Darren Jamieson: [00:57] On this week’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I’m speaking with Harry Mansfield, the mind power champion. I’m 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.
Darren Jamieson: [01:10] And I’m 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.
Darren Jamieson: [01:16] It was Jeller, I think, wasn’t it? I know it was.
Harry Mansfield: [01:23] Yeah. Absolutely. He said he was on your podcast and I listened and I thought, Yes, why not? Why not?
Darren Jamieson: [01:29] He was indeed. Did you do stuff at his, what’s it called, the clinic that he’s at?
Harry Mansfield: [01:35] We don’t actually, but we do work with people that are ADHD and things, because everything to do with the mind is what I do, basically.
Harry Mansfield: [01:41] So whether it is working with somebody that has, alongside the professional, reactive, supportive roles that are in the mental health world, we work alongside to stop them bouncing back to them.
Harry Mansfield: [01:54] Because there is no qualification for proactive, preventative in this country. So we’re aiming to be that and have licences across the country.
Harry Mansfield: [02:06] Our head office, which is where I’m at now, is actually in Sussex. Of course he’s Liverpool way and Manchester way.
Harry Mansfield: [02:12] I was working up in Manchester and got invited to the BNI visitors that he was at, which is how we met.
Harry Mansfield: [02:18] I’ve got a licence in West Yorkshire, so yeah, it’s amazing the way it goes.
Harry Mansfield: [02:30] I have worked with numerous people that have got ADHD because it is all to do with the mind.
Darren Jamieson: [02:36] It’s interesting with ADHD because my daughter was convinced she had ADHD, but she’s never been diagnosed or tested for it. How do you know, and what are the signs?
Harry Mansfield: [02:49] There are many places now that you can go to to see if you are on the spectrum of that huge umbrella. It’s a massive umbrella with loads of different categories and loads of different levels.
Harry Mansfield: [03:02] What I would say, perhaps to disgust many people in this point of view, is that whilst, to be understood when you have a mind that works that way, it is a great relief and it’s essential.
Harry Mansfield: [03:17] What I do struggle with is when people say, Well, that’s it. We can’t do anything.
Harry Mansfield: [03:23] Actually, if you’ve got a mind that works a certain way, you can always train it to work in a better way for you.
Harry Mansfield: [03:38] I think schools, the education system, find comfort in a diagnosis when there is a situation which makes it difficult for them working as well as they could do with a student.
Harry Mansfield: [03:52] When that student is then told once they’ve been tested that they have one of those many conditions, it’s almost relief for the establishment, the school.
Harry Mansfield: [04:03] I find that quite disappointing because the mind is the foundation of absolutely everything we do.
Harry Mansfield: [04:09] 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.
Harry Mansfield: [04:21] There is great comfort from somebody understanding how their mind works, which is also what we do.
Harry Mansfield: [04:28] We highlight how somebody’s mind works in general. That’s 40% of our training, and then 60% is specific to them.
Harry Mansfield: [04:40] I came to this from the world of sports coaching. I don’t have that mental health qualification that everyone goes, Oh my goodness, you prevent mental health problems.
Harry Mansfield: [04:51] You’re there to give people the power to use their mind when they’re on a dark day, their mind is spiralling, for suicide prevention.
Harry Mansfield: [04:57] And I say yes, but I also teach how the mind works for goals.
Harry Mansfield: [05:03] I could be working with a sports person. I was contacted yesterday with regards to a trampolinist who has just hit a plateau.
Harry Mansfield: [05:11] They know that they can physically do it. A coach is saying you can physically do it, but it’s the mind that’s stopping you.
Harry Mansfield: [05:18] When somebody is diagnosed it can be great comfort because you are allowed different systems in place, which are so important.
Harry Mansfield: [05:24] Everybody processes in different times and people do benefit from extra time in exams and things like that, which is priceless.
Harry Mansfield: [05:38] But I think then it sort of stops there, and I’m 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.
Harry Mansfield: [05:49] We can change our emotions. So why aren’t we taught that in everyday life to benefit ourselves, whoever we are, whether we’re diagnosed or not?
Darren Jamieson: [06:01] With my daughter, when she said she thought she had ADHD, she’s 23 now. This was probably five years ago.
Darren Jamieson: [06:20] I wasn’t sure about her getting tested to be diagnosed because I thought she could be prejudiced against in the workplace if she has an ADHD diagnosis. Is that accurate?
Darren Jamieson: [06:33] Is there an advantage or disadvantage to having it done anyway to help you in later life?
Harry Mansfield: [06:46] There are pros and cons because it depends who you’re surrounded by in the workplace.
Harry Mansfield: [06:53] I know people that have said, I’m going to go with my friend because they’re diagnosed and they don’t have to wait in the queue.
Darren Jamieson: [07:05] Yeah.
Harry Mansfield: [07:12] It depends who recognises how it works. If you go to a company and they recognise it, perhaps they’ve had personal experience from it, no problem at all.
Harry Mansfield: [07:24] But when push comes to shove, it’s always with the environment of the people that you work with.
Harry Mansfield: [07:29] It’s very much down to the individual place.
Harry Mansfield: [07:36] I know a lot of businesses that are very aware of it and have many staff who are on that spectrum and don’t have a problem with it at all.
Harry Mansfield: [07:42] I think a lot of it is to do with industry as well.
Harry Mansfield: [07:49] 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.
Harry Mansfield: [07:56] But stay away from an industry that doesn’t allow that, or an industry that perhaps does allow that but that particular company isn’t recognising it.
Harry Mansfield: [08:08] As a general rule now it’s okay, but I would say you pick and choose who you want to be with anyway in life. I certainly do, and I’m not diagnosed.
Darren Jamieson: [08:20] At the time as well 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: [08:26] They do nowadays. Absolutely.
Harry Mansfield: [08:31] A lot of applications now do say, Are you diagnosed with anything?
Harry Mansfield: [08:38] Yes, 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.
Harry Mansfield: [08:44] We’re all individual.
Darren Jamieson: [08:49] Do you think because there’s a lot of different terminologies now, a lot of different understanding about issues with the mind, or quirks of the mind, do we know enough now?
Darren Jamieson: [09:02] Obviously we know a lot more than we did 50 years ago. Is there still a hell of a lot more to discover that we don’t know?
Harry Mansfield: [09:08] I don’t think there’s a whole load more to discover, but I think people aren’t taught about it. That’s the key problem.
Harry Mansfield: [09:14] Five, six years ago when we were all struggling in the pandemic, people were going, Mental health, mental health, mental health.
Harry Mansfield: [09:27] Get it completely. But your mind is working against you at that moment in time because everybody is focusing on the challenges.
Harry Mansfield: [09:34] And let’s face it, there were huge challenges, challenges beyond belief for some people.
Harry Mansfield: [09:41] But coming out of it, whilst mental health is not necessarily discussed as a negative so much, which is good, subconscious and conscious is understood across the board.
Harry Mansfield: [09:53] There is so much more to the mind than that.
Harry Mansfield: [10:01] Like a diet and like fitness, if you don’t understand it you’re never going to be able to lose the weight.
Harry Mansfield: [10:06] You’re still going to be shoving the chocolate cake in your mouth and you’re not going to be taking the stairs instead of the lift, which we all know about because we’ve been educated in it.
Harry Mansfield: [10:11] But the thing about the mind is that it has been taught and highlighted once something has gone wrong, once there are problems.
Harry Mansfield: [10:24] And then people are using amazingly qualified people, but it’s all reactive. It’s all supportive.
Harry Mansfield: [10:30] 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.
Harry Mansfield: [10:37] He had the most amazing counsellor at the school, which the students got along with brilliantly, but the need was growing.
Harry Mansfield: [10:44] So they doubled the days from two to four. And he just looked at me and he went, What do I do?
Harry Mansfield: [10:50] He said, There’s only one day left in the week, and then where do the students go in the holidays?
Harry Mansfield: [11:02] If you’re not taught how the mind works, our training model is 40% won’t change.
Harry Mansfield: [11:08] It’s like the mechanics of an arm moving. That’s not going to change.
Harry Mansfield: [11:15] But all the things that are to do with the mind beyond conscious and subconscious isn’t taught.
Harry Mansfield: [11:21] People don’t realise the mind is the foundation for everything, your emotions, your thoughts, your results, your actions, your behaviour.
Harry Mansfield: [11:28] If you want them to change, we are better at the diet, at not shoving that chocolate cake in your mouth when you’ve got a more resilient mind.
Harry Mansfield: [11:35] We are better at going, Yes, I’m going to take the stairs even if I feel knackered. Because it’s the mind that’s actually kicking you into gear, going, Yeah, I can do this.
Harry Mansfield: [11:46] If you think about it from sports, which is where I’ve come from, you watch an Olympian triathlete cross the line, they’re on their knees, absolutely shot.
Harry Mansfield: [11:58] It is their mind that is getting them across it.
Harry Mansfield: [12:04] So why are we not allowing all these skills from the sports world to be taught across the board so we can take advantage of it?
Harry Mansfield: [12:16] The first time I found out myself how amazing and 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.
Harry Mansfield: [12:28] With those lovely guys, you don’t do that because they just throw you out the plane. They gave me a present of a weekend training with ex-military to parachute.
Harry Mansfield: [12:38] I knew I was jumping out of that plane at the end of two days.
Harry Mansfield: [12:44] It was incredible. And the only time my mind wobbled was because I wasn’t the first one to jump.
Harry Mansfield: [12:50] You see the people drop rather fast in front of you into nothing, and my mind did wobble then, but I knew exactly what to do to get my mind back on track.
Harry Mansfield: [13:02] So why are we not teaching these skills to members of staff to increase productivity from a positive point of view, but to prevent mental health problems and keep your staff at work?
Harry Mansfield: [13:16] As well as in the world of education as well.
Harry Mansfield: [13:22] The mind is sensational. It is absolutely sensational.
Harry Mansfield: [13:28] 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: [13:40] It’s probably why we have, certainly in business and successful business, a lot of sports people and military as well come in and do talks.
Darren Jamieson: [13:51] Because it is about mindset. That’s what sets winners and losers apart.
Darren Jamieson: [13:57] What I do find disappointing though is you’re 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.
Darren Jamieson: [14:12] So when they leave their profession, whether it’s the discipline of the military world or the discipline of the sports world, a lot of them struggle.
Harry Mansfield: [14:18] It is very sad. They do have those skills, but what you now need to be taught is how to use those skills for a different outcome.
Harry Mansfield: [14:31] The fundamentals are the same, but the 60% is very different.
Harry Mansfield: [14:48] With military and ex-military and ex-sports people, I find it very sad that they do have those skills, but unless they’re shown it on the other side of the coin, they are struggling severely when they leave their industry.
Darren Jamieson: [15:32] One of my other guests, a chap called Alan Nell, he was a former sailor minesweeper for the Navy.
Darren Jamieson: [15:39] 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.
Darren Jamieson: [16:00] He said there’s not really any support for them afterwards. They know it’s a problem, but they’re not given anywhere near enough support when they leave.
Harry Mansfield: [16:06] Absolutely.
Harry Mansfield: [16:12] Society does push you into a conversation of, If you’re struggling, go to the doctor.
Harry Mansfield: [16:18] Now, I’m not saying don’t 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.
Harry Mansfield: [16:31] People say, Harry, go to the doctor. You can go on antidepressants. And I sit there and I go, No. It’s not easy, but it’s perfectly possible.
Harry Mansfield: [16:44] I am living proof from that because most people wouldn’t have been able to go through the things that I’ve been through, from childhood, or not a great marriage.
Harry Mansfield: [16:58] Eight-year divorce, still not divorced, and legal systems and things not working. It’s ridiculous.
Harry Mansfield: [17:05] Loads of gaps in systems.
Harry Mansfield: [17:10] When that affects your living conditions for you and your kids, and you don’t have a kitchen, you don’t have heating, you don’t have insulation, you don’t have an internal staircase, these things are huge impacts on everyday life.
Harry Mansfield: [17:22] If I didn’t 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?
Harry Mansfield: [17:36] 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 is the key thing, it works.
Harry Mansfield: [17:50] There are so many types of training in this world which are beneficial with information and that’s great.
Harry Mansfield: [18:00] But with something like the mind, which influences you in absolutely everything you do throughout your day, morning, noon, and night, if you don’t have a solution and a tool for that moment in time, it’s going to work against you rather than for you.
Harry Mansfield: [18:14] The mechanics of it are so powerful that it will work against you if it’s not taught. This is really what we’re doing.
Darren Jamieson: [18:34] With access to the internet and social media, I think it can have a much bigger impact on your state of mind, your mental health, your happiness, your depression.
Darren Jamieson: [18:49] You are constantly bombarded with images of other people’s success, other people’s brilliance, other people’s idyllic bodies, idyllic lives, idyllic money.
Darren Jamieson: [19:06] We’re basically having people’s highlights forced down our throats all the time and we’re comparing ourselves to that.
Darren Jamieson: [19:13] How much impact do you think social media is having on people, even people in school?
Harry Mansfield: [19:18] I think society as a whole is absolutely huge, and yes, social media is a massive part of that.
Harry Mansfield: [19:23] We teach a VIP mind. The V is victorious because the mind allows you to achieve stuff.
Harry Mansfield: [19:30] The I is for ignite, but it’s got to ignite the right way because the subconscious mind is trained by repetition.
Harry Mansfield: [19:36] If we are feeding it that we don’t look nice, we are overweight, we need that filter on that photograph, then yes, that is going to be creating a problem.
Harry Mansfield: [19:49] So we have to teach people how to ignite the mind in the right way.
Harry Mansfield: [19:55] 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’s a wall that goes up.
Harry Mansfield: [20:02] I’ve spoken about my own wall. There’s stuff I didn’t remember from an abusive childhood.
Harry Mansfield: [20:14] I remember sitting there saying to my sister on the phone, Did that actually happen? And she says, Yes.
Harry Mansfield: [20:19] And I was going, Wow. That’s incredible. My mind went to protect myself.
Harry Mansfield: [20:24] But it can also be taught how to protect yourself with those situations of social media where it looks as though everyone’s having the most fantastic life.
Harry Mansfield: [20:37] We hear about it sadly with regards to suicide. There are very famous actors that live in the hills of Hollywood with the most amazing mansions and have financially absolutely everything.
Harry Mansfield: [20:49] But if you don’t 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.
Harry Mansfield: [21:02] The mind is for free. Why is this not a government necessity that’s taught?
Harry Mansfield: [21:14] The foundation doesn’t take long to learn. The foundation is just three hours. I can teach somebody in three hours.
Harry Mansfield: [21:20] The bit after that is challenging because you have to learn how to adapt it for yourself.
Harry Mansfield: [21:26] Everyone’s goals are different.
Harry Mansfield: [21:33] But if we don’t give this, the power of social media is huge, and we are just going to have those figures increasing all the time.
Harry Mansfield: [21:44] At the moment, it’s a quarter of the UK that is diagnosed with a mental health problem. So that’s over 17 million people.
Harry Mansfield: [21:51] With regards to suicide, the latest figures are every 90 minutes somebody is choosing to die by suicide because they cannot manage their mind to protect them and ignite the mind the right way.
Harry Mansfield: [22:11] 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.
Harry Mansfield: [22:23] Mental health first aid, the mental health nurse, all amazing people. Psychiatrists, incredible work.
Harry Mansfield: [22:31] But why are we allowing our friends, our family, our colleagues to get that bad?
Harry Mansfield: [22:39] Why don’t we give them the tools to benefit from it?
Harry Mansfield: [22:45] The sports people, the military, they achieve so much and it is partly to do with the mind.
Darren Jamieson: [22:51] But how would you know though? You mentioned Hollywood actors. It famously happened with Robin Williams.
Darren Jamieson: [23:02] A few years ago you had Caroline Flack. Very recently, we had Ricky Hatton.
Darren Jamieson: [23:20] How would you know if somebody is hiding something?
Darren Jamieson: [23:38] There’s a brilliant advert Norwich City Football Club put out with two fans watching the game.
Darren Jamieson: [23:50] The fan on the left looks miserable and depressed, the fan on the right is really happy and chatty.
Darren Jamieson: [24:01] Right at the end, the fan on the right, the happy one, isn’t there. And it’s the sad one that puts the scarf on the chair for him.
Darren Jamieson: [24:08] It’s an advert to reach out to people next to you. You don’t know what they’re going through. So this guy that seemed happy wasn’t. How do we know?
Harry Mansfield: [24:19] You don’t. And that is the importance of this training because you have to give people the opportunity to learn the tools.
Harry Mansfield: [24:26] It’s a bit like with a musical instrument or a language. If you choose to learn it, you have to put the effort in.
Harry Mansfield: [24:32] Otherwise you are going to be rubbish at the language and rubbish at the musical instrument.
Harry Mansfield: [24:38] It could be the person that is the life and soul of the party. It could be the quiet person in the corner of the room. There is no way of knowing.
Harry Mansfield: [24:43] 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 people.
Harry Mansfield: [25:01] Either in the loss of life or to medication to help them through life.
Harry Mansfield: [25:07] I’ll give you an example. I was joking about my eight-year divorce still not being over.
Harry Mansfield: [25:14] My training centre is in the South Downs National Park. It’s a beautiful location. We have people that come here to train. It’s a ten-acre site.
Harry Mansfield: [25:28] The reaction you get from people when they turn around the corner and look at the view, they go, Oh my god, that’s amazing.
Harry Mansfield: [25:33] However, in the time I have been here, I haven’t had heating, I haven’t had an internal staircase, and so on.
Harry Mansfield: [25:44] You grow to hate the place, and you have to use your mind to change your emotions.
Harry Mansfield: [25:51] When things started to improve, I was aware I had to learn to appreciate the place again and to love it because I’m very lucky to be here.
Harry Mansfield: [26:08] I had to think, What’s going to work for me?
Harry Mansfield: [26:20] For me, what I did was I had in my mind that I was staying at a top five-star hotel that people would pay a fortune for, in an amazing location.
Harry Mansfield: [26:34] When you open your curtains at that hotel, you sit there and you go, Oh wow.
Harry Mansfield: [26:41] A bit like when people go away on Mediterranean holidays, they pay that little bit extra to have the sea view.
Darren Jamieson: [26:53] As I know from recent experience, the sea view isn’t necessarily a nice view of the sea. If you can see it, it’s a view.
Harry Mansfield: [26:59] Yeah. Behind that building.
Darren Jamieson: [27:05] Behind that building.
Harry Mansfield: [27:05] Yeah. There are some trees that have grown up in front.
Harry Mansfield: [27:13] But if you go to a place and you think, Yeah, this is amazing, you will eventually retrain your mind.
Harry Mansfield: [27:19] That’s 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 from the beauty of it.
Harry Mansfield: [27:26] The South Downs National Park is protected. It is stunning, but it was up to me to change it.
Harry Mansfield: [27:40] When we’re on a diet, we have to take responsibility for it.
Harry Mansfield: [27:46] When we are at school, you have to take responsibility for doing the work for the exams.
Harry Mansfield: [27:53] When you’re saying, I’m going to go and get fitter, you have to take responsibility and turn up to the gym.
Harry Mansfield: [27:59] It is exactly the same with your mind, and people don’t realise how much work it takes.
Harry Mansfield: [28:04] Going back to my sports coaching days, I wasn’t a tennis coach. I was a rugby coach and a riding coach.
Harry Mansfield: [28:10] But if a tennis player is learning to serve, they’ve got to put their mind into gear first before their body will be able to do the serve.
Harry Mansfield: [28:15] They have to do that 100,000 times.
Harry Mansfield: [28:22] If for whatever reason it goes wrong, you then have to undo it.
Harry Mansfield: [28:29] Use the mind 2,000 times, and then depending on the error, you have to do it again up to 100,000 times.
Harry Mansfield: [28:40] This is why it’s so important. If it’s not taught, social media is going to be feeding you with all this rubbish and telling you you’re not good enough.
Harry Mansfield: [28:53] The mind is creating a problem from itself if you don’t have the tools to protect yourself in the right way and ignite it in the right way.
Harry Mansfield: [29:05] I had to reignite my mind, undo, renew, and reignite it the right way to sit there and go, Do you know what? I’m so lucky. I’m in the South Downs National Park.
Harry Mansfield: [29:16] I remember seeing, from friends, was it the actor Matthew Perry, his mansion? Huge. Absolutely huge.
Harry Mansfield: [29:23] But if you don’t have the skills to use your mind to work on the inside to the out, yes, you are always going to end up with those problems.
Darren Jamieson: [29:36] It reminds me, one of my previous guests talked about gratitude.
Darren Jamieson: [29:43] When you start the day, pretty much what you’ve just said, think about the things you’re positive about, the things you’re happy for.
Darren Jamieson: [29:49] It’s something I try to do. I’m not very good at it.
Darren Jamieson: [29:55] Most mornings I wake up and I think, Oh, I’m tired. I’m really tired. And I catch myself going, Oh, I’m tired.
Darren Jamieson: [30:01] Why are you tired? Just be positive. You’re healthy. You’re up. The day has started. The house hasn’t burned down. It’s not flooded, which has happened in the past.
Darren Jamieson: [30:13] If you start off the day being negative, it’s the first thought, it sets the whole tone for the day.
Darren Jamieson: [30:19] You’re going to be negative about things throughout the day, and you’re going to have a pretty shitty day.
Darren Jamieson: [30:24] Whereas if you start off saying the things you’re happy about, it’s going to change your mood for the day and you’re going to be more positive and happier.
Darren Jamieson: [30:30] Have I oversimplified it or is that brilliant?
Harry Mansfield: [30:36] It’s a brilliant example. Absolutely brilliant.
Harry Mansfield: [30:43] For the success of the mind to come to the fore and really shine, we have to think about our mind from when we wake up in the morning, all the way through the day, to when you put your head on the pillow at night.
Harry Mansfield: [30:55] That’s the true way for it to become successful.
Harry Mansfield: [31:00] It’s very easy to say, Oh, just do. But go back to that tennis player example.
Harry Mansfield: [31:07] If somebody wakes up every single morning and goes, Oh god, you’ve got to undo that. That’s the subconscious mind kicking in.
Harry Mansfield: [31:13] It’s not something that happens automatically. You have to bring your thought process to the fore.
Harry Mansfield: [31:20] But don’t beat yourself up about it. Make it easy.
Harry Mansfield: [31:25] Think about your body. Thank you for my breathing. Be grateful for the fact that we can see, be grateful for the fact that we can hear.
Harry Mansfield: [31:31] We forget the small things. We pick up our phone, see something on social media we don’t like, swear at it, get an email, swear at it.
Harry Mansfield: [31:45] Actually, be thankful you got the phone in the first place. Some of them are bloody expensive.
Harry Mansfield: [31:50] It is literally looking at it from a different perspective. Tiny things.
Harry Mansfield: [31:57] Ideally you want to be positive about the situation you’re in, but if you can’t find that, just use anything.
Harry Mansfield: [32:05] The fact you’ve got food in the fridge, money for the electricity, the heating.
Harry Mansfield: [32:12] Society is pushing us in a way of succeed, but nobody is truly going to succeed and be strong and resilient unless it is taught across the board.
Harry Mansfield: [32:24] The subconscious mind habit forms. It will work in a way where you can tell it a load of rubbish.
Harry Mansfield: [32:35] If you wake up in the morning and every morning you go, Oh God, I’m tired, then yes, you’re going to wake up tired.
Darren Jamieson: [32:49] Yeah. So I haven’t simplified it. It’s the truth.
Darren Jamieson: [32:54] As you were talking, I started to get angry.
Harry Mansfield: [32:56] Not you.
Darren Jamieson: [33:00] No, not you. I was angry because you mentioned how this isn’t taught, but there are people and organisations out there that understand this perfectly and they use it against us.
Darren Jamieson: [33:07] For example, Twitter, X now, bought by Elon Musk, their algorithm shows you things you’re going to engage with because it shows you things that annoy you.
Darren Jamieson: [33:21] If you’re left leaning, it shows you right-wing stuff. If you’re right leaning, it shows you left-wing stuff to piss you off.
Darren Jamieson: [33:35] Then you’ve got things like the Daily Mail that deliberately angers its readers.
Darren Jamieson: [33:42] You had Tories doing it. Nigel Farage does it.
Darren Jamieson: [33:50] They’ll talk about swarms of people coming over on small boats. They’re invading our country.
Darren Jamieson: [33:55] They’ll use language like swarming, invasion. It almost goes back to Nazis in a way.
Darren Jamieson: [34:09] Manipulation of people based on how they understand that their mental state will change.
Darren Jamieson: [34:14] How dangerous do you think that is?
Darren Jamieson: [34:21] Can the British public, the global public, become aware that they are being used in this way?
Harry Mansfield: [34:27] Yeah. I think this is one of the parts of the mind that is so important. It’s the perspective part of the mind.
Harry Mansfield: [34:34] 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.
Harry Mansfield: [34:43] On one side of my family there’s Greek. So I grew up with stuffed vine leaves.
Harry Mansfield: [34:49] Some people go, What are you eating leaves for? And I love them. That’s my perspective from being surrounded with that growing up.
Harry Mansfield: [35:03] Whatever you are surrounded in, it is going to be the perspective and how your mind works.
Harry Mansfield: [35:08] There’s nothing to say that one culture, one religion, one set of politics is right or wrong. People believe passionately that there are.
Harry Mansfield: [35:21] Whether it is a politician, a journalist, a social media outlet, they are all taking advantage of how the mind works. Absolutely.
Harry Mansfield: [35:28] Which to me is even more reason why this should be taught day to day, age appropriate, all the way through to retirement age.
Harry Mansfield: [35:40] You are never going to be able to use the power of the mind fully unless it is taught.
Harry Mansfield: [35:45] You have to have the capacity to use it day in, day out, to go back to the protector side of our VIP mind, against those people that are throwing these things to you.
Harry Mansfield: [35:58] I started learning Spanish a couple of months ago. So I’ve had a YouTube Spanish news channel on in the background.
Harry Mansfield: [36:05] It’s fascinating because they are covering countries and their news that we never get to hear about. Venezuela and all these things.
Harry Mansfield: [36:18] Yes, we are being shown what they want us to see, what they want us to hear.
Harry Mansfield: [36:26] But if we don’t focus on ourselves and then make the decision of whether we agree with it, disagree with it, and how we’re going to behave, we’re never going to have the opportunity.
Harry Mansfield: [36:32] We do have to take responsibility for ourselves.
Harry Mansfield: [36:38] Even though these huge organisations, whether it is journalism or social media or politics, are saying things that may or may not be true, if we don’t learn the skills from our minds, we’re not going to have the power to decide for ourselves.
Harry Mansfield: [36:55] In a way, there’s only so much you can do.
Harry Mansfield: [37:02] I’ve got two teenage boys. They were old enough to vote. It was their first time that they were able to vote.
Harry Mansfield: [37:09] I thought, How am I going to approach this? I don’t want them influenced by family or school.
Harry Mansfield: [37:14] You need to vote with your heart and soul of what you believe.
Harry Mansfield: [37:20] We went online, got the brief versions of everyone’s manifestos, far too long to read, and we literally had a drink, barbecue, and talked about pros and cons.
Harry Mansfield: [37:34] Everybody went off to vote. We all voted for different parties for different reasons, but they did it for themselves. They thought about it.
Harry Mansfield: [37:45] After that, yes, we are influenced, but think about yourself, because you can’t do anything other than vote. That’s it.
Harry Mansfield: [38:07] They’re doing the budget and everything. We’ve got no control over that.
Harry Mansfield: [38:14] So instead of going down the pub and moaning, take responsibility for yourself and your mind and work a way forward for yourself within those things they’re dictating to you.
Harry Mansfield: [38:21] Social media, journalists, governments are very powerful and dictate to us, but it is still up to us. We are still individuals and humans and have a mind and we need to learn to do that far more.
Darren Jamieson: [38:35] You mentioned this control of the mind isn’t taught in schools, but critical thinking isn’t taught in schools, and financial management isn’t taught either.
Darren Jamieson: [38:47] We’re not taught what credit cards are, how interest rates work, compound interest, any of it.
Darren Jamieson: [38:58] There is a school of thought that we’re not taught that deliberately, because governments don’t want people to be too critical thinking.
Darren Jamieson: [39:11] They don’t want people to go off and be entrepreneurs.
Darren Jamieson: [39:17] They don’t want people to understand that they shouldn’t take out credit cards, or if they go to university they shouldn’t pay off their student debt straight away.
Darren Jamieson: [39:23] They want us to make bad financial decisions so there is debt, so the banks are successful.
Darren Jamieson: [39:29] They want us to not be critical thinking so we can be influenced by the media to vote for what they want us to vote for.
Darren Jamieson: [39:35] They want us to go into servitude, customer service jobs, labour jobs, because that is what keeps the country going. What’s your thoughts on that?
Harry Mansfield: [39:49] Don’t forget, the mind is linked to preventing mental health problems and preventing suicide.
Harry Mansfield: [39:56] If the mind is doing those two things and also achieving success, they actually can’t do that, because they’ve got to do something about the figures.
Harry Mansfield: [40:03] They have to do something about the figures for preventing mental health problems and preventing suicide.
Harry Mansfield: [40:08] However much they dictate, they are never going to control me in my mind.
Harry Mansfield: [40:14] It is only up to me who is going to control me in my mind.
Harry Mansfield: [40:20] With regards to education, people talk about it not being there. It is now coming in.
Harry Mansfield: [40:26] We are now training for, doing workshops and things for big education organisations for leaders.
Harry Mansfield: [40:38] It is coming in.
Harry Mansfield: [40:46] It’s coming in whether they like it or not to prevent the mental health problems and prevent the suicide.
Harry Mansfield: [40:52] You can’t have one without the other, because the mind produces success and you achieve your goals through it as well.
Harry Mansfield: [40:58] They won’t achieve it if they are introducing this form of training for the preventative side. It goes hand in hand.
Harry Mansfield: [41:08] Once you’ve learned how the mind works, you can turn it to achieving something in a day, or protecting yourself in a day.
Darren Jamieson: [41:14] You were talking about training that you offer people so that they can have a better understanding of their mind and prevent suicide.
Darren Jamieson: [41:21] At what point should somebody be thinking of that?
Darren Jamieson: [41:26] There’s a big stigma to attempt suicide or having thoughts about it.
Darren Jamieson: [41:36] It’s not something you talk about generally to even your family, certainly not friends and not in public.
Darren Jamieson: [41:43] How would somebody who’s having thoughts like that need to approach it?
Harry Mansfield: [41:51] It is important to understand that the majority of people in this world would have, at some point in their life, thought about suicide.
Harry Mansfield: [41:58] The figures are one in 20. So in my county of Sussex alone, that’s over 70,000 people.
Harry Mansfield: [42:04] So this stigma that is there should not be there. You are absolutely right, it is there.
Harry Mansfield: [42:11] Once people are experiencing it through knowing somebody, then that is a very difficult thing to manage.
Harry Mansfield: [42:25] This is another argument for the work that I do.
Harry Mansfield: [42:31] 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.
Harry Mansfield: [42:44] There are many organisations now that people can go to, if they’ve got the confidence, because taking that first call and walking into a new classroom or a new job is always difficult.
Harry Mansfield: [42:56] Because the numbers are so high, there are now many places you can go to.
Harry Mansfield: [43:03] You have to find somewhere that suits you and somewhere that’s not judgemental.
Harry Mansfield: [43:10] We are all human at the end of this. A CEO’s mind works in exactly the same way as a homeless person on the street. There is no difference at all.
Harry Mansfield: [43:29] Stigma is difficult.
Harry Mansfield: [43:35] I started this year a podcast myself called The Saving Lives Podcast for that reason.
Harry Mansfield: [43:42] I looked out there and thought, The wrong information is out there. The stigma is out there. We need an open conversation.
Harry Mansfield: [43:50] When you don’t know something, it makes it harder.
Harry Mansfield: [43:56] Understanding terminology, knowing what to say, knowing how to support, knowing how to listen, is huge.
Harry Mansfield: [44:02] I know people that work in the industry with regards to suicide, which is a huge, complex subject. It should never be taken lightly.
Harry Mansfield: [44:12] We are never, through training the mind, going to be able to sort everyone’s mental health problem out and stop everyone from dying by suicide.
Harry Mansfield: [44:18] We have to accept that.
Harry Mansfield: [44:24] But we have to 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.
Harry Mansfield: [44:40] Otherwise these numbers are still going to be going the wrong way.
Harry Mansfield: [44:45] When you are working in this field, people who are in this field sadly are still also people who are choosing to die by suicide. Nobody is immune.
Harry Mansfield: [44:58] You would think people who work for these charities are immune, but they’re not.
Harry Mansfield: [45:04] It is across the board. It’s worldwide. It’s nationwide.
Harry Mansfield: [45:10] Taking away opportunities of giving somebody the best chance of how to manage their mind, when they are in these situations that are so painful to them, it should be taught.
Harry Mansfield: [45:22] There’s nothing to say if you learn it that that person is going to use it, but if they’re not taught it in the first place, how do you give them the best chance?
Harry Mansfield: [45:40] The same as that sports person on the other side is never going to be able to get the gold medal. They’re just going to be competing, instead of competing at the top level.
Darren Jamieson: [45:53] When you were talking about sports people, I remembered a quote from, I’m pretty sure it was Michael Jordan.
Darren Jamieson: [46:00] Somebody asked him, aren’t you worried about missing when you miss a shot?
Darren Jamieson: [46:07] And his answer was something like, No, because that always moves me closer to my next successful shot.
Harry Mansfield: [46:18] Absolutely.
Harry Mansfield: [46:23] It’s having the skills to use your mind to pick up yourself when you’ve done that.
Harry Mansfield: [46:29] Especially when you were talking about social media, and how a football team has done, or somebody’s missed the goal, or the goalkeeper hasn’t saved it, and they get slaughtered.
Harry Mansfield: [46:42] They don’t just need the skills to have a strong mind to learn how to keep your fitness going, how to learn the skill, how to be agile, how to keep going with the failures.
Harry Mansfield: [46:54] There is not one person in this world that hasn’t failed. Absolutely not one person.
Harry Mansfield: [46:59] We have to have the mental strength and resilience to get up again, and know how to get up again, and keep going.
Harry Mansfield: [47:05] Then we are able to get through the challenges, whether it is criticism for missing a basketball shot, or something that someone else might think is more important.
Darren Jamieson: [47:18] Another quote, I don’t know if it was Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky, but it was, You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Harry Mansfield: [47:29] Absolutely.
Darren Jamieson: [47:35] We’re almost running out of time, but one thing I did want to ask, because I think it’s important.
Darren Jamieson: [47:42] My brother struggled with alcohol for a long time. He was an alcoholic.
Darren Jamieson: [47:47] Six, seven years ago now, he did take his own life. It was an overdose of morphine.
Darren Jamieson: [47:53] I wouldn’t say I was surprised, and my dad at the time certainly wasn’t surprised.
Darren Jamieson: [47:59] He used to say, for many years, at some point I expect to get a call that he’s been found dead in a ditch.
Darren Jamieson: [48:05] That always troubled me when I was younger, because my brother was a lot older than me, about 14 years older.
Darren Jamieson: [48:11] Eventually it did happen, and he was found in his apartment.
Darren Jamieson: [48:17] If you have a relative or a friend like that, that clearly has problems, clearly has demons, or struggles with drink and has depression, how can you help them?
Harry Mansfield: [48:29] You have to first of all realise this isn’t a five-minute fix.
Harry Mansfield: [48:36] Think again of that tennis player. You’re having to think of that 2,000 times to renew and break the cycle.
Harry Mansfield: [48:45] For every single person, every single addiction, that is going to be a different process. But it’s still possible.
Harry Mansfield: [48:51] It is also trying to get that person to understand that they have the ability to not do it.
Harry Mansfield: [48:58] In the pandemic there were so many social media videos of people drinking a glass of wine, but it was actually the whole bottle.
Darren Jamieson: [49:10] Yeah.
Harry Mansfield: [49:10] When you are doing something that is happening a lot, whether it’s alcohol or chocolate or drugs, that is training the mind.
Harry Mansfield: [49:18] It is then much, 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.
Harry Mansfield: [49:32] It is possible to break cycles of addiction with the mind. I’ve seen it done.
Harry Mansfield: [49:39] I know of it with other people as well in that industry of addiction.
Harry Mansfield: [49:45] Often when somebody is addicted, they are feeling exhausted, or they don’t believe in themselves. They don’t feel they’re good enough. They don’t feel that they are achieving.
Harry Mansfield: [49:58] There are a large number of things that could be causing it in the first place, and to find out the cause is also going to take a long time.
Harry Mansfield: [50:07] But 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.
Harry Mansfield: [50:25] Keep saying that they are an amazing person and that they’re doing well.
Harry Mansfield: [50:32] They won’t believe it at first. They won’t believe it at all.
Harry Mansfield: [50:39] But if you don’t start feeding the subconscious mind with that, you are never going to break it down.
Harry Mansfield: [50:45] When it has got to addiction, you are breaking down a very large cycle.
Harry Mansfield: [50:51] The people that are addicted do start to believe that they can’t change.
Harry Mansfield: [50:58] So you have to start showing them the fact that there is value in their life. There is a way forward.
Harry Mansfield: [51:12] I’m not going to sit here and say it’s a quick fix. That’s not how the mind works. But it is possible. I have seen a lot of changes with regards to addiction.
Darren Jamieson: [51:17] I remember with my brother, from years beforehand, maybe ten years, maybe longer, I noticed one night he had loads of cuts on his arm that he’d done himself.
Darren Jamieson: [51:31] This behaviour had been going on for at least a decade.
Darren Jamieson: [51:37] From what you said about not believing you were good enough, he definitely did not believe he was good enough.
Darren Jamieson: [51:43] He had a daughter who he hadn’t seen for many years. His attitude was, I don’t want to get in touch with her because I’m not good enough to speak to her. She’s not going to want to talk to me.
Darren Jamieson: [51:53] She was a police officer, still is.
Darren Jamieson: [51:59] I’ve since contacted his daughter, and she did want to speak to him. She really wanted to see him.
Darren Jamieson: [52:04] My brother ended up taking his own life, never knowing that he was actually a granddad, which is very sad.
Harry Mansfield: [52:09] Yeah. Very, very sad.
Harry Mansfield: [52:15] I’m never here with my work to say it’s a quick fix, ever. That would be completely wrong.
Harry Mansfield: [52:22] The mind can achieve the most amazing things, and what we have to do is make sure those amazing things are positive.
Harry Mansfield: [52:27] More from a success side, and then protecting ourselves when we are in a situation that either comes from within ourselves, or from people around us, and things around us that are making us struggle.
Harry Mansfield: [52:40] And not believe that we are worthy.
Harry Mansfield: [52:49] It is good that it’s out there more, but it needs to be even more, to save lives, to achieve goals, and prevent mental health problems.
Darren Jamieson: [53:02] For anyone listening to this thinking, I need to speak to you, I need your help, or I’d like you to come in and do a talk, because I know you do public speaking as well.
Darren Jamieson: [53:14] What’s the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Harry Mansfield: [53:20] On our website, awarenesskey.co.uk, we’ve got all my links.
Harry Mansfield: [53:25] There’s a one-to-one link which is a free half an hour discovery call, which we do with all our clients.
Harry Mansfield: [53:31] As I was saying, 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 can’t get to the next level?
Harry Mansfield: [53:38] It’s the best way to get in touch. Just book that. It’s all linked to the calendar.
Harry Mansfield: [53:44] We’ve got licences across the country now as well.
Harry Mansfield: [53:49] So if I’m 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: [53:56] Okay. I will put the links that you mentioned to your LinkedIn, the website, and anything else below the podcast.
Darren Jamieson: [54:03] Anyone listening to this who wants to get in touch with Harry, scroll down, click on the link.
Darren Jamieson: [54:10] It’ll be in the YouTube description if you’re on YouTube and it’ll be in Audible, Spotify, wherever you are. Scroll down, it’s in the show notes below.
Darren Jamieson: [54:16] Harry, thank you very much for being on the podcast. It’s been enlightening and definitely something for a lot of us to think about.
