# 434. "I lost my brother at 16 to suicide, it shouldn't have happened" ft. Ben West

An episode of [The Psychology of your 20s](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1573710078), 29 Jun 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://pdrl.fm/f842d9/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/bc44988a-a82a-4291-ab8b-afdd01187fa8/79b3308b-122b-40bd-b2d4-b47601689f01/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=39e2f432-53df-43b8-a7b9-afdd01187fc4

TW: Discussions of suicide. This week, I'm joined by mental health campaigner Ben West for one of the most moving conversations we've ever had on the show. At 18, Ben lost his brother to suicide. He has taken that experience and decided to change the lives of thousands, if not millions with his 'Reasons to Stay' campaign. In this episode we discuss: • Why grief changes over time • How to find purpose after unimaginable heartbreak • The psychology of hope and why strangers can save lives • What supporting someone through suicidal thoughts actually looks like • Ben's incredible initiative, Reasons to Stay, and the millions of people it's already reached • His two personal rules for protecting his own mental health • Why healing isn't about 'moving on' but learning to carry what you've lost Watch on Netflix: HERE Preorder Ben's book: HERE Follow Ben: HERE If you need help, it is available. You are NEVER alone. Please find some further resources HERE. Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Before we begin today's episode, I just want to note
[0:02] Speaker 1: that this conversation includes discussions around suicide, grief, and mental health.
[0:07] Speaker 1: Please just take care while listening, and if anything has
[0:10] Speaker 1: brought up some heavy or difficult feelings today, reach out
[0:13] Speaker 1: to somebody you trust or seek support from a mental
[0:16] Speaker 1: health professional or crisis service in your area. As always,
[0:20] Speaker 1: we will have links and resources in the description. You
[0:23] Speaker 1: do not have to go through these hard moments alone,
[0:25] Speaker 1: so please reach out to somebody that you love. Hello everybody,
[0:33] Speaker 1: I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the Psychology of
[0:36] Speaker 1: Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments,
[0:41] Speaker 1: and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for
[0:45] Speaker 1: our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome
[0:54] Speaker 1: back to the podcast. It is so great to have
[0:57] Speaker 1: you here, back for another episode. Today's pisode is a
[1:00] Speaker 1: really special one because we are joined by someone whose
[1:03] Speaker 1: work has opened up some incredibly important conversations around mental health, grief, masculinity, vulnerability,
[1:11] Speaker 1: for if I'm being honest, an entire generation of young people. Today,
[1:15] Speaker 1: I'm joined by Ben West. You may know him through
[1:18] Speaker 1: his advocacy work following the loss of his younger brother.
[1:21] Speaker 1: Since then, he's launched his movement Reasons to Stay, to
[1:23] Speaker 1: help guide strangers through difficult times. But beyond that, beyond
[1:27] Speaker 1: the public work, Ben is also somebody who is deeply thoughtful.
[1:31] Speaker 1: He has an amazing perspective on being human, on friendship, purpose,
[1:34] Speaker 1: pain and hope, and we are so excited to have
[1:36] Speaker 1: him on. Ben Welcome to the Psychology of your twenties.
[1:39] Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me here. I'm so
[1:41] Speaker 2: excited for this chat.
[1:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, and took it. Took you a second to get here.
[1:44] Speaker 1: You were recording it on a day of a crazy
[1:46] Speaker 1: t school.
[1:47] Speaker 2: Transport into London was just no today. And it's funny
[1:51] Speaker 2: when you work in mental health, you're constantly talking about
[1:54] Speaker 2: like coping and relieving stress, and then suddenly all the
[1:57] Speaker 2: trains are stuck and you're having to practice what you
[2:00] Speaker 2: preach and try not to get frazzled by yea London transport.
[2:04] Speaker 2: I'me here.
[2:04] Speaker 1: You came in, cool, calm and collected.
[2:07] Speaker 2: Inside, I'm like a duck. Yeah.
[2:10] Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing that I found since moving
[2:12] Speaker 1: to London is I've become very angry and I have.
[2:15] Speaker 2: To really kind things.
[2:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, just the smallest stuff. I'm like, the world is
[2:21] Speaker 1: a terrible, awful.
[2:22] Speaker 2: Players and then the weather as well, like it's it's
[2:26] Speaker 2: always it always all comes together. You've got wind, rain,
[2:30] Speaker 2: trains are late, someone's someone spills coffee on you. Yeah,
[2:34] Speaker 2: and ah, it's really difficult to try and get out
[2:37] Speaker 2: of that funk. Yeah, and then like.
[2:38] Speaker 1: A light is flickering and you're like I just want
[2:41] Speaker 1: to lay down.
[2:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what I used to be not
[2:44] Speaker 2: to go straight in with the psychology, but I used
[2:46] Speaker 2: to be really bad at having that happen and then
[2:48] Speaker 2: immediately writing off the day and getting into a bad mood.
[2:51] Speaker 2: And it actually came up when I was going through
[2:53] Speaker 2: therapy like that, like bad days would just take over
[2:56] Speaker 2: and become bad days. And it was that it was
[2:58] Speaker 2: that experience that actually I started my first rule I
[3:02] Speaker 2: have with myself, which is that if it's a bad day,
[3:05] Speaker 2: you have to do something good. Right, And so it
[3:08] Speaker 2: was something we came up with in therapy, which was
[3:10] Speaker 2: like I always just had as soon as bad things happen,
[3:13] Speaker 2: I just formed the mindset that it was a bad day,
[3:15] Speaker 2: and so I have this rule way, you have to
[3:17] Speaker 2: do something good. So that's something simple like talking to
[3:21] Speaker 2: a shopkeeper in the shops, or texting a friend you've
[3:24] Speaker 2: spoken to in a while, or just doing something good
[3:27] Speaker 2: or being happy to see someone. And then as soon
[3:29] Speaker 2: as you've done that, you've you've taken the power away
[3:31] Speaker 2: from the bad day. So not to go straight in
[3:33] Speaker 2: with the psychology, but this is actually very relevant to
[3:35] Speaker 2: something that I It's one of my two important rules
[3:38] Speaker 2: that I live by.
[3:39] Speaker 1: Okay, well, I have two follow up questions. Okay, the
[3:41] Speaker 1: number one is what are you going to do today?
[3:44] Speaker 2: I haven't decided yet. I feel like this is quite
[3:45] Speaker 2: a good thing to do. Yeah. No, I think I'm
[3:50] Speaker 2: going to an event later which will be really good.
[3:53] Speaker 2: So I think that will be my good thing for today.
[3:56] Speaker 2: And that's supporting an amazing charity and it's going to
[3:58] Speaker 2: be such a lovely evening. So yeah, I feel like
[4:00] Speaker 2: that will be my good thing today. But even if
[4:03] Speaker 2: it's just literally going into the shops and forcing myself
[4:06] Speaker 2: to get into shops and then talk actually talk to
[4:08] Speaker 2: the person to check out, it always makes the day better.
[4:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, and what's your second rule?
[4:13] Speaker 2: My second rule is, because of the nature of my job,
[4:15] Speaker 2: and we'll get into this, I talk to a lot
[4:17] Speaker 2: of people about some really awful stuff and some My
[4:19] Speaker 2: other rule is that I'm still thinking about a conversation
[4:23] Speaker 2: two weeks later, I have to talk to someone about it,
[4:26] Speaker 2: and I don't give myself the choice because you know,
[4:28] Speaker 2: some of the conversations I have with people are fairly harrowing,
[4:33] Speaker 2: and usually I'm quite good at processing that. But yeah,
[4:35] Speaker 2: if I'm still talking thinking about it, I was thinking
[4:37] Speaker 2: about them two weeks later, I have to talk to
[4:40] Speaker 2: someone about that conversation, and it just takes my choice away.
[4:44] Speaker 2: So I know then I'm like, it's been two weeks.
[4:46] Speaker 2: I need to text my counselor I need to go
[4:48] Speaker 2: and book some time in and talk about this. Yeah. Yeah,
[4:51] Speaker 2: it sort of takes that opportunity to push the can
[4:53] Speaker 2: down the road away from me.
[4:54] Speaker 1: I used to have this when I used to do
[4:57] Speaker 1: we are going in Oh my God. I used to
[5:01] Speaker 1: do interviews for the Australian Government on child mail treatment
[5:05] Speaker 1: and as in like calling people up and being like,
[5:08] Speaker 1: you know, tell me about what you've been through. And
[5:12] Speaker 1: I was so young. I wish I had that rule
[5:14] Speaker 1: because my rule was just like if I had a
[5:16] Speaker 1: bad call, I'd go and eat a Kindo bueno. Yes,
[5:18] Speaker 1: and I think that probably made.
[5:21] Speaker 2: Got into a really bad habit classic conditioning.
[5:24] Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I was just going to say that
[5:26] Speaker 1: even now, like thinking of it. Yesterday I had a
[5:29] Speaker 1: bad day and I went and got a Kindo bueno
[5:30] Speaker 1: and I was like, you cannot go back down this.
[5:32] Speaker 2: Road, the.
[5:36] Speaker 1: Texting counselor kind Let's say, I love, I know it's so,
[5:46] Speaker 1: can you briefly you know what, I did not even
[5:48] Speaker 1: ask you to introduce yourself.
[5:50] Speaker 2: We've gone.
[5:51] Speaker 1: Can you briefly introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit
[5:53] Speaker 1: about who you are as a person, how people might
[5:55] Speaker 1: know you or they don't know you, who you are.
[5:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. My name's Ben. I am a mental
[6:02] Speaker 2: health campaigner. The fact that I'm introducing myself as a
[6:05] Speaker 2: mental health campaign is still weird because it's not something
[6:08] Speaker 2: I ever thought i'd have to do. Growing up, I
[6:11] Speaker 2: didn't know anything about mental health. No one had ever
[6:14] Speaker 2: talked to me about mental health, and the first time
[6:18] Speaker 2: it really came up in my life was when my
[6:20] Speaker 2: mum told me that my little brother Sam had been
[6:23] Speaker 2: diagnosed with depression. And that was the first time I'd
[6:27] Speaker 2: ever really heard what that was. I didn't really know
[6:31] Speaker 2: anything more about it, so I never spoke to Sam,
[6:33] Speaker 2: and then, very sadly, in January twenty eighteen, Sam took
[6:38] Speaker 2: his own life and died at the age of fifteen
[6:40] Speaker 2: years old and I was seventeen, and obviously, through that experience,
[6:46] Speaker 2: I very quickly realized that the significance of what my
[6:50] Speaker 2: mum had told me in September, and also free speaking
[6:53] Speaker 2: to my friends and people at school, realized like how
[6:56] Speaker 2: many people were affected by this sort of thing. And
[7:00] Speaker 2: my plan in life at that moment was to go
[7:02] Speaker 2: to university study engineering and then go to the Armed
[7:04] Speaker 2: Forces and fly helicopters. So that was very fad and
[7:10] Speaker 2: it's not what I'm doing, as you can tell. But
[7:13] Speaker 2: I realized very quickly that, you know, what happened to
[7:16] Speaker 2: Sam shouldn't have happened, and there were there were small
[7:19] Speaker 2: things that could have been different, and it felt like
[7:22] Speaker 2: I had an opportunity to change those small things for
[7:26] Speaker 2: other people and pick up the sort of batton that
[7:29] Speaker 2: Sam left behind in terms of wanting to create change
[7:32] Speaker 2: and do my best. So I'm a mental health campaign
[7:34] Speaker 2: and now I've been doing this for eight years. People
[7:36] Speaker 2: will probably if you've heard my name. You've probably heard
[7:38] Speaker 2: it in association with my project that I launched this
[7:41] Speaker 2: year called Reasons to Stay, which I'm sure we'll get
[7:43] Speaker 2: into more, but essentially it's a suicide prevention project, sending
[7:48] Speaker 2: letters to people thinking about suicide, giving them reasons to stay.
[7:52] Speaker 2: But you know, my work goes far beyond that. The
[7:55] Speaker 2: reason I'm dressed so smartly is I've been working policy,
[7:58] Speaker 2: so I do a lot of work with the government
[7:59] Speaker 2: around NHS and healthcare for people with mental health, and
[8:03] Speaker 2: education and mental health. So basically, mental health is what
[8:07] Speaker 2: I live and breathe. It's not something that I ever
[8:10] Speaker 2: thought i'd go into, but it's something, you know, It
[8:12] Speaker 2: is everything I do. And you know, every day I
[8:15] Speaker 2: think about Sam and what happened to him and my family,
[8:18] Speaker 2: and I go to work because we absolutely, I absolutely
[8:23] Speaker 2: believe that we can change the system that lets so
[8:26] Speaker 2: many people down. And that's what I'm going to do
[8:30] Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. That's what I've decided,
[8:31] Speaker 2: this is all I'm going to do. Wow. Yeah, which
[8:34] Speaker 2: is a huge thing to say.
[8:36] Speaker 1: But you had such pride in your eyes when you
[8:38] Speaker 1: said that. Yeah, can you tell me a bit about Sam?
[8:42] Speaker 1: And like some of your memories about him and like
[8:44] Speaker 1: what kind of what he was like.
[8:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, Sam was wonderful. He was very funny and
[8:52] Speaker 2: sort the sort of humor he had was like he
[8:55] Speaker 2: didn't know quite whether you were allowed to laugh. It's
[8:58] Speaker 2: always just like on the edge of something really dark
[9:03] Speaker 2: and awful. He had quite a dark sense humor, but
[9:05] Speaker 2: it was just so funny. Even his friends, like at school,
[9:09] Speaker 2: they always said, is he was such a like class clown.
[9:11] Speaker 2: He try and make the whole class laugh. He was
[9:14] Speaker 2: very very talented in art and music, so like he
[9:18] Speaker 2: was fifteen when he was, you know, basically producing the
[9:22] Speaker 2: whole film scores on his laptop. Loved Hans Zimmer and
[9:27] Speaker 2: film and film scores and music and film. He was
[9:32] Speaker 2: also like he painted a lot and just the most
[9:37] Speaker 2: phenomenal painter. And one of my favorite, yeah, one of
[9:41] Speaker 2: my favorite memories back then of us is because it
[9:45] Speaker 2: was me Sam and another brother, Tom, who's my youngest brother,
[9:49] Speaker 2: and we used to just Sam would do like some
[9:51] Speaker 2: art and he'd just bring us in on right at
[9:53] Speaker 2: the end, like help with something, and we were absolutely terrible.
[9:57] Speaker 2: I'm so jealous of Sam's talent with art because I
[9:59] Speaker 2: kind of can't draw. I can't paint. I would love
[10:03] Speaker 2: to be able to paint, but I can't. I struggled
[10:06] Speaker 2: so much with it. He was very, very talented. But
[10:10] Speaker 2: I think the big thing with Sam that I like
[10:13] Speaker 2: means a lot now looking back, is he just had
[10:16] Speaker 2: he was like an emotional sponge. He just he just
[10:21] Speaker 2: absorbed all the emotion around him. He was such an
[10:24] Speaker 2: EmPATH and he cared so much about other people, and
[10:28] Speaker 2: he's that sense of like social justice of if someone
[10:33] Speaker 2: was being picked on or bullied, he would feel, he's
[10:36] Speaker 2: so like powerfully that that was unjust, and he'd take
[10:39] Speaker 2: a lot of that emotion on, which obviously must have
[10:42] Speaker 2: been a lot for him to take on his shoulders.
[10:45] Speaker 2: But he just he just had this really strong sense
[10:47] Speaker 2: of right and wrong, and he was felt emotions and
[10:51] Speaker 2: he felt other people's emotions really strongly, which you know
[10:56] Speaker 2: obviously meant that when he was struggling, he felt very
[10:58] Speaker 2: passionately about other people feeling seen as well through their struggles.
[11:04] Speaker 2: And that's sort of why I feel like I want
[11:08] Speaker 2: to do what I do now, is because when he
[11:11] Speaker 2: was struggling, he wanted other people to feel understood and
[11:15] Speaker 2: for things to be better for them, and he never
[11:17] Speaker 2: got the chance to sort of do this. And I
[11:19] Speaker 2: know that absolutely if Sam had survived, he would have
[11:22] Speaker 2: gone on to become a mental health campaigner. He'd probably
[11:25] Speaker 2: be sitting in this chair talking to you. He would
[11:26] Speaker 2: have done a phenomenal job. And I always say to people,
[11:29] Speaker 2: I'm like, unfortunately, you have got the second best option.
[11:32] Speaker 2: But I will do my absolute best to sort of
[11:35] Speaker 2: do what I think Sam would want to do, and
[11:37] Speaker 2: that is to show up to tell our story, be vulnerable,
[11:42] Speaker 2: be honest, make people feel seen, but also, you know,
[11:45] Speaker 2: push for the change that stops people getting support and
[11:48] Speaker 2: stops people getting an education. So yeah, I've tried to
[11:53] Speaker 2: be better at art and I've tried to be better music,
[11:57] Speaker 2: but I know that one talent and one one thing
[12:00] Speaker 2: that me and Sound absolutely share is that absolute social
[12:05] Speaker 2: justice right and wrong, empathy for people that don't deserve
[12:11] Speaker 2: to feel the way they do and not have the
[12:14] Speaker 2: support that so many people don't have nowadays.
[12:17] Speaker 1: I feel like, does your younger brother have that as well?
[12:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, we all do.
[12:20] Speaker 1: I was going to say, I feel like that would
[12:22] Speaker 1: be a very strong through line from like your parents.
[12:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely think so. And they've My parents have
[12:28] Speaker 2: obviously reacted in a similar way to Sam dying in
[12:30] Speaker 2: terms of like trying to change, change things and provide support,
[12:34] Speaker 2: which a lot of people do when something awful happens.
[12:36] Speaker 2: And it's nice that we're all sort of on the
[12:39] Speaker 2: same page of yeah, that was so bad that we're
[12:42] Speaker 2: going to make sure it never happens again. We're all
[12:44] Speaker 2: very aligned on that.
[12:45] Speaker 1: I saw this interesting thing from Jack Antonoff. Do you
[12:49] Speaker 1: know who that is? Okay, he's a music producer, not important.
[12:53] Speaker 1: He said that when you're experiencing grief is when your
[12:57] Speaker 1: purpose becomes the clearest because nothing else matters. And that
[13:02] Speaker 1: kind of sounds like, what, that's what's happened to you?
[13:05] Speaker 1: You know? Through that?
[13:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. I think there's so many reasons why I
[13:10] Speaker 2: do what I do now, but one of them is
[13:12] Speaker 2: definitely that it hurts so much that I think pain
[13:17] Speaker 2: without a meaning is very difficult to cope with because
[13:23] Speaker 2: it feels like what is this all for? I mean,
[13:27] Speaker 2: and it hurts so much, it's still it's still still
[13:29] Speaker 2: a horrible, horrible thing to have gone through, and it
[13:32] Speaker 2: doesn't make it less painful, but it does make that
[13:36] Speaker 2: experience feel like it's worth something. And you know, I
[13:39] Speaker 2: get the absolute privilege of hearing from people who have
[13:42] Speaker 2: been materially changed and helped by work that I've been
[13:48] Speaker 2: involved in or contributed to. And I remember little seventeen
[13:53] Speaker 2: year old me sat at school with my friends trying
[13:56] Speaker 2: to work out what we were going to do to
[13:58] Speaker 2: change the world. And over time you realize that actually
[14:03] Speaker 2: changing the world and creating that much impact in reality
[14:07] Speaker 2: happens in really quiet moments with people, and if you
[14:10] Speaker 2: can stop one person from taking their own life, or
[14:14] Speaker 2: you get the right support to one person, the ripple
[14:17] Speaker 2: effect of that over time is absolutely enormous. And so
[14:21] Speaker 2: you know, like I remember just thinking back now to
[14:24] Speaker 2: seventeen year old me, not knowing what I was meant
[14:26] Speaker 2: to do or how I was going to turn this
[14:28] Speaker 2: awful experience into something that was good. He would not
[14:33] Speaker 2: believe what we've done over the last eight years. It's
[14:37] Speaker 2: been the most extraordinary, powerful, meaningful journey. And I can
[14:42] Speaker 2: say that now with a smile on my face, like
[14:44] Speaker 2: it has. My story is so sad, but it's got
[14:49] Speaker 2: to position now where it's a really happy, positive journey,
[14:55] Speaker 2: and that I didn't believe that was ever possible.
[14:58] Speaker 1: So that's oh, that's so pretty. That's so pretty is
[15:01] Speaker 1: the wrong way?
[15:02] Speaker 2: No, it's yeah, I know, And it's only sometimes that
[15:05] Speaker 2: you actually reflect and go When Sam died, I honestly
[15:12] Speaker 2: I didn't think anything good would ever happen to me. Again,
[15:14] Speaker 2: I don't know how to describe it except that I
[15:16] Speaker 2: just thought my life was always going to be great. Yeah,
[15:21] Speaker 2: And I just didn't think anything would be fun or
[15:23] Speaker 2: funny or positive. And so it's quite profound to be
[15:27] Speaker 2: able to sit here now and say this is great.
[15:31] Speaker 2: I love what I do. I feel joy almost every day,
[15:37] Speaker 2: and that that's been quite quite the journey to get there.
[15:40] Speaker 2: But it's very meaningful.
[15:48] Speaker 1: And you know what, I'm sure somebody's listening to this
[15:49] Speaker 1: right now who's probably in the early stages of grief,
[15:52] Speaker 1: being like this is always going to be it, And
[15:54] Speaker 1: I think it's just a really nice thing to hear
[15:56] Speaker 1: somebody say that, Even people with like a bit of
[15:59] Speaker 1: anticipatory Greek as well, probably listening being like, oh, yeah,
[16:03] Speaker 1: can I actually ask you about that a little bit more?
[16:05] Speaker 1: Like I think you explained it very well, But how
[16:10] Speaker 1: is your grief changed? Like when you first I'm guessing
[16:15] Speaker 1: found out through your mom or through a parent, to
[16:18] Speaker 1: that first year to now, like what's been the different
[16:21] Speaker 1: things that you've learned throughout the years about loss?
[16:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean losing Exam was not only awful in
[16:31] Speaker 2: terms of the grief of losing a brother that you
[16:34] Speaker 2: didn't expect obviously, but also through how he died in suicidey.
[16:39] Speaker 2: It was incredibly traumatic for me particularly, and so actually
[16:44] Speaker 2: at the beginning, it's very difficult to determine like what
[16:47] Speaker 2: was grief and what was trauma trauma response? But I,
[16:52] Speaker 2: you know, I was. I was very affected at the beginning,
[16:56] Speaker 2: Like I didn't know what was up or down. I
[16:59] Speaker 2: felt like I was just stuck in this washing machine
[17:01] Speaker 2: that was constant on different cycles of all over the place.
[17:05] Speaker 2: Didn't sleep very much. I didn't eat for about four days.
[17:08] Speaker 2: I just was so confused and my body I was
[17:13] Speaker 2: like rejecting what had gone on. It was like, it's
[17:16] Speaker 2: so bad that you just reject what happened to the
[17:20] Speaker 2: point where like I went to school the day after Sam.
[17:23] Speaker 1: Died, did you really well? Your teachers?
[17:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, they were completely completely shocked to see me.
[17:29] Speaker 1: Yeah what about your friends, were they? Actually? Yeah?
[17:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm probably I'm pretty sure they just thought it
[17:35] Speaker 2: because everyone at school had been told that day. Yeah,
[17:38] Speaker 2: they probably thought like, what is this sick joke? Ben's
[17:41] Speaker 2: just honestly, I got in my car and I went
[17:44] Speaker 2: to school, and I went in and I just ran
[17:47] Speaker 2: over to my friends and I was like, hey, how's
[17:50] Speaker 2: everyone doing? Like nothing had happened, because my brain was
[17:53] Speaker 2: just like, Nope, this is not this has not happened,
[17:56] Speaker 2: and I'm going to do what i'd normally do and
[17:58] Speaker 2: just take myself to school. Lasked in about an hour,
[18:00] Speaker 2: and then I was exhausted.
[18:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, the adrenaline and shock just wearing.
[18:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was like that for a while and
[18:07] Speaker 2: then you slowly learn. And I think the best way
[18:11] Speaker 2: I can describe it, and I've described it to other people,
[18:14] Speaker 2: is that like it's a it's a flame. It's like
[18:16] Speaker 2: a fire, like a bonfire when when grief, you're standing
[18:20] Speaker 2: so close to it that like you you can't notice
[18:23] Speaker 2: anything but this intense heat that's coming from it. And
[18:27] Speaker 2: everyone says time heels. I don't know, it's not as
[18:29] Speaker 2: straightforward as that, but I do think with time you
[18:32] Speaker 2: just get distanced from the flame that fire, so that
[18:36] Speaker 2: it's still there and sometimes you notice it, but the heat,
[18:39] Speaker 2: the feeling of the intensity of that heat just feels
[18:42] Speaker 2: less and less extreme. So it's not the pain that
[18:46] Speaker 2: you that makes you notice that this happened, but it's
[18:49] Speaker 2: just sort of going into a room you haven't been
[18:51] Speaker 2: in too since he died, or the things would remind
[18:53] Speaker 2: you it's there. I think that's the best way I've
[18:55] Speaker 2: had to describe it. It's just the intensity of those
[18:57] Speaker 2: feelings starts to just get and less extreme with time,
[19:01] Speaker 2: and that's definitely what I felt. And then I, you know,
[19:06] Speaker 2: eventually got the courage to seek professional support, which was
[19:12] Speaker 2: scary but amazing, and then dealt with a lot of
[19:15] Speaker 2: the trauma that I'd not really dealt with and EMDR therapy,
[19:19] Speaker 2: which I thought was amazing, and I managed to deal
[19:22] Speaker 2: with a lot of that, and then you get a
[19:23] Speaker 2: position where you know, you actually feel like you got
[19:27] Speaker 2: to handle back on things. And because I think a
[19:30] Speaker 2: lot of the time I was maybe in the passenger seat,
[19:34] Speaker 2: yeah I'm not really fully in control of what was
[19:37] Speaker 2: going on, and just sort of going from moment to moment. Actually, interestingly,
[19:42] Speaker 2: not to go off on points, but one of the
[19:46] Speaker 2: funny experience of grief that I had, not funny but
[19:50] Speaker 2: unexpected a chuckle. Was hedonism, like this absolute intense need
[19:57] Speaker 2: for fun and like just I I started university in
[20:01] Speaker 2: like September, so a few months after Sam died, and
[20:03] Speaker 2: it was literally just like chasing fun and going out
[20:07] Speaker 2: and like trying to just basically block everything out by
[20:10] Speaker 2: having just hedonistic out there like behavior, which I think
[20:15] Speaker 2: is so interesting because at the time I thought that
[20:18] Speaker 2: I was doing really well because I was having fun,
[20:21] Speaker 2: and I look back and I was like, I was
[20:23] Speaker 2: actually just like chasing thrills, trying to escape like feeling
[20:29] Speaker 2: on my own or feeling low, and that was an
[20:32] Speaker 2: interesting That was an interesting observation I did not see
[20:35] Speaker 2: in the time. So many years later I was like, whoa,
[20:38] Speaker 2: I was really unwell when that was happening, and probably
[20:40] Speaker 2: a lot of drinking. Oh yeah.
[20:42] Speaker 1: And it's also that's just like the imagine being well,
[20:45] Speaker 1: you don't have to imagine you're like how old were you? Eighteen?
[20:48] Speaker 1: At fresh As Week and I know if you guys
[20:50] Speaker 1: call it that, just being like a week just being
[20:53] Speaker 1: like great, I have this gaping emotional wound and I
[20:56] Speaker 1: have a gallon of liquor. Yeah, everyone around you around
[21:00] Speaker 1: you was having a great and that looks like the
[21:02] Speaker 1: normal thing to do, but like, wow, when do you
[21:06] Speaker 1: think you came out of like the hedonistic like I'm
[21:09] Speaker 1: just gonna live while I'm young stage? Do you think
[21:12] Speaker 1: it was like after your first year?
[21:14] Speaker 2: Or I think it was COVID lockdown? So what's that?
[21:19] Speaker 2: Three years? Two two and a half, three years afterwards
[21:21] Speaker 2: and when you're forced to not do that anymore? And
[21:24] Speaker 2: I was on my own in COVID, I got I
[21:28] Speaker 2: was I was in a flat that was about it's
[21:31] Speaker 2: probably not much bigger than the studio, and I had
[21:34] Speaker 2: to do ten and ten days on my own, and
[21:38] Speaker 2: oh that was tough? Was it?
[21:40] Speaker 1: Just?
[21:40] Speaker 2: Did you have? I had? I got infected.
[21:42] Speaker 1: You got infected.
[21:43] Speaker 2: So I was stuck and then on my own. I
[21:46] Speaker 2: remember the only person I saw in ten days was
[21:51] Speaker 2: someone pushed batteries for an Xbox controller. Through past of
[21:56] Speaker 2: the tour.
[21:57] Speaker 1: Were you at UNI? Yeah, you were in.
[21:59] Speaker 2: Like a like a little room and that was that
[22:02] Speaker 2: was intense. And so I felt that whole experience like
[22:06] Speaker 2: I actually was okay. I was fine. I like coped.
[22:08] Speaker 2: I was okay, but it just made you sort of
[22:11] Speaker 2: it like took you away from everything that you usually
[22:15] Speaker 2: kept to like make yourself okay. And I was very
[22:19] Speaker 2: lucky that I had support through counseling at that time
[22:22] Speaker 2: that I was doing virtually so I was like, you
[22:25] Speaker 2: start to go, oh, this sort of thing that I've
[22:30] Speaker 2: put myself up on it's fun. Oh it's not there anymore.
[22:34] Speaker 2: I'm actually really really not okay. So that was quite
[22:38] Speaker 2: an interesting experience for me, just being forced to stay
[22:42] Speaker 2: in my room. And then and then I left UNI. Oh, yeah,
[22:46] Speaker 2: this has not happened. This is actually now I've stepped
[22:48] Speaker 2: out of this. I'm really not very well. And then
[22:51] Speaker 2: I left and sort of started to make some real
[22:54] Speaker 2: changes in my life to sort of get back in control.
[22:57] Speaker 2: Which so actually it was like, it's quite quite a
[23:00] Speaker 2: good experience in a.
[23:02] Speaker 1: Way, it sounds like a bit of a circuit breaker.
[23:04] Speaker 2: It was, Yeah, in a weird way. I wouldn't recommend
[23:06] Speaker 2: it was awful, but it was like it was also needed, Yeah,
[23:10] Speaker 2: because you started doing a lot of reflection on how
[23:13] Speaker 2: I was living and what I was doing and not
[23:16] Speaker 2: really dealing with anything. And then it was like, m
[23:20] Speaker 2: this is an interesting moment of noticing all of that.
[23:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, And then like another deeply traumatic moment probably where
[23:26] Speaker 1: it's like, great, so my life that I'm trying to
[23:29] Speaker 1: rebuild is going to be completely ripped abot and we'll
[23:33] Speaker 1: move on to the next thing.
[23:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was very confusing as well, because I
[23:38] Speaker 2: was in the moment of all of the plans I
[23:40] Speaker 2: had in my life of what I wanted to do.
[23:42] Speaker 2: I was still sort of doing because I didn't it
[23:45] Speaker 2: was too late to change my degree or whatever. So
[23:47] Speaker 2: I was like still on that plan, but realizing more
[23:51] Speaker 2: and more that it's not really what I wanted to do.
[23:54] Speaker 2: And so there was a whole it was just very confusing,
[23:58] Speaker 2: very very confusing.
[23:59] Speaker 1: Do you remember like the first time after Sam passed
[24:03] Speaker 1: away that you and your family like we're like together
[24:06] Speaker 1: and we're like laughing and we're able to like have
[24:09] Speaker 1: a bit of a glimmer.
[24:11] Speaker 2: That's a really good question. That's a really good question.
[24:15] Speaker 2: It took a long long time to feel normal as
[24:20] Speaker 2: a family. You know, so many times you'd go and
[24:23] Speaker 2: lay the table and you'd carry like five sets of
[24:25] Speaker 2: forks and knives over or five like set places, And
[24:30] Speaker 2: that happened so many times for me, and even like
[24:35] Speaker 2: talking about him took a long time to feel normal.
[24:39] Speaker 2: I don't. Actually, I think it might have been Christmas, weirdly,
[24:43] Speaker 2: because that's quite a difficult time for grief when you
[24:48] Speaker 2: can sort of get a little bit of room. I
[24:49] Speaker 2: was also actually probably it was probably not so. When
[24:52] Speaker 2: I was at school when Sam died, I realized very
[24:55] Speaker 2: quickly that I wanted to do something positive, and so
[24:58] Speaker 2: I organized something called Walk to Talk, which was basically
[25:02] Speaker 2: this two hundred kilometer walk that me and my friends
[25:05] Speaker 2: are going to do to raise money, and we would
[25:07] Speaker 2: invite the whole school, and if people wanted to come
[25:08] Speaker 2: and walk the whole thing, they could come. If they
[25:10] Speaker 2: wanted to walk one day, they could come and walk
[25:12] Speaker 2: with us. And I basically designed it to be fun
[25:17] Speaker 2: and colorful and real celebration of talking and mental health
[25:22] Speaker 2: as opposed to it being like a ceremony. And that
[25:25] Speaker 2: was great, Like we had bright pink T shirts and
[25:28] Speaker 2: we were like talking about Sam every day and it
[25:31] Speaker 2: was fun and my family got involved loads. So I
[25:34] Speaker 2: think that was probably a good moment where we could
[25:36] Speaker 2: really just sort of, I don't know, sort of feel
[25:42] Speaker 2: like the subject of sus I'm losing Sam wasn't necessarily
[25:45] Speaker 2: this dark, awful thing that we can't go near. It's like, actually,
[25:48] Speaker 2: we're all dressing pink, having a good time, talking about
[25:50] Speaker 2: Sam and talking about something that's positive and getting around that.
[25:54] Speaker 2: So that was a really that was a nice moment.
[25:56] Speaker 1: Where did you guys walk in London? That's two hundred.
[25:58] Speaker 2: Colomb So we walked from where I grew up in
[26:00] Speaker 2: Kent sort of mid Kent all the way to London,
[26:03] Speaker 2: which actually isn't two hundred klometers, but we were like
[26:06] Speaker 2: it was near enough two hundred klometers. It was about
[26:08] Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy, so we were like, let's just
[26:10] Speaker 2: add thirty and round it up classic so it's two
[26:15] Speaker 2: hundred klometers over ten days in September twenty eighteen, and
[26:20] Speaker 2: it was just it was that was That was the
[26:22] Speaker 2: I only ever did it to raise a bit of
[26:24] Speaker 2: money and then before I went to UNI, and that
[26:27] Speaker 2: was the walk. Really, that was the event that I
[26:29] Speaker 2: went I really want to do this for the rest
[26:32] Speaker 2: of my life. Like I really saw the impact that
[26:35] Speaker 2: you can have on other people's lives by having some
[26:38] Speaker 2: of the people that came on that walk, you know,
[26:39] Speaker 2: I went to spoke to their family about their things
[26:43] Speaker 2: that were going on, their life for the first time ever,
[26:45] Speaker 2: you know, to be able to be the one to
[26:49] Speaker 2: make someone feel comfortable enough to have those conversations and
[26:53] Speaker 2: know how important that is. I just yeah, you can't
[26:57] Speaker 2: not help someone make that step and not want to
[27:01] Speaker 2: then keep helping other people make that step and get
[27:05] Speaker 2: the right support. So it was really that was the
[27:06] Speaker 2: formation for everything that came since.
[27:09] Speaker 1: Wow, Well this is a great segue into Reasons to Stay,
[27:13] Speaker 1: which is when did you launch this project?
[27:16] Speaker 2: January? January, four months ago, three months ago?
[27:19] Speaker 1: Don't It's just amazing because it has touched so many
[27:25] Speaker 1: lives so quickly. Do you want to talk about it?
[27:28] Speaker 2: I would love talking.
[27:29] Speaker 1: About the idea behind it.
[27:32] Speaker 2: So I've worked in this space for eight years. I've
[27:35] Speaker 2: spoken to more people that have felt suicidal or looked
[27:39] Speaker 2: after someone suicidal than I can count. I mean, so
[27:41] Speaker 2: many people. And the one thing I've realized with mental
[27:44] Speaker 2: health is that, unlike other social issues, it's very difficult
[27:48] Speaker 2: for the general public to feel like they're practically involved
[27:53] Speaker 2: in helping. So with climate change, you can recycle more,
[27:58] Speaker 2: you can take public transport, ride a bike, and you
[28:01] Speaker 2: can feel like you're practically involved in the solution. With
[28:05] Speaker 2: mental health. Unless you're a clinical professional or involved some
[28:08] Speaker 2: way clinically, it's very difficult for you to actually help.
[28:10] Speaker 2: And I've always thought that it would be good to
[28:13] Speaker 2: find a way to connect the millions and millions and
[28:17] Speaker 2: millions and billions of people around the world that care
[28:20] Speaker 2: about this issue and want to help with the millions
[28:24] Speaker 2: or billions of people that need to be cared for.
[28:28] Speaker 2: So that's that's the first point. Then the second point
[28:31] Speaker 2: is the human race has a lot of problems, right,
[28:34] Speaker 2: and it's difficult to feel good about us sometimes, especially
[28:38] Speaker 2: in the world. Yeah, right, But the one thing that
[28:42] Speaker 2: I think is absolutely phenomenal about us as a species
[28:47] Speaker 2: is that when there is a catastrophe, people that don't
[28:51] Speaker 2: know each other will drop everything and run to help.
[28:54] Speaker 2: And I think that is so remarkable and amazing. Is
[28:57] Speaker 2: this instinct to just help strangers that we all, most
[29:01] Speaker 2: of us have, which I think is just incredible, And
[29:05] Speaker 2: I think it's the most amazing thing about being human
[29:07] Speaker 2: being is that you can feel such deep empathy for
[29:11] Speaker 2: someone you don't know. We always say that about elephants
[29:14] Speaker 2: and then forget that actually we are we do the
[29:16] Speaker 2: same thing. And so those two things sort of came
[29:19] Speaker 2: together and I was like, well, we've got a problem
[29:22] Speaker 2: with suicide. We've got a lot of people that want
[29:23] Speaker 2: to help. How can you let strangers help in a
[29:28] Speaker 2: way that's clinically safe. And that's where Reasons to Stay
[29:32] Speaker 2: came from. So essentially, anyone in the world can write
[29:35] Speaker 2: a letter on the site that then goes to our
[29:38] Speaker 2: clinical moderation team. They make sure everything's safe, publish it,
[29:43] Speaker 2: and then anyone can go on and read one of
[29:45] Speaker 2: these letters and have them delivered to them. And that
[29:48] Speaker 2: was the idea, and I'd launched it this year in
[29:51] Speaker 2: January on the twenty first of January, which is the
[29:53] Speaker 2: anniversary of Sam's death, because that was my good thing
[29:56] Speaker 2: that day. That's always a bad day, So I was like,
[30:00] Speaker 2: you know, you need a hefty good thing to get
[30:03] Speaker 2: through that day.
[30:04] Speaker 1: A maje in one big people will hear about this thing.
[30:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, I launched that for no
[30:12] Speaker 2: reason other than I thought it was a good idea
[30:15] Speaker 2: and I had very little expectation. It was a project
[30:18] Speaker 2: that I wanted to work on in behind the scenes
[30:21] Speaker 2: and sort of just really love to grow. I thought
[30:24] Speaker 2: we'd maybe send one hundred letters that week, and we
[30:27] Speaker 2: sent thirty three thousand, and then by mid February we'd
[30:31] Speaker 2: sent a million. And as of now, we've sent three
[30:36] Speaker 2: point six million letters to people in one hundred and
[30:39] Speaker 2: eighty countries. In what's that just over three months it's been.
[30:45] Speaker 2: We've reached seventeen million people on social media with this project.
[30:49] Speaker 2: It's just been like beyond anything I could possibly imagine.
[30:54] Speaker 2: And I guess it goes to show that instinct of
[30:57] Speaker 2: millions of people want to help was absolutely true and
[31:02] Speaker 2: it just it worked.
[31:04] Speaker 1: Oh my god, that gave me chills. That is the coolest,
[31:08] Speaker 1: coolest story I've probably ever heard on the podcast.
[31:12] Speaker 2: Amazing, being pretty incredible to see unfold in front of me,
[31:16] Speaker 2: and every moment, particularly in those early days where it
[31:19] Speaker 2: was so intense, you know, all the milestones just felt massive. Yeah,
[31:26] Speaker 2: first one hundred thousand was huge, and then it was
[31:28] Speaker 2: a million, and then as most people that if you
[31:32] Speaker 2: know me, will know me for a video I posted
[31:34] Speaker 2: when I when I first heard that it had helped
[31:37] Speaker 2: someone and my reaction to what that meant to me
[31:42] Speaker 2: when I found out that someone had, you know, very
[31:45] Speaker 2: literally survived because they've written a letter, read a letter
[31:49] Speaker 2: or other you know, all those moments just were just
[31:53] Speaker 2: it was I feel every day I watched it climb
[31:57] Speaker 2: to just enormous numbers, and it was just pinching myself constantly.
[32:01] Speaker 1: What are you going to do it?
[32:02] Speaker 2: For?
[32:02] Speaker 1: Ten million?
[32:03] Speaker 2: Party walk? That was the right end ten million. And
[32:08] Speaker 2: you know what what's absolutely mad is that will I
[32:11] Speaker 2: was going to say it will happen this year.
[32:13] Speaker 1: I think it will happen.
[32:14] Speaker 2: It happens soon very so it's you know, it's which
[32:17] Speaker 2: is extraordinary, but it's also just such a nice reminder that,
[32:21] Speaker 2: like it's so bad, well this is what's happening.
[32:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, but at the.
[32:25] Speaker 2: End of the day, like there are always reasons to stay,
[32:31] Speaker 2: but there are always reasons to feel positive about the world.
[32:33] Speaker 2: And it does you don't have to feel suicidal to
[32:36] Speaker 2: benefit from reasons to stay. The site. I go on there,
[32:39] Speaker 2: you read a letter, and you feel better about yourself
[32:43] Speaker 2: and the world and this human race that we all
[32:47] Speaker 2: were a part of. You just you cannot go on
[32:49] Speaker 2: that website and not feel better about the state of
[32:51] Speaker 2: the world and who you are and your part in it.
[32:53] Speaker 2: And I just think that's so wonderful, just because you know,
[32:56] Speaker 2: I have I do have this just love of people
[33:01] Speaker 2: and what we can do for each other. And it
[33:04] Speaker 2: just is such an amazing And I had no idea
[33:07] Speaker 2: this is going to be like this. I really genuinely
[33:09] Speaker 2: put you know, I put thought into it, but I
[33:11] Speaker 2: didn't put this much thought into it. And to see
[33:14] Speaker 2: what it's become and see how much it means to people, Oh,
[33:17] Speaker 2: it's been very, very very special. Yeah, we've got to
[33:22] Speaker 2: do we ten million, Well we'll come back for ten million.
[33:25] Speaker 1: Someone we need to the population of the world needs
[33:29] Speaker 1: to give you a huge thank you.
[33:30] Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
[33:37] Speaker 1: Let's segue. I imagine. And we were talking about this
[33:39] Speaker 1: before we were recording, that sometimes it's hard to talk
[33:42] Speaker 1: about mental health all the time, and that you're probably
[33:47] Speaker 1: you know, you're very much the mental health guy online.
[33:50] Speaker 1: You know you've done this incredible thing. You're not going
[33:52] Speaker 1: to give that up for anything. But in your personal
[33:55] Speaker 1: life as well, I'm sure a lot of people are like, oh,
[33:57] Speaker 1: this is Ben Ben. If I have a problem, I
[33:59] Speaker 1: can go to Ben. Strangers probably think that what's is
[34:02] Speaker 1: that hard?
[34:03] Speaker 2: Sometimes yeah, it's extremely hard. It's extremely extremely hard because
[34:08] Speaker 2: also I'm in this because I care so much, so
[34:12] Speaker 2: it's very difficult not to feel like you have to
[34:16] Speaker 2: always talk about it and that I'm going to do
[34:20] Speaker 2: this for the rest of my life. But it's also
[34:24] Speaker 2: really important for me to know when his work and
[34:27] Speaker 2: when it's not. And with social media, especially recently, it's
[34:32] Speaker 2: been very, very difficult to step away from that and
[34:34] Speaker 2: have me because at the end of the day, I'm ben.
[34:38] Speaker 2: For most of my life, I haven't talked about this,
[34:41] Speaker 2: and I have a whole personality that it's built on
[34:44] Speaker 2: not having to talk about mental health every day. And
[34:46] Speaker 2: I think sometimes he needs to and laugh. And you know,
[34:51] Speaker 2: there is lots of positive and fun moments in this journey.
[34:54] Speaker 2: There are also lots of incredibly devastating, sad, hard work
[35:00] Speaker 2: hours and bad things that happen. And I don't think
[35:03] Speaker 2: it's healthy for anyone to be, you know, experiencing that
[35:07] Speaker 2: all the time, you know, you know, when Reasons this
[35:10] Speaker 2: Day went viral, I got fifty thousand messages in one day,
[35:15] Speaker 2: and it's just like on a level that you it's
[35:17] Speaker 2: just not normal would be And most of those were
[35:22] Speaker 2: incredibly sensitive information about what someone was going through, you know,
[35:27] Speaker 2: when I was scrolling through, almost all of them were
[35:30] Speaker 2: This is why this matters to me, which is obviously
[35:33] Speaker 2: incredible and so lovely that people feel like they can
[35:36] Speaker 2: share it. But that just reading that volume of really
[35:41] Speaker 2: sometimes quite harrowing stories like it takes a toll. And
[35:45] Speaker 2: so yeah, it's it's important for me to do this work.
[35:49] Speaker 2: I love it. I'm never not going to do it.
[35:51] Speaker 2: But it's also as I've done this more and more,
[35:53] Speaker 2: you've got to work out how you do things that
[35:56] Speaker 2: are not this and even And it's funny because I've
[36:00] Speaker 2: I also run, and I made the decisions start like
[36:04] Speaker 2: running to raise money for mental health, right, and so
[36:06] Speaker 2: I've done like marathons and ultra marathons to like talk
[36:10] Speaker 2: about this, and I've realized, you know, I've realized after
[36:13] Speaker 2: this year, is I don't want to do that. I
[36:14] Speaker 2: don't think I want to keep running separate for mental
[36:17] Speaker 2: health and not raise money and sort of just literally
[36:19] Speaker 2: just do it for fun for me, because I think
[36:22] Speaker 2: I was pouring too much of myself into this. So
[36:26] Speaker 2: it's a it's a balancing act. But sometimes you are
[36:28] Speaker 2: desperate for it no offense to this podcast. Sometimes it's
[36:31] Speaker 2: desperate for a podcast that's not mental health. Yeah, so
[36:34] Speaker 2: ask me about like I don't know what what's my
[36:37] Speaker 2: other what's what would be my mastermind?
[36:39] Speaker 1: Oh, we've got questions for you, but I've got some
[36:43] Speaker 1: fun ones.
[36:43] Speaker 2: Oh I'm sure. I'm sure, but you know what I mean.
[36:46] Speaker 2: And she must be the same with you. Sometimes where
[36:48] Speaker 2: it's like, obviously it's hugely important, but sometimes it's important
[36:53] Speaker 2: to just remember that it's like one part of me. Yeah,
[36:57] Speaker 2: and I also have my own mental health, which sometimes.
[37:01] Speaker 1: That's the that's the hard part. I think when people
[37:04] Speaker 1: think of you as this person who has it all
[37:05] Speaker 1: sorted out since you're talking about it openly, and it's
[37:08] Speaker 1: like I'm still really trying to figure it out myself.
[37:12] Speaker 1: I get that a lot when I like and it
[37:14] Speaker 1: was interesting, like it's it is not a regular problem
[37:17] Speaker 1: to have. No, it's not too many people trust me. Yeah,
[37:22] Speaker 1: you know, you know, I just I'm doing too good
[37:25] Speaker 1: a job at helping people. But it is like I
[37:28] Speaker 1: definitely have a similar experience where sometimes I've got to
[37:30] Speaker 1: not talk about psychology and it's hard to Like, sometimes
[37:34] Speaker 1: friends will come to you and be like and you
[37:36] Speaker 1: want to be there for them, and that sometimes means
[37:38] Speaker 1: being less present online so that you have the the
[37:41] Speaker 1: resources to show up.
[37:42] Speaker 2: It really matters. Yeah, for sure, for sure, and it's
[37:45] Speaker 2: it's just about trying to protect yourself at the end
[37:49] Speaker 2: of the Yeah, we're a difficult topic and this goes
[37:51] Speaker 2: for And I'm very lucky obviously that I've been doing
[37:54] Speaker 2: this a long time. So I know a lot of
[37:56] Speaker 2: people that work in a similar area, and not just
[37:58] Speaker 2: mental health campaigning, but sort of loads of different areas
[38:03] Speaker 2: of social issues which are all difficult to experience, right
[38:08] Speaker 2: and to work in. So I've sort of learned a
[38:10] Speaker 2: lot from them and we support each other, right because
[38:14] Speaker 2: no one can talk about bad things all the time,
[38:16] Speaker 2: which actually, in fairness, is one of the reasons that
[38:18] Speaker 2: I wanted to start reasons to stay because in my
[38:21] Speaker 2: work you talk a lot about bad things. I do
[38:26] Speaker 2: a lot of policy work. I do a lot of
[38:28] Speaker 2: work with data and with mental health in parliament, and
[38:32] Speaker 2: it's never You're never talking about it because things are
[38:35] Speaker 2: going well. That's very good, right, And I think for me,
[38:40] Speaker 2: I'm not like that. I'm quite I'm always been a
[38:43] Speaker 2: glass half full fun. I like fun, I like optimism,
[38:48] Speaker 2: and so I reason State came about because I was
[38:52] Speaker 2: desperate to do something fun and positive and like something
[38:55] Speaker 2: that's a good thing to talk about, and reasons today
[38:58] Speaker 2: is such a good thing to talk about, Like I
[39:01] Speaker 2: that was part of it as well, which is that
[39:03] Speaker 2: I needed a way of doing something that was positive
[39:07] Speaker 2: rather than what it was before, which was constantly talking
[39:10] Speaker 2: about you know, for a long time I was working
[39:13] Speaker 2: on a campaign that was trying to improve negligence laws.
[39:17] Speaker 2: I'm like, negligence is never a conversation that is ever positive,
[39:23] Speaker 2: Like no positive thing ever leads to a negligence conversation. Yeah,
[39:28] Speaker 2: So it's like that's basically sums up sort of what
[39:30] Speaker 2: the conversations I was having. They were always about death
[39:33] Speaker 2: and failure and negligence. And you're like, that is not
[39:36] Speaker 2: that is not particularly upbeat. No, it's very very important.
[39:41] Speaker 2: But you need you need the balance.
[39:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, and now you found it. I do, and probably
[39:46] Speaker 1: like one of the reasons why you like you as
[39:50] Speaker 1: an optimistic person, Like this can only come from the
[39:53] Speaker 1: brain of an optimistic person, do you know what I mean?
[39:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point.
[39:56] Speaker 1: So it's kind of like you feel like you found
[39:58] Speaker 1: the way. That just shows how many people were hungering
[40:02] Speaker 1: for somebody to be like, can we talk about mental
[40:05] Speaker 1: health in a way that isn't. It's hard, right, it's
[40:09] Speaker 1: to find a positive spin, and not that we should,
[40:11] Speaker 1: but just in a way that's it's proactive and positive
[40:14] Speaker 1: and meaningful.
[40:15] Speaker 2: Positive without being invalidating as well, because you can be
[40:19] Speaker 2: positive about this but come across like you're just quite
[40:25] Speaker 2: making fun of someone or belittling something. But this is
[40:28] Speaker 2: positive in a way of like, it's really awesome that
[40:31] Speaker 2: we can do something for each other. And you know what,
[40:34] Speaker 2: if you go on there and write a letter, you'll
[40:36] Speaker 2: feel good about yourself and you'll feel like you're part
[40:38] Speaker 2: of the thing, and it'll be It's just everything about
[40:40] Speaker 2: it is just phenomenally positive from every perspective, and that's
[40:44] Speaker 2: awesome to be part of.
[40:45] Speaker 1: It's just hope, Like that's literally I'm like I was
[40:48] Speaker 1: trying to think. I was like, it's not optimistic, it's
[40:50] Speaker 1: just hopeful.
[40:51] Speaker 2: Well, that's that is at the end of the day.
[40:53] Speaker 2: That is the reason to stay, right, the reason to
[40:55] Speaker 2: state only exists when there's hope, and when there's no hope,
[40:58] Speaker 2: then there's no reason to stay. So all we're trying
[41:01] Speaker 2: to do in that moment is give someone something, some little,
[41:06] Speaker 2: tiny little spark of hope to get them through that moment,
[41:09] Speaker 2: and that, for a lot of people is what that
[41:11] Speaker 2: letter represents. And I just think that, you know, I
[41:15] Speaker 2: know that in the three and a half million people
[41:17] Speaker 2: that've read a letter, I know that so many of
[41:20] Speaker 2: them really feel connected to that person that's written a letter.
[41:24] Speaker 2: And it's almost like, and I knew this when I
[41:28] Speaker 2: was designing, Actually there's something I wanted people to feel.
[41:31] Speaker 2: It's almost like somewhere there is your letter writer. They're real,
[41:35] Speaker 2: they're out there, and it's like you've got this guardian angel,
[41:39] Speaker 2: this person that you don't know and will never meet,
[41:42] Speaker 2: that's just sort of cheering you on. And I just
[41:45] Speaker 2: think there's something quite beautiful in that being a reason
[41:48] Speaker 2: to stay when everything else in your life is absolutely
[41:51] Speaker 2: chaos and you've got no hope. You've got that person
[41:55] Speaker 2: who's written you a letter because they care, and if
[41:58] Speaker 2: you have no other reason to stay, they can be
[42:00] Speaker 2: that reason. I think that that is a very very
[42:03] Speaker 2: very powerful thing to give someone that maybe has nothing,
[42:08] Speaker 2: what does or feels like they have nothing.
[42:10] Speaker 1: And also just the sense of like, oh, somebody cares
[42:13] Speaker 1: about me, like somebody is thinking about me, and that's
[42:17] Speaker 1: like so beautiful. Okay, let's finish.
[42:21] Speaker 2: Up with a couple of questions.
[42:23] Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about your book in a second, okay,
[42:25] Speaker 1: but firstly, let's talk about some other things that you
[42:28] Speaker 1: are beyond mental health. Yeah, so I've got some rapid
[42:30] Speaker 1: fire questions here we go before we're going to finish
[42:33] Speaker 1: with two final questions. We'll let you have your water.
[42:36] Speaker 1: We've been depriving you of it.
[42:38] Speaker 2: Feel like I need to prepare for these, Well, you do.
[42:39] Speaker 1: They're very important. Okay, are you ready? A favorite song
[42:44] Speaker 1: at the moment.
[42:46] Speaker 2: Or anything by Noah Kahn? What's the new Album's? Absolutely
[42:50] Speaker 2: fantastic view between villagers? That was the old album, wasn't it?
[42:54] Speaker 2: But that is probably my favorite? And it's also the
[42:56] Speaker 2: tune I put over my huge viral reel, so almost
[43:00] Speaker 2: fit feels like a very he was fitting song for that.
[43:03] Speaker 2: Did he see the real No?
[43:05] Speaker 1: I don't think so maybe secretly, I feel like he
[43:07] Speaker 1: secretly did.
[43:07] Speaker 2: Please And also he does amazing work for mental health,
[43:11] Speaker 2: so I find a way of clabbing him. Yeah, yeah,
[43:14] Speaker 2: he's awesome. He's an album.
[43:15] Speaker 1: If I get his number of sener to you do?
[43:18] Speaker 2: Yeah? Maybe he used a ten million celebrations.
[43:22] Speaker 1: I love how we're putting it out.
[43:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, few two villages. Great subway order, subway order,
[43:28] Speaker 2: Mabel Marinara, cheese and.
[43:30] Speaker 1: Toasted, cheese and toasted.
[43:32] Speaker 2: What kind of bread hearty Italian?
[43:34] Speaker 1: Oh?
[43:35] Speaker 2: Classic, the beste So you lettuce, pickles, plipinos and then
[43:41] Speaker 2: weirdly not rancher. Why is it left me? It's the
[43:48] Speaker 2: sort of spicy male thing. Weird. Once you're in with
[43:54] Speaker 2: your selection, you can't really change, can you know? I
[43:57] Speaker 2: was very sauty sandwich.
[43:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking that. I was like, it's square
[44:00] Speaker 1: a spicy sandwiches as well.
[44:02] Speaker 2: It's quite difficult to eat off your or not. Yeah, no, no, no, interesting.
[44:08] Speaker 1: Okay, who's your favor This is a real hard question.
[44:11] Speaker 1: Who's your favorite?
[44:12] Speaker 2: Neppo Baby Wow Baby. Roman Camp he's pick up the
[44:20] Speaker 2: mental health topic. I know we're trying to get away
[44:22] Speaker 2: from mental health, but he does do amazing work.
[44:23] Speaker 1: I don't know who that is.
[44:24] Speaker 2: Roman Camp in the UK Capital Breakfast used to be
[44:26] Speaker 2: Capital Breakfast. He does Vota phone adverts.
[44:30] Speaker 1: Oh okay, well I'm not from the UK, so I
[44:33] Speaker 1: need to do my research.
[44:34] Speaker 2: Roman Camp in the UK and internationally. His dad was
[44:38] Speaker 2: Martin Kemp, who's in a band.
[44:40] Speaker 1: Of course I know who that is. Yeah, what's the bed.
[44:45] Speaker 2: The band put me on? I have no idea, no
[44:49] Speaker 2: offense to Mark and Camp.
[44:51] Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Terence. It's okay, I'll wikipedia
[44:55] Speaker 1: favorite royal family member.
[44:56] Speaker 2: Oh, Prince William Yeah strong again, like big up the
[45:02] Speaker 2: mental health.
[45:03] Speaker 1: My friend met him and he was him and Princess Kate.
[45:06] Speaker 1: Princess Kate is that her name? Pro Yes, she's a
[45:08] Speaker 1: princess yea. And she was like, that's like every I
[45:11] Speaker 1: feel like Australians come to the UK and they're like,
[45:14] Speaker 1: so I need to meet a royal.
[45:16] Speaker 2: Lovely. They do some amazing work And actually I work
[45:18] Speaker 2: quite closely with the Kensingto Palace team, and like obviously
[45:22] Speaker 2: he's very committed to like mental health.
[45:25] Speaker 1: He really is that a really good job on like
[45:27] Speaker 1: a very serious level.
[45:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. And actually when I've met him previously talking about
[45:32] Speaker 2: some of the stuff that we're doing, he's always he's
[45:35] Speaker 2: always quite in a good way, quite like it gives
[45:38] Speaker 2: you challenge about stuff that you can do. So it's
[45:40] Speaker 2: like it's not just briefed to know a little bit
[45:44] Speaker 2: enough to get through a conversation. He like really knows
[45:47] Speaker 2: his stuff. Which I've always thought was a good sign
[45:48] Speaker 2: if someone actually cares rather than just sort of repeating
[45:51] Speaker 2: what he was told. Yeah, I really really really knows
[45:54] Speaker 2: this stuff when it comes to mental health.
[45:55] Speaker 1: And that's a good lesson for like people like us
[45:57] Speaker 1: as well to be like, okay, when we like engage
[45:59] Speaker 1: other people, like all the people that we work with
[46:02] Speaker 1: higher up as well, like, how do we engage them? Like,
[46:04] Speaker 1: it's actually good to push back a little bit something, But.
[46:06] Speaker 2: If challenge is always a good thing with the right
[46:08] Speaker 2: tone coming alongside and helping trying to understand what you
[46:12] Speaker 2: could do more of. Yeah, but yeah, he's always been
[46:16] Speaker 2: good for that.
[46:16] Speaker 1: I love that you are a close perhaps close friend
[46:19] Speaker 1: of Prince William. So now I can talk it off
[46:21] Speaker 1: mindless Prince William. Yeah, and Roman Camp.
[46:24] Speaker 2: If they're free for the ten million, let's.
[46:26] Speaker 1: Get them on a round table. Come on, first.
[46:30] Speaker 2: Job, first job, bar in a bar, in a pub? Yeah,
[46:35] Speaker 2: in a pub.
[46:35] Speaker 1: What was the pub called?
[46:38] Speaker 2: Oh that's the Milkhouse.
[46:40] Speaker 1: The Milkhouse. See, I thought it was going to be
[46:42] Speaker 1: like His Lord's Head or something. Have some weird names
[46:45] Speaker 1: around here.
[46:46] Speaker 2: They do. We love a weird name, I know.
[46:48] Speaker 1: And and the amount of them that are called like
[46:50] Speaker 1: the Queen's something.
[46:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, the Queen's head. Yeah, yeah, there's there's some what's.
[46:54] Speaker 1: The w Yeah, the Queen's Queen's I don't know. Well
[46:59] Speaker 1: you well, I wasn't. I'm about to say where you lived,
[47:02] Speaker 1: so I'm not going to do that. But I always
[47:04] Speaker 1: found that place funny. Yes, what's your biggest advice?
[47:08] Speaker 2: Oh, slow walkers? You know, and which is ironic because
[47:12] Speaker 2: I was really late to this.
[47:14] Speaker 1: Okay, but pet peeve, what's advice? Like, what's something that
[47:19] Speaker 1: you do that you're like, I shouldn't do that? Oh?
[47:21] Speaker 2: From me personally, that's a really good question. Oh. I
[47:29] Speaker 2: love coke zero. You know everyone tells you that it's
[47:34] Speaker 2: coke zero worse than normal coke. I have tons of
[47:36] Speaker 2: coke sero, you know that. I just get through it.
[47:38] Speaker 2: How much do you so your kind is my coke cerroo?
[47:42] Speaker 1: Well, my coke zero is also my coke. I'm not
[47:46] Speaker 1: gonna lie. I've yeah. My doctor was like you got
[47:49] Speaker 1: to stop. Really, she was like, it's bad for you,
[47:51] Speaker 1: really bad.
[47:52] Speaker 2: For I know. That's I found myself on forums, not
[47:56] Speaker 2: forums like midnight going. Is coke zero better than normal coke?
[48:01] Speaker 2: Or is it is it the sugar that's bad or
[48:03] Speaker 2: is it aspartame or something? And all these artificial sweetness
[48:08] Speaker 2: look away. You could be and coffee. To be fair,
[48:11] Speaker 2: I have a lot of coffee, which I know is
[48:13] Speaker 2: not very good for you.
[48:14] Speaker 1: I think coffee is not the worst vice.
[48:16] Speaker 2: No, a nice little nice bit. I think sometimes they
[48:19] Speaker 2: got both because I do a lot of coffee meetings.
[48:22] Speaker 2: Do you know when people like coffee? I stack my coffees.
[48:25] Speaker 2: So what happens is then you've got like five people
[48:27] Speaker 2: you're meeting in the morning, and you have every coffee,
[48:30] Speaker 2: and I need to be better at going I'm just
[48:32] Speaker 2: gonna have hot chocolate. Actually, zero it up on the rocks, please,
[48:40] Speaker 2: or hot chocolate. That's a great idea, but sometimes you
[48:42] Speaker 2: feel like this shouldn't be the case. But sometimes you
[48:44] Speaker 2: feel that you can't order hot chocolate because it's charged.
[48:47] Speaker 2: If I'm meeting like a really, look at me, I'm
[48:49] Speaker 2: dressed like this, because imagine why I walked up and
[48:51] Speaker 2: I was like, whatever, hot chocolate, marshmallows, please double marsh.
[48:54] Speaker 2: I'm not sure that's great for my credibility.
[48:56] Speaker 1: I think it's honestly better because you're like, I'm confident
[48:59] Speaker 1: enough that I'm gonna like, look, how I represent my
[49:01] Speaker 1: ideals right now?
[49:03] Speaker 2: True? Because I'm a black Americano guy as well. So
[49:05] Speaker 2: that is a big shift.
[49:07] Speaker 1: That's a big cost.
[49:08] Speaker 2: You couldn't get further from a Black Americano.
[49:10] Speaker 1: Maybe a mocer get me somewhere in the middle.
[49:14] Speaker 2: Give it a go, Give it a go.
[49:15] Speaker 1: Then, Okay, two more questions. You already said, because pet
[49:19] Speaker 1: people is the next question.
[49:20] Speaker 2: So slow walkers, yeah, I'm the same. Yeah, and people
[49:23] Speaker 2: that walk in groups on small papers. I live in London, right,
[49:26] Speaker 2: We've got very small pavements in some of these places,
[49:28] Speaker 2: and it is people walk very slowly in lines.
[49:33] Speaker 1: I don't know why they do that. I have to
[49:35] Speaker 1: really hold it in I do.
[49:36] Speaker 2: It's my I can get my girlfriends the same. Yeah,
[49:40] Speaker 2: when we're together walking and that happens.
[49:41] Speaker 1: It's have you gone by down Regions Canal recently?
[49:46] Speaker 2: So pavements there are only one person wired and you've
[49:49] Speaker 2: got three people walking, yeah, holding hands and I've got
[49:52] Speaker 2: somewhere to go. Yeah, and they don't they just yeah,
[49:56] Speaker 2: you enjoy it.
[49:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great.
[49:59] Speaker 2: Favorite Tivish favorite TV show. Oh you know what I
[50:05] Speaker 2: loved MythBusters random one, but that was so good. That
[50:09] Speaker 2: is my childhood Adam Savage.
[50:11] Speaker 1: And the other one, Yeah, I know he is he
[50:17] Speaker 1: still alive?
[50:18] Speaker 2: No, you know it was No, they're both, they're both alive.
[50:23] Speaker 2: It was Grant who died. Oh god, from the you know,
[50:26] Speaker 2: there was the two and then there was the three.
[50:28] Speaker 2: I was very sad. He was quite young. Actually, I
[50:30] Speaker 2: think it was maybe last year.
[50:31] Speaker 1: Do you know they weren't friends.
[50:33] Speaker 2: I know they didn't get on.
[50:34] Speaker 1: They didn't get on.
[50:35] Speaker 2: I would never know.
[50:36] Speaker 1: No, they were so good. What was your favorite myth?
[50:38] Speaker 2: Favorite myth? There was one about a bullet curving that
[50:42] Speaker 2: was quite good when you tried it like that, that
[50:45] Speaker 2: was quite good. I mean, all the explosions are great. God,
[50:49] Speaker 2: it's a really good question. It's been a long time
[50:51] Speaker 2: since I've watched any of them.
[50:52] Speaker 1: Mine was another bullet one was like getting shot underwater.
[50:55] Speaker 2: Oh, that was good.
[50:55] Speaker 1: Watching this episode get rated R now.
[51:02] Speaker 2: Was great. And then you can't go wrong with a
[51:04] Speaker 2: bit of SpongeBob.
[51:06] Speaker 1: That's I did not think you were going to say that.
[51:07] Speaker 1: I thought you were maybe like a Parks in Red
[51:09] Speaker 1: Brooklyn nine nine guy.
[51:10] Speaker 2: No, neither, I've not watched either of those shows. I'm
[51:14] Speaker 2: actually very good for TV. My girlfriend's big, like her
[51:16] Speaker 2: family is very big on films and TV shows, And
[51:19] Speaker 2: I'm sorry I get outed every time they're like, oh,
[51:21] Speaker 2: if he's not seen that, you should definitely have seen that.
[51:24] Speaker 1: When somebody's like you haven't seen Parks and Recreation, no,
[51:28] Speaker 1: and you're like, no, that was about.
[51:31] Speaker 2: To be me.
[51:31] Speaker 1: So okay, let's talk about your book.
[51:39] Speaker 2: My book.
[51:40] Speaker 1: Look what he has right here.
[51:43] Speaker 2: So awesome to see in real life.
[51:46] Speaker 1: What's it called for the people who aren't watching?
[51:48] Speaker 2: This is called Reasons Too. It's based on reasons to Stay.
[51:52] Speaker 2: But this is going to be filled with letters from
[51:54] Speaker 2: real people for not just moments where you might need
[51:57] Speaker 2: a reason to stay. But I just love the idea
[51:59] Speaker 2: of people writing about grief and anxiety and overthinking and depression,
[52:04] Speaker 2: and like, I really want this book to be there
[52:07] Speaker 2: for any moment when whatever you're going through, you can
[52:10] Speaker 2: open it and there'll be a letter from a real person,
[52:12] Speaker 2: just like with Reasons to Stay, but about a moment
[52:15] Speaker 2: in your in your life. Wow, and this one is
[52:17] Speaker 2: currently I was going to be empty.
[52:19] Speaker 1: I was going to say, can you read us one?
[52:21] Speaker 2: This is my inspiration to actually get the work done.
[52:24] Speaker 2: And but yeah, no, this is this is sort of
[52:28] Speaker 2: it's lovely to be able to actually see this, but
[52:32] Speaker 2: we are. These pages are eventually going to be filled
[52:34] Speaker 2: with real people's letters. I just think that's gonna be
[52:37] Speaker 2: so beautiful, Like just whatever you're going through, Open it
[52:42] Speaker 2: to a page and someone's written you a letter about
[52:45] Speaker 2: the thing that you're going through. How beautiful, And it
[52:47] Speaker 2: just gets to the heart of what Reasons Today is about.
[52:49] Speaker 1: Are you going to write them all?
[52:51] Speaker 2: No, these will be other people. There'll be people that
[52:53] Speaker 2: have submitted to Reasons to Stay. So we're taking basically
[52:56] Speaker 2: the best letters from all these different topics and putting
[52:59] Speaker 2: them in here. So no, I am not writing I
[53:02] Speaker 2: think I'm the less I write in this, I think
[53:04] Speaker 2: the better. I really want this to be exactly with
[53:07] Speaker 2: like with Reasons to Stay, where it's strangers supporting strangers,
[53:11] Speaker 2: and all of them will be real people, and so
[53:13] Speaker 2: there will be there will be a situation where you know,
[53:16] Speaker 2: I'll have I don't know how many letters we're choosing yet,
[53:20] Speaker 2: one hundred, one hundred and fifty real people that have
[53:23] Speaker 2: really spent time writing. Oh how special The less I
[53:27] Speaker 2: write in here the better because I just want to
[53:29] Speaker 2: sort of curate this with people's words. Yeah, and also,
[53:34] Speaker 2: and it's going to be anonymous as well, so you know,
[53:37] Speaker 2: you've again, like reasons to say, You've got these people
[53:39] Speaker 2: out there in the world that have sat there and
[53:42] Speaker 2: written this because they care.
[53:44] Speaker 1: Also in the in the age of AI got a
[53:47] Speaker 1: physical book with advice from real people, and.
[53:50] Speaker 2: We're you know, very it's very difficult because you know,
[53:57] Speaker 2: and this is a really good point actually, because a
[53:58] Speaker 2: lot of people that have written that is on Reason's
[54:01] Speaker 2: Stay have been AI. I don't know, maybe I should
[54:05] Speaker 2: not mention this, but it's funny because AI has learned
[54:09] Speaker 2: now what the perfect letter is for reasons to Stay.
[54:11] Speaker 2: So what's really interesting is you can tell it's from
[54:14] Speaker 2: AI because it's all the same, so that Tajubut has
[54:19] Speaker 2: learned through lots and lots of thousands of people asking
[54:22] Speaker 2: it this, it gives you the same letter. So although
[54:25] Speaker 2: it sounds good, I know that that line is the
[54:29] Speaker 2: same in about five thousand of them, like there's a lot.
[54:32] Speaker 2: So it's and one thing, you know, the reason people
[54:35] Speaker 2: turn to AI is because it's a difficult task. It's
[54:39] Speaker 2: really really hard to know what to say to someone,
[54:41] Speaker 2: and that is the point, Like it should feel hard,
[54:46] Speaker 2: it should feel really difficult, because in order to write
[54:49] Speaker 2: a good letter to someone, you have to connect with
[54:52] Speaker 2: something in you that feels that the only way you
[54:55] Speaker 2: can answer the question of why should you not die
[55:00] Speaker 2: is understanding what you like about life, and there's something
[55:04] Speaker 2: really difficult and special in that question. So yeah, it's
[55:08] Speaker 2: actually a really good point of like, if you're using AI,
[55:13] Speaker 2: that defeats the point for you and for them, because
[55:17] Speaker 2: it's not about you know, reasons to stay is not
[55:21] Speaker 2: about the words that are written. It's about the person
[55:25] Speaker 2: that's written them and why and if you know, with AI,
[55:29] Speaker 2: it's just words. But with a letter that's written by
[55:32] Speaker 2: real human being, actually the words matter less than the
[55:35] Speaker 2: fact that you've spent the time doing it. So yeah,
[55:39] Speaker 2: no AI.
[55:43] Speaker 1: In the book.
[55:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, there are there are places in the world for
[55:46] Speaker 2: AI letters to people in this space. It's just not
[55:51] Speaker 2: that it's not it. So yeah, it's we're we're getting
[55:54] Speaker 2: very good at working out.
[55:55] Speaker 1: Which one day I know the feeling I get people, yeah,
[55:59] Speaker 1: I want it, but I can always tell when like
[56:02] Speaker 1: you're like you.
[56:03] Speaker 2: Can that's not a real perose. So this will be
[56:05] Speaker 2: real people. Yeah, and the reasons say we'll always be
[56:07] Speaker 2: real people.
[56:08] Speaker 1: Well, we'll leave a link in the description to pre
[56:10] Speaker 1: order something that people should know. Preorders of books are
[56:13] Speaker 1: the most important.
[56:14] Speaker 2: That's so important because they basically drive who stocks you exactly. Yeah,
[56:20] Speaker 2: so actually it's really important to pre order.
[56:22] Speaker 1: Don't wait for it to come out, although you can
[56:24] Speaker 1: if you would like, but you probably should pre order it.
[56:26] Speaker 2: You can. It's a bit of a wake because we've
[56:28] Speaker 2: got to compile them.
[56:29] Speaker 1: That would would be a nice surprise, your reason to
[56:31] Speaker 1: stay Yeah, because your book will arrive.
[56:34] Speaker 2: There we go.
[56:36] Speaker 1: Okay, final question. Yes, we asked us of every single guest,
[56:40] Speaker 1: what is one piece of advice you have for people
[56:42] Speaker 1: in their twenties that has nothing to do with what
[56:45] Speaker 1: we spoke about today. Wow.
[56:49] Speaker 2: Oh that's such a good point. I think we have
[56:57] Speaker 2: spoken about it. But I just I am such an
[56:59] Speaker 2: advocate for running, for running that sounds so lame, No,
[57:03] Speaker 2: because I would be listening to this like three years
[57:06] Speaker 2: ago and I'd be like, that is just terrible advice.
[57:09] Speaker 2: I read a book, an amazing book called Born to Run.
[57:14] Speaker 2: If you are if you wanted to get into running
[57:16] Speaker 2: but haven't quite or you've never really enjoyed running. Read
[57:20] Speaker 2: that book. I don't earn anything from saying.
[57:23] Speaker 1: Who wrote it.
[57:24] Speaker 2: Christopher McDougall. He's a running journalist in America, and he
[57:27] Speaker 2: basically he's obsessed with the idea that there's a there's
[57:32] Speaker 2: lots of tribes around the world that can run ultramarathons,
[57:36] Speaker 2: and there's one called the mispronounced this the tarot Taro
[57:40] Speaker 2: who Mura Tarooma in New Mexico. They basically they run
[57:45] Speaker 2: one hundred miles for fun, right, And he basically goes
[57:49] Speaker 2: there and they wear to They do these races in
[57:56] Speaker 2: disused car tires, sandals made from old car tire right.
[58:00] Speaker 2: So it's basically like we've got these like two hundred
[58:04] Speaker 2: pounds foam shoes here and we'd struggled like five k
[58:07] Speaker 2: and they're literally doing it in tires. And the whole
[58:11] Speaker 2: book it's not all about them. It's basically about how
[58:14] Speaker 2: the human being evolved and our evolution and how we
[58:18] Speaker 2: used to. We are built the way we are. Our
[58:20] Speaker 2: Achilles is the size it is because we are designed
[58:24] Speaker 2: to run and be able to recover aerobically on the run.
[58:29] Speaker 2: And it's an amazing book because basically, and this sounds
[58:32] Speaker 2: a bit like I'm some weird runner now, it basically
[58:36] Speaker 2: makes you realize actually running to us is a little
[58:40] Speaker 2: bit like flying to a bird, and it's like we're
[58:43] Speaker 2: so it's so genetically wired into us to be able
[58:45] Speaker 2: to do it. So I loved it. I read that
[58:47] Speaker 2: book and then I decided to sign up for an
[58:49] Speaker 2: ultra marathon and I literally running for me now is everything.
[58:54] Speaker 2: And what's amazing as well is that you will if
[58:58] Speaker 2: you do it, and you've just go up and put
[59:00] Speaker 2: your trainers on and get out of the door, you
[59:02] Speaker 2: will see yourself improve, which I think is fantastic in itself,
[59:05] Speaker 2: but you will. Also it's an amazing thing, which is
[59:08] Speaker 2: that it's always just as hard for everyone, Like whether
[59:12] Speaker 2: you've never run before, if you run as hard as
[59:15] Speaker 2: you can, that's always as hard. You might run faster,
[59:19] Speaker 2: but it's always feels as hard. And I don't think
[59:21] Speaker 2: there's anything really in life where everyone has the universal
[59:24] Speaker 2: experience of how hard it is. You might do different things,
[59:27] Speaker 2: but everyone feels the same. I think that's quite special.
[59:31] Speaker 2: So you're not racing anyone, you're only ever improving yourself.
[59:35] Speaker 2: It's one of the best things I ever started doing.
[59:37] Speaker 2: I loved that book Run you Don't hurt yourself. Yeah,
[59:42] Speaker 2: just get out the door and even if you have
[59:43] Speaker 2: to walk and run and walk and run and just
[59:45] Speaker 2: think it's fantastic.
[59:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, such great advice.
[59:49] Speaker 2: And I would never have imagined i'd say that to someone.
[59:52] Speaker 2: This is the thing.
[59:53] Speaker 1: I think when people get into running, they're like, oh
[59:54] Speaker 1: my god, I'm so boring, and then you start doing
[59:56] Speaker 1: it and you're.
[59:57] Speaker 2: Like, yeah, but yeah, I get it. I think it's
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: because not to go on if we're wrapping up. But
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: I think it's because at school running was always a punishment,
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: like if you talk, if you were talking back to
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: the classical conditioning, if you're talking like you'd be told
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: to run around the field or like there was always
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: a bad thing. And then there was an amazing moment
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: where losing Sam, I just went, I'm going to just
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: go for a run to get out of the house.
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: And then I just never stopped doing it. I just
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: love it. It's the only time that in public transport. Weirdly,
[1:00:30] Speaker 2: it's the only time my brain's ever quiet. My brain's
[1:00:33] Speaker 2: really quiet on the bus. Love it.
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: I never thought about that.
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's where I do my best, like thinking on
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: the bus, I've had reasons to stay. Came on a bus. Wow,
[1:00:44] Speaker 2: that was a bus journey.
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: I feel like that used to be the shower, but
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: now we listen to music in the shower.
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, showers just music now Yeah, and getting ready very
[1:00:52] Speaker 2: getting ready, very like stress for bus. There we go
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: to ride the super Loop around London.
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: Just the super Loop. I'm not going to do that,
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: so I don't want to be on any more public
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: transport in the city every again. I might have to.
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: I think all the chieves are broken. I think I'm
[1:01:05] Speaker 2: going to be on the bus back.
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: Oh dang, well, thanks for coming on, Thank you for
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: having me. Yeah, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing. We're going to leave links in the
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: description to everything Reasons to Say the book. You can
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: see what bends up to. He's doing some really cool
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: stuff always, which is so cool being best buddies with
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: Prince William, So I expect a selfie on there from
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: him soon. But yeah, thank you again. If you have
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: made it this far, leave a little white heart emoji
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: down below, just so that we know that you've listened
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: all the way to the end and that you enjoyed
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: this episode. As always, we also have full episodes on
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: Netflix if you want to go and watch this talk
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: or future conversations that we have. I'll also leave links
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: in the description down below. There's always a bunch of
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: stuff to go and explore and go in too further
[1:01:55] Speaker 1: down there. So until next time, be safe, be kind,
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: be gentle to yourself. We will talk a very sotain
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: m hm.

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