago, called Lost Boys. I thought that was excellent. The new report was called Babybust, and in it it predicts around 600,000 young women may miss out on motherhood. They may not, but they may miss out. The reasons why, they included a range of factors. So one was the cost of childcare, one was wanting to move into a larger house. I think that's more of a housing issue, one was also prioritizing a career, and one was also not finding the right partner. However, they gave another reason, which was, quote, immature men. Now, as I said to you off air, I don't know about you, but if a report came out that said immature women are the reason they aren't becoming mothers, I think there would be a very different response, right?
SPEAKER_00I think there absolutely would. There'd be a bit of an uprising, wouldn't it? And you know, having worked a lot in the media, you see these statistics being used to frame an argument, to support an argument. You know, my instinct has always been to be cautious when these really complex societal issues are reduced to a single explanation or a single group of people, you know, immature men, career-focused women or other broad labels. And I think when those broad labels appear, we just need to be really, really careful. Because I think the reality is decisions around relationships, parenthood are incredibly complex. To your point, they're influenced by economics, housing, childcare, culture, health, confidence, timing. You know, I think your point is a fair one. And I agree with you. I think if the report had framed women in similarly broad terms, there would have been a significant discussion around the language that was being used, the assumptions that sit behind it, the appropriateness of it. And that doesn't mean there aren't legitimate conversations to be had around maturity, commitment, responsibility. Of course there are. But I think those conversations are much more productive when they're framed around behaviours rather than identities. What behaviours help build these strong relationships? What societal and economic factors are making these decisions harder? And to my mind, they're much more useful questions. You know, I think one thing that these reports miss is that many of these trends are actually affecting both men and women. It's not a singular issue. We're seeing people delay major life decisions for all sorts of reasons, and those pressures don't neatly sit within one gender. My concern isn't about applying the blame to men or women. I think it's just making sure that as society we continue to be curious, we continue to see what genuinely sits behind these things. So, you know, to my mind, I'd much rather ask people why they're delaying making these choices rather than assuming that we've already identified the villain and the case closed.
SPEAKER_02You know, coming back to the idea of men switching off, that report generated a lot of media coverage, and the headlines obviously went with how they did. And, you know, if I was a young man seeing that, I'd be like, right, okay, I'm getting blamed again, am I? For you know what I mean? So I think it doesn't improve the conversation. And obviously, the CSJ is not in charge of the media coverage, but that is obviously the result that's sadly been produced. When you posted it, obviously it's led to our conversation today. So hopefully that's one positive conversation. But what other feedback did you get from it? Any other positive conversations? Any good but challenging ones, maybe?
SPEAKER_00It was really good actually, and I've had some really thoughtful responses. And what I found really interesting was people didn't necessarily respond to the same part of the article, you know, different sections.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a lot in it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, different sections sort of resonated with different people. You know, I've had some conversations with men who felt actually quite relieved that somebody felt, you know, because to your point, I think it gets polarized, doesn't it? And we all jump on the bandwagon of this narrative, and you know, women are the suffragettes and men are the villains. And like I say, I'm always really cautious to say that isn't devaluing anybody's experience, but we can't assume it is the entire discussion. And I think, you know, I've had some really thoughtful conversations with women, particularly around the pressure to do it all. That opens some really nice conversations, particularly with my friends, you know. God, yeah, you know, I'm so exhausted from trying to spin all those plates. So that was nice. And I think that's what really pleased me about the post. It wasn't necessarily the content of those conversations, it was the fact that it started conversations like this one. And I think we have to be willing to engage and challenge and share experiences. We don't always have to nod along with each other because I think that's where value comes from. You know, I didn't write that post because I thought I had all the answers. I just thought there were some questions that were worth asking. And like I say, that's one of the things that sits at the heart of my career. Progress starts with curiosity. Because the moment we stop asking questions because we're afraid of the answers, or we're afraid we might complicate a narrative, that's when we stop learning. So the response to the post actually gave me some hope. Because I think despite how polarized some of these conversations can feel online, when you actually speak to people individually, most are much more thoughtful, nuanced, and open-minded than we sometimes give each other credit for. And I think that's really encouraging because if we're still prepared to listen to each other, there's still hope, there's still opportunity for progress.
SPEAKER_02Let's reflect on your professional journey now, Sarah. So, first of all, what's been your proudest achievement on it so far?
SPEAKER_00Gosh, I don't think I have won, to be honest with you. I mean, I think I'm incredibly proud of building a business that has endured more than three decades. You know, I'm really proud of being entrusted with the leadership of RGHI because that was something that I was offered, I didn't actively ask for. So that just made me really feel exceptionally proud that the work that I'd done had been recognised. But I think what I'm most proud of is probably the relationships. You know, the fact that Simon and I have worked together for over 30 years is huge. We have a really positive relationship founded on respect and trust, and that has endured three decades. So I'm incredibly proud of that. I'm proud of the clients who've trusted us repeatedly throughout our careers. We're really lucky to have a lot of longevity in the clients that we work with, you know, and I'm proud of the teams that I sit alongside because nobody is an island. This stuff gets done because we do it together. And I guess more recently, I'm really proud that I was willing to acknowledge that strength and vulnerability can coexist. You know, for a long time I thought being strong meant carrying everything yourself. I don't believe that anymore. And I think that's going to stand me in really good stead going forward. So that's probably my most important achievement, even though I'm not sure that sits on my CP. You know, that's something that that actually sits in my heart and I'll take forwards.
SPEAKER_02And finally, before we move on, what has this journey taught you about yourself?
SPEAKER_00Um I think it's taught me that I'm stronger than I perhaps gave myself credit for.
SPEAKER_02You have no idea how popular an answer that is on this podcast, Sarah.
SPEAKER_00I think when we are genuinely tested, you know, and our feet are being held to the fire, it's how we respond. And, you know, some days throughout the last couple of years, I have, you know, genuinely questioned, how am I going to get through this? How am I going to carry on? But I did. Every day I got up, I did what was needed. I think it's recognizing that strength and being present doesn't necessarily mean being the best that you possibly can be. It actually also means about being the best and giving the most that you've got to offer on any given day. And I think that's a really important nuance.
SPEAKER_02We've talked about your incredible professional journey, Sarah, and you've got lots more to achieve, obviously, with it too. Let's go deeper and talk about your own mental health journey. So I ask all my special guests on this topic this question first. Take me back to early life, teenage years, and looking back, were there any early mental health experiences? Who's the Sarah we meet here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think, you know, when I look back now with the benefit of hindsight, I think I can see that some of the traits that have shaped my adult life probably were there from the very beginning. You know, I think I've always had slightly overachieving tendencies. I like to be prepared, I like things to go well, and I think I've always carried a certain level of anxiety alongside that. You know, my mum will often tell stories about how I would become poorly as a child before big events, you know, birthdays, Christmas, things that should have been exciting. I think what sat at the heart of that was I was just getting worked up about everything being perfect, that maybe my body was reacting before I even understood what was happening. You know, I think at the time nobody would have described it as anxiety. It was just seen as me being poorly. But I think that's where our increased understanding of mental health nowadays actually helps. I mean, in my late teens, I think a really good example of that. In my late teens, I went through a period of quite severe panic attacks. And I think what was interesting was the focus was much more on the physical symptoms rather than what might have been driving them. You know, I I sort of often joke I I spent more time attached to an ECG back then than I did being asked about the feelings that were perhaps sitting behind and motivating those panic attacks. I think, you know, people, doctors were trying to work out what was physically wrong with me. When in reality there was a lot more going on emotionally and that I didn't yet have the language to understand. And I think that is why I'm so interested in the connection between mental and physical health now. Because when I look back, I think there's been a very consistent pattern. You know, when I'm carrying stress, anxiety, emotional pressure, my body tends to know before my mind is willing to acknowledge it. And I didn't understand that when I was younger, but I do now. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons my mental health journey has taught me that our minds and bodies, you know, they don't operate separately. They're constantly talking to each other. And I think the challenge is to listen or to learn to listen before one of them starts shouting at you.
SPEAKER_02We spoke earlier in the pod about juggling all these plates, right? And trying to do it all and learning how you don't need to do it all. But this came to a head in the second half of 2024. It carried on into the second half of 2025, which was burnout. So just tell me about the build-up to it, what maybe triggered it, what was the breaking point, for example, and how it impacted your mental health, and coming back to our previous answer, your physical health at the time too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think as with all of these things, it wasn't one dramatic moment. And I think that's what makes it really hard to understand because it creeps up so slowly. I think looking back now, the warning signs had been there for quite a while. A few years earlier, I'd been diagnosed with ME. But if I'm honest, I'd never really accepted it. I kind of couldn't quite overcome the feeling that it was failure. My body was failing me. And I think because my instinct has always been to push through, to keep going, you know, let's find a way around things rather than stopping and asking what my body is trying to tell me. So I think for me it was a gradual pattern of more illness, poorer quality, sleep, increasing fatigue, and just this level of anxiety that seemed to gather momentum. I think, you know, at the time I was taking on more responsibility, I was stepping into the role at RGHI, running the agency. And I think none of those things felt unmanageable individually. I think for me, the problem was that I just kept treating every new challenge as something to be absorbed rather than something that needed to be balanced. So I think for a long time, adrenaline and purpose sort of described what was happening. And I think the difficulty in recognizing it, and particularly for other people recognizing it, is I was still functioning, I was still delivering, I was still showing up. So I had to be fine. You know, there couldn't be anything wrong with me because I was still doing all these things. But I guess the bit that I hadn't noticed was underneath I was becoming depleted, you know, my sleep became worse, my appetite disappeared, anxiety levels increased, and as I've mentioned, I was becoming sort of frequently unwell. And I think unfortunately, because I've always been the doer and the fixer, and I'm acutely conscious of the people that rely on me. My response for some bizarre reason now, when I reflect on it, but my response was just keep pushing, keep working harder. And funnily enough, that wasn't a particularly effective strategy. And I think for me, a real lesson was that burnout, in my case, didn't arrive as a sudden collapse. It was a gradual process of me becoming disconnected from my own needs while still remaining highly responsive to everybody else's. What I found really sad is that the irony is I would have probably spotted these signs in someone else immediately. But for me, recognizing them in myself just was much harder. And I think that's often the way with people who are used to carrying responsibility. You know, you become really good at looking after everybody else, but you just forget yourself on that list.
SPEAKER_02You said earlier that there wasn't one trigger moment, right? But there were two traumatic events which you went through which were contributing factors, which was a miscarriage you experienced and also the death of your father-in-law. These are two very different types of grief, Sarah. I can never imagine what it's like to go through a miscarriage, for example, but I know what it's like to go through grief for loved ones. How did they combine to create, in your words, off-air, a tsunami?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as you've mentioned, it just opened up this tsunami of grief. I think, much like everything else I've just described, I dealt with the loss of our baby in the same way that I deal with everything else. I gave myself a finite, limited amount of time to process it, and then I cracked on. I think what I hadn't appreciated is that I hadn't dealt with it, nor had I processed it. I'd simply buried it.
SPEAKER_02There's no ticking clock on grief. I know people try to put it on you, but there's no ticking clock on grief, is there?
SPEAKER_00There absolutely isn't. And I think the death of my father-in-law brought up so many unprocessed emotions. And, you know, don't get me wrong, the death of my father-in-law was devastating in its own right. My husband and I have been together since we were 17. So my father-in-law had been part of my life for all of my adult years. You know, we were really close, we shared the same sense of humour. You know, it was it was always me and him, Arthur. Arthur sort of giggling at some silly joke. And I think it all got wrapped up in my need to care for and look after people as well, because I think watching what his loss did to my husband and my mother-in-law was also incredibly difficult. And I think, you know, I've always been quite an empathetic person, probably sometimes too empathetic. And I don't just recognise other people's pain, you know, I genuinely absorb it. So I was grieving him, I was trying to process how it connected to how I felt about the loss of our child, and I was also trying to look after other people as well. And I think grief doesn't respect boundaries. I think when my father-in-law died, it was though it opened something that I'd kept locked away. Like I say, you know, the grief that I'd carried for him became entangled with the grief that I'd carried for our child, and it just suddenly started feeling really overwhelming and actually quite frightening. And when I look back now, how much of what I was going through I hid initially. You know, I was having nightmares. I was having these really weird dreams about my father-in-law, and in those dreams, he was often with our angel baby, as we call them. And those dreams should have felt comforting, but they didn't. They were frightening and they were upsetting, and I'd wake up feeling really emotional and unsettled. And I think it was my mind's way of trying to process things that I'd actually spent years avoiding. You know, I'd become really good at functioning, really good at carrying on, really good at putting these traumatic experiences into neat little boxes and just carrying on. But I think one thing that I learned was grief doesn't stay where you leave it. You know, eventually it needs to be acknowledged. And I think that tsunami that I felt wasn't one single thing. It was multiple layers of grief all arriving at the same time. And I wasn't just grieving the loss of my father-in-law, I was grieving things that I'd never allowed myself to grieve in the past as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, you spoke earlier about being a doer and a fixer and wanting to solve things. And you took that in a positive way yourself because you took these proactive steps to try and tackle the grief, tackle what you were going through. You go to see your GP. And again, coming back to what we spoke earlier about with breaking stereotypes and they're not being this one size view-all, shall we say? Unfortunately, your female GP was quite dismissive of your mental health issues and she actually added to the shame you felt.
SPEAKER_00Did that shock you? It really did. And I think it was so tough because, you know, not that I'd expected any sort of special treatment, but just because of the courage that it had taken me to get to that appointment, I was so worried that the moment that I asked for help, it meant that everything came crumbling down. At that point in time, I was coping, I was functioning, I was dealing with it. My head was a mess, but that was fine because I was dealing with it. Asking for help also doesn't come naturally for me. So making that GP appointment and walking into that room took a huge amount of courage. And I think what has stayed with me was a phrase that she used. So I opened up to her about how I was feeling, and she looked at me relatively dismissively and said, Well, we all get down sometimes, don't we? Now, objectively, there's truth in that statement. Yes, we do all get down sometimes, but I think when somebody has found the courage to finally say, I'm struggling, that's not what you need to hear because what I heard in that moment wasn't reassurance, it was minimization. It just devalued everything that I was feeling. So I I walked out of that GP surgery feeling embarrassed that I'd ever said anything at all. And I think that's really such an important lesson for the healthcare professionals, but also anybody that approaches us and shares the fact that they're struggling. Because I think the recipient of those words need to recognise how much power you hold in that moment. We don't always remember the advice we were given, but we do remember how we felt. Did it shock me because she was a woman? Not really. And like I say, that's because I tend not to look at these things through the gender lens. And I also think, you know, one of the themes I hope is coming through in this conversation is that I just believe that kindness, empathy, emotional intelligence, they're not determined by gender. I've met some incredibly empathetic men and GP included, you know, I've met some incredibly dismissive women. What did surprise me was that it came from a healthcare professional. You know, I was feeling incredibly vulnerable. I was visibly in distress. And I think she didn't appreciate the fact that when somebody reaches out for help, they're testing the water, and that was certainly the case for me. I was trying to figure out whether it was safe to be honest. Would my world fall apart if I tell you how I'm really feeling? And, you know, unfortunately, that first experience just felt really dismissive. And the risk is that people who are struggling just retreat. You know, they just go away feeling dismissed and don't seek help again. Thankfully, that wasn't my story, but I can absolutely see how somebody else might have done that. So, you know, listening just matters. You might not have all the answers. People tell you what they're experiencing, what they're feeling. They just want to feel heard and acknowledged. And that GP absolutely didn't do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's all about context and tone, isn't it? I just had it in my head when you were speaking that goggle box moment when he's like, Well yeah, we all have a bad boy, don't we? And he goes, Yeah, not a fucking terrorist, Chris. Like, it's just all about how you deliver it. Like, you know what I mean? Going deeper there, you spoke to me off air about how luckily you had what I call good disclosure elasticity, whereby you had that negative experience, but you were able to disclose again. You disclosed to your husband, he was very, very supportive. And you went privately to a medical professional and they were very, very, very supportive, right? But as we also spoke about off air, and this is something that men have to learn, it's not as innate in them on average as it is for women. Men don't have that good disclosure elasticity. And when they build up and build up that moment of disclosure, it's incredibly important because if they don't get a good response, that man might not disclose for a month, a year, a decade. He may not even disclose ever again, especially to that person, right? When you had that negative experience, I know you don't see it through the lens of gender, but did you almost see a little bit of a window into the male experience about how when men get a negative response, they can then retreat and withdraw? And maybe that's why sometimes there might be more mental health experiences with men than just to simply they're not man enough in air quotes to do it.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, I think I did. And I think, you know, not because I assumed my experience was the same as every man's experience, but I think for the first time I genuinely understood how much courage it took to say, I'm not okay. And if culture and society is telling us that, you know, men have to be tough and all of these things, I can absolutely recognise how much more courage that would take, you know, because when my GP dismissed what I was saying, I left feeling embarrassed, you know, questioning whether I should have said anything at all. That was after one conversation, and it did make me think about people, men, who have, you know, spent years building an identity around being strong and capable and dependent. And if the first time you reach out, you're made to feel foolish or weak or you're overreacting, you know, I can absolutely see why some people, why some men decide never ever to do that again. We often talk about men needing to open up more. And, you know, I agree with that, but I don't think we spend enough time talking about what happens when they do, because I think disclosure is only half of the equation. You know, the response is critical. If somebody takes a risk and they tells you they're struggling, what they're actually doing is placing a huge amount of trust in you. What happens next can either encourage them to keep talking or retreat. And I think that experience did give me a much greater appreciation of why some men do stay silent for so long, you know, not because they don't want help, not because they don't have feelings, but because men have perhaps been taught that vulnerability equals risk. You know, I think if you spent your whole life believing you're supposed to be the strong one, then that brings an even bigger risk. You know, I think one of the things this whole experience has taught me is that we shouldn't underestimate how brave disclosure is. And I think sometimes that's the bit that's lost. You know, we're told to reach out, ask for help, but sometimes we forget the bravery and courage that takes. And the fact that sometimes that person sitting opposite you has possibly spent months, even years building up to that conversation. And I think, like I say, that's why listening matters so much. And recognizing that you don't have to fix everything, you don't have to have the perfect words. But if someone trusts you enough to tell you that they're struggling, the least you can do is make them feel heard. Because, you know, I know personally how close I came to deciding never to mention it again, just to shut it down, just to deal with it. You know, I'll be honest, that's a really sobering thought.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're absolutely right. And when it comes to men, it's not just the perception of being strong, it's like you said, it's trust, it's the fear of being told they're overreacting. You know, I've spoken to many male guests who've been survivors of domestic abuse, for example, or sexual abuse, and that's male and female perpetrators on the latter, but on particularly on the former, you know, if they talk about how they had false allegations made against them, whether that's in the family court or outside of it, and they're dismissed in the wider mainstream, or they're told that they're not telling the truth, then that'll make them withdraw. You know, I had a previous guest who said that, you know, he was in crisis and he told his partner that he was in crisis, and she dismissed him and said she he was overreacting, and he came very close to taking his own life. So the consequences, and thankfully their marriage has survived that, and thank God. But the consequences of this from a male perspective is huge. I really appreciate you saying how much we need to value that. And one of the things we agreed on off air was, you know, how the mainstream talks at men, and women to some degree too, when they're in in crisis. And the message is always, if you're struggling, reach out, right? This is always jammed at men, and I have so many problems with it. But it's never if you see someone struggling, reach in. And you said to me when you were in crisis, and this is irrespective of sex and gender, your mind was screaming, will somebody ask me if I'm okay, as I'm not okay. So, like, what needs to change here then?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I absolutely agree. I think it's just oversimplified it, hasn't it? And I think perhaps we have placed too much responsibility on motivating the person to your point, say, you know, I'm struggling, can you help me? But I think when you're in a really difficult place, reaching out isn't easy.
SPEAKER_02You know, in fact, it's the last thing you want to do.
SPEAKER_00It was one of the most hardest things in the world. And I think that's because you know, mental health and the symptoms that you're experiencing are really, really complex. For me, there was a huge amount of anxiety, and what was sitting behind that anxiety was a fear that if I told people how I was feeling, everything would come crumbling down. I would lose the career that I'd built, I'd lose the respect of my friends, my family. So to simply be told, if you're struggling, reach out, it really isn't as easy as that. And yeah, to your point, I can remember, you know, just sometimes sitting there, seemingly to the outside world, I was functioning as normal, but inside I was screaming, you know, will somebody just please ask me if I'm okay? Because it felt like that would give me permission. It wasn't that I expected somebody to wave a magic wand and solve it. And I'll be honest, I didn't even necessarily know what I wanted to say. I just wanted someone to notice, to see beyond the fact that even though I was functioning, still working, still showing up, that I wasn't okay. And I think that's the real danger. From the outside, I looked fine. And I think we often assume that people are coping externally are coping internally as well. And that's just not true. And I think that's where change needs to come. I think we need to be a little bit more proactive in how we care for each other. You know, not intrusive, not treating everybody like they're fragile, but just simply paying attention and genuinely paying attention, checking in, asking the second question rather than simply accepting the first answer. Because sometimes I'm fine does mean I'm fine, but sometimes it means I'm just not ready to tell you that. And I think that's equally important for people who are used to being the strong ones, you know, the carers, the leaders, the fixers, the ones that everybody else relies on. I think these are the people that can almost become invisible because everybody assumes they're okay. And actually, they're often the people that need someone to ask the most. So absolutely, I believe in reaching out, but I also believe we need to get much better at reaching in because that was certainly the case for me. Not everyone is able to ask for help at the moment that they need it most.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's really interesting. You say that I had a guest on called Neil Peters, and we talked about this problematic narrative of like why men won't talk and blah, blah, blah. And he said, When I hear that, I just go, no, they won't talk to you. And that's exactly right. You're writing a book at the moment, at time of recording, Sarah, called Almost Broken. So, in this period, what stopped you from being broken? What got you through it?
SPEAKER_00I think it was all the things we've talked about. I think it was most definitely my husband and the fact that he just treated me with kindness and curiosity. He didn't necessarily understand what was going on in my mind. When I finally opened up to him, he couldn't really comprehend why I was feeling the way I could, but he never made that an issue. He just made me feel supported and cared for. My daughter, absolutely. And I think, you know, the support that I eventually found when I did open up, the therapy, nature. I mean, the swing chair in my garden has probably given me more therapy than it'll it'll ever know. And I think if I'm really honest, it was my own stubbornness, you know, a bloody-mindedness. There was just always a spark that refused to go out. I think even at my lowest, there was still a part of me that believed things could get better, would get better. Not magically, not immediately, but eventually. And I think that was part of the belief that just never disappeared. And it's really difficult to explain because it wasn't always rational. There were days when I felt just overwhelmed, exhausted, disconnected from myself. But underneath it all, like I say, there was still this quiet voice just telling me, this isn't the end of your story, you're not done yet. I don't know. Is it intuition, hope? There was just always a sense that there was still a version of me waiting on the other side of it all. I think that's why the book is called Almost Broken, because there were definite moments when I felt broken, but now I look back. Obviously, I wasn't truly broken. A bit bent, out of shape, perhaps, exhausted, definitely, lost, absolutely, grieving, frightened, but not broken. Because I say, even in those darkest moments, there was still a part of me willing to fight my way back. And I think that's true of so many people. I think we often underestimate how resilient human beings are. I think sometimes we just need a little help finding the way back to ourselves, and that's certainly what happened to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you weren't a ruler, you're a boomerang. You're just on the way back.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Before we reflect, something which happened very recently at time of recording was the death of your father, Sarah. So just tell me what his name was, the man he was, and your relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so. my dad was called Brian. This is probably the part of the um this is the part of the interview that I'm gonna lose it, sorry. Um yeah he was take your time he was he was my dad um you know he was probably defined by the fact that he was he was a bloke you know he could never have been described as being progressive he absolutely wouldn't have known what a glass ceiling was he was inappropriate at times but I think as the father of three daughters he absolutely believed we could be and do anything we wanted and he would never have tolerated anyone telling us otherwise you know he was like I say he was funny often a little inappropriate but there was always a kindness there was always this genuine kindness in behind of it when I think of him I think of horse racing the smell of tobacco soap uh smell of tobacco yeah and just feeling safe you know I think he he did maybe feel safe I've just got a picture of in my head of just like you mentioned the glass scenes and we go it's no fucking thing is that that's that thing in Charlie the chocolate factory that glass elevator there's no such thing you've absolutely met my dad clearly haven't you've got family members like it absolutely that would have been his response but I think what was wonderful about him was he was throughout my whole life challenged that glass ceiling without ever actually understanding what it was maybe that's why I have the attitude that I have you know my dad was as I say my dad was a proper bloke you know grew up in London his marriage to my mum was incredibly traditional in the old fashioned sense of the word you know dad went out to work dad brought home the bacon type thing mum was the primary caregiver but despite all of that my dad never ever made me feel that that has to be the way that your life goes you know for my mum and dad that was their choice and they were happy in it.
SPEAKER_02And your mum wasn't oppressed she absolutely made that choice and we shouldn't demonize women who make that choice either there's lots of women who don't make that choice too absolutely you know my mum came from a really broken home she'd ended up in care.
SPEAKER_00So for my mum being able to be a wife and a mother and be responsible for making sure that her children went off to school on time and cooking the dinner and having a clean home for my mum that was absolute success. There was nothing about feeling oppressed or that my dad you know suggested this was the way their relationship should be it was choice and I think that's what I've always been brought up to believe and understand you have choice what's your favourite memories of him oh god there are so many um I think just his presence my dad had real presence like I say whether it was sort of cracking an inappropriate joke or just being there my dad was a very thoughtful man. He wouldn't speak unless he he felt the need to and that for me was something that was always always really strong and something that I was always really aware of. He could be present at the same time as being quiet and I I loved that about him. Like I say he would often break that quietness with an incredibly inappropriate comment or joke and have us all doubled over in laughter even the ones who perhaps didn't feel they should endorse the inappropriateness of the joke. But nonetheless he just had this way about him and I think some of my fondest memories are absolutely growing up and the wonderful father that my dad was actually the relationship that he formed with my husband as well was really genuinely really really special. My husband was 17 when he met my dad and I haven't I haven't mentioned but my dad actually had multiple cirrhosis and as his health and mobility declined his world shrunk quite dramatically at the time he died he was confined to his bed or a wheelchair and Alex my husband brought the world that my dad lost to him through the stories you know Alex would take him to watch a cricket match or take him to watch the snooker or take him to horse racing my kind of man absolutely or just talk to him in a way that my dad had lost so for me that is something really really special and you know and also perhaps the way my dad's face would light up when my daughter walked into the room she was able to bring a special twinkle to his eye.
SPEAKER_02How's he fucking missed that black? Yeah you know we lost John Virgo Snooker legend as well in the same year so really really sad. I've read all 13 books by one of my favourite authors of all time called Mitch Albom in the last two years, Sarah and there's a line in his breakout book called Tuesdays with Maury which I saved and stored for this episode. It might get you going but we'll see how we go. It says things like photographs and videos are quote a desperate attempt to steal something from Death's suitcase. Are there any special mementos of him that you hold close now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah absolutely so my mum very kindly gave Alex my husband one of Dad's old pipes and there's a story behind that because as my dad's mobility failed dad couldn't fill or like his own pipe so Alex would do that for him. So that's a really special memento that we've got and I've also got a couple of my dad's cardigans and when I'm feeling sad I'll pop those on that just feels like a hug.
SPEAKER_02Man a pipe and a cardigan and a snooker fan this guy's an icon man holy moly after you left the hospital after he died Sarah you said to yourself no more and you wanted to in your words get back to who I was and who I am how did you do that?
SPEAKER_00Um slowly I think it was a it was a bit of a light bulb moment. I think it was coupled with the fact that my dad had endured incredible physical health challenges and I think because of his age because of the man that he was had probably endured some really significant mental health challenges as well and they probably hadn't been explored as much as they should have I've mentioned that my dad's world shrunk quite significantly and he spent swathes of time laying in bed watching the telly and I think how that affected his mental health was probably quite profound. But like I say my dad was that stereotypical bloke and trying to have a conversation with my dad about depression for example just probably well not probably I know it didn't land very well and so I think walking out of that hospital and walking past the ward where the miscarriage had been managed. Oh wow same hospital wow okay absolutely same hospital so I think those two things combined just gave me this jolt of courage no I think that's not to say that I hadn't been courageous throughout a bit but I think I'd got into I'd got into a place of coasting I'd got into a place whereby I'd accepted that this was normal I was functioning I was spinning the plates my head was a mess I wasn't sleeping very well and all these other things I'll just keep pushing forward until this you know this sort of magic revelation occurs or this magic intervention occurs and fixes me. But like I say I think walking out of that hospital having lost my dad all of the knowledge of what he'd been through and and and walking past that maternity war just made me feel no, no more. Now it's time to proactively go and do something about this. Like I say that was slow. It involved things like going back to the doctor and talking to the doctor and seeking some professional help but it was also about remembering me and who I was and the things that were important to me. So you know really small baby steps a bit more time on the swing chair you know remembering that I loved to read and just giving myself time and space in the day to do that making sure that I was nutritionally balanced going back to exercising enjoying a walk going outside in the sunshine so baby steps nothing profound but yeah for me it was just that moment of dad this isn't the end of my story.
SPEAKER_02I've spoken with a couple of previous guests well I've spoken to many guests about grief but a couple of previous guests in particular and whether they have a particular spirituality or not they've found comfort in the presence of particular animals with that person. So for example one guest would see a robin and it would follow them around and they would think it was that person who had died or a butterfly for their mum.
SPEAKER_00When you see horses is that for your dad it's funny it's funny you say robins and butterflies actually that's been the thing I've actually latched onto and I think that interestingly that openness to spirituality has been part of my healing journey as well just you know appreciating that perhaps we're not alone perhaps there is more to this world and absolutely so we do have a robin that does appear in the garden has appeared since the death of my father in law and then randomly we had two robins appear in the garden after dad had died. You know robins tend to be quite territorial don't tend to sort of come in pairs but we have one that yeah one and then another one that just sort of flies around the garden. So who knows? And I think that's the point of spirituality isn't it it's just finding comfort in those things.
SPEAKER_02I was going to say I'm not sure if you've done it yet but has that helped you on that journey to find peace maybe those robins?
SPEAKER_00It absolutely has no most definitely and I think asking for a sign and then later in the day you come across a white feather or asking for a sign and a you know a butterfly crosses your path could it be coincidence? Absolutely but I choose to believe it's it's not coincidence because not least because I think it's happened too many times for it to be absolute coincidence. I mean you know the scientist in me thinks is it observational bias you know have I just become more observant of the robins, white feathers and butterflies who knows I don't know but I choose to think that it is a sign which does make me chuckle because you know the thought of having that conversation with my dad and you know the uh the response that he might have does make me chuckle. There was one random story that I'm happy to share. So uh just after my dad had died I was working in the lounge and the TV kept switching on. It's like this is random just kept turning the tell off and this happened three times. World Sluga championship was it's really bizarre you know the fact that so much of my dad's world was about watching tell and the fact that you know I'm just sitting there working and I and I was feeling particularly upset about dad's death that day it was a particularly challenging day. So TV goes on I turn it off three times and then I said Dad if that's you do it again and I kid you not the TV turned on again. Take what you will from that some random electrical surge I'm sure there are sort of scientists out there screaming at the podcast what it what it actually was but I chose to believe that was maybe dad just communicating it'll be okay I believe it was Dostoevsky who said if there was no beauty science wouldn't produce a single nail. Love that absolutely love that it's so true isn't it let's reflect now so you've spoken about speaking to your dad what do you think he would say to you if he was listening I think my dad would tell me that he was proud of me but I think my dad would also tell me that I don't have to do it all I don't have to have such high expectations of myself and that fucking calm down exactly yeah I think that would be his advice and it it's funny because when I consider that I think about where did these overachieving tendencies come from and a huge part of them came from a desire to make my parents proud. I briefly mentioned my mum came from a really challenging background she grew up in care for a period of her life my dad was what in the old days you'd call a blue collar worker my dad was a window cleaner and my dad worked so hard to give us an amazing quality of life and I think somewhere along the way my appreciation of that got tangled up with the need to overachieve and I think if I was able to sit down and talk to my dad about that I think my dad would tell me that was never why he did it he never wanted he never wanted it to be a burden to any of his children he did it because he loved us and he did it because that's what he wanted for his family and I think that's what I keep needing to remember he'd probably say I'm proud of you anyway. Exactly so yeah don't worry about stupid old mate he would he absolutely would similar question as the first topic Sarah what has this mental health journey taught you about yourself I think it's taught me how incredibly resilient I am but also I think the most important lesson for me has been vulnerability doesn't equal weakness. I think you can be vulnerable and strong all at once and I think the irony is the more willing you are to show vulnerability the stronger you actually are and that's what I really try and instill in my daughter. My husband and I have always been really mindful of creating a space for my daughter to talk really openly about her feelings and it doesn't matter if you don't understand why you're feeling those things and it doesn't matter that we might not have an instant fix for those feelings but just show vulnerability just show honesty about how you're feeling because I think that's one thing that I've really learned and came as a huge shock to me I spent such a long time pretending I was okay I spent such a long time having the conversations in my own head and not letting them come out of my mouth and the minute I opened up to my husband it was life changing you know because all of the fear all of the how frightened I'd been in my head didn't play out in reality. He didn't know how to fix me but the point was he didn't need to and I think and the world didn't come crashing down. I I didn't lose my career I didn't lose respect and that's what's been really interesting I think it has given me the strength like like this conversation for example you know if you'd asked me to do this a year ago well I wouldn't have even entertained the notion a year ago because this honesty to me would have felt so very frightening. That's just a really important message isn't it to remember that everybody is dealing with something everybody is dealing with shit. Everybody has suffered grief everybody has suffered trauma in some way and maybe all of us are kind of hiding that from the world in parts as well and you know I think that loops back to this just being better at reaching in just recognising that things are off because I think that's some of the sadness that I carry throughout my mental health journey since I've opened up friends have said oh yeah I did think you were a bit more quiet or I did think I hadn't seen you for a while and that actually makes me really sad because I just think why the bloody hell didn't you just turn up on my doorstep and ask then and I hope if I'm ever faced with that situation if I don't hope I know I am that friend that will go I don't believe you just bloody tell me because I would rather be met with defensiveness or anger.
SPEAKER_02Social awkwardness than guilt always say it. I'd rather be socially awkward with someone and ask the question than feel guilt having not asked it and something terrible happens afterwards.
SPEAKER_00Totally I would take that all day every day so I think you know that's the message just ask the awkward questions just make sure just make sure I think when you're suffering with mental health issues particularly in my experience anxiety you become really good at faking it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah to my detriment it's why I always take a pocket call when someone accidentally rings me just in case so it's always someone go oh sorry sorry I butt called you mate I'm like oh for fuck's sake I thought you were in distress yeah anyway and as a final question before we move on to our mental health quickfire chat Sarah if you could go back and talk to that Sarah who had just started at Vane Percy and Associates as it was then known in the mid to late 90s the Sarah who was experiencing that horrific miscarriage and unknowingly building up all this suppressed trauma or the Sarah in the midst of that burnout 18 or so months ago what would you say to her knowing what you do now if anything at all?
SPEAKER_00I think if I had the opportunity to go back and speak to speak to me, speak to Sarah then I would tell her it's gonna be okay it might get a bit bumpy it might get a bit difficult but it will be okay and just remember the people that you have around you and those people are not just there because of what you do for them they are there because of who you are and what you give to them emotionally. I think that's you know a real big issue with doers, fixers overachievers. We start to define ourselves by the role that we play in people's lives and what we give to those people whereas I think I just want to remind that Sarah that no, they love you too and it doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense it doesn't matter if what's going on in your mind feels irrational or frightening or any of those things just tell them because actually that will save you a whole lot of suffering if you just open up a bit quicker.
SPEAKER_02We've come to our final topic on this wonderful conversation Sarah and it's one I have with all of my special guests if we have time. It is a general Natter and quickfire chat about our mental health. So firstly how is your mental health out of 10?
SPEAKER_00I'd say it's good. I don't know let me think give it a number maybe about a seven I think it's not perfect but it's good and I think you know perfect mental health is an unrealistic aspiration anyway isn't it? That's what we need to remember mental health isn't an illness mental health is something that we all experience in the same way as our physical health and it goes up and down. I think for me one of the biggest changes is that I am just so much more aware of it now. I pay attention to the signals I don't just ignore them. Like everybody I have stressful periods I have moments when anxiety creeps in but I recognize I'm juggling a lot professionally and personally I think the shift has been that I just have better tools now. I understand myself better. And perhaps more importantly I don't see asking for help as failure anymore. You know I have this really great technique with my husband where I'll just say I'm feeling a bit blur you know and that might be I'm feeling a bit anxious or I'm you know I'm feeling really nervous about going to see these friends that we've known for 20 years, which is completely irrational and I don't understand why, but this is how I'm feeling and I know that he will just give me space to say that and interestingly often that's enough. I'll say it I'll let it out and then I'll go, I'm okay now. It's come out of my mouth it's it's not just sort of percolating in my mind and swirling itself into something it isn't. So I'd say I'm good. I'm incredibly grateful for that.
SPEAKER_02What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health and you realised that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?
SPEAKER_00I don't remember it being a single moment. I think it's been a sort of gradual learning I think much like everything in life our knowledge grows. I think when I was younger I've mentioned that I you know suffered with panic attacks and they they felt very physical at the time even when I consider the symptoms it felt so much more physical and I don't think I even gave space at the time to understand or even consider what emotions were sitting behind those. You know I've mentioned that particularly as a child I'd often get poorly before a birthday or before a holiday much to my parents' dismay because I got myself so worked up about the expectation of this needing to be perfect. And I guess at the time I didn't really connect those things to my mental health. I think it's only with hindsight that I can see those patterns. So I think self-awareness is something that you build over time. You know every experience teaches you a little bit more about yourself. I think what I know now and what I wish I'd understood much much earlier is that our mind and our bodies are constantly talking to each other and I think the trick is to understand the connection between those two things what things do you find in life that trigger your mental health so it could be things people say to you a sound, smell taste sensation or have you not figured all of them out yet? I don't know. I'm not sure there's actually a single trigger for a negative impact on my mental health. I think that is usually a culmination of doing too much or trying to be too much. So I think for me, I'd rather reflect on that question from the other direction. Absolutely there are things that trigger stress and anxiety. But what I've become much more interested in over this journey is understanding what grounds me. I love, I absolutely love the sunshine. The sunshine can make any crappy day feel better. Trees, interestingly, I am a huge fan of trees. I have become, I have become incredibly familiar with trees in my area. I don't know, there's just something incredibly magical and grounding. Water, just looking out over the sea, sand between my toes, laughter, the moon. I've become quite obsessed by the moon and the various phases of the moon and whether there is a relationship between how I might be feeling or simply just sitting in the garden looking at the moon and I think remembering that there's a huge universe out there and linking that to the conversation earlier about spirituality. Look at that moon up there. There must be more to it than we're actually aware. So you know and I think these sound like really simple things I think for me I've learned that my wellbeing actually exists in really simple places. When life becomes complicated, overwhelming, you know, these are all of the things that just bring me back to myself, make me feel present, you know so for me it's nature, family, laughter, giggling with my husband and my daughter about something daft and inconsequential is so healing. Sorry I appreciate I flipped that question a bit. So what triggers negativity is doing too much, expecting too much of myself. So I've really tried to concentrate on the things that just bring me back out of that.
SPEAKER_02What is the best book or as I call it mental health Bible you've read for your mental health fiction or nonfiction?
SPEAKER_00As a fixer I absorb huge amounts of content. You know I'm constantly looking for for the solution for the answer. So I'm not sure there's one book that I could land on. I think for me it's been lots of different things at different times. Some books have really helped me understand grief. Others have helped me understand anxiety or human behaviour. So I tend to take a little bit from lots of places rather than you know sort of follow one particular approach. And as I've mentioned you know over the last few years I have become much more connected spiritually you know not necessarily religious but definitely spiritual. I found myself sort of increasingly drawn to Buddhist ideas around you know sort of acceptance and presence and compassion but also letting go of those things we can't control. I am the world's best or worst depends which way you look at it brooder. I am that person that wakes up at three o'clock in the morning thinking about that conversation that I had that that should be inconsequential. I've always really struggled with letting things go. I'm trying much harder at that. So that doesn't mean I've mastered it but I think you know I found a lot of comfort in the realisation that a lot of my suffering came from resisting rather than accepting which has been interesting. It's been a pretty profound lesson for someone who spent most of her life trying to sort of fix things, solve things, control outcomes and that's been quite profound. So you know for me my mental health library is more a collection of ideas, experiences, perspectives that have helped me to get where I am now.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of spirituality if there was a mantra in life that summed up your mental health what would it be and why?
SPEAKER_00Oh listen to it. I think that is what I have absolutely learned. Mental health goes up and down and that is completely normal. It's part of being a human but I think certainly for me and I think you know this is probably true of some other people as well we sometimes treat our mental health as if it's a test you know something we're meant to pass or a competition that we've got to win. Good mental health means we never feel anxious we never feel sad we never feel overwhelmed we never feel lost but that's just not realistic. That's just not real life and I think you know the reality is there will be good periods and there will be shitty difficult periods. And I think for me the important lesson was listening when something feels off rather than ignoring it and hoping it goes away. You know, realizing that even when things are going well and I'm happy and I'm in a safe space there is something inside of me that's still feeling disconnected or still feeling anxious or still feeling frightened and it's irrational. So yeah listen to it. Probably a lesson that I've learned later than I should but you know mental health really isn't something that we should judge in ourselves or others it's just something we need to pay attention to and something that we need to listen to.
SPEAKER_02What do you love about yourself?
SPEAKER_00Um I always struggle with this. I struggle with compliments so I particularly struggle with giving them to myself as soon as you've asked the question I'll I'll have a Sabbat. You know I think I think I'm kind and I think sometimes kindness is underestimated but actually I think it's one of the things I've come to value most about myself because I think I'm really sensitive to other people's feelings. You know I do care deeply about the people that are around me. As I've said sometimes I think I carry too much of their pain and a desire to fix and solve but maybe that's the trade-off. I'd rather be that way than not care at all. That's part of what motivated me writing the book because I think if being kind and if being willing to reach in and if being able to recognize the signs of suffering and difficulty in other people maybe that gives me the opportunity to share my experiences and help other people down the line. So yeah, so kindness.
SPEAKER_02And as a final question you can take it any way you want what more do you think we have to do to ensure people from all backgrounds, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about their mental health issues or just their general mental health if most importantly they want to do it.
SPEAKER_00I think we need to create environments where people feel genuinely safe to talk. But I also think we need to be careful about confusing awareness with understanding because they're two completely different things. I think over the last few years as a society we've become much better at talking about mental health and that's a really positive thing. But I also sometimes wonder whether there's a bit of a risk in that in normalizing the conversation because by overnormalizing the experience or by overnormalizing mental health and the discussions around you can pathologize normal emotions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I completely get you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah because I think what we sometimes do is we unintentionally minimise people's experience. So I think when somebody tells us they're struggling absolutely we shouldn't respond with shock or stigma. But equally I think we need to be really mindful of not responding in a way that makes them feel like their experience is ordinary or insignificant or unimportant you know because I know from my own experience how damaging that can feel because you know like I say at times I suffered with crippling anxiety but that term anxiety I'm feeling anxious has become like I say normalized and when I did try and open up to friends you know I'm feeling a bit anxious I don't think they recognised or appreciated what I was actually talking about because the extent to which that term has become normalized. So I think you know for me the goal isn't simply about getting people to open up more you know it isn't about telling people who are suffering to reach out. I think success comes from a place where when they do, they feel heard you know their experience is taken seriously they aren't judged they aren't dismissed but also they don't immediately feel pressure to feel fixed. You know I think most of us know how to talk you know whether or not we find that easy is a different discussion. But I think you know we all know how to open up. I think what people who are struggling need is the evidence that someone's genuinely listening because I think that's where safety comes from you know it's not awareness campaigns it's not slogans and I'm not dismissing the value of those but I think safety and confidence to open up actually comes from human connection. When I say I'm struggling somebody stops listens and takes me seriously and I think until we achieve that or when we achieve that I think that is when people will feel safe enough to speak.
SPEAKER_02Yeah we always have to make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too hard in one direction or the other don't we? Sarah has been an absolutely amazing conversation thank you so much for coming on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me. I've really really enjoyed it thank you very much well that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Just Checking In pod a big thank you to Sarah for being my special guest and a big thank you to Sarah for being my special guest and for letting me check in with her. Thank you to all the Ventors who've checked into this episode I'll sign us off by saying if you've liked what you've heard, give it a share on social media by tagging us at VentHelpUK we are on all platforms including TikTok now. Tell your friends, family or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous write us a review and give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what we're doing please consider going to patreon.com slash eventhelpuk or make a one-off donation to our PayPal. All of those links are on our link tree that's linktr.ee slash event help use page we hope to check in with you again very soon and remember guys it is always okay to think
