Men's Mental Health - Richard Jeffrey

For most of my career, I didn’t really understand the concept of looking after my own mental health.

I spent the early part of my career working as a Management Consultant spending my time with clients all over the globe (yes, I do now wince at the carbon footprint I had back then). I was also doing a business masters in my spare time. I followed that with other stretching international and regional development roles. 

I joined the Group in 2011 with the small task of setting up the Growth Hub. I could handle that, I was sure….and indeed I could. But after a few years, I realised that the way I was working was having a negative impact on my family and my own wellbeing. As my then 3-year-old daughter said to me one-day “Daddy, I don’t see very much of you”.

It wasn’t possible to work all hours and I wasn’t able to give the best of me to my family, funders, clients, the team, etc.  The introduction of the GC Leadership Development Programme also showed me that I had a lot of work to do to better understand myself. I made some big decisions to change how I worked, restructure the team, get a bit more balance in my life and put the work in to really understand myself a bit more. Yes, I did take up running and yoga and do love it but it is also so important to have dedicated time with my children and family and do those walks in the park and have a few popcorn and film nights.

I am really glad I did make those changes because within a short time period my Dad was diagnosed with dementia and I had the added demands of dealing with that terrible challenge of seeing someone you love start to fade away. It is tough and it brought up a lot of strong feelings about the loss of my Mum who died when I was just two.

Thankfully the GC Employee Assistance Programme was there to offer that extra support and counselling I needed. Dealing with the pandemic on a personal and professional level, transitioning into a new challenging (but very exciting) role as National Director, dealing with Dad’s disease, being there for the kids and my wife….it can be quite a strain at times but I know that I have the tools to deal with the challenges (and know my warning points) because I have taken advantage of the support that has made available.

I would encourage anyone to start doing the work; you never know what challenges might come your way and there is so much support out there.

Richard also spoke on the 'Honey I Blew Up the Business' podcast about a wide range of topics including mental health. You can listen to the full episode here.

If you would like to contribute your story to the Working your Way hub please get in touch - healthandwellbeingnetwork@growthco.uk