Chris Hatfield 00:03
The importance of the conversation you have with yourself. And we’re often not mindful of it. But I’d often ask people, if you’re listening to this now is thinking, what kind of conversation have I had with myself today? Would I say it’s one that’s been kind and supportive, or would I say is one that’s being judgmental and critical. And there’s so many conversations going on.
Adam Baruh 00:35
Welcome to The Change, where we share stories and inspiration from servant leaders working to normalize the mental health conversation and increase empathy and business. I’m your host, Adam Baruh. I’ve spoken often on this podcast about the consulting industry, and the way it has historically produced a lot of burnout. Another role that has been known to produce a significant amount of burnout and anxiety, given the constant pressure to succeed and win, as well as its competitive nature is sales. And here to speak with me today about the relationship between sales and mindset is Chris Hatfield, owner of sales and my psyche, an organization dedicated to exploring and improving mindset and anxiety issues in the sales industry. Hey, Chris, welcome to The Change
Chris Hatfield 01:15
Thanks very much for having me.
Adam Baruh 01:16
Yeah, I’m happy that you’re here. And, you know, thanks for joining in from the UK. So let’s start with this. I know when we spoke before, you had mentioned and also you, you wrote about this on your website, you know, where you got your start, obviously, is in sales, working yourself, you know, in the sales industry and experiencing burnout and anxiety yourself. And that ultimately led you to create, you know, sales, psyche and the work that you do today. So, let’s go back there, if you will, if you want to, kind of take us back to, you know, your door to door sales experience, which, you know, and you describe it yourself that produced severe anxiety. So I’d like to maybe, you know, talk a little bit about what that looked like for you. =
Chris Hatfield 02:03
Yeah, and I think it on the face of it, it looked like that was what produce here, but I think it always been there probably just surfaced a bit more. And I feel like that’s probably what, you know, really come to this later on. But while the pandemics almost done last few years is surface a lot of this stuff obviously in the surface here, but yeah, it was you know, I’d gone to uni, I’ve done the classic thing come out and I’ve done a sports coaching degree and development degree and you need an experience to get a job you needed a job to get the experience. So it was kind of like well, what do I do and I got into sales like most people do at the time and wasn’t really aware of what the job was until almost like day one I was on door knocking basically going around selling loft and cavity wall insulation solar panels. And, and yeah, it was a real it was a real tough slog to start off with it was a real mental battle above any anything else a lot of the time with, was particularly commissioned only it’s, you know, if you don’t sell you don’t you don’t know, at the end of the day, as well. And then of course, you’re putting more pressure on yourself, and you’re trying to sell yourself to trust the process. So yeah, it was a it was a real battle to start off with and something that I constantly sort of thought, you know, this isn’t for me, or maybe I’m not right for sales, I haven’t got the right personality and so on.
Adam Baruh 03:19
So, you know, I’m curious, you know, back, well, first of all, around what timeframe was this, like, early 2000? Or around what timeframe? Were you doing? 2009. Okay. But you know, I’m curious. And, you know, for me, I’d never worked in really in sales. I mean, I I’ve done selling but I’ve never really it’s never really been kind of the key role that I’ve been so I’m curious back in 2009, you know, you know, way pre pandemic, what sort of tools or dialogue was was out there for salespeople in regards to anxiety and burnout? I mean, was it even a topic ever discussed?
Chris Hatfield 03:54
No, it wasn’t, and it wasn’t, you know, even the words mental health probably was seen as this. People, you know, using that phrase as if someone’s in a, in an institution, for example. Yeah. And no, it wasn’t, you know, we’ve had obviously, just around the financial crisis as well. Around that sort of time. And yeah, I think people were, were even talking about mental health there. And it was more around the financial impact. So yeah, it was it was something that and it’s sort of inspired me to sort of do what I do now. Because even up until a few years ago, still wasn’t something that is, is really talked about all trained or developed in salespeople intentionally.
Adam Baruh 04:33
Yeah. And, you know, I know we’re gonna, I’m gonna jump ahead a little bit, but we’re going to kind of rewind again, but you know, compared to today, I mean, you know, where do you where do you look at the industry today? The sales industry in relation to anxiety and mental health, you think there’s been marked improvement? I mean, I know there’s organizations like yourself and some other guests I’ve had on here who are definitely, you know, out there working to help people with anxiety issues. Mental health and stuff like that. But overall, I mean, where do you where do you see things today compared to where they were back in? 2009?
Chris Hatfield 05:07
Yeah, I think there’s a lot more awareness. But there’s almost like, there’s more awareness. And everyone’s knows it’s the right thing to do. But the problem now is people one thing, saying another thing doing it, you know, a project, I shared a video last week, I did a bit of a parody around, you’ll get its mental health awareness day next week here in the UK. Actually, I think it might be worldwide, actually. And you’ll get people posting it on their LinkedIn, probably companies talking about it. But is it just for show? Do they really do something about it? And I think you know, now is a telling time more than ever, because, of course of everything that’s going on. A lot of companies are having to be more strict with budgets. And it’s a case of well, if you say this is really something that is important to you, are you still investing in a Gallup poll found 94%, I think of companies have said yes, they will be continuing to invest if not increase their investment around this area. So I think there’s that intention in around there. And I think also, there’s that willingness to want to better understand, but still, there’s a fraction that well, back in my day, we did X, Y, and Zed.
Adam Baruh 06:16
Oh, yeah, no, I understand. And, you know, for me, I’m, and I’ve spoken about this before, I’m kind of on the cusp there, I’m a Gen X er, so I kind of came up with this kind of older business methodology mindset. Which is why I’m really excited about the work that the millennials and Gen Z are doing to, to change that, really, and to bring people’s well being to the forefront. If you look at popular culture and bringing it back to the UK, you know, I am so grateful to shows like Ted lasso, that actually, you know, I’m not gonna get I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying this, but really the whole season to explores, you know, this, this topic around mental health, I’m so grateful that they did that, you know, because just the dialogue around mental health normalizing it bringing into pop popular culture, you know, you look at Simone Biles, and many of these other athletes that are now you know, if they’re not mentally ready to enter a competition, you know, they they kind of bow out and, and then they talk about it, right. And that, to me is where the work is really, because it’s one thing to have an organization devoted to helping people with mental health. And I think that’s great, but getting people to feel okay to do that. There’s, that’s really where I, you know, with the work that we’re doing here on the change there, it’s so important to have it be normalized so that people feel okay, that they can reach out and be vulnerable and talk to people. So, you know, I’m grateful that people like you that are that are out there that understand this, and they’re really, you know, working to help people. So thank you for that. I want to rewind a little bit going back to you know, when you started out in sales, because you talk about starting from passion and pain. And you know, if you could open up a little bit, you know, you spoke about severe anxiety that you had encountered. So, you know, what did that look like for you? What did it look like panic attacks? Did it look like, you know, like, what did that look like for you?
Chris Hatfield 08:16
Yeah, I think it’s probably more what it felt like, because what it looked like, I don’t think anyone would really be able to tell. And that’s the other thing here is, you know, a lot of the time, and one of the worst things you can say to someone when they do tell you maybe open up and share with you is, Oh, you don’t see the type of person who struggles of x or is like that. That’s one of the worst things you could say someone because, of course, the person who’s struggling never looks like the person who’s struggling often as well. But yeah, I suppose going back to the question, what it felt like was this, I suppose how I use the analogy for people that haven’t really experienced it, it’s a bit like you’re, at any moment in your life, you could be throwing the towel a test that your life depends on, you don’t know what the questions are, you don’t know when it’s gonna happen. And you don’t know where as well. So it’s that constant sort of dread and this like pressure, but you can’t always put your finger on it. If you’re not, at the time, I wasn’t self aware, or emotionally intelligent around it to better understand it. So it would stop me or it would cause me to feel like oh, I didn’t want to do anything. My evenings just wanted to cut myself off. And, you know, when all these things are happening, I couldn’t focus on anything else. I couldn’t be present with what I was doing, because I was just so consumed by my thoughts and feelings.
Adam Baruh 09:32
Yeah, no, I, I’ve been there. And I’ve been there many times, actually. I mean, even though I talk about this subject on this podcast, it’s it’s still something that I encounter and it’s something that you know, for me what it feels like is it’s almost like one wrong move. And all the dominoes fall, you know, like, and it’s just like the pressure of just making the right choice making the right decision. And more and more Are what I’m trying to remind myself of, and be mindful of is kind of this idea around manifestation where, you know, when I find myself in these times where, oh my god, like, this is it like, One wrong move, and everything that I’ve worked so hard to build is going to go away. When I find myself going there, I remind myself, you know what, I’ve actually been here before, many times, it’s always worked out, I’ve, the chips have never fallen, I’ve always figured out something or some solution. And so just kind of trusting the universe is there with me that I’m not alone that like, you know, that, that there is this kind of like spiritual or, you know, just wisdom that is there with me, that is going to help guide me. And you know, it’s hard to do, it’s not easy. And I forget to go back to that kind of mindset space. But I want to kind of explore mindset with you next. So, you know, in me just kind of sharing how I, you know, work to get myself back to a place of being in charge and in control, right? Where I don’t feel like I’m at a control, like, you know, talk to us about mindset, you know, and with your, your program that you work with individuals and companies that you work with, like, you know, how do you explain mindset? How do you work with people on mindset?
Chris Hatfield 11:28
Yeah, I mean, I’ve probably do 20 episodes, 30,40, 50 episodes on this. And yeah, thank you for sharing that manifestation piece. I think also, you know, one thing that sometimes comes up when I talk about that with salespeople was like, Oh, well, it did happen this one time, like this call didn’t go well, or the I didn’t hit target. But then we have something called probability over estimation, where well, we’ll take one thing, and we’ll then think we won’t actually factor in how many times has it happened? So it’s going well, if that has happened, how many times have you made that call? Or how many meetings have you had? Or how many quarters if you had only happened once? Or the 50-60 calls I made? Well, okay, so that’s how many then is it? That’s, that’s hardly anything. So why are you placing all your, all your effort and time around there. But going back to the mindset piece, I think one of the things I talk about a lot, is that we talked so much in sales, about better understanding our product, or prospects company where we’re going, but if you don’t understand yourself, and the conversation, you have yourself, you’re not really going to be able to fully commit to all of those things. And self talk, there’s a great book chatter by Ethan cruce. Around this. And you know, he talks about the importance of the conversation you have with yourself, and we’re often not mindful of it. But I’d often ask people, if you’re listening to this now is thinking, what kind of conversation have I had with myself today? Would I say it’s one that’s been kind and supportive? Or would I say it’s one that’s being judgmental and critical? And there’s so many conversations going on? I mean, I’ll give you a little, a little stat. Here. I mean, on average, we can talk about 130 words per minute, we can type about 70. For those of the listeners, you know, Eminem, rap, God turned on 60 words per minute is one of the fastest minutes and that song, our self talk is between 801,200 words per minute. Wow. So stick yourself in times 10. That’s what’s going on in your brain pretty much every single minute of the day. So I think that’s the one of the most important places to start is thinking about how do I better understand and become more mindful of what I’m telling myself? And how do I honestly stop my thoughts, but how do I understand them? Challenge them in the right way?
Adam Baruh 13:45
Absolutely. And I’ve spoken, you know, several times on this podcast about Tara brach and the rain method. And, you know, rain being an acronym for I think it’s recognize, allow, investigate, nurture, and that nurture part. I mean, so when I was working on rain with my coach, Kristin Taylor, you know, the nurturing part of it was the most challenging, because, you know, we would I would be in a conversation with my coach, and, you know, she’d say, Okay, well, you know, what can you say right now, like, we’d be talking about some subject, and she’s like, well, what can you say right now? That’s, that’s nurturing as positive. And I would say, I’d have to think about that for a while. And it would be it was a struggle, it was a challenge. It’s weird that we don’t have are many of us that suffer from this wheat. It’s hard. Like it’s it doesn’t come easy, that self nurturing, but you’re absolutely right. I mean, it is. Probably the most critical aspect of mindset is just, you know, we were so hard on ourselves, and I don’t know why it is. Maybe it’s something you know, in human nature to drive us to improve. I don’t know what it is or why. But the fact of the matter is that for many people, it’s really difficult One thing that has helped me with that is journaling. Because the process of journaling is you’re dedicating time to yourself, you’re putting yourself in a quiet space of reflection. And there is no rush, you could just sit there and take as much time is you want to get the words out on paper. And so, you know, that’s something I would recommend to people that are that are wanting to, you know, improve or start to focus on more positive self talk. Just, you know, try journaling, I want to also I didn’t mention it earlier, and you brought up about your podcasts. So definitely check out Chris’s podcast, it’s called the Hey, psyche, how do I podcast? It’s fantastic. The format is really easily consumable. They’re not long episodes, and the content is really interesting and engaging. So I believe it’s available on on all the podcast platforms. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, very cool. So let’s get back into your program, you, um, you write about the three steps to healthier minds, attention, awareness and action. So, you know, can you go there for us and explain, you know, how that comes together?
Chris Hatfield 16:13
Yeah, I think, you know, first of all, it’s, it’s shining a light on on some of these areas, and topics that we maybe take for granted or don’t realize are impacting our mindset and our mental health and well being. And, and before, you’ve got to do that, you’ve got to educate and understand what is that. And then, by doing that, and understanding more, it’s raising their level of self awareness, because we’ve all been there where we’re feeling a certain thing, but we can’t quite label it, we don’t quite understand it, we think, Well, I’m doing everything I was last week or yesterday, but I’m not seeing the same results, like what’s the problem here, we get frustrated. But a lot of the time, wherever what you’re doing has changed, it’s probably what you’re thinking and the lens in which you’re looking at the world row as well, has changed. So that’s why that awareness piece comes in, then of course, the action is what once you’ve become aware of that is, what kind of tools and structures do you use to shift that piece because of course, you can’t control your emotions, you can manage them, you can only control what you can control. But a lot of the time and going back to your point earlier on, I think one of the reasons why we often struggle with or constantly focus on the negatives is, our brain is hardwired to keep us alive. And that primitive part of the brain is constantly thinking about if we get too comfortable, then, you know, this might happen. So we can’t afford to. And I often say like, you know, kindness doesn’t equal complacency, giving yourself credit. Recognizing these things, doesn’t mean you’re taking your foot off the gas, but we’re striving often so much for the next thing that when we get there, we very rarely actually take time to appreciate it.
Adam Baruh 17:47
I’m so happy that you brought that up, because we’ve there’s many episodes we’ve published here that talk about the nervous system to talk about trauma, past experiences and stuff like that. And, you know, just kind of having that awareness and that way of thinking where, you know, if, if you’re, if you find yourself repeating behaviors, repeating thought processes, I mean, you know, that is a place to explore, like, Where’s this coming from, like, a lot of times our nervous system, like you said, designed for survival, right? The fight or flight and fawn responses or freeze there, it’s designed to keep us alive. And so, you know, we were here in the year 2022, with, you know, such modern ways of being in thinking but at the same time, we are, you know, this history of, you know, our entire human species evolving over time, you know, it really was just the last couple of 100 years where, you know, we’ve, you know, switched into industry and business and, you know, we’re none of us, you know, most of us are not fleeing from bears constantly, right? Or, or tigers and stuff like that, but that’s how our nervous system was designed to keep us alive and to help us survive. And just having that awareness, I think is helpful to you know, when you’re finding yourself a certain way of thinking like, okay, so it’s not that I’m a bad person, or something’s wrong with me, it’s just that my, you know, my brain has evolved, you know, like all of us to, to want to first go into this kind of reaction, this negative, you know, way of thinking just as a survival tactic, but it doesn’t define me it doesn’t mean I am who I am. And then the other thing I I’m so happy that you mentioned to is, you know, you talked about, you know, seeing, you know, we all see the world through different lenses through a different perspective. And I think it’s really important to highlight that because, you know, we’ve often confined ourselves, you know, thinking one way and thinking that’s the way that everybody else must think But, you know, we have our own belief systems. And it’s, it’s very empathetic and very much a good practice to kind of, you know, call ourselves out, when we kind of find ourselves maybe, you know, feeling that, oh, somebody else must think the same way as me. So, you know, they must be wrong or whatever. So, you know, I just, I think it’s helpful to have this dialogue around perspective and belief systems. And, you know, this, understanding that we all come from different experiences and different backgrounds. And we all deal with things differently. So yeah, the point of everything I’m trying to say is, you know, we don’t need to continue always to beat ourselves up, it’s really important to just let ourselves off the hook, and be kind to ourselves and to nurture ourselves. Even though we may not think the same way as somebody else. It doesn’t mean that we’re wrong or bad. It’s just, you know, we have different belief systems and different lenses, right.
Chris Hatfield 20:59
I think another thing as well, we’re so quick to label things very sort of binary as in like, good or bad. You know, there is no such thing as a good or bad emotion. There is only an emotion, it’s our perception or reaction that turns into a positive or negative anxiety is not a negative emotion. It’s not a positive emotion, it’s an emotion. Same with stress. They’re like signals, that’s who they are. But we often see them as threats. We, they’re designed to be a smoke alarm going off in the house, but we see them as if the house is already on fire, right. And the simplest example of this is when you’re thirsty, when you’re thirsty, you don’t go or, or I hope you don’t get thirsty today. You don’t go when you’re thirsty, oh, God, I’m thirsty. Like, what do I do? We don’t go measure, if I didn’t drink for another week, or two or a month, what would happen? You see, as a signal was okay, I’m thirsty, I should get some water. But we don’t see that. And I’m not saying just by thinking about it as looking at that way. But it’s getting to the point where you can look at all emotions like that as a signal, rather than this threat that you’ve got to fight against. It’s there to benefit you. It’s not trying to disrupt you. It’s just how you look at it and the kind of ways you utilize it.
Adam Baruh 22:07
So that statement you just made just got me thinking about first of all, I love your marketing on your website, your your videos, your marketing team, or if you’re doing those yourself. Awesome. Kudos to you. I think they’re fantastic. And that your statement just reminded me of your video that you have on why do we go to the gym to workout our physical strength? I mean, you know, the idea around mental health, it’s like something we need to work out. So tell us about that concept, if you will.
Chris Hatfield 22:34
Yeah, I think it’s it’s almost like we have this almost subconscious one and done approach sometimes where we’ll either work on something will get to a certain place, and then we’ll be like, aren’t you know what I was in such a good headspace yesterday, or Sunday night, I felt really positive about today. And now I’ve woken up or last month, I felt really good. And now I’m not. And it’s just that we have this feeling of our wants. And then that’s where I’ll always be. But I’ve heard it you phrases that the surfer mentality and Simon Sinek talks about this in the infinite game as well. But you know, when surfers are kind of riding this wave, they’re enjoying the moment. But they’re understanding that this wave can only go on for a certain period of time, and that wave is going to crash at some point. And that’s okay. And it’s just being prepared for it. Not trying to chase it for too long. But understanding that if you’re going to fall down or if not, you can just go back to where you were before and then look for the next wave because it’s not the only one you’re going to experience. But we almost have this mentality. Sometimes when we’re on this wave, this is where we’re always going to be that and then we fall off it. We’re like what happened? Where did this guy and we stopped beating ourselves up about it, which caused his body to sink further underwater and to stay there. Because we’re not actually recognizing that what a lot of people do, I think, is confuse happiness and excitement. And those waves are often those peaks of excitement, rather than happiness. And we go chasing it thinking this is the constant that we should achieve. Whereas happiness is more like the kind of current in the ocean and excitement are the waves.
Adam Baruh 24:01
Yeah, I haven’t heard that analogy before. But I absolutely love it. Because actually, when you were just describing it, and I’m not a surfer, but my wife is and she’s actually in water right now. But you know, this euphoria of riding that wave, but very often, at the end of the wave, you’re getting thrown off the wave, you’re getting thrown down to the bottom of the ocean, you’re don’t know where you are, you have to get to the top and get your breath. And then oh my god, there’s another set coming in. So very, very cool analogy. I mean, that’s just how life kind of works out. And, you know, it’s very true what you’re saying. I mean, it’s something we always need to work on. And, you know, where I found myself actually this year with that was, you know, last year was a very pivotal year for me, it was a foundational year. It’s when I started this podcast, it’s when I kind of, you know, just really started kind of reshaping the way I think, my thought processes and all the way work behind this right. And it was a fantastic year 2021 was just probably the best year of my of my life, just where I was at with everything. And 2022 started off really difficult, really difficult, really a lot of painful stuff with work and finances and a lot of stuff. And, you know, I found myself kind of going down this rabbit hole of thinking, Man, I, I worked so hard last year was so great, what the hell is going on right now this is, this is not what I worked so hard for. And I forgot, you know, I forgot that you know what, it’s constant work. It’s constant, and it’s never not going to be constant. You know, I think it’s okay to get to this place where we think you know what the work I’m doing isn’t to like, get to a place where life is just going to be so easy, because I think that’s not a reality. But the work is to get to a place where we can remember the tools that put us back on track. You know, and further to that, I mean, just keeping us on track and constantly, even if we’re feeling great, just continuing to do the journaling and the things that keep us balanced. Right?
Chris Hatfield 26:14
Yeah, I mean, I, I started boxing couple of years ago, and my coach said to me, no matter how hard you train, you’re still gonna get punched in the head. And it’s like, you know, it’s not we have this mindset of thinking, and well, if we work on this, we should never feel like that. Or we should never struggle with this, or we should never get anxious or stressed. And then when we do we’re like, Ah, it’s failed. Why am I doing this? It doesn’t work. Journaling doesn’t work manifestation? No, it does. It’s not stopping from happening, it’s being able to better understand when it does, how to bring yourself back and get back onto that wave as we’re talking about, or at least on top of the ocean. Around there, and just knowing that you’re never going to stop those things from happening, not stop giving yourself that self compassion, as you mentioned earlier on, and not beating yourself up about it when it happens, but becoming more of an observer of air and recognizing when it does,
Adam Baruh 27:02
yeah, and this kind of leads into the next topic I wanted to go with you, which is around habits you mentioned, on your website, that habits make up about 50% of our day to day life, developing positive habits and replacing ineffective ones leads to better choices and behaviors that lay the foundation for success. So talk to us a little bit about that. And then I want to, you know, go into the work that you’re dealing with sales psyche.
Chris Hatfield 27:25
Yeah, sure. So I think we can become to where we are, as I suppose particularly in sales or anything in business in life. Whether you have them on are overly focused on goals and under under focused or not focused at all on on habits, you know, we have these goals of what we want to achieve. But it all comes down to well, what’s the tangible habit you’re going to do to get there because if you don’t have that, the goal will just remain this this goal with no real footpath. It’s like going, I want to climb that mountain. But if you don’t identify the footpath, and then why you want to climb in the first place, then you’re not going to get there. And I think, you know, habits are so important because they save brain power, they allow us to utilize that energy more effectively. And one of the biggest things around habits is understanding the cues is understanding what triggers your habits. And when you’re trying to deal with bad habits a lot of the time we try and raise them which doesn’t work which is why like 86% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January because they try and take something away and you add your favorite one of your favorite meals in front of you right now and I took it away you just be constantly thinking why are we taking my food away? What are you replacing it with? And it comes down to away focused and towards focus as well like, a lot of the time a lot I want to stop watching so much TV or want to stop going on my phone so much but that isn’t a that isn’t a good goal or a healthy habit because you can’t measure it you can’t work towards it’s not something that’s helped good to think about. So yeah, I mean there’s there’s the five different habit cues I can I can share a bit more about the trigger that but it’s understanding that and then always understanding for me, I used I put this into practice. Last year I lost 60 and a half kilos in about five or six months of working out but mainly a lot of it came down to habits. And I was always reminding myself I’m not craving the thing I’m craving the feeling it gives me the craving the chocolate, I’m not craving the alcohol, I’m not craving any of that. I’m craving the feeling that internal trigger that I’m looking to resolve as long as I can identify that and find a more productive and healthier way of achieving it.
Adam Baruh 29:39
Right. Yeah, so let’s let’s talk about sales psyche. Tell us about the work that you do. Um, you know, what sort of results you’re seeing and you know, also the my psyche part of this because I know that a lot of what you do isn’t isn’t directly targeted for salespeople, but also for people in general.
Chris Hatfield 30:00
Yeah, I think it’s the you know, the difference between sales and my psyche, the sales is focused on your customer success, your account managers, your sales STRS. My psyche is more of those maybe like tech team support teams and so on in there. The content doesn’t differ. I mean, in terms of what we do, we do a mixture of we do confidential one to one days, which are coaching where anyone in the business can book one of these and come in and talk about anything from what we’ve spoken about today, along with things like impostor syndrome, managing emotions, better understanding, motivation, and we don’t reveal who’s booked them, we don’t reveal what they talk about. And it’s just that nice open space to us proactively. Going back to that gym analogy a bit like you’d use a personal trainer at the gym. Because therapy and counseling is a great tool. But not everyone is ready or necessarily needs to speak to a therapist or counselor straight away. And sometimes it’s good to speak to someone who’s been there in your shoes and understands what you’re going through. So along with that, we provide morning mindset sessions as well. We’ve short sharp tools, anchoring exercises, and then more bespoke programs and workshops, where we’ll work through some of these topics on a on a bigger scale, and utilize them in interactive workshops, bespoke podcasts and, and other formats as well. We have some coaching, intertwined there, but it’s the you know, the main aim and what we’ve been seeing is improving mental well being we use the World Health Organization’s five scale model, we’ve seen an increase around 17% of companies you’ve worked with, we’ve recently developed a resilience test that we’re starting to use as a baseline, to better understand where people are before and after working with them as well. And, you know, we’ve we’ve worked with over 1000 people already, and there’s no one that’s disagree with a statement that says psyche has positively impacted my mental health.
Adam Baruh 31:52
Good. And now, do you mostly work with companies? Or do do you work with people one on one that hire hire you guys? Or how does that work?
Chris Hatfield 32:00
Mainly companies. Yeah, so companies will pay a subscription fee for the one to one day’s and then obviously pay for the programs as well, and particularly focus around SAS and tech. So the likes of meta aircall Clay vo VGR to name a few we work with,
Adam Baruh 32:21
okay. Now, this is something I wanted to kind of wrap up with you also, which is around, you know, what are companies doing today to improve mental health? I mean, you know, hiring companies like yours, obviously one of them, but you know, where, if you’re looking, you know, just across business in general. You know, we earlier in this podcast, we spoke about, you know, how companies are starting to understand and recognize the importance of mental health. So what are some things that companies are doing or can do so that people, you know, can, can start to see, you know, the types of companies that are offering these things being the companies that they want to work for?
Chris Hatfield 32:59
Yeah, I, you know, as you mentioned, can utilize people, like myself, but while while I’ll share now, there isn’t any cost to it is having the right intention behind it as well. And I think it’s no longer and it never should have been a perk, it’s basic hygiene that we need to be focusing on now. Because it’s not a case of just thinking is is a nice thing to offer. I think first of all, it’s it’s addressing the elephant in the room is, you know, when people come into organizations and into the role is also addressing the things that they might go through the other positive experiences, you know, we talk about, here’s the vision, and this is what we can achieve. This is what you can progress. This is what you can earn. But hey, here’s how you’re going to feel in a few weeks when maybe this doesn’t go to plan, whether it’s in a sales role, when you’re not doing well with these calls, or when you have your first knockback working on this project, or you have this tough call. Here’s what you’re going to experience and when you do come speak to me about X, it’s completely natural, it’s completely fine. And just signposting better, I think is a really good way. Because if we don’t, that’s where people are, like, they’ve mentioned all the great stuff, but they haven’t mentioned all of this, maybe I’m the odd one out, maybe I’m not right, this business, and so on. Secondly, I think is providing the space for people to be able to so leaders, you know, starting with this in one to ones, for example, and changing the type of conversation rather than saying how have you been or how was your weekend or so on is, you know, we were so focused leaders a lot of the time of getting their teams to ask better questions to customers and prospects, but they don’t really practice what they preach. So change the questioner scaling questions are a gateway to conversation on a scale of one to 10. How have you been feeling recently? Or how you feel? How are you managing with the energy crisis at the moment or the cost of living? are you coping with that? Make it more directive for someone? Yeah, yeah. And also realize that you’re not there to fix everything. So a lot of the time, leaders organizations think we can’t talk about this because what happens if someone says this and we don’t know how to fix it, right? You’re not there to fix it. Human humans have this thing of thinking, well, if someone’s told me this problem, I need to fix it. Or why is that? got to think I’m inadequate. But it’s not the case is providing that space for people to talk out loud when they often want to just be heard. So exactly. I think it’s addressing the elephant in the room. And I think it’s leaders leading by example and changing that conversation from the start.
Adam Baruh 35:15
Yeah. Well, you listen, thank you so much for the work that you do. I think it’s really, you know, needed and it’s really admirable that you’re out there, you know, doing what you’re doing to help people. So thank you so much for that. And thank you for being my guest here today.
Chris Hatfield 35:30
You’re welcome. I’m really enjoyed it. And you know if anyone has any other questions around this, feel free to connect to me on LinkedIn, as well.
Adam Baruh 35:38
Yeah, thanks, Chris. Chris’s inspiration for sales in my psyche started from passion and pain, a passion for wanting to impact and reach as many sales reps and managers as possible to help equip them with a better understanding of their sales potential and mental well being. The pain side of things stemmed from his suffering from severe anxiety since he started his sales career, doing door to door sales. This evoked the drive and focus in him to enable salespeople and others with their mindset and mental health. You can read more about Chris on our website, d iq media llc.com/the change, as well as via his podcast. Hey, psyche, how do I our theme song and sound engineering was provided by Shane superduty you can listen to more of Shane’s music at WWW dot Shane’s sukriti.com If you have a story to share about making a difference in the lives of people you lead, or if you want to tell us what you think about our podcast, send me an email at the change at E IQ media llc.com Thank you all for listening. We’ll see you next time on the change
EIQ Media, LLC 36:43
The Change is produced and distributed by EIQ Media LLC. Elevate your emotional IQ with podcasts and content focused on leadership, mental health, entrepreneurship and more.
