Darren Jamieson: On this week’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I am speaking with Harry Mansfield, the Mind Power Champion. I am going to be talking to Harry about how the mind can be a force for good or a force for bad, when you use it on yourself.
And I am also going to be speaking to Harry about suicide prevention, how you spot when somebody needs help, and what steps you should take to help them.
It was Jeller, I think, was it?
Harry Mansfield: Yeah. Absolutely.
Darren Jamieson: He said he was on your podcast and I listened and I thought, Yes, why not?
Harry Mansfield: He was indeed.
Darren Jamieson: Do you do stuff at his, what is it called, the clinic that he is at?
Harry Mansfield: We do not, but we do work with people that are ADHD and things because everything to do with the mind is what I do, basically.
So whether it is working with somebody alongside the professional reactive supportive roles that are in the mental health world, we work alongside them to stop people bouncing back to them because there is no qualification for proactive preventative in this country. So we are aiming to be that, and have licences across the country.
Our head office, which is where I am now, is actually in Sussex, and of course he is Liverpool way and Manchester way.
I was working up in Manchester and got invited to the BNI visitors day that he was at, which is how we met. I have got a licence in West Yorkshire, so it is amazing the way it goes.
I have worked with numerous people that have got ADHD because it is all to do with the mind.
Darren Jamieson: It is interesting with ADHD because my daughter was convinced she had ADHD, but she has never been diagnosed or tested for it. How do you know, and what are the signs?
Harry Mansfield: There are many places now that you can go to, to see if you are on the spectrum of that huge umbrella. It is a massive umbrella with loads of different categories and loads of different levels.
What I would say, perhaps to disgust many people in this point of view, is that while to be understood when you have a mind that works that way is a great relief, and it is essential, what I do struggle with is when people say, Well, that is it, we cannot do anything.
Actually, if you have got a mind that works a certain way, you can always train it to work in a better way for you.
I think schools, the education system, find comfort in a diagnosis when there is a situation which makes it difficult for them to work as well as they could do with a student. When that student is told once they have been tested that they have one of those many conditions, it is almost relief for the establishment, the school. I find that quite disappointing.
The mind is the foundation of absolutely everything we do. We train our mind and we change our brain, just the same as mental health medication does change the brain. Training the mind does, without the medication, and I think that side of it is missed.
There is great comfort from somebody understanding how their mind works, which is also what we do. We highlight how somebody’s mind works in general. That is 40% of our training, and then 60% is specific to them.
I came to this from the world of sports coaching. I do not have that mental health qualification that everyone goes, Oh my goodness, you prevent mental health problems and you give people the power to use their mind when they are on a dark day, their mind is spiralling, for suicide prevention. And I say yes, but I also teach how the mind works for goals.
I could be working with a sports person. I was contacted yesterday with regards to a trampolinist who has hit a plateau. They know that they can physically do it. A coach is saying you can physically do it, but it is the mind that is stopping you.
When somebody is diagnosed it can be great comfort because you are allowed different systems in place, which are so important, because everybody processes at different times. People do benefit from extra time in exams and things like that, which is priceless.
But I think then it sort of stops there, and I am going, actually there is so much we can do because the mind is the foundation for absolutely everything. Our thought process, our actions, results, behaviour.
We can change our emotions. So why are not we taught that in everyday life to benefit ourselves, whoever we are, whether we are diagnosed or not?
Darren Jamieson: Right. With my daughter, when she said she thought she had ADHD, she is 23 now. This was probably five years ago, if not more.
I was not sure about her getting tested to be diagnosed because I thought, rightly or wrongly, you correct me on this, that she could be prejudiced against in the workplace if she has an ADHD diagnosis. I thought that would not necessarily be a good thing for her, whether she was or not. Is that accurate? Is there an advantage or disadvantage to having it done anyway, to help you in later life?
Harry Mansfield: There are pros and cons because it depends who you are surrounded by in the workplace.
I know people that have actually said, I am going to go with so-and-so, my friend, because they are diagnosed and they do not have to wait in the queue, at somewhere like Alton Towers. It depends who recognises how it works.
If you go to a company and they recognise it, perhaps they have had personal experience from it, no problem at all. But when push comes to shove, it is always the environment of the people that you work with.
It is very much down to the individual place. I know a lot of businesses that are very aware of it, and have many staff who are on that spectrum, and do not have a problem with it at all, because they are in an industry which allows for it and adapts for it.
A lot of it is to do with industry as well. It can actually be an advantage because people allow you that little bit more space, that little bit more time, which works for you and your mind.
But stay away from an industry that does not allow that, or an industry that perhaps does allow that but that particular company is not recognising it.
As a general rule now, it is okay. And you pick and choose who you want to be with anyway in life. I certainly do, and I am not diagnosed.
Darren Jamieson: At the time she was looking at going to university, which she has done. Presumably it would have been a good thing there because they would have made allowances for her learning style.
Harry Mansfield: They do nowadays. Absolutely.
A lot of applications now do say, are you diagnosed with anything?
There is still an opinion that it can shoot you in the foot, but there are other times where it allows you to fly because it just allows you to be you.
We are all individual.
Darren Jamieson: Do you think, because there are a lot of different terminologies now, and a lot of different understanding about issues with the mind, or quirks of the mind, do we know enough now?
Obviously we know a lot more than we did, say, 50 years ago. Is there still a hell of a lot more to discover that we do not know, and a lot more nuances to what we think we know already?
Harry Mansfield: I do not think there is a whole load more to discover, but I think people are not taught about it. I think that is the key problem.
For example, five or six years ago when we were all struggling in the pandemic, we were all locked down, people were going mental health, mental health, mental health. I get it completely. But your mind is working against you at that moment in time because everybody is focusing on the challenges.
There were huge challenges, challenges beyond belief for some people. But coming out of it, while mental health is not necessarily discussed as a negative, which is good, and I would say subconscious and conscious is understood across the board, there is so much more to the mind than that.
Like a diet and like fitness, if you do not understand it you are never going to be able to lose the weight. You are still going to be shoving the chocolate cake in your mouth and you are not going to be taking the stairs instead of the lift, which we all know about because we have been educated in it.
But the thing about the mind is that it has been, to date, taught and highlighted once something has gone wrong, once there are problems, and then people are using amazingly qualified people, but it is all reactive. It is all supportive.
I had a conversation with a head teacher a couple of years ago. He wanted me to explain my work because he felt as though he was just putting out fires. He had the most amazing counsellor at the school which the students got along with brilliantly, but the need was growing.
They doubled the days from two to four, and he just looked at me and went, what do I do? He said there is only one day left in the week, and then where do the students go in the holidays?
If you are not taught how the mind works, our training model is 40% that will not change. It is like the mechanics of an arm moving, that is not going to change.
But all the things that are to do with the mind beyond conscious and subconscious are not taught. People do not realise. People do not realise that the mind is the foundation for everything. Your emotions, your thoughts, your results, your actions, your behaviour. If you want them to change, we are better at the diet, at not shoving that chocolate cake in your mouth, when you have got a more resilient mind. We are better at going, Yes, I am going to take the stairs even if I feel knackered. Because it is the mind that is actually kicking you into gear, going, Yeah, I can do this.
If you think about it from sports, which is the aspect where I have come from, you watch an Olympian triathlete cross the line. They are on their knees, they are absolutely shot. It is their mind that is getting them across it.
So why are we not allowing all these skills from the sports world, which is where I come from, to be taught across the board so we can take advantage of it?
The first time I found out myself how amazing and how powerful the mind was, I knew a lot of military guys. I kept opening my big mouth going, I want to do a parachute jump. And with those lovely guys, you do not do that because they just throw you out the plane.
They gave me a present of a weekend training with ex-military to parachute. I knew I was jumping out of that plane at the end of two days. It was incredible. The only time my mind wobbled was because I was not the first one to jump.
Sounds stupid, but you see the people drop rather fast in front of you into nothing. My mind did wobble then, but I knew exactly what to do to get my mind back on track.
So why are we not teaching these skills to members of staff, to increase productivity from a positive point of view, but also to prevent mental health problems and keep your staff at work, as well as in the world of education?
The mind is sensational. It is absolutely sensational. The workings of the mind are always going to be the workings of the mind, but it needs to be taught in addition to subconscious and conscious, and then use it to your advantage. Learn how it works for you.
Darren Jamieson: It is probably why we have, certainly in business, successful business, a lot of sports people and military as well come in and do talks. It is about mindset. That is what sets winners and losers apart.
What I do find disappointing though is you are right, in both those worlds those people do go into the corporate world and into schools to demonstrate it, but the other side of the coin is not taught.
So when they leave their profession, whether it is the discipline of the military world or the discipline of the sports world, a lot of them struggle. It is sad to think, you have got these skills, but what you now need to be taught is how to use those skills for a different outcome.
Because if I am teaching a sports person, the fundamentals and the foundation are the same, but that 60% is very different. With military and ex-military and ex-sports people, I find it very sad that they do have those skills, they have been there, they have done it. That is how they have achieved these amazing things and gone into war zones.
But unless they are shown the other side of the coin, they are struggling severely when they leave their industry. Again, because there is not enough talk about the mind, they are falling into the trap as well.
One of my other guests on a podcast, a chap called Alan Nell, he was a former sailor, minesweeper for the Navy. He talked about one of his colleagues, what a hero he was, how he saved somebody from being shot, but when he left, he did end up killing himself because they lose that institution. They lose that purpose because it is such a huge part of their lives, and he said there is not really any support for them afterwards.
They know it is a problem, but they are not given anywhere near enough support when they leave.
Harry Mansfield: Absolutely. Society does push you into a conversation of, if you are struggling, go to the doctor. I am not saying do not go to the doctor at all. But there are numerous times in my life with not having a great time that I have been told that.
They are going, Harry, to get through this, go to the doctor. You can go on antidepressants. And I sit there and I go, No. It is not easy, but it is perfectly possible.
I am living proof from that, because most people would not have been able to go through the things that I have been through, from childhood, or not a great marriage. Eight-year divorce, still not divorced, and legal systems and things not working. It is ridiculous.
Loads of gaps in systems, and when that affects your living conditions for you and your kids and you do not have a kitchen, you do not have heating, you do not have insulation, you do not have an internal staircase, these things are huge impacts on everyday life.
If I did not know how to use my mind in those situations day in, day out, yes I would have been on antidepressants at the doctor, and maybe even worse, who knows?
But because I know how the mind works, because I know how my own mind works, because I know what to do at that moment in time, which I think is the key thing, there are so many types of training in this world which are beneficial with information, and that is great.
But with something like the mind, which influences you in absolutely everything you do throughout your day, morning, noon and night, if you do not have a solution and a tool for that moment in time, then it is going to work against you rather than for you.
The mechanics of it are so powerful that it will work against you if it is not taught. This is what we are doing.
With access to the internet and social media, it can have a much bigger impact on your state of mind, your mental health, your happiness, your depression, because you are constantly bombarded with images of other people’s success, other people’s brilliance, other people’s idyllic bodies, idyllic lives, idyllic money. We are seeing people’s highlights forced down our throats all the time, and we are comparing ourselves to that.
Darren Jamieson:
How much impact do you think social media is having on people, even people in school?
Harry Mansfield: I think society as a whole is absolutely huge, and yes, social media is a massive part of that.
We teach a VIP mind. The V is for victorious because the mind allows you to achieve stuff. We have spoken of the sports people, we have spoken of the military people.
The I is for ignite, but it has got to ignite the right way because the subconscious mind is trained by repetition. If we are feeding it that we do not look nice, we are overweight, we need that filter on that photograph, then yes, that is going to be creating a problem.
So we have to teach people how to ignite the mind in the right way.
The P is for protector. Again, it has to be in the right way because your mind can protect you if people have been through trauma and there is a wall that goes up.
I have spoken about my own, Harry’s wall. There is stuff I did not remember from an abusive childhood. I remember sitting there saying to my sister on the phone, did that actually happen? And she says, yes. I was going, wow, that is incredible. My mind went to protect myself.
But it can also be taught how to protect yourself with those situations of social media where it looks as though everyone is having the most fantastic life.
We hear about it, very sadly, with suicide. There are very famous actors that live in the hills of Hollywood with mansions, and have financially absolutely everything. But if you do not use your mind to change yourself within, or to support yourself within, and to believe yourself within, it is always going to work against you.
The mind is for free. Why is this not a government necessity that is taught? The foundation does not take long to learn. The foundation is just three hours. I can teach somebody in three hours. The bit after that is quite challenging because you have to learn how to adapt it for yourself.
Everyone’s goals are different. But if we do not give this, the power of social media is huge, we are going to have those figures increasing all the time.
At the moment, it is a quarter of the UK that is diagnosed with a mental health problem, so that is over 17 million people.
With suicide, sadly the latest figures are every 90 minutes somebody is choosing to die by suicide because they cannot manage their mind to help protect them and ignite the mind the right way when they are in horrific situations that they are finding so painful and so tough.
To me this should be part of the NHS, which is a struggling organisation, but always a reactive organisation. All the qualifications so far are reactive. Mental health first aid, mental health nurse, all amazing people. Psychiatrists, incredible work, absolutely incredible work.
But why are we allowing our friends, our family, our colleagues to get that bad? Why do not we give them the tools to benefit from it?
Darren Jamieson: How would you know though? I mean, you mentioned Hollywood actors. It famously happened with Robin Williams, who looked like he was living his best life. He was such a manic, crazy, brilliant comedian. You would not have known anything was wrong.
A few years ago you had Caroline Flack, who again was a personality on social media, a TV presenter. It came out of nowhere.
Very recently we had Ricky Hatton, the boxer, who was on top of the world. He retired, and he probably had that downer that sports people have, living at 100 miles an hour and then suddenly everything stops.
How would you know if somebody is hiding something?
There is a brilliant advert Norwich City Football Club put out with two fans watching the game. It cuts to different days over the course of about a year. The fan on the left looks miserable and depressed. The fan on the right is happy and chatty. Right at the end, the fan on the right, the happy one, is not there. It is the sad one that puts the scarf on the chair for him.
It is an advert to reach out to people next to you, that you do not know what they are going through. So this guy that seemed happy was not. How do we know?
Harry Mansfield: You do not. That is the importance of this training because you have to give people the opportunity to learn the tools.
It is a bit like with a musical instrument or a language. If you choose to learn it, you have to put the effort in. Otherwise you are going to be rubbish at the language and rubbish at the musical instrument.
It could be the person that is the life and soul of the party. It could be the quiet person in the corner. There is no way of knowing.
But if people do not get taught, as standard across the board, how the mind works, what their mind does, and the tools that can benefit them, then yes, we are going to carry on losing a number of people, either in the loss of life, or to medication to help them through life.
I will give you an example. My training centre, which I am sitting in at the moment, is in the South Downs National Park. It is a beautiful location. It is a 10-acre site, and we have people that come here to train.
The reaction you get from people when they turn around the corner and look at the view, they go, Oh my God, that is amazing.
However, in the time I have been here, I have not had heating, I have not had an internal staircase, and other things. You grow to hate the place.
You have to use your mind to change your emotions. So when things started to improve, I was very aware that I had to learn to appreciate the place that I was in again, and to love it, because I am very lucky to be here and have an amazing location to train people.
I had to think, what is going to work for me? For me, what I did was I had in my mind that I was staying at a top class five-star hotel that people would pay a fortune for, in an amazing location.
So when you open your bedroom window, your curtains at that hotel, you sit there and you go, Oh wow. Like people going away on Mediterranean holidays, they pay that extra to have the sea view.
Darren Jamieson: The sea view is not necessarily a nice view of the sea. If you can see it, it is a view.
Harry Mansfield: Yeah. It is over there, behind that building. Trees have grown up in front.
But if you actually go to a place and you think, this is amazing, you will eventually retrain your mind.
So that is what I was doing. I was undoing what years and years of my divorce had done to me over a location that had never changed in beauty. The South Downs National Park is protected. It is stunning, but it was up to me to change it.
When we are on a diet, we have to take responsibility. When we are at school, whether you agree with the system or not, you have to take responsibility for doing the work. When you are saying, I am going to get fitter, you have to take responsibility and turn up to the gym.
It is exactly the same with your mind. People do not realise how much work it takes.
Going back to my sports coaching days, I was a rugby coach and a riding coach. If a tennis player is learning to serve, they have got to put their mind into gear first before their body will be able to do the serve. And they have to do that 100,000 times.
If it goes wrong, you have to undo it. Use the mind 2,000 times and then do it again up to 100,000 times.
This is why it is so important. If it is not taught, social media is going to be feeding you rubbish and telling you you are not good enough.
The mind creates a problem for itself if you do not have the tools to protect yourself in the right way and ignite it in the right way.
So I had to reignite my mind, undo, renew, and reignite it the right way, to sit there and go, do you know what, I am so lucky, I am in the South Downs National Park.
I remember seeing the actor Matthew Perry’s mansion. Huge. Absolutely huge. But if you do not have the skills to use your mind to work on the inside to the out, it is always going to lead to problems.
Darren Jamieson: It reminds me, one of my previous guests talked about gratitude. When you start the day, pretty much what you have just said, think about the things you are positive about, the things you are happy for.
It is something I try to do. I am not very good at it. Most mornings I wake up and I think, Oh, I am tired. I catch myself going, Oh, I am tired. Why are you tired? Be positive. You are healthy. You are up. The day has started. The house has not burned down. It is not flooded, which has happened in the past.
If you start off the day being negative, it is going to set the tone for the day. Whereas if you start off saying the things you are happy about, it is going to change your mood and you are going to be more positive and happier.
Have I oversimplified it or is that brilliant?
Harry Mansfield: It is a brilliant example.
For the mind to really shine, we have to think about our mind from when you wake up in the morning all the way through the day, to when you put your head on the pillow at night. That is the true way for it to become successful.
It is very easy to say, Just do. But go back to the tennis player example. If somebody wakes up every morning and goes, Oh God, you have got to undo that because that is the subconscious mind kicking in.
It is not something that happens automatically. You have to bring your thought process to the fore.
Do not beat yourself up about it. Make it easy. Think something about your body. Thank you for my breathing. Be grateful for the fact we can see. Be grateful for the fact we can hear.
We forget the small things. Sometimes we pick up our phone, see something on social media that we do not like, and swear at it. Or we get an email and swear at it. Actually, be thankful you got the phone in the first place. Some of them are expensive.
It is looking at it from a different perspective. Tiny things. Ideally you want to be positive about the situation you are in, but if you cannot find that, just use anything. The fact you have food in the fridge, money for electricity, heating.
Society is pushing us to succeed, but nobody is truly going to succeed and be strong and resilient, and use their mind for goals and prevention, unless it is taught across the board, because of the habit forming of the subconscious mind.
So if you wake up every morning and go, Oh God, I am tired, then yes, you are going to wake up tired.
You have not simplified it. It is the truth.
Darren Jamieson: As you were talking then, I thought, and I started to get angry. Not you. I was angry because you mentioned how this is not taught, but there are people and organisations out there that understand this perfectly and they use it against us.
For example, Twitter, X, their algorithm shows you things you are going to engage with because it shows you things that annoy you. If it knows you are left leaning, it shows you right wing stuff. If you are right leaning, it shows you left leaning stuff, just to get you engaged.
Then you have things like the Daily Mail that will deliberately anger its readers. You had Tories doing it. Nigel Farage does it. They talk about swarms of people coming over on small boats, invading our country. They use language like swarming, invasion. It almost goes back to Nazis, what they were doing, manipulation of people based on how they understand the mental state will change.
How dangerous do you think that is? Can the British public, the global public, become aware they are being used in this way?
Harry Mansfield: This is one of the parts of the mind that is so important. It is the perspective part of the mind.
We all grow up in a family which has got a culture to it, perhaps a religion, eat a certain type of food, live a life a certain way.
On one side of my family there is Greek, so I grew up with stuffed vine leaves. Some people go, what are you eating leaves for? And I love them. That is the perspective I have got from being surrounded by that growing up.
Whatever you are surrounded in, it is going to be your perspective and how your mind works. There is nothing to say one culture, one religion, one set of politics is right or wrong. People believe passionately that there are, but whether it is a politician, a journalist, a social media outlet, they are all taking advantage of how the mind works.
Which to me is even more reason why this should be taught day to day, age appropriate, all the way through to retirement age.
You are never going to be able to use the power of the mind fully unless it is taught, and you have the capacity to use it day in, day out, to protect yourself against those people that are throwing these things at you.
I have started learning Spanish. I had a YouTube Spanish news channel on in the background to get used to the sound of the language. It is fascinating because they are covering countries and news that we never hear about. Venezuela and all these kinds of things.
So yes, we are being shown what they want us to see and what they want us to hear. You are absolutely right.
But if we do not focus on ourselves, and then make the decision whether we agree with it, disagree with it, and how we are going to behave, we are never going to have the opportunity. We do have to take responsibility for ourselves.
Even though these huge organisations, whether it is journalism, social media, politics, are saying X, Y and Z, that may or may not be true, if we do not learn the skills from our minds, we are not going to have the power to sit there and make the decision for ourselves.
There is only so much you can do. You vote, that is it.
I have got two teenage boys, now old enough to vote, and it was their first time. I thought, how am I going to approach this? I do not want them influenced by family or school. You need to vote with your heart and soul of what you believe.
We went online, got brief versions of everyone’s manifestos, which are far too long to read. We had a drink, barbecue, and we talked about pros and cons. Everybody went off to vote.
What I loved was we all voted for different parties for very different reasons, but they did it for themselves. They thought about it. But at the end of that, yes, we are influenced by decisions.
Instead of going down the pub and moaning about it, take responsibility for yourself and your mind and work a way forward for yourself within those things that they are dictating to you.
Social media, journalists, governments are powerful, but it is still up to us. We are still individuals. We have a mind and we need to learn to do that far more.
Darren Jamieson: You mentioned this is not taught in schools, but critical thinking is not taught in schools either, and financial management is not taught in schools.
We are not taught what credit cards are, how to balance a chequebook, how interest rates or compound interest work.
There is a school of thought that we are not taught that deliberately because governments do not want people to be too critical thinking. They do not want people to be entrepreneurs. They want us to make bad financial decisions so there is debt, so the banks are successful. They want us to go into servitude, into customer service jobs, labour jobs, because that keeps the country going.
What are your thoughts on that?
Harry Mansfield: Do not forget the mind is linked to preventing mental health problems and preventing suicide. If the mind is doing those two things and achieving success, they cannot have that.
They have to do something about the figures for preventing mental health problems and suicide, so they cannot have it ignored.
However much they dictate, they are never going to control me in my mind. It is only up to me who controls me in my mind.
With regards to education, it is now coming in. We are actually now training for [unclear organisations], doing workshops for [unclear organisation name], and they are big education organisations for leaders and things like that.
So it is coming in, whether they like it or not, to prevent mental health problems, to prevent suicide. You cannot have one without the other because the mind produces success and you achieve your goals through it as well.
Once you have learned how the mind works, you can then turn it to achieving something in a day, or protecting yourself in a day.
Darren Jamieson: You were talking about training that you offer people so they can have a better understanding of their mind and prevent suicide.
At what point should somebody be thinking of that? There is a big stigma to attempting suicide or having thoughts about it. It is not something you talk about, even to your family.
How would somebody who is having thoughts like that need to approach it?
Harry Mansfield: It is important to understand that the majority of people in this world would have, at some point in their life, thought about suicide.
The figures are one in 20. So in my county of Sussex alone, that is over 70,000 people.
So this stigma should not be there. You are absolutely right, it is there.
Once people are experiencing it through knowing somebody, that is a very difficult thing to manage.
This is another argument for the work that I do. You quite rightly pointed out the fact that the life and soul of the party can be the person who has those very dark, difficult, challenging emotions and feelings day in, day out, and you never know.
There are many organisations now that people can go to, if they have got the confidence. Taking that first call, walking into a new classroom, a new job, it is always difficult.
Because the numbers are so high, there are many places you can go to. You have to find somewhere that suits you and is not judgemental.
We are all human. However much a CEO is trying to increase figures and get money for shareholders, that CEO’s mind works in exactly the same way as a homeless person on the street. There is no difference.
Stigma is difficult. I started this year a podcast called The Saving Lives Podcast for that very reason. I looked out there and thought, the wrong information is out there. The stigma is out there.
We need an open conversation. When you do not know something, it makes it harder. Understanding terminology, knowing what to say, how to support, how to listen, is huge.
This should never be taken lightly. We are never going to sort everyone’s mental health problems out and stop everyone from dying by suicide. We have to accept that.
But you have to at least give people the tools to know how their mind works, and give them the opportunity to put the tools into place on those dark days when their mind is spiralling.
Otherwise these numbers will keep going the wrong way.
When you are working in this field, people who are in this field sadly are still also people who choose to die by suicide. Nobody is immune to it. You would think people who work for the charities are immune, but they are not.
It is worldwide. It is nationwide.
To take away the opportunity of giving somebody the best chance of how to manage their mind when they are in situations that are so painful to them, it should be taught, it should be given.
There is nothing to say that if you learn it, that person is going to be okay, but if they are not taught it in the first place, how can you give them the best chance?
The same as that sports person on the other side of the coin is never going to be able to get the gold medal. They are just going to be competing, instead of competing at the top level.
Darren Jamieson: I remembered a quote, I think it was Michael Jordan. Somebody asked him, are not you worried about missing when you miss a shot?
His answer was along the lines of, no, because that always moves me closer to my next successful shot.
Harry Mansfield: Absolutely. It is having the skills to use your mind to pick yourself up when you have done that.
There is not one person in this world that has not failed. Not one. We have to have the mental strength and mental resilience to get up again, and know how to get up again.
Darren Jamieson: Another quote, I do not know if it was Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky, you miss 100% of the shots you do not take.
Harry Mansfield: Absolutely.
Darren Jamieson: We are almost running out of time, but one thing I want to ask, because it is important.
My brother struggled with alcohol for a long time. He was an alcoholic. Six or seven years ago now, he did take his own life. It was an overdose of morphine.
I would not say I was surprised, and my dad certainly was not surprised. He used to say, at some point I expect to get a call that he has been found dead in a ditch. That always troubled me when I was younger.
Eventually it did happen and he was found in his apartment.
If you have a relative or a friend like that, that clearly has problems, clearly has demons, struggles with drink and has depression, how can you help them?
Harry Mansfield: You have to first of all realise this is not a five-minute fix. Think again of that tennis player.
You are having to renew and break the cycle. For every single person, every single addiction, that is going to be a different process. But it is still possible.
It is also trying to get that person to understand they have the ability not to do it.
In the pandemic there were so many social media videos of people drinking a glass of wine, but it was that big glass which is the whole bottle.
When you are doing something that is happening a lot, whether it is alcohol or chocolate or drugs or whatever, that is training the mind. It is then much harder to break because you are not only having the physical addiction to that substance, you are also having the mental addiction to that substance.
It is possible to break cycles of addiction with the mind. I have seen it done.
However, it is often when somebody is addicted that they are feeling exhausted, they do not believe in themselves, they do not feel they are good enough, they do not feel they are achieving.
There is a large number of things that could be causing it in the first place. To find out the cause is going to take a long time.
If you are talking about breaking the cycle of a mind that is working against you and focusing on the challenges all the time, it is finding those tiny stepping stones of positivity and keep feeding them with it.
Keep saying they are an amazing person and that they are doing well. They will not believe it at first. But if you do not start feeding the subconscious mind with that, you are never going to be able to break it down.
People that are addicted start to believe they cannot change. So you have to start showing them there is value in their life. There is a way forward.
I am not going to sit here and say it is a quick fix. That is not how the mind works. But it is possible.
Darren Jamieson: I remember with my brother, years beforehand, maybe 10 years or more, I noticed one night that he had loads of cuts on his arm that he had done himself. This behaviour had been going on for at least a decade.
From what you said about not believing you are good enough, he definitely did not believe he was good enough. He had a daughter who he had not seen for many years.
His attitude was, I do not want to get in touch with her because I am not good enough. She is not going to want to talk to me. She was a police officer, still is.
I have since contacted his daughter. She did want to speak to him. She really wanted to see him.
My brother ended up taking his own life, never knowing that he was actually a granddad, which is very sad.
Harry Mansfield: Very, very sad.
I am never here with my work to say it is a quick fix. That would be completely wrong.
But the mind can achieve the most amazing things. What we have to do is make sure those amazing things are positive and from a success side, and protect ourselves when we are in a situation that comes from within ourselves, or from people around us, and things around us that make us struggle and not believe we are worthy.
It is good that it is out there more, but it needs to be even more, to save lives, to achieve goals, and prevent mental health problems.
Darren Jamieson: For anyone listening thinking, I need to speak to you, I need your help, or I would like you to come in and do a talk, what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Harry Mansfield: On our website, Awareness Key, it is awarenesskey.co.uk. We have got all my links.
There is a one-to-one link which is a free half an hour discovery call, which we do with all our clients.
So, as I was saying with the trampolinist the other day, I will be speaking to them to say, what are your goals? What are your fears with regards to why you think you cannot get to the next level?
That is the best way. Just book that. It is linked to the calendar.
We have got licences across the country now as well. So if I am not the person that I feel is able to get to you close enough, we can help you across the board as well.
Darren Jamieson: Okay. I will put the links that you mentioned, to your LinkedIn, the website, and anything else, below the podcast. So anyone listening, if you want to get in touch with Harry, scroll down and click on the link.
It will be in the YouTube description if you are on YouTube, and it will be in Audible, Spotify, wherever you are. Scroll down, it is in the show notes below.
Harry, thank you very much for being on the podcast. It has been enlightening, and definitely something for a lot of us to think about.
About Harry:
Harry Mansfield is the founder of Awareness Key and is known as a mind power champion. She delivers practical training on how the mind works, helping people build resilience, improve performance, and manage difficult mental states.
Her work focuses on proactive, preventative support, including tools for handling low mood, anxiety, addiction patterns, and suicidal thoughts, alongside mindset coaching for goals and achievement. She also speaks publicly and offers one-to-one discovery calls through Awareness Key.
You can connect with Harry here:
Website: https://awarenesskey.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awarenesskey/?locale=en_GB
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theawarenesskey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-mansfield-mindpower-champion-4924071b3/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR9Goi7SK-Ps0XaAWodh9Ag
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
