Pod Insights The Psychology of your 20s 434. "I lost my brother at 16 to suicide, it shouldn't have happened" ft. Ben West About this episode 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 https://netflix.com/thepsychologyofyour20s
Preorder Ben's book: HERE https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/486134/reasons-to-by-west-ben/9781911754886
Follow Ben: HERE https://www.instagram.com/iambenwest/?hl=en
If you need help, it is available. You are NEVER alone. Please find some further resources HERE. https://www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts/
Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en#
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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.
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Transcript 14,115 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:06 Jemma Sbeg? Before we begin today's episode, I just want to note that this conversation includes discussions around suicide, grief and mental health. Please just take care while listening and if anything has brought up some heavy or difficult feelings today, reach out to somebody you trust or seek support from a mental health professional or crisis service in your area. As always, we will have links and resources in the description. You do not have to go through these hard moments alone, so please reach out to somebody that you love.
2:39 Jemma Sbeg? Hello, everybody. I'm Jemma Sbeg and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.
2:59 Jemma Sbeg? Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. Today's episode is a really special one because we are joined by someone whose work has opened up some incredibly important conversations around mental health, grief, masculinity, vulnerability for, if I'm being honest, an entire generation of young people. Today, I'm joined by Ben West. You may know him through his advocacy work following the loss of his younger brother. Since then, he's launched his movement Reasons to Stay to help guide strangers through difficult times. But beyond that, beyond the public work, Ben is also somebody who is deeply thoughtful. He has an amazing perspective on being human, on friendship, purpose, pain
3:41 Jemma Sbeg? and hope. And we are so excited to have him on. Ben, welcome to the Psychology of Your Twenties.
3:46 Speaker 07 Thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited for this chat.
3:48 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, and it took you a second to get here. We're recording it on a day of a crazy tube strike.
3:53 Speaker 07 All the transport into London was just, nope, today's not my day. And you know, it's funny, when you work in mental health, you're constantly talking about like coping and relieving stress. And then suddenly all the trains are stuck and you're having to like practise what you preach and try not to get frazzled by London transport. But I'm here.
4:11 Jemma Sbeg? You came in cool, calm and collected.
4:13 Speaker 07 Inside. I'm like a
4:15 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, you're just like.
4:15 Speaker 07 Legs are going under the water.
4:17 Jemma Sbeg? Well, this is the thing that I've found since moving to London is I've become very angry.
4:20 Speaker 07 Hmm.
4:21 Jemma Sbeg? And I have to really kind of rein it in.
4:24 Speaker 07 Small things.
4:25 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, just the smallest stuff. I'm like, the world is a terrible, awful place.
4:30 Speaker 07 I know.
4:31 Jemma Sbeg? Did you?
4:31 Speaker 07 And then the weather as well, like it's it's always.
4:33 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, yeah.
4:34 Speaker 07 It always all comes together. You've got wind, rain, trains are late, someone's, someone spills coffee on you.
4:41 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, or worse.
4:42 Speaker 07 Oh, it's really difficult to try and get out of that funk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4:45 Jemma Sbeg? And then like a light is flickering and you're like, I just wanna lay down.
4:48 Speaker 07 Yeah. And you know what? I used to be, um, not to go straight in with the psychology, but I used to be really bad at having that happen. And then immediately writing off the day and getting into a bad mood. And it actually came up when I was going through therapy, like that. Like, uh, bad days would just take over and become bad days. And it was that, it was that experience that actually I started my first rule I have with myself. Which is that if it's a bad day, you have to do something good, right? And so it was something we came up with in therapy, which was like, I always just had, so as soon as bad things happen, I just form the mindset that it was a bad day. And so I have this rule where you have to do something good. So, um, that's something simple, like talking to a shopkeeper in the shops.
5:30 Speaker 07 Or texting a friend you haven't spoken to in a while, or just doing something good, or being happy to see someone. And then as soon as you've done that, you've you've taken the power away from the bad day. So not to go straight in with the psychology, but this is actually very relevant to something that I. It's one of my two important rules that I live by.
5:46 Jemma Sbeg? Okay, well, I have two follow up questions. Number one is what are you gonna do today?
5:50 Speaker 07 I haven't decided yet. I feel like this is quite a good thing to do.
5:53 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, okay. Well, this is work.
5:54 Speaker 07 This can be my, yeah, no, I think, um, I'm going to an event later, which will be really good. So, um. I think that will be my good thing for today. And that's supporting an amazing charity and it's gonna be such a lovely evening. So.
6:06 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
6:07 Speaker 07 I feel like that will be my good thing today. But even if it's just literally going into the shops and forcing yourself to get into shops and then talk. Actually talk to the person at checkout, it always makes the day better.
6:18 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah. And what's your second rule?
6:19 Speaker 07 My second rule is because of the nature of my job, and we'll get into this, I talk to a lot of people about. Some really awful stuff. And so my other rule is that I've I'm still thinking about a conversation. Two weeks later, I have to um talk to someone about it.
6:33 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
6:33 Speaker 07 I don't give myself the choice because, you know, some of the conversations I have with people are fairly harrowing.
6:39 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
6:39 Speaker 07 Um. And usually I'm quite good at processing that. But yeah, if I'm still talking, thinking about it, I was thinking about them two weeks later. I have to talk to someone about that conversation. And it just takes my choice away. So I know then I'm like, it's been two weeks. I need to text my counselor. I need to go and book some time in and talk about this. Yeah.
6:57 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
6:58 Speaker 07 It sort of takes that opportunity to push the can down the road away from me.
7:01 Jemma Sbeg? I used to have this when I used to do, this is, we are going in. Oh, my god. I used to. I used to do interviews for the Australian government on child malt treatment.
7:11 Speaker 07 Wow.
7:11 Jemma Sbeg? And as in like calling people up and being like, you know.
7:15 Speaker 07 Yeah.
7:15 Jemma Sbeg? Tell me about what you've been through. And I was so young, I wish I had that rule.
7:20 Speaker 07 Hmm.
7:21 Jemma Sbeg? Cause my rule was just like, if I had a bad call, I'd go and eat a Kinder Bueno.
7:25 Speaker 07 Yes.
7:25 Jemma Sbeg? And I think that probably made my, I'd gone into a really bad habit.
7:29 Speaker 07 Yes, like classic conditioning. You're gonna stop wanting those, right?
7:32 Jemma Sbeg? I was just gonna say that even now, like thinking of it yesterday, I had a bad day and I went and got a Kinder Bueno. And I was like, we cannot go back down this road again.
7:41 Speaker 07 Want a Kinder Bueno?
7:42 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, one, texting counselor, Kinder Bueno, um, let's see.
7:47 Speaker 07 I love a Kinder Bueno, though.
7:48 Jemma Sbeg? I know, it's so good.
7:53 Jemma Sbeg? Can you briefly, you know what? I did not even ask you to introduce yourself.
7:56 Speaker 07 Okay, we've gone straight in.
7:58 Jemma Sbeg? Can you briefly introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about who you are as a person, how people might know you, or.
8:03 Speaker 07 Yeah.
8:03 Jemma Sbeg? They don't know you, who you are.
8:04 Speaker 07 Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, my name's Ben. I am a mental health campaigner. The fact that I'm introducing myself as a mental health campaigner. Is still weird because it's not something I ever thought I'd have to do.
8:16 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
8:17 Speaker 07 Um, growing up, I didn't know anything about mental health. No one had ever talked to me about mental health. Um, and the first time it really came up in my life was when my mum told me that my little brother Sam. Had been diagnosed with depression. Um, and that was the first time I'd ever really heard what that was. Um. I didn't really know anything more about it, so I never spoke to Sam. And then, very sadly, in January two thousand eighteen, Sam took his own life and died at the age of fifteen years old, and I was seventeen. Um, and obviously through that experience, I very quickly realised that the significance of what my mum had told me in September.
8:58 Speaker 07 Um, and also through speaking to my friends and people at school realised like how many people were affected by this sort of thing. Um, and my plan in life at that moment was to go to university, study engineering and then go to the armed forces and fly helicopters, right?
9:13 Jemma Sbeg? Wow, very Prince Harry coded.
9:15 Speaker 07 I know, very, yeah. And it's not what I'm doing, as you can tell. Um, but I realised very quickly that, you know, what happened to Sam shouldn't have happened. And there were, there were small things that could have been different. Um, and it felt like I had a opportunity to change those small things for other people and pick up the sort of baton that Sam left behind in terms of wanting to create change and do my best. So I'm a mental health campaigner. Now I've been doing this for eight years. People will probably, if you've heard my name, you've probably heard it in association with my project that I launched this year called Reasons to Stay, which I'm sure we'll get into more, but essentially it's a suicide prevention project. Um, sending letters to people thinking about suicide, giving them reasons to stay.
9:58 Speaker 07 Um, but, you know, my work goes far beyond that. The reason I'm dressed so smartly is I've, I've been, I work in policy. So I do a lot of work with the government around NHS and healthcare for people with mental health and education and mental health. So basically, mental health uh uh is what I live and breathe. It's not something that I ever thought I'd go into, but it's something, you know, it is everything I do. And, and you know, every day I think about Sam and what happened to him and my family. And I go to work because we absolutely, I absolutely believe that we can change the system that lets so many people down. Um, and um, that's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. That's what I've decided. This is all I'm gonna do.
10:40 Jemma Sbeg? Wow.
10:40 Speaker 07 Yeah, which is a huge thing to say, but I love it.
10:43 Jemma Sbeg? But you had such pride in your eyes when you said that.
10:45 Speaker 07 Yeah.
10:46 Jemma Sbeg? Can you tell me a bit about Sam? And like some of your memories about him and like what kind, what he was like?
10:52 Speaker 07 Yeah. Oh, Sam was wonderful. He was.
10:56 Speaker 07 Very funny.
10:57 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
10:58 Speaker 07 And the sort of humour he had was like, you didn't know quite whether you were allowed to laugh.
11:04 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
11:04 Speaker 07 Always just like, um, on the edge of, of something really dark and awful. He had quite a dark sense of humour, but it was just so funny. Um, even his friends, like at school, they always said he was such a like class clown, he'd try and make the whole class laugh. Um, he was very, very talented uh in art and music, so like he was fifteen when he was, you know, basically producing whole film scores on his laptop.
11:31 Jemma Sbeg? Wow.
11:32 Speaker 07 Um, loved Hans Zimmer and film and and film scores and music and film. He was also like, he he painted a lot.
11:41 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
11:42 Speaker 07 And just the most phenomenal painter. Um, and one of my favourite, yeah, one of my favourite memories back then of of us is cause it was me, Sam and another brother, Tom, who's my youngest brother. Um, and we used to just, Sam would do like some art and he'd just bring us in on right at the end, like help with something. And we were absolutely terrible. I'm so jealous of Sam's talent with art because I can't draw, I can't paint. I would love to be able to paint, but I I can't, um, I struggle so much with it. Um, but he was very, very talented. Um, but I think the big thing with Sam that I like means a lot now, looking back, is he just had, he was like a um
12:25 Speaker 07 an emotional sponge, he just, he just absorbed all the emotion around him. He was such an empath and he cared so much about other people. And he's this, that sense of like, social justice of of if someone was being picked on or bullied, he would feel he's so like powerfully that that was unjust and he'd take a lot of that emotion on. Um, which obviously must have been a lot for him to take on his shoulders. But he just, he just had this really strong sense of right and wrong. Um, and he was felt emotions and he felt other people's emotions really strongly. Um, which, you know, obviously meant that when he was struggling, he felt very passionately about other people. You know, feeling seen as well through their struggles.
13:10 Speaker 07 Um, and and that's sort of why I feel like I want to do what I do now is because when he was struggling, he wanted other people to feel understood and for things to be better for them. And he never got the chance to sort of do this. And I know that absolutely if Sam had survived, he would have gone on to become a mental health campaigner. He'd probably be sitting in this chair talking to you.
13:33 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
13:33 Speaker 07 He would have done a phenomenal job. And I always say to people, I'm like, unfortunately, you have got the second best option. But I will, I will do my absolute best to sort of do what I think Sam would want to do. And that is to show up, to tell our story, be vulnerable, be honest, make people feel seen. But also, you know, push for the change that stops people getting support and stops people getting an education. So, yeah, I I I've tried to be better at art. And I've tried to be better at music. But I know that one talent and one, one thing that me and Sam absolutely share is that absolute social justice, right and wrong, empathy for for people that
14:17 Speaker 07 don't deserve to feel the way they do, um, and not have the support that so many people don't have nowadays.
14:24 Jemma Sbeg? I feel like, does your younger brother have that as well?
14:26 Speaker 07 We all do.
14:27 Jemma Sbeg? I was gonna say, I feel like that's would be a very strong through line from like your parents.
14:31 Speaker 07 Yeah, I I definitely think so. And they've, and my parents have obviously reacted in a similar way to Sam dying in terms of like trying to change.
14:38 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
14:39 Speaker 07 Change things and provide support, which a lot of people do when when something awful happens. And it's it's nice that we're all sort of on the same page of.
14:46 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
14:47 Speaker 07 That was so bad that we're gonna make sure it never happens again. Uh, we're all very aligned on that.
14:52 Jemma Sbeg? I saw this interesting thing from Jack Antonoff. Do you know who that is?
14:56 Speaker 07 No.
14:57 Jemma Sbeg? Okay, he's a music producer, not important. But he said that when you're experiencing grief is when your purpose becomes the clearest.
15:05 Speaker 07 Hmm.
15:06 Jemma Sbeg? Because nothing else matters.
15:08 Speaker 07 Yeah.
15:09 Jemma Sbeg? And that kind of sounds like what that's what's happened to you, you know, through that.
15:13 Speaker 07 Yeah, definitely. I think there's so many reasons why I do what I do now. But one of them is definitely that it's hurt so much that I think. Pain without a meaning is very difficult to cope with.
15:28 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
15:29 Speaker 07 Because it feels like, what is this all for? I mean, and it hurts so much. It's still, you know, it's still, still a horrible, horrible thing to have gone through. Um, and it doesn't make it less painful, but it does make that experience feel like it's worth something. And you know, I get the absolute privilege of hearing from people who have been, you know, materially changed. And helped by work that I've been involved in or contributed to. And I remember little seventeen year old me. Sat at school with my friends trying to work out what we were gonna do to change the world.
16:05 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
16:06 Speaker 07 And over time, you realise that actually changing the world and creating that much impact. In reality, happens in really quiet moments with people. And if you can stop one person from taking their own life. Or you get the right support to one person, the ripple effect of that over time is absolutely enormous. And so, you know, like I, I remember just thinking back now to seventeen year old me. Not knowing what I was meant to do or how I was gonna turn this awful experience into something that was good. Um, he would not believe what we've done.
16:41 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
16:42 Speaker 07 Over the last eight years, it's been the most extraordinary, powerful, meaningful journey. And I can say that now with a smile on my face, like it has, my story is so sad.
16:54 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
16:54 Speaker 07 But it's got to a position now where it's a really happy, positive journey. Um, and that I didn't, I didn't believe that was ever possible. So that's.
17:06 Jemma Sbeg? Wow, that's so pretty. That's, pretty is the wrong word.
17:09 Speaker 07 No, it's.
17:09 Jemma Sbeg? That's the one, yeah.
17:10 Speaker 07 I know, and it's only sometimes that you actually reflect and go. Yeah, there were, you know, when Sam died, I honestly didn't think anything good would ever happen to me again. I don't know how to describe it, except that I just thought my life was always going to be gray.
17:26 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
17:26 Speaker 07 Um, and I just didn't think anything would be fun or funny or positive. And so it's quite profound to be able to sit here now and say, this is great. I love what I do. I feel joy almost every day.
17:42 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
17:42 Speaker 07 Um, and that, that's been quite, quite the journey to get there.
17:47 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
17:47 Speaker 07 But yeah, it's, it's very meaningful.
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21:15 Jemma Sbeg? And you know what? I'm sure somebody's listening to this right now, who's probably in the early stages of grief, being like, this is always going to be it. And I think it's just a really nice thing to hear somebody say that. Even people with like a bit of anticipatory grief as well, probably listening, being like, like, yeah. Can I actually ask you about that a little bit more? Like, I think you explained it very well. But how has your grief changed? Like, when you first, I'm guessing, found out through your mom or through a parent, to that first year to now? Like, what's been the different things that you've learned throughout the years about loss?
21:52 Speaker 07 Yeah. I mean,
21:55 Speaker 07 Li- uh losing Sam was not only awful in terms of the grief of losing a brother that you didn't expect, obviously. Um but also through how he died in suicide, it was incredibly traumatic for me particularly. Um and so actually, at the beginning, it's very difficult to determine like what was grief and what was trauma, trauma response. Um but I, you know, I was, I was very affected at the beginning, like didn't know what was up or down. I felt like I was just stuck in this washing machine that was constantly on different cycles of all over the place. Um didn't sleep very much. I didn't eat for about four days. I just was so
22:38 Speaker 07 confused. My body was, I was like rejecting what had gone on. It was like, it's so bad that you just reject what happened. Um to the point where like, I I went to school the day after Sam died.
22:51 Jemma Sbeg? Did you really? Were your teachers?
22:53 Speaker 07 Yeah, they were completely, completely shocked to see me.
22:57 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, well, what about your friends? Were they? I'm sure they, yeah.
23:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure they they just thought it, because everyone at school had been told that day.
23:04 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
23:05 Speaker 07 Um they probably thought, like, what is this sick joke? Ben's just, honestly, I I got in my car and I went to school. And I went in and I just ran over to my friends and I was like, hey, how's everyone doing? Like, nothing had happened because my brain was just like, no. This is not, this has not happened. I'm gonna do what I'd normally do and just take myself to school. And I lasted about an hour and then I was exhausted.
23:29 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, the shock, the adrenaline and shock just wearing off.
23:32 Speaker 07 Yeah, but it was like that for a while. And then you slowly learn. And and I think the best way I can describe it, and I've described it to other people, is that like, it's a, it's a flame, it's like a fire, like a bonfire, when, when grief, you're standing so close to it that like you, that you can't notice anything but this intense heat that's coming from it. And everyone says time heals. I don't, it's not as straightforward as that. But I do think with time you just get distanced from the flame, that fire. So the, it's still there and sometimes you notice it, but the heat, the feeling of the intensity of that heat just feels less and less extreme. So it's not the pain that you, that makes you notice that this happened, but it's just sort of.
24:17 Speaker 07 Going into a room you haven't been into since he died, or the things would remind you it's there. I think that's the best way I've had to describe it. It's just the intensity of those feelings starts to just get less and less extreme with time. And that's definitely what I felt. Um, and then I, I, you know, eh, eventually got the courage to seek professional support, which was scary, but amazing. And then dealt with a lot of the trauma I'd not really dealt with. I had EMDR therapy, which I thought was amazing. And um, I managed to deal with a lot of that. And then you get to a position where, you know, you actually feel like you've got to handle back on things. And I knew, cause I think a lot of the time I was maybe in the passenger seat.
25:02 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
25:02 Speaker 07 I'm not really fully in control of what was going on and just sort of going from moment to moment. Actually, interestingly, not to go off on, on points, but one of the funny experience of grief that I had, not funny, but like
25:17 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
25:18 Speaker 07 Unexpected.
25:19 Jemma Sbeg? A chuckle almost, yeah.
25:20 Speaker 07 Hedonism, like this absolute intense need for fun. And like, just I started university in like September, so a few months after Sam died. And it was literally just like chasing fun and going out and like trying to just basically block everything out by having just hedonistic out there, like behaviour, which I think is so interesting because at the time I thought that I was doing really well.
25:46 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
25:47 Speaker 07 Cause I was having fun. And I look back and I was like, I was actually just like chasing thrills, trying to escape, like feeling on my own or feeling low. Um, and that was an interesting, that was an interesting observation I did not see in the time. So years later, I was like, whoa. I was really unwell when that was all happening.
26:07 Jemma Sbeg? And probably a lot of drinking.
26:09 Speaker 07 Oh, yeah.
26:10 Jemma Sbeg? Cause you're, and it's also, that's just like the, imagine being, well, you don't have to imagine, you're like, how old were you, eighteen?
26:16 Speaker 07 Yeah.
26:16 Jemma Sbeg? At freshers weekend, I don't know if you guys call it that, just being like, oh, week, just being like, great, I have this gaping emotional wound and I have a gallon of liquor.
26:25 Speaker 07 Yeah.
26:25 Jemma Sbeg? Seems like
26:26 Speaker 07 And everyone around you.
26:27 Jemma Sbeg? And everyone around you is having a great, and that looks like the normal thing to do.
26:31 Speaker 07 Yeah.
26:31 Jemma Sbeg? But like, wow. When do you think you came out of like the hedonistic, like? Oh, I'm just gonna live while I'm young stage. Do you think it was like after your first year or?
26:42 Speaker 07 I think it was covid lockdown. So what's that? Uh. Three years, two, two and a half, three years afterwards. And when you're forced to not do that anymore. And I, I, I was on my own in covid.
26:54 Jemma Sbeg? You were?
26:54 Speaker 07 Um, I got, I was, I was in a flat that was about, it's probably not much bigger than the studio.
27:01 Jemma Sbeg? Wow.
27:01 Speaker 07 And I had to do ten, ten days on my own. And oh, that was tough.
27:07 Jemma Sbeg? Was it just, did you have?
27:08 Speaker 07 I had, I got infected.
27:09 Jemma Sbeg? You got infected.
27:10 Speaker 07 So I was stuck and then on my own. I remember the only person I saw in ten days was someone pushed batteries. For my, an Xbox controller through past the door.
27:24 Jemma Sbeg? Were you, were you at uni?
27:26 Speaker 07 Yeah.
27:26 Jemma Sbeg? You were in like a, a dorm room.
27:27 Speaker 07 In like a little room. And that was, that was intense. And so I thought that whole experience, like. I actually was okay. I was fine. I like coped. I'm, I was okay. But it just made you sort of. It like took you away from everything that you usually kept to like make yourself okay. Um, and I was very lucky that I had support through counselling at that time that I was doing virtually. So I was like. You start to go, oh, this sort of thing that I've popped myself up on, that's fun. Oh, it's not there anymore. I'm actually really, really not okay. Um, so that was quite an interesting experience for me. Um, just being forced to stay in my room. And then I, and then I left uni.
28:13 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, yeah, cause you.
28:14 Speaker 07 This is not happening. This is actually, now I've stepped out of this, I'm really not very well.
28:17 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
28:18 Speaker 07 And um, and then I, I left and sort of started to make some real changes in my life to sort of get back in control. Which, so actually it was like. It's quite, quite a good experience in a way.
28:29 Jemma Sbeg? It sounds like a bit of a circuit breaker.
28:31 Speaker 07 It was, yeah, in a weird way. Wouldn't recommend. It was awful, but it was like, it was also needed.
28:37 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
28:37 Speaker 07 Um, cause you started doing a lot of reflection on how I was living and what I was doing and and not really dealing with anything. And then it was like, hmm, this is an interesting moment of noticing all of that.
28:50 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah. And then like another deeply traumatic moment probably where it's like, great. So my, this life that I'm trying to rebuild is gonna be completely like ripped apart and we'll move on to the next thing.
29:02 Speaker 07 Yeah. And the, and yeah, and it was very confusing as well because I was in the moment of I, all of the plans I had in my life of what I wanted to do, I was still sort of doing because I didn't, it was too late to change my degree or whatever. So I was like still on that plan, but realising more and more that that's not really what I wanted to do. And so there was a whole, it was just very confusing.
29:24 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
29:25 Speaker 07 Very, very confusing.
29:26 Jemma Sbeg? Do you remember, um, like the first time after Sam passed away that you and your family like were like together and were like laughing and were able to like have a bit of a glimmer?
29:38 Speaker 07 That's a really good question. That's a really good question. It took a long, a long time to feel normal a, as a family.
29:48 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
29:49 Speaker 07 You know, so many times you'd go and lay the table and you'd carry like five sets of forks and knives over or five like set places. Um, and that happened so many times for me. Um, and even like talking about him took a long time to feel normal. Um, I don't actually, I think it might have been Christmas weirdly, because that's quite a difficult time for grief. Um, when you can sort of get a little bit of room. I was also actually, I prob, it was probably not. I said, when I was at school. When Sam died, I realized very quickly that I wanted to do something positive. Um, and so I organized something called Walk to Talk, which was basically this two hundred kilometer walk. That me and my friends are gonna do to raise money.
30:34 Speaker 07 And we would invite the whole school, and if people wanted to come and walk the whole thing, they could come. If they wanted to walk one day, they could come and walk with us. Um, and I basically designed it to be fun and colorful. And a real celebration of talking and mental health, as opposed to it being like a ceremony. And that was great. Like, we had bright pink T-shirts and we were like talking about Sam every day and it was fun. And my family got involved loads. So I think that was probably a good moment where we could really just sort of.
31:07 Speaker 07 I don't know, feel sort of feel like the subject of suicide and losing Sam wasn't necessarily this dark. Awful thing that we can't go near is like, actually, we're all dressed in pink, having a good time, talking about Sam and talking about something that's positive and.
31:20 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
31:21 Speaker 07 Getting around that. So that was a really, that was a nice moment.
31:23 Jemma Sbeg? Where did you guys walk in London? That's two hundred kilometers.
31:26 Speaker 07 No, so we walked from where I grew up in Kent, uh, it's sort of mid Kent all the way to London. Which actually isn't two hundred kilometers, but we were like, it was near enough two hundred kilometers. It was about a hundred and seventy. So we were like, let's just add thirty and round it up.
31:39 Jemma Sbeg? Classic, add thirty.
31:42 Speaker 07 So it was, yeah, it was two hundred kilometers over ten days um, in September two thousand eighteen. And it was ju- it was that, it was that was the only ever did it to raise a bit of money and then before I went to uni. Um, and that was the walk, really. That was the event that I went. I really wanna do this for the rest of my life. Like, I really saw. The impact that you can have on other people's lives by having some of those, some of the people that came on that walk, you know, went to. Just spoke to their family about their um, things that were going on in their life for the first time ever. You know, to to be able to be the one to make someone feel comfortable enough to have those conversations. I know how important that is. I just, yeah, you can't not help someone make that step
32:27 Speaker 07 and not want to then keep
32:29 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
32:30 Speaker 07 helping other people make that step and and get the right support. So it was really, that was the formation for everything that came since.
32:36 Jemma Sbeg? Wow. Well, this is a great segue.
32:39 Speaker 07 It is.
32:39 Jemma Sbeg? Into Reasons to Stay.
32:40 Speaker 07 Yeah.
32:41 Jemma Sbeg? Which is, when did you launch this project? A year ago, January?
32:45 Speaker 07 Four months ago, three months ago.
32:46 Jemma Sbeg? That's.
32:47 Speaker 07 Don't. It's just huge.
32:49 Jemma Sbeg? Amazing, cause it has touched so many lives so quickly.
32:54 Speaker 07 Yeah.
32:55 Jemma Sbeg? Do you wanna talk about it?
32:55 Speaker 07 I would love.
32:56 Jemma Sbeg? Talk, tell me about the idea behind it.
32:59 Speaker 07 So I've worked in this space for eight years.
33:02 Jemma Sbeg? Mm hmm.
33:02 Speaker 07 I've spoken to more people that have felt suicidal or looked after someone suicidal than I can count. I mean, so many people. And the one thing I've realised with mental health is that unlike other social issues, it's very difficult for the general public to feel like they're practically involved in helping.
33:21 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
33:21 Speaker 07 So um with climate change, you can recycle more, you can take public transport, ride a bike, and you can feel like you're practically involved in the solution. With mental health, unless you're a clinical professional or involved some way clinically, it's very difficult for you to actually help. And I've always thought that it would be good to find a way to connect the millions and millions and millions, billions of people around the world that care about this issue and want to help with the millions or billions of people that need to be cared for. Um. So that's, that's the first point. Then the second point is the human race has a lot of problems, right? And it's difficult to feel good about us sometimes, um especially in the world.
34:05 Jemma Sbeg? It's a bit of an understatement.
34:07 Speaker 07 Yeah, right. But the one thing that I think is absolutely phenomenal about us as a species is that when there is a catastrophe. People that don't know each other will drop everything and run to help. And I think that is so remarkable and amazing is this instinct to just help strangers that we all, most of us have, which I think is is just incredible. And I think it's the most amazing thing about being a human being is that you can feel such deep empathy for someone you don't know. Um. We always say that about elephants and then forget that actually we are, we do the same thing. And so it's those two things sort of came together and I was like, well, we've got a problem with suicide. We've got a lot of people that want to help.
34:51 Speaker 07 How can you let strangers help in a way that's clinically safe? And that's where Reasons to Stay came from. So essentially, anyone in the world can write a letter on the site. That then goes to our clinical moderation team. They make sure everything's safe, publish it, and then anyone can go on and read one of these letters and have it delivered to them.
35:16 Speaker 07 And that was the idea. And I'd launched it this year in January, um, on the twenty first of January, which is the anniversary of Sam's death, because that was my good thing that day. Um, that's a, that was a, that's always a bad day. So I was like, you know, you need a hefty good thing to get through that day.
35:31 Jemma Sbeg? A a major one.
35:32 Speaker 07 Uh, but you need a big good thing.
35:34 Jemma Sbeg? Will hear about this thing. Yeah.
35:35 Speaker 07 Yeah. And so, um, yeah, I'd launched that for no reason other than I thought it was a good idea. And I had very little expectation. I was, it was a project that I wanted to work on in behind the scenes and sort of just really love to grow. I thought we'd maybe send a hundred letters that week and we sent thirty three thousand. And then by mid-February, we'd sent a million. And as of now, we've sent three point six million letters to people in a hundred and eighty countries in, what's that, just over three months? It's been, we've reached seventy million people on social media with this project. It's just been like
36:18 Jemma Sbeg? Wow.
36:19 Speaker 07 beyond anything I could possibly imagine. Um, and I guess it goes to show that instinct of millions of people want to help was absolutely true. Um, and it it just. It worked.
36:32 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, my god. You guys gave me chills. That is the coolest coolest story I've probably ever heard on the podcast.
36:38 Speaker 07 Oh, bless you.
36:39 Jemma Sbeg? So amazing.
36:40 Speaker 07 It's been pretty incredible to see unfold in front of me.
36:43 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
36:43 Speaker 07 And every moment, particularly in those early days where it was so intense. Uh, you know, the all the milestones just felt massive. Yeah, first hundred thousand was huge and then it was a million and then. Has most people that if you know me will know me for a video I posted when I when I first heard that it had helped someone.
37:05 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
37:06 Speaker 07 Um, and my reaction to what that meant to me, um, when I found out that someone had, you know. Very literally survived because they've written a letter, um, read a letter rather. Um, you know, all those moments just were just, it was, I I feel like every day I watched it climb. To just enormous numbers and it was just, I was pinching myself constantly.
37:29 Jemma Sbeg? What are you gonna do for ten million?
37:30 Speaker 07 Got no idea, party.
37:31 Jemma Sbeg? Uh, two hundred kilometer walk. That was the right answer.
37:35 Speaker 07 Ten million. And you know what? What's absolutely mad is that will.
37:38 Jemma Sbeg? I was gonna say.
37:39 Speaker 07 It'll happen this year.
37:40 Jemma Sbeg? Uh, I think it will happen.
37:41 Speaker 07 It'll happen soon.
37:42 Jemma Sbeg? Very soon.
37:43 Speaker 07 You know, it's, which is extraordinary, but it's also just such a nice reminder that, like. It's so bad, well, this what's happening.
37:51 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
37:52 Speaker 07 But at the end of the day, like, there are always reasons to stay. But there are always reasons to feel positive about the world and it does, you don't have to feel suicidal to benefit from reasons to stay the site. Yeah, I go on there. You read a letter and you feel better about yourself and the world and. This human race that we all are a part of. You just cannot go on that website and not feel better about. The state of the world and who you are and your part in it. And I just think that's so wonderful, just because, you know, I have, I do have this just. Love of people, um, and and what we can do for each other. And it just is such an amazing, and I had no idea this was gonna be like this. I really genuinely put.
38:37 Speaker 07 You know, I put thought into it, but I didn't put this much thought into it. And to see what it's become and see how much it means to people.
38:45 Speaker 07 It's been a very, very, very special.
38:48 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, we gotta do, we.
38:50 Speaker 07 Ten million. Well, we'll come back for ten million.
38:52 Jemma Sbeg? Someone, we need to, we, the population of the world needs to give you a huge thank you for that.
38:58 Speaker 07 Thank you.
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41:31 Jemma Sbeg? Let's segue. I imagine, and we were talking about this before we were recording, that sometimes it's hard to talk about mental health all the time. And that you're probably, you know, that you're the very much the mental health guy online, you know, you've done this incredible thing. Not going to give that up for anything, but in your personal life as well, I'm sure a lot of people are like, oh, this is Ben. Ben, if I have a problem, I can go to Ben. Strangers probably think that. What's, is that hard sometimes?
41:58 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's extremely hard. Yeah, it's extremely, extremely hard because also I'm in this because I care so much. So it's, it's very difficult not to feel like you have to always talk about it. And that I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. But it's also really important for me to know when is work and when it's not. And with social media, especially recently, it's been very, very difficult to step away from that and have me, because at the end of the day, I'm Ben. For most of my life, I haven't talked about this. And I have a whole, you know, personality that's built on not having to talk about mental health every day.
42:40 Speaker 07 And I think sometimes he needs to just enjoy and laugh. And you know, there is lots of positive and fun moments in this journey. There are also lots of incredibly devastating, sad, hard work hours and bad things that happen. And I don't think it's healthy for anyone to be, you know, experiencing that all the time. You know, when, when Reasons to Stay went viral, I got 50,000 messages in one day. And it's just like on a level that you is just not normal um to be and most of those were incredibly sensitive information about what someone was going through.
43:21 Speaker 07 You know, when I was scrolling through, almost all of them were, this is why this matters to me, which is obviously incredible. And so lovely that people feel like they can share it, but that just reading that volume of really sometimes quite harrowing stories, like it takes a toll. And so um yeah, it's it's important for me to do this work. I love it. I know I'm never not going to do it, but it's also as I've done this more and more, you've got to work out how you
43:49 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
43:49 Speaker 07 do things that are not this.
43:52 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
43:52 Speaker 07 Um. And even and it's funny because I've I also run. And I made the decision to start like running to raise money for mental health, right? And so I've done like marathons and ultra marathons to like talk about this. And I've realised, you know, I've realised of this year is I don't want to do that. I don't think. I want to keep running separate from mental health and not raise money and sort of just literally just do it for fun for me. Because I think I was pouring too much of myself into this. So it's it's a balancing act. But sometimes you are desperate for for no offence to this podcast. Sometimes you're desperate for a podcast that's not about mental.
44:27 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, yeah.
44:28 Speaker 07 So ask me about like, um, I don't know, what else? What's my other? What's what would be my mastermind?
44:33 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, we've got questions for you, don't you worry.
44:35 Speaker 07 This is but it's.
44:36 Jemma Sbeg? I've got some fun ones.
44:37 Speaker 07 Oh, I'm I'm sure, I'm sure. But you know what I mean? And it must be the same with you sometimes where it's like, obviously, it's hugely important, but sometimes it's important to just remember that it's like one part of me.
44:50 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
44:50 Speaker 07 Um. And I also have my own mental health, which which sometimes you forget.
44:55 Jemma Sbeg? That's the hard part, I think, when people think of you as this person who has it all sorted out since you're talking about it openly. And it's like, I'm still really. Trying to figure it out myself. I get that a lot when I like. And it was interesting, like it's, it is not a regular problem to have.
45:12 Speaker 07 No.
45:13 Jemma Sbeg? It's not a, they're like, oh, too many people trust me.
45:15 Speaker 07 Yeah.
45:15 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, you know, oh, you know, I just, I'm doing too good a job at helping people. But it is like, I definitely have a similar experience where sometimes I've got to not talk about psychology.
45:25 Speaker 07 Hmm.
45:26 Jemma Sbeg? And it's hard to some, like, sometimes friends will come to you and be like, and you wanna be there for them. And that sometimes means being less present online so that you have the.
45:34 Speaker 07 Yeah.
45:35 Jemma Sbeg? The resources to show up where it really matters.
45:37 Speaker 07 Yeah, for sure, for sure. And it's, it's just about trying to protect yourself at the end of the day. Where the difficult topic, and this goes for, and I'm very lucky, obviously, that I've been doing this a long time. So I know a lot of people that work in a similar area and not just mental health campaigning, but sort of loads of different, different areas of, of social issues, which are all difficult to experience, right? And to work in. So I've sort of learnt a lot from them and we support each other, right? Cause no one can talk about bad things all the time, which actually in, in fairness is one of the reasons that I wanted to start Reasons to Stay. Because in my work, you talk a lot about bad things.
46:19 Speaker 07 Um, I do a lot of policy work. I do a lot of work with data and with mental health in parliament. And it's never, you're never talking about it because things are going well.
46:31 Jemma Sbeg? That's a very good point.
46:32 Speaker 07 And I, I, I think for me, I'm not like that. I'm quite a, I'm always been a glass half full.
46:38 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
46:39 Speaker 07 Fun. I like fun. I like optimism. And so I, I, Reasons Stay came about because I was desperate to do something fun and positive. And like something that's a good thing to talk about. And Reasons Stay is such a good thing to talk about. So it's like, I, that was part of it as well, which is that I needed a way of doing something that was positive, rather than what it was before, which was constantly talking about, you know, for a long time I was, I was working on a campaign that was trying to in, improve negligence laws. I'm like. Negligence is never a conversation that is ever positive, like no, no positive thing ever leads to a negligence conversation.
47:21 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
47:21 Speaker 07 So it's like, that's basically sums up sort of what the conversations I was having. They were always about death and failure and negligence. And you're like, that is not. That is not particularly upbeat.
47:33 Jemma Sbeg? No.
47:33 Speaker 07 Um, it's very, very important, but you need, you need the, the balance.
47:37 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, and now you found it.
47:39 Speaker 07 I do.
47:40 Jemma Sbeg? And probably like one of the reasons why you like you as an optimistic person. Like this can only come from the brain of an optimistic person. Do you know what I mean?
47:49 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's a good point.
47:50 Jemma Sbeg? So it's kind of like, you feel like you found the way that, and just shows how many people were hungering. For somebody to be like, can we talk about mental health in a way that isn't, it, it's, it's hard, right? It's to find a positive spin and, and not that we should, but just in a way that it's, it's proactive and positive.
48:08 Speaker 07 Yeah.
48:08 Jemma Sbeg? And meaningful.
48:09 Speaker 07 Positive without being invalidating as well.
48:11 Jemma Sbeg? Perfect way to say it.
48:13 Speaker 07 Positive about this, but come across like you're just quite. Making fun of someone or belittling something.
48:21 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
48:21 Speaker 07 But this is positive in a way of like, it's really awesome that we can do something for each other. And you know what? If you go on there and write a letter, you'll feel good about yourself and you'll feel like you're part of the thing. And it'll be, it's just. Everything about it is just phenomenally positive from every perspective. And that's awesome to be part of.
48:39 Jemma Sbeg? It's, it's just hope. Like that's literally, I'm like, I was trying to, I was like, it's not optimistic, it's not positive, it's just hopeful.
48:45 Speaker 07 Well, that's, that is, at the end of the day, that is the reason to stay, right? The reason state only exists when there's hope. And when there's no hope, then there's no reason to stay.
48:54 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
48:54 Speaker 07 So all we're trying to do in that moment is give someone something, some little tiny little. Spark of hope to get them through that moment. And that for a lot of people is what that letter represents. And I just think that. You know, I know that in the three and a half million people that have read a letter, I know that so many of them. Really feel connected to that person that's written the letter. And it's almost like. And I knew this when I was designing, actually, that this, this was something I wanted people to feel. It's almost like somewhere there is. Your letter writer, they're real, they're out there. And it's like you've got this. Guardian angel, this person that you don't know and will never meet, that's just sort of cheering you on.
49:38 Speaker 07 And I just think there's something quite beautiful in that being a reason to stay. When everything else in your life is absolute chaos and you've got no hope. You've got that person who's written you a letter because they care. And if you have no other reason to stay, they can be that reason. I think that that is a very, very, very powerful thing to give someone that maybe has nothing or does or feels like they have nothing.
50:04 Jemma Sbeg? And also just a sense of like, oh, somebody cares about me.
50:07 Speaker 07 Yeah.
50:08 Jemma Sbeg? Like, somebody is thinking about me.
50:10 Speaker 07 Yeah.
50:11 Jemma Sbeg? And that's like so beautiful. Okay, let's finish up with a couple of questions.
50:16 Speaker 07 Let's do it.
50:17 Jemma Sbeg? So we're gonna talk about your book in a second.
50:19 Speaker 07 Okay.
50:19 Jemma Sbeg? But firstly, let's talk about some other things that you are beyond mental health.
50:23 Speaker 07 Yeah.
50:24 Jemma Sbeg? So I've got some rapid fire questions.
50:25 Speaker 07 Here we go.
50:26 Jemma Sbeg? Before we're gonna finish with with two final questions, we'll let you have your water. We've been depriving you of that.
50:32 Speaker 07 I feel like I need to prepare for these.
50:33 Jemma Sbeg? I know. Well, you do. They're very important. Okay. Are you ready?
50:37 Speaker 07 Hmm.
50:37 Jemma Sbeg? Okay, favorite song at the moment?
50:39 Speaker 07 Uh, or anything by Noah Khan. Um, what's the new album's absolutely fantastic. Uh, View Between Villages, that was the old album, wasn't it? But that is probably my favorite. And it's also the the tune I put over my huge viral reel, so it almost feels like a very fitting song for that.
50:57 Jemma Sbeg? Did he see the reel?
50:58 Speaker 07 Uh, no, I don't think so. Maybe secretly.
51:00 Jemma Sbeg? I feel like he secretly did.
51:01 Speaker 07 Please, Noah. And also, he does amazing work for mental health, so um, I'd love to find a way of collabing him.
51:07 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
51:08 Speaker 07 Yeah, he's awesome. His new album's great.
51:09 Jemma Sbeg? If I get his number, I'll send it to you.
51:11 Speaker 07 Oh, do. Yeah, maybe he's the ten million celebration.
51:14 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, Noah Khan. I love how we're putting it out there.
51:18 Speaker 07 Yeah, View Between Villages, great, great song.
51:20 Jemma Sbeg? Subway order?
51:21 Speaker 07 Subway order, mm, Meepo Marinara, cheese and toasted.
51:25 Jemma Sbeg? Cheese and toasted, what kind of bread?
51:27 Speaker 07 Uh, hearty Italian.
51:28 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, classic. The best veg?
51:31 Speaker 07 Uh, so lettuce, pickles, um, jalapenos, and then weirdly, um, not ranch, um.
51:40 Speaker 07 Why has it left me? It's the sort of spicy mayo thing.
51:43 Jemma Sbeg? Chipotle mayo.
51:44 Speaker 07 Chipotle mayo. Weird.
51:46 Jemma Sbeg? I knew it.
51:46 Speaker 07 Once you're in with your selection, you can't really change, can you? So that's.
51:50 Jemma Sbeg? No, I was talking about this with my friend. Yeah, I was thinking, I was like, it's quite a spicy sandwich as well.
51:56 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's quite difficult to eat if you're not.
51:58 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, no olives in it, though.
52:00 Speaker 07 No, no, no.
52:00 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm, interesting. Okay, who's your fa-? This is a real hard hitting question.
52:05 Speaker 07 Yeah, I like this.
52:05 Jemma Sbeg? Who's your favourite Nepo baby?
52:07 Speaker 07 Um, wow, Nepo baby, um, Roman Kemp, he's a, he could be big up the mental health topic. I know we're trying to get away from mental health, but he does do amazing work.
52:17 Jemma Sbeg? I don't know who that is.
52:18 Speaker 07 Roman Kemp in the UK, Capital Breakfast, used to be Capital Breakfast, um, he does Vodafone adverts.
52:24 Jemma Sbeg? Oh my, okay, well, I'm not from the UK, so I need to do my research.
52:28 Speaker 07 Roman Kemp in the UK.
52:29 Jemma Sbeg? And who's his?
52:31 Speaker 07 His dad was, um, Martin Kemp, he was in a band.
52:34 Jemma Sbeg? Well, of course I know who that is, yeah. No, what's the band?
52:39 Speaker 07 Uh, the band. Oh, now you put me on the quite, I have no idea.
52:42 Jemma Sbeg? Okay.
52:43 Speaker 07 No offence to Martin Kemp.
52:44 Jemma Sbeg? I'm gonna go search. It's okay.
52:47 Speaker 07 Yeah.
52:47 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, Wikipedia it. Favorite royal family member?
52:50 Speaker 07 Oh, Prince William.
52:52 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
52:53 Speaker 07 Yeah, strong. Again, like, come on, they got the mental health.
52:57 Jemma Sbeg? My friend met him.
52:58 Speaker 07 Yeah.
52:58 Jemma Sbeg? And he was, and him and Princess Kate, Princess Kate, is that her name? Yeah, she's Princess.
53:02 Speaker 07 Yeah.
53:03 Jemma Sbeg? And she was like, that's like every, I feel like Australians come to the UK and they're like, so I need to meet a royal.
53:09 Speaker 07 They are lovely. No, they, they do some amazing work. And actually, I work quite closely with the Kensington Palace team and like, um, obviously he's very committed to like, mental health.
53:19 Jemma Sbeg? He really is.
53:19 Speaker 07 Does a really good job.
53:20 Jemma Sbeg? On like a very serious level.
53:22 Speaker 07 Yeah, and actually, we, when I've met him previously, talking about some of the stuff that we're doing, he's always, he's always quite, um.
53:31 Speaker 07 In a good way, quite like it gives you challenge about stuff that you can do. So it's like, he's not just briefed.
53:36 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
53:37 Speaker 07 To know a little bit, enough to get through a conversation. He like really knows his stuff, which I've always thought was a good sign of someone that actually cares, rather than just sort of repeating what he was told.
53:46 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, I really like that.
53:47 Speaker 07 Yeah, really knows his stuff when it comes to mental health.
53:49 Jemma Sbeg? And that's a good lesson for like, people like us as well to be like, okay, when we like engage other people, like. Or people that we work with higher up as well, like how do we engage them? Like, it's actually good to push back a little bit sometimes.
54:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, a bit of challenge is always a good thing with the right tone, like you're coming alongside and helping, trying to understand what you could do more of.
54:07 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
54:07 Speaker 07 But um, yeah, I think he's always been, yeah, good for that.
54:10 Jemma Sbeg? I love that you are a close, perhaps close friend of Prince William. So now I can take it off my list.
54:16 Speaker 07 Prince William.
54:16 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah. And Roman Kemp.
54:18 Speaker 07 If they're free for the ten million.
54:20 Jemma Sbeg? Let's get them on a round table. Come on. Okay, uh, first job.
54:25 Speaker 07 First job, a bar, in a bar.
54:28 Jemma Sbeg? In a pub?
54:28 Speaker 07 Yeah, in a pub.
54:29 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, what was the pub called?
54:30 Speaker 07 Um, oh, that's a, the Milk House.
54:34 Jemma Sbeg? The Milk House. See, I thought it was gonna be like his lord's head or something. They have some weird names around here.
54:40 Speaker 07 They do. We love a weird name.
54:42 Jemma Sbeg? I know, and like, and the amount of them that are called like the Queen's something.
54:45 Speaker 07 Yeah, Queen's Head.
54:46 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
54:47 Speaker 07 There's, there's some, what's the most popular one? White Hart.
54:50 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
54:50 Speaker 07 Yeah, the Queen's Wick.
54:51 Jemma Sbeg? The Queen's, I don't know. Well, you, well, I wasn't, I'm about to say where you lived, so I'm not gonna do that. Uh, but I always found that place funny.
54:59 Speaker 07 Yes, yeah, I agree.
55:00 Jemma Sbeg? What's your biggest vice?
55:02 Speaker 07 Ooh, slow walkers.
55:05 Speaker 07 You know, and which is ironic because I was really late to this.
55:08 Jemma Sbeg? Okay, but, but that's a pet peeve. What's a vice?
55:11 Speaker 07 Um.
55:12 Jemma Sbeg? Like, what's something that you do that you're like, I shouldn't do that?
55:14 Speaker 07 Oh, from me personally, um, that's a really good question, um.
55:21 Speaker 07 Oh, I love Coke Zero. And you know, everyone tells you that it's Coke Zero worse than normal Coke. Well, I have tons of Coke Zero. You know that, oh, you just get through it.
55:32 Jemma Sbeg? How much do you have in it?
55:34 Speaker 07 Kinder Bueno is my Coke Zero.
55:36 Jemma Sbeg? Well, my Coke Zero is also my Coke Zero. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I've, I've, yeah, my doctor was like, you gotta stop.
55:44 Speaker 07 Oh, really?
55:44 Jemma Sbeg? She was like, it's bad for you, really bad for your intestines.
55:46 Speaker 07 I'm found, I found myself on forums, uh, not forums, at like midnight going, is Coke Zero better than normal Coke? Or is it, is it the sugar that's bad? Or is it, is it aspartame or something? And all these artificial sweetness, woo.
56:02 Jemma Sbeg? Look away, we only, you could be.
56:04 Speaker 07 And coffee, to be fair, I have a lot of coffee, which I know is not very good for you.
56:08 Jemma Sbeg? I think coffee is not the worst vice.
56:10 Speaker 07 No, a nice little, nice bit. I think sometimes I go a little both, cause I do a lot of coffee meetings. Do you know when people are like, oh, do you want coffee? I stack my coffees. So what happens is then you've got like five people you're meeting in the morning and you have every coffee. And I need to be better at going, I'm just gonna have.
56:27 Jemma Sbeg? Hot chocolate? I'm actually, I'll have a Coke Zero and it's nine A M. Pour it up on the rocks, please.
56:33 Speaker 07 Or a hot chocolate, that's a great idea. But sometimes you feel like, this shouldn't be the case, but sometimes you feel that you can't order a hot chocolate because it's childish. If I'm meeting like a really, look at me, I'm dressed like this. Imagine if I walked up and I was like, I'll have a hot chocolate with marshmallows, please.
56:47 Jemma Sbeg? Double marsh, please.
56:48 Speaker 07 Not sure that's great for my credibility.
56:50 Jemma Sbeg? I think it's honestly better because you're like, I'm confident enough that I'm gonna, like, look how I represent my ideals right now.
56:57 Speaker 07 True, because I'm a black Americano guy as well. So that is a big shift.
57:01 Jemma Sbeg? That's a big coffee.
57:02 Speaker 07 Couldn't get further from a black Americano.
57:04 Jemma Sbeg? Maybe a moka. We'll get you somewhere in the middle. Give it a go, give it a go, Ben. Okay, uh, two more questions. You already said big, uh, pet peeves, the next question.
57:14 Speaker 07 Oh, pet peeves, slow walkers.
57:15 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, I'm the same.
57:16 Speaker 07 Yeah, and people that walk in groups on small pav- I live in London, right? We've got very small pavements in some of these places and it is. People walk very slowly in lines.
57:26 Jemma Sbeg? I don't know why they do that. I have to really hold it in.
57:30 Speaker 07 I do.
57:30 Jemma Sbeg? It's my, I I can get cranky.
57:32 Speaker 07 Friends are same, yeah. When we're together walking and that happens, it's.
57:36 Jemma Sbeg? Have you gone by down Regent's Canal recently?
57:38 Speaker 07 Yeah.
57:38 Jemma Sbeg? Don't do it.
57:40 Speaker 07 I know, I know. Soho, pavements, they're only one person wide and you've got three people walking.
57:44 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, holding hands.
57:45 Speaker 07 I know, and I've got somewhere to go.
57:47 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, and they don't.
57:48 Speaker 07 They're just tourists.
57:50 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, they.
57:50 Speaker 07 You enjoy.
57:51 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, it's great. Okay, um, favourite TV show?
57:54 Speaker 07 Favorite TV show, um, oh, you know what? I loved Mythbusters, random one. But that was so good. That is my childhood. Adam Savage and the other one.
58:09 Speaker 07 Out with the glasses.
58:10 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, I know. He, is he still alive?
58:12 Speaker 07 No, you know, it was, um, no, they're both still alive. They're both still alive. Um, it was Grant who died.
58:19 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, God.
58:19 Speaker 07 From the other, you know, there was the two and then there was the three. I was very sad. He was quite young, actually, I think. It was maybe last year.
58:25 Jemma Sbeg? Do you know they weren't friends?
58:27 Speaker 07 I know. They didn't get on.
58:28 Jemma Sbeg? They didn't get on.
58:29 Speaker 07 You would never know.
58:30 Jemma Sbeg? No, they were so good. What was your favourite myth?
58:32 Speaker 07 Favorite myth? Um, there was one about a bullet curving. That was quite good. When you shot it like that. That was quite good. I mean, all the explosions are great. Um, God, it's a really good question. It's been a long time since I've watched any of them.
58:46 Jemma Sbeg? Mine was the, another bullet one was like getting shot underwater.
58:49 Speaker 07 Oh, that was a good one.
58:50 Jemma Sbeg? Watch this episode get rated R now.
58:51 Speaker 07 Yeah, so true.
58:52 Jemma Sbeg? In Mythbusters.
58:55 Speaker 07 Mythbusters was great. And then you can't go wrong with a bit SpongeBob.
59:00 Jemma Sbeg? That's, I did not think you were gonna say that. I thought you were maybe like a Parks and Rec, Brooklyn Nine-Nine guy.
59:04 Speaker 07 No, neither. I've not watched either of those shows. I'm not really very good for TV. My girlfriend's big, like, her family's very big on films and TV shows and I'm, I'm sort of, I get outed every time. They're like, oh, have you not seen that?
59:16 Jemma Sbeg? And isn't that the worst? When somebody's like, you haven't seen Parks and Recreation?
59:22 Speaker 07 No.
59:22 Jemma Sbeg? And you're like, no. That was about to be me, sir.
59:31 Speaker 02 This mood check is brought to you by State Farm. Porque tu bienestar también merece protección. ¿Qué tal, mi gente? Honey German checking in contigo. Take a second. Literalmente, un momentico para ti. How's your corazón feeling today? If it's a little tired, a little uff, you're not alone. Have you eaten algo rico? Taken a deep breath? Maybe even turned off your phone for cinco minutitos? I promise, the memes will still be there. Sometimes self-care isn't candles and meditation. It's just saying no. It's drinking a little bit of agua. It's letting yourself rest sin pena. You don't have to prove anything today. Just be, breathe. Estás haciendo lo mejor que puedes. And yes, that's enough.
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1:01:24 Speaker 01 Hello, hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Acees about what digital sovereignty
1:01:32 Speaker 02 Actually means in the age of AI. AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing and where. Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
1:01:55 Jemma Sbeg? Okay, let's talk about your book.
1:01:57 Speaker 07 My, my book?
1:01:58 Jemma Sbeg? Look what he has right here.
1:02:00 Speaker 07 Oh, it's so awesome to see in real life.
1:02:04 Jemma Sbeg? What's it called for the people who aren't watching?
1:02:06 Speaker 07 This is called Reasons To. Uh, it's based on Reasons To Stay, but this is going to be filled with letters from real people. For not just moments where you might need a reason to stay, but I'd like, I just love the idea of people writing about grief and anxiety and overthinking and depression and like, I really want this book to be there for any moment. Whenever you're going through, you can open it and there'll be a letter from a real person, just like with Reasons To Stay, but about a moment in your, in your life.
1:02:34 Jemma Sbeg? Wow.
1:02:35 Speaker 07 And this one is currently completely empty.
1:02:37 Jemma Sbeg? I was gonna say, can you read this one?
1:02:38 Speaker 07 This is my inspiration to actually get the work done and.
1:02:42 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:02:43 Speaker 07 But yeah, no, this is, um, this is sort of, it's lovely to be able to actually see this. But we are, these pages are eventually going to be filled with real people's letters. And I just think that's gonna be so beautiful, like just whatever you're going through, open it to a page and someone's written you a letter about the thing that you're going through. How beautiful. And it just gets to the heart of what Reasons To Stay is about.
1:03:07 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah. Are you gonna write them all?
1:03:09 Speaker 07 No, these will be other people.
1:03:10 Jemma Sbeg? Okay.
1:03:10 Speaker 07 There'll be people that have submitted to Reasons To Stay.
1:03:13 Jemma Sbeg? Okay.
1:03:13 Speaker 07 So we're taking basically the best letters from all these different topics and putting them in here. So, no, I, I am not writing, I think I'm, the less I write in this, I think the better. I really want this to be exactly with like, with Reasons To Stay where it's strangers.
1:03:27 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:03:28 Speaker 07 Supporting strangers. And all of them will be real people.
1:03:30 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, my goodness.
1:03:31 Speaker 07 And so there'll be, there'll be a situation where, you know, I'll have.
1:03:36 Speaker 07 I don't know how many letters we're choosing yet, a hundred, hundred and fifty real people that have really spent time writing. Oh, how special. The less I write in here, the better. Cause I just want to sort of curate this with people's words.
1:03:51 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:03:52 Speaker 07 And also, and it's going to be anonymous as well. So, you know, you've again, like reasons to say you've got these people out there in the world that have sat there and written this because they care.
1:04:02 Jemma Sbeg? Also in the, in the age of A I. God, a physical book with advice from real people.
1:04:08 Speaker 07 And we're, you know, very, um, it's very difficult because you know, and this is a really good point, actually, because a lot of people that have written letters on reasons to stay have been A I. Um, I may generally, maybe I should not mention this because we're going to maybe, but it's funny because A I has learned now what the perfect letter is for reasons to stay. So what's really interesting is you can tell it's from A I because it's all the same. So that chat G P T has learned through P lots and lots, thousands of people asking it this, it gives you the same letter. So although it sounds good, I know that that line is the same in about five thousand of, like, there's a lot. So it's
1:04:51 Speaker 07 and one thing, you know, the reason people turn to A I is because it's a difficult task. It's really, really hard to know what to say to someone. And that is the point. Like, it should feel hard. It should feel really difficult because in order to write a good letter to someone, you have to connect with something in you that feels that. The only way you can answer the question of why should you not die is understanding what you like about life. And there's something really difficult and special in that question. So yeah, it's actually a really good point of like, i- if you're using A I, you that that defeats the point for you and for them. Because it's not about, you know.
1:05:37 Speaker 07 Reasons to stay is not about the words that are written. It's about the person that's written them and why. And if, you know, with A I, it's just words. But with a letter that's written by a real human being, actually, the words matter less than the fact that you've spent the time doing it. Um, so yeah, no A I.
1:05:58 Jemma Sbeg? No A I.
1:05:59 Speaker 07 No A I on reasons.
1:06:00 Jemma Sbeg? A I not approved.
1:06:01 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are mo- there are places in the world for A I. Letters to people in this space is, is just not that.
1:06:09 Jemma Sbeg? It's not it.
1:06:09 Speaker 07 Um, so yeah, it's, we're, we're, we're getting very good at working out which ones are A I.
1:06:13 Jemma Sbeg? I know the feeling. I, I, I get people, yeah, I won't go into it, but I can always tell when like, you're like.
1:06:20 Speaker 07 You can.
1:06:21 Jemma Sbeg? That's not a real person.
1:06:22 Speaker 07 So this will be real people.
1:06:23 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:06:23 Speaker 07 And the reasons say will always be real people.
1:06:26 Jemma Sbeg? Well, we'll leave a link in the description to preorder it. People, something that people should know, preorders of books are the most important.
1:06:32 Speaker 07 Oh, they're so important because they basically drive who stocks you.
1:06:37 Jemma Sbeg? Exactly.
1:06:37 Speaker 07 Yeah. So actually it's really important.
1:06:39 Jemma Sbeg? Preorder, don't wait for it to come out, although you can if you would like, but you probably should preorder it.
1:06:44 Speaker 07 You can. It's a bit of a wait because we've got to compile the.
1:06:46 Jemma Sbeg? Oh, it's all right. That means it'll be a nice surprise. It's a reason to stay.
1:06:50 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:06:50 Jemma Sbeg? Cause your book will arrive in the mail. There we go.
1:06:53 Speaker 07 So true.
1:06:54 Jemma Sbeg? Okay. Final question.
1:06:55 Speaker 07 Yes.
1:06:56 Jemma Sbeg? We asked us of every single guest. What is one piece of advice you have for people in their twenties that has nothing to do with what we spoke about today?
1:07:04 Speaker 07 Wow. Um, oh, that's such a good point. Um. I think, um, we have spoken about it, but I just, I'm such an advocate for running.
1:07:19 Jemma Sbeg? For running?
1:07:19 Speaker 07 That sounds so lame.
1:07:21 Jemma Sbeg? No.
1:07:21 Speaker 07 Cause I would be listening to this like three years ago and I'd be like, that is just terrible advice. Um, I read a book, an amazing book called Born to Run. Um, if you are, if you wanted to get into running but haven't quite, or you've never really enjoyed running, read that book. I don't earn anything from saying that.
1:07:40 Jemma Sbeg? Who, who wrote it?
1:07:42 Speaker 07 Christopher McDougal. He's a running journalist in America and he basically, he's obsessed with the idea that. Um, there's a, there's lots of tribes around the world that can run ultramarathons.
1:07:53 Jemma Sbeg? Um.
1:07:54 Speaker 07 And there's one called the, I'm gonna mispronounce this, the Tara Tara Humira, Tara Tara Humira in Mexico. They're basically, they they run a hundred miles for fun, right? And he basically goes there and they wear to, they they do these races in um.
1:08:14 Speaker 07 Disused car tyres, sandals made from old car tyres, right? So it's basically like, we've got these like two hundred pound sh- foam shoes here. And we'd struggled like five K and they they're literally doing it in tyres. Um, and the whole book, it's not all about them, it's basically about how the human being evolved and our evolution and how we used to. We are built the way we are, our Achilles is the size it is because we are designed to run and be able to. Recover aerobically on the run, um. And it's an amazing book because basically, and this sounds a bit like I'm some weird runner now.
1:08:51 Jemma Sbeg? No, it's alright.
1:08:52 Speaker 07 It basically makes you realise actually running to us is a little bit like flying to a bird. And it's like, we're so, it's so genetically wired into us to be able to do it. So I loved it, I read that book and then I decided to sign up for an ultra marathon and I I literally, running for me now is everything. Um, and it, and and what's amazing as well is that you will improve, if you do it. And if you just show up and put your trainers on and get out the door, you will see yourself improve, which I think is fantastic in itself. But you will also, it's an amazing thing, which is that it's always just as hard for everyone. Like whether you've never run before, if you run as hard as you can, that's always as hard.
1:09:35 Speaker 07 You might run faster, but it's always feels as hard. And I don't think there's anything really in life where everyone has the you, like universal experience of how hard it is. You might do different things, but everyone feels the same.
1:09:47 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:09:47 Speaker 07 I think that's, that's quite special. So you're not racing anyone, you're only ever improving yourself. It's one of the best things I ever started doing. I loved that book. Run.
1:09:58 Jemma Sbeg? Are you.
1:09:58 Speaker 07 Don't hurt yourself.
1:09:59 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:09:59 Speaker 07 Just get out the door. And even if you have to walk and run and walk and run, I just think it's a fantastic sport.
1:10:05 Jemma Sbeg? Such great advice.
1:10:07 Speaker 07 And I would never have imagined I'd ever say that in to someone ever.
1:10:10 Jemma Sbeg? This is the thing, I think, when people get into running, they're like, oh my god, it's so boring. And then you start doing it and you're like.
1:10:16 Speaker 07 Yeah, but yeah.
1:10:17 Jemma Sbeg? I get it.
1:10:17 Speaker 07 And I think it's because, not to go on if we're wrapping up, but I think it's because at school, running was always a punishment. Like, if you talk, if you were talking, you come back to classical conditioning. If you were talking, like, you'd be told to run around the field or like, it was always a bad thing.
1:10:33 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
1:10:33 Speaker 07 And then there was an amazing moment where, uh, losing Sam, I just went, ah, I'm gonna just go for a run to get out of the house.
1:10:41 Jemma Sbeg? Hmm.
1:10:42 Speaker 07 And then I just never stopped doing it. I just love it. It's the only time my, that and public transport, weirdly, it's the only time my brain's ever quiet. My brain's really quiet on, on the bus, which I love it.
1:10:52 Jemma Sbeg? Never thought about that.
1:10:53 Speaker 07 Yeah. It's where I do my best, like, um, thinking.
1:10:57 Jemma Sbeg? On the bus?
1:10:58 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:10:58 Jemma Sbeg? On the five oh nine.
1:10:59 Speaker 07 I've had reasons to stay came on a bus.
1:11:01 Jemma Sbeg? Wow.
1:11:02 Speaker 07 That was a bus journey.
1:11:03 Jemma Sbeg? I feel like that used to be the shower, but now we listen to music in the shower.
1:11:06 Speaker 07 Yeah, yeah, cause showers are just music now.
1:11:08 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah.
1:11:08 Speaker 07 And getting ready very hard.
1:11:09 Jemma Sbeg? And getting very, yeah, very like stressful.
1:11:11 Speaker 07 Bus.
1:11:12 Jemma Sbeg? There we go.
1:11:13 Speaker 07 Hmm. To ride the super loop around London, just.
1:11:15 Jemma Sbeg? The super loop?
1:11:16 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:11:17 Jemma Sbeg? I'm not gonna do that. So I don't wanna be on any more public transport in this city ever again.
1:11:21 Speaker 07 I might have to. I think all the tubes are broken. I think I'm gonna be on the bus back, so.
1:11:25 Jemma Sbeg? Oh dang. Well, thanks for coming on.
1:11:27 Speaker 07 Thank you for having me.
1:11:28 Jemma Sbeg? Yeah, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Thanks for sharing. Um, we're gonna leave links in the description to everything. Reasons to Stay, the book, you can see what Ben's up to. He's doing some really cool stuff. Always, which is so cool. Being best buddies with Prince William. So I expect a selfie on there from him soon.
1:11:47 Speaker 07 Yeah.
1:11:47 Jemma Sbeg? Uh, but yeah, thank you again. If you have made it this far, leave a little white heart emoji down below, just so that we know that you've listened all the way to the end and that you enjoyed this episode. As always, we also have full episodes on Netflix if you wanna go and watch this talk or future conversations that we have. I'll also leave links in the description down below. There's always a bunch of stuff to go and explore and go into further down there. So until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon.
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