MagnoliaTree: Inspiring Brave Leaders
We are Sabine Gromer and Christina Huber and you're listening to Magnolia Tree's podcast "Inspiring Brave Leaders". We leverage our network of inspiring individuals from all walks of life to learn from their experiences with leadership. We aim to spark thinking on ethics and leadership one podcast episode at a time.
MagnoliaTree: Inspiring Brave Leaders
Lifting the Small Heroes - Jimmy Westerheim on Mental Health and Vulnerability
In this episode of the Inspiring Brave Leaders Podcast, Christina interviews Jimmy Westerheim, a mental health advocate, Ashoka fellow, and founder of "The Human Aspect".
"The Life Experience Librarian" shares his personal journey far beyond these job descriptions, including his own struggles with mental health, the impact of his upbringing, his time in Afghanistan with "Doctors Without Borders", and how these experiences shaped his mission to destigmatize mental health issues.
It's about how we fuel the "generation performance", the importance of vulnerability, emotional intelligence, the right vocabulary and the need for open conversations about mental health. The episode highlights the significance of storytelling in healing and the role of community support in overcoming challenges, amidst global crises.
Also, Christina and Jimmy explore the significance of understanding one's true self beyond societal roles and the unique mental health struggles faced by men, advocating for patience and emotional openness, and much more.
Trigger warning: This episode contains talks of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, abuse, domestic violence and war scenes.
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Links to things mentioned in the episode:
you When I dealt with all of the things I went through with losing my identities, I felt I'd worked so hard on becoming independent since I was 13 years old that I didn't know how to be vulnerable to anyone. I just focused on the surgery and I just talked about it in a shallow way. And I was so positive and capable that the people around me also mirrored that. Instead of saying, you know, oh my God, this happened. They said, ah, you're so tough. You can deal with this. If anyone will get through this, it's you those kinds of very well-meant comments, but it just fueled me not opening up. In Afghanistan, we had a hospital that was bombed and 43 people died. And it was pretty grim. Going through all of that, I said, okay, now I guess we will get good help. We're in a health organization. So we got psychologists, we got people coming, helping us to deal with this trauma. And to my surprise, everybody did plus minus what I did. Everybody went internal. No one shared about it. No one talked about it. They worked too much. They drank too much, you know. And then I said to myself, why? Why don't we human beings share when something tough happens? Why don't we ask for help? Why don't we open up? That changed my mindset of how I looked upon vulnerability. I didn't see it as weak or strong. I just saw vulnerability as smart. And then that was a game changer for me. Because I want to be smart, you know, in my life. We are in danger of collective empathy as a people because we're exposed to so much that our brains will automatically just shut us down because you can't be exposed to so much things triggering your empathy or frustrations, your anger, you know, all these very tough feelings all the time. You're just not, you can't survive that. So the body will just turn it off. And the challenge with that is, of course, that when we see a conflict at work or if we see a child doing something bad to another child, child or we see something being discriminated on the metro. We're so used to seeing so grim, horrid things that the things happening in front of our eyes seems dull compared to it. And suddenly we don't interfere. So we're disconnecting ourselves from reality around us because we're so taken with the grim reality of the world and we're so engaged with it in our minds or in our digital interactions. So I think one of the strategies is to really look upon on the way that the world is impacting you. the people that I see in the supermarket or in the subway or in my own office or with partners, all of them are carrying a story. So if I remind myself that I don't really truly know anyone and I don't know what they're carrying and what they're in the middle of, it makes me a better human being because we're so judgmental. We human beings. And that's not really helping the polarization and the societal developments that we see. We don't need the world to have every young person wanting to become the new super activist or the new super social entrepreneur. Then we will just be in the way of each other because we need people to work for those social entrepreneurs. We need people to support those activists. So I think sometimes we take too much of this burden upon ourselves and we kind of ruin our own lives with expectations that are not aligned with who we are and what we can contribute with and what cards we have been dealt in life. And then you will live a very unauthentic life and you will also live a life much more in your head than in
SPEAKER_00:life.
SPEAKER_05:Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Inspiring Brave Leaders podcast. My name is Kristina, and today I'm joined by a special guest all the way over in Oslo, Norway. So please join me in welcoming Jimmy Westerheim to the podcast. Jimmy, it's such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_02:My pleasure. Thank you for having me as well.
SPEAKER_05:Jimmy, it has become a recent tradition in this podcast that we introduce our guests with poems that we ask chat GPT to write about. For sure. Mental health, his mission clear. Jimmy's voice is one we cheer. Founding the human aspect with grace, a space for stories, a healing place. The experiences shared and hearts laid bare provide all kinds of people with mindful care. Jimmy's impact reaches far and wide in schools and communities, his works a guide. Would you say that fits?
SPEAKER_02:I would say that ChatGBT is good at the very few things it's good at. It's getting information that is already available and transforming it into something fun.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. Yeah. As a podcast host, to be honest, I'm glad that it is still not perfectly good at coming up with good questions and stuff that is not available on the internet that keeps our jobs alive.
SPEAKER_02:Good point. I agree.
SPEAKER_05:And Jimmy, I would like to break it down a bit more to make it more tangible for our listeners, of course. So you are an advocate for mental health. You're the founder and CEO of the non I don't think we need to mention the entire LinkedIn, so that's more than
SPEAKER_02:enough. Is
SPEAKER_05:there anything that is not found on your LinkedIn that is still very relevant, I would say, or you would say?
SPEAKER_02:Of course, what we normally don't see on people's LinkedIn or people's social media, unless they are very open, is the life experience that they're carrying. So that goes the same for me, of course. My life journey is a lot more important and, of course, a bigger chunk of who I am today than my LinkedIn profile, even though, of course, the things that we work with and the things that we engage with is also important. And, of course, that's a lot about us.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, absolutely. So could you maybe, let's start with that, share a bit of your personal story? Also, what led you to focus on mental health with all the crises going on around the world? What made you focus on this one? I
SPEAKER_02:think for most of us, you know, our stories start even before we're born. Like our parents and our grandparents and the people that are raising us, no matter if they are our biological parents or if they are just doing the job. Of course, they are carrying something as well. And the context of which you are born into is much more important than we have given it credit for previously. so we know that now within psychology as well that you can't just look at the life that the person has had you also need to look at the context of which they were born into and of course the caretakers around them and how they were feeling and how they were doing because that's very much a predecessor of how your life and especially those early years is going to be and how you're going to then evolve a personality in that so my family had run away from a big city in Norway so they had run away from violence and abuse from my grandfather. And he was struggling with alcohol and had his own challenges, of course. That was the reason behind that, probably. So my mom was growing up in this tiny village, which was very different to the big city she was born and raised in until her teens. So of course, already there, she didn't fit in. Our family didn't fit in. They had a different mindset, much more looking into the world, reflecting on maybe bigger subjects. I'm stereotyping a little bit, but the countryside space where I grew up, it was very small. We're talking like 500 people. And then of course, in that kind of context, if you don't really fit in, you can't just walk around the corner and find a new box like you can in the city. So growing up in that context, when I came into the picture, my mom got pregnant very early and it was an accident. So it wasn't planned. So my biological father wasn't with my mom and he didn't want anything to do with me or her or or us. So, of course, it made the context of which I was born into pretty difficult, especially for my mom, but of course, also then for myself. So growing up in that context, you even feel more outside. And of course, you feel energies and emotions around you that probably shouldn't be felt because there was something that was problematic with me coming into the world, even though, of course, the love was there. And when they see see the child and all of that, you know, stereotype, then it's still problematic. Because as we know, when we're adults, our lives are challenging. So things are not just either great or bad. They're normally a little bit of both. And I was fortunate to get a stepfather into my life at the age of just one. So my early years, I thought he was my father, of course, obviously, until I was told something else. And then I started then visiting my biological father in the weekends. He had got a new family. And of course, for me, as a young kid who didn't fit in, that was just exciting. I had a new father, a new life, a new context, new friends. You're very curious and open when you're a child, especially maybe when you're growing up a place that you don't really feel is great for who you are, where there's no space for your entire personality. So I was quite heavily bullied and had a tough time outside the house. in where I grew up but inside the house with my mom and my grandmother and my aunt and the people around me my uncle and my stepfather it was safe and it was you know great I was seen and got attention and all of that but with my biological father it was the opposite it was very not safe in the house he was an alcoholic and struggling a lot similar to my grandfather pattern repeating itself but outside the house I was the cool stepbrother halfway brother coming in, the new kid in the block. So suddenly, because I thought that was so cool and that was something I was craving, I also didn't tell people around me what was going on in the house. And of course, even though a lot more happened to my half siblings that grew up there, I was still exposed, of course, to some of the abuse and some of the misbehavior and some of the context of alcohol and trauma that my father expressed into those weekends when I was there. So going through all of this, when I was 13, that was kind of when it accumulated. Then I had been lonely for years, but I'm a very energetic kid. I'm very curious. I have ADHD. I'm all over the place. So it's difficult to see that I'm struggling probably because I don't have the stereotypical signs of being very quiet or being very lonely. And I was... I was a lot and expressive, but I wasn't a lot and expressive enough either to be the problem child, you know, because we had other people in our classes that, you know, clearly you could see that they were going through something. So I was the one that was hiding a little bit in the periphery around those borders. So when I was 13, I started the next level of school in Norway, the upper secondary school. And that's where other villages come together to form a larger class. And I was hoping, oh, now maybe finally it will be better for me. I won't be bullied and I won't be ostracized. I might find some friends, you know. But it kind of ended up being the opposite. A good image of this, of something that is a nice story, but also showcases a little bit the way I felt, was my uncle, who was very important to me at the time and was a role model. He worked as a janitor at the school. And in my larger breaks, instead of going playing with others and being with my peers, I ended up going to him. and spending time with him and of course it was a different time so I think he knew something was wrong but we didn't talk about it because of the energy of that time so he just spent time with me he just didn't chase me out even though it wasn't really allowed but he brought me to parts of his jobs and we were chatting about other things so it was very nice and it was a safe space for me but that also shows that I didn't want to be with the others I was exposed So when I was going through that, it didn't get better. And my mom got sick on top of it. So one of the people that gave me attention and support was now going into her own challenges and needed her own attention. And that's where I kind of gave up on life. Now I thought, okay, I have three more years in this shitty school that didn't get better. Now even my mom is sick, so I don't even get attention from there. Then why is life worth living? So I shared that I was sitting in the tree. There's a lot of trees in the countryside where I grew up. And I was reflecting on how to end my life, not if I were to do it. And of course, that's where we know it's gone very far into being lonely and going through suicidal ideation. So sitting in that, I was fortunate enough to survive that week when I had made the plan and I didn't go through with it. That was by chance. And when I got through that, I became incredibly driven as a person. Now, suddenly I was, okay, this will never happen again. I will take charge of my life. Very modern of me at the time. You know, pretty much the mindset of many people right now, like me, myself, and I, you know.
SPEAKER_05:You didn't go through with it by chance. You said so? Okay. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:There was a few people that asked me a couple of questions a little bit by chance without them knowing what was going on and without me saying what was going on. That may made me kind of postpone it a little bit and feel seen enough to wait. And then once I kind of got out of the worst slum, then I got a tiny little upside again. And then of course, I changed this mindset and decided to be the driver of my own life at that point. So that's what I did. The short version of the story is I moved out very early. I became academically very good and very focused. And instead of finding problems, I started finding solutions to my ADHD. I sat in front of class. I stopped hanging out with the more troubled children. I started in a new class with other peers. And I also didn't, because of my father and being an alcoholic, I didn't drink. I didn't join parties, anything. So I'm just focusing on sports and studies. Of course, being lonely as well in that, but at the same time, then you excel and you get feedback. that you're good at something, which of course also helps, becomes your coping strategy. So I moved out very early after that and went into Athletes College, which was in a bigger city that was further away. So I didn't go to school with more than just two people from my previous school and all the rest went on the school that was closer. So that became a completely new beginning for me. So I could start over. I was now okay, accepted in class. I found my role. I started exploring who I was, but very much in the performance side still. So I still held identity on being academically good and smart and sports. Because one of the things I was bullied for when I was younger was being as a young boy and man too much on the feminine side, if we were to stereotype and calling that the feminine side in the sense of empathy and talking about emotions and being vulnerable and that was bullied when I was younger so I kind of closed down that a little bit even though I still had more female friends than male friends and I find it much more fun to talk about tough and challenging and deeper stuff than about you know shallow things but I was still seen as this big strong character you can't see that now but I'm 190 tall and I was very athletic and of course then I leaned into that part of my personality to avoid being bullet because I knew I was complex and not stereotype as a man but on the sports field I was I was this character that you did not want to meet on the sports field not because I was playing tricks or dirty or anything I was just very very tough and in that context of course you also become good so very quickly I became very good and I always played with a chip on my shoulder to prove a point with all of these you know my father didn't want to to do with me and my grandfather. I had all these people I wanted to prove. So that meant as well that I excelled in that environment all the way until I finished that athlete's college and went into mandatory military service as a rescue diver.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, rescue diver. Thank you for sharing that. That is extremely, extremely interesting. And then as far as I know, your journey, it continued for a while like this, but how did it come then that you decided to found the human aspect?
SPEAKER_02:So after being a rescue diver, of course, I needed to go into university studies or take the next step of my career. Sports was still there, but it wasn't clear enough for me to choose that a hundred percent path so I started studying international shipping which was very popular at the time it was a private school went in there and I loved it academically it was a school that was thriving on being much more creative you know creating project assignments and being very orally active in class you know you were measured on things that was perfect fit for me so I was the number one student that stood out in that class and then I was supposed to go two years in Southampton them, fulfilling my dream of moving abroad. It was a big thing and it was very important to me. I talked about it a lot, I think. And then suddenly after just one year in school, I was headhunted by the biggest shipping company in the world. They just came to our school and they asked the teacher, do you have some young people that are interesting? And I entered into a race of winning one position of a very popular company. And by some chance, I won that position. I was 20 years old. So it was really weird. being employed, walking around that office with just one year in school. I felt like an imposter walking around in my suit from my communion. It was a really weird moment. And from there, I was there for seven years, six, seven years. I grew in that career. And again, I leaned into that identity of being this young, talented, smart young man. And on the other side, I'd continue building my career. sports career both as a player myself but also as a top level youth coach so I had these two hats identity sports young shipping talent and of course I was still the weird one that people didn't fully understand I didn't drink which is very strange in the international shipping business community especially when you're young
SPEAKER_00:so I was still this person people looked
SPEAKER_02:up to but they didn't fully understand and I wasn't authentic enough in myself that people truly knew me probably but then were still fascinated. And then when I was in Singapore, that's where the big shift happened. I was now an expat. It was, again, a fantastic opportunity. I moved abroad, you know, that I didn't do when I was in my studies. And I felt like, wow, this is what I want. This is going great. But I wasn't probably so reflected about what I wanted. I had just allowed and leaned into the opportunities that arised in front of me. I don't think I had made decisions, if we were to call it that. And then in Singapore, after six months, I had adapted. I was ready to really make it because it's always hard to move to a new city and a new country. So I'd gone through all the stereotypes, challenges, and I've gone through them, I felt. And then day two, after the Christmas break, I shatter a disc in my spine and And suddenly find myself in the hospital, sitting completely alone, 27, feeling like I'm on the height of my career. And after 43 hours in the hospital, I am being given the message that I have to do emergency surgery in my spine. And that they don't think that I will ever do sports again. And of course, now that one identity shattered. And then the other identity as well being, okay, do I need to move back home from Singapore? This is so severe. I shouldn't be alone in another country with that. But at the same time, I was told I can't move the next six months. So then you're drawn between those. And then I felt that I lost my shipping identity as well. I realized that I couldn't continue with just sitting in the office and being that person. And in all of that, for the first time in my life, probably asked myself the question, who am I without these identities? Who am I as a person? I am not sports. I am not shipping. I am something more than that. And I don't think I had asked myself that. And that's where I resonated much more with my grandmother, which was incredibly important to me. And then also my mother and my aunt and everybody around me was working with humans. They were much more in the human health kind of providing support services. And then I was saying, oh, why don't I work with that? So I quit shipping. and studied and continued. I had part-time studied for a while, so I continued doing that while I recovered for 18 months from the back injury, six months in Singapore and then 12 months in Norway. And I decided to start working for Doctors Without Borders instead. It felt like a calling, very much jumping from left to right in that case. And I went to Afghanistan, Syria, and very, of course, different countries, completely different experiences than what I had been. And also challenging my perspectives, my underlying perspectives that you're told in school and in media. It was very much shattering many of those, which was very healthy. And that's where the first idea of the human aspect came. In Afghanistan, we had a hospital. It was a big thing at the time. It was international news. It was bombed by the Americans and the Allied forces, which of course made headlines everywhere. And 43 people died. And it was pretty grim. It's those kinds of experiences where you now with Gaza and everything going on, and it feels like, you know, everyday life. But at that time, it was not. So going through all of that, I said, okay, now I'm going to do this. Now, when we go through this, now I guess we will get good help. We're in a health organization. So we got psychologists, we got people coming, helping us to deal with this trauma. And when I was in Singapore... I was alone again. So when I dealt with all of the things I went through with losing my identities, I felt I'd worked so hard on becoming independent since I was 13 years old that I didn't know how to be vulnerable to anyone. So no one knew how hard that was. I just focused on the surgery and I just talked about it in a shallow way. And I was so positive and capable that the people around me also mirrored that instead of saying, you Oh my God, this happened. They said, ah, you're so tough. You can deal with this. If anyone will get through this, it's you. Those kinds of very well-meant comments, but it just fueled me not opening up. But in Singapore, now in Afghanistan, I was like, okay, I'm that person, but let's see how other people deal with things. And to my surprise, everybody did plus minus what I did. Everybody went internal, no one shared about it, no one talked about it, they worked too much, they drank too much, you know, went into all the stereotypical coping strategies. And then I said to myself, why? Why? Why don't we human beings share when something tough happens? Why don't we ask for help? Why don't we open up? We're even told directly from the psychologist that that's what we're supposed to do. And still we don't do it the same day. So I was very fascinated with this concept. And that's where I started studying much more the health system and the mental health structures in society and trying to see if I saw any reasoning behind why this happened. And that's where I realized that, wait a minute, there's a big gap here between when something happens in life to us and the professional help system. It's not natural to go from never thinking about it or talking about it and then straight going into professional mental health help when it's so stigmatized. So that's where I came up with the idea of saying, huh, what if we had a digital space where we could go and search for any challenge that we were facing and find other people that had gone through the same, that had been vulnerable and that had shared on video how they came through it. How cool would that be? That was my original idea of how I started the human aspect. So a year after, I went to the streets and did the first interviews.
SPEAKER_05:That is very fascinating. And a lot of what you say resonates with me deeply because I see a lot of it happening as well. And what you have touched upon on right now is saying, okay, it's the one thing if I want to share or if I do not want to share. But I think a lot of people are so detached from their feelings because as you say, I think it's not natural in our society to talk about feelings and emotions. We talk about our LinkedIn profiles, right? So how often do you answer busy if somebody asks you how you are? I think that is not really a description of your emotional state. So in your experience, what can people do to get a bit more in touch with their inner selves?
SPEAKER_02:I can very much resonate with what you said. I was answering similar things when I was younger. Even when I injured my back, an incredibly traumatic thing. So it should be a window of opportunity to be more vulnerable. And of course, when people People asked me how I was doing when they knew my back was shattered. Obviously, they were also more open to receiving an answer that wasn't just good or okay. But still, I didn't take it. And as you said, what we have seen over the last nine years of leading the human aspect, the main reasons for why we don't talk before I answer a question is low emotional vocabulary. I didn't have the words. I didn't know how to describe my feelings. I knew how to describe the situation I was in the context and I knew how to say that I was a tough person and that I would be positive and that I would deal with it I knew those roles but I didn't have the words to express my feelings and of course the other element was that I was ashamed that someone who was so successful in the society's eyes I was 27 years old I had bought my first apartment years ago and And I was living in Singapore. I was in a leadership position. And because of my back end losing two identities, I didn't want to live. And I come from a poor, humble background family. They couldn't afford coming to Singapore because of their financial situation, even when I was injured. So being in that situation and not wanting to live or not wanting to continue life the way it is, I think for people is too much. to admit because it feels like you don't deserve to have those bad feelings when you're so privileged, you know, to put it that way. And then the other element is, of course, I didn't know that you can be depressed. I didn't know that your mind can have a chemical imbalance that makes you see the world gray. So I literally saw the world worse than it actually was. So of course, the other people around me, they saw opportunities and small rays of sunshine and hope. And I spoke hope because that was my identity, but I didn't see it. So I think that is also playing tricks with us is that we don't know enough about how depression and anxiety and these kinds of symptoms that we all one day or another will face. The same with grief, the most normal mental health challenge that we all go through at one point. So what people can do is probably what I ended up doing after Singapore is start to look inwards. Start to look at your own story. I was challenged by a mentor of mine at the time. This was just one exercise. It's just one example. It's many ways of doing it. But he said, look at your life and all the big decisions that you have made, all the big changes in your life, and dare to reflect about the options that you had. Because we very rarely are just with one option. And try to see if there is a pattern in your choice. And what I found out for myself, which was very defining for me to be more vulnerable, was that I saw that I always chose the most difficult option. no matter what. And, you know, it's cool to be high achiever. It's cool to be competitive. But still, a human being wouldn't choose the most difficult choice every time unless there is something driving it in your subconscious that's deeper. It's not just to be cool, you know. So I realized that because I didn't feel wanted or appreciated or seen by some people in my life, you know, some people saw me, obviously, but my biologic father didn't My other, or his father again. So my biological grandfather didn't. My mom's grandfather didn't really either. Obviously there was some natural reasons why that relationship was hard. But still, he was also a character there. And all the people that bullied me didn't see me. And I felt that people didn't see me for, and my qualities of being this strange man that was both feminine in his energy and masculine wasn't given space. So that means, that I always have to make the toughest decision to prove that I'm good enough. And that's where I realized that all my choices in my life that I thought I was the driver of was driven by this lack of self-worth that was lying in me. And that's where I realized I could be more vulnerable because now I also realized that it's not serving me well to try to be this tough, positive, motivated character in 100% of the things that happens in my life. I can be that in some things, but when there's a real crisis, it's much smarter for me to just be vulnerable because I have supported all these people around me in their challenges. Why wouldn't I allow them to support me? And that's where I realized that, okay, I need to practice. I need to start finding those words, which means I need to start having those conversations. And that took a long time. I started with the very few that I trusted and I kind of built it from there. And when people started asking me, how are you? The ones I felt had space and time to receive more than great or okay, I tested the waters and I opened up a little bit more. And of course, I also started asking them how they feel, so allowed space for it to return. So I think that's where we need to start by looking at our own lives and seeing what subconscious truths are driving our actions. And then you can attach that to why you maybe don't feel comfortable being vulnerable. And I think a lot of us will find answers in that. And then that changed my mindset of how I looked upon vulnerability. I didn't see it as weak or strong. I just saw vulnerability as smart. And then that was a game changer for me. Because I want to be smart, you know, in my life.
SPEAKER_05:Why do you think it's smart?
SPEAKER_02:Because when we're looking at challenges and all of us have some form of supportive system either it's a professional one or if it's a you know our friends or family or like all of us have at least some people around us no matter what kind of context we feel lonely or not so if you want to go through a challenge and the goal is to go through with it as best as possible you will do that better if you get help because if you're more than one person trying to solve it then obviously you're going to solve it faster so in my mind then it was as simple as that it was a little mathematical equation. Okay, I want to solve it as quick as possible. And I want to stand in this challenge forever. I want to heal my back. I want to feel better. I want to find a new profession. So I had many challenges. And once I started involving other people in those challenges and bounced ideas and got emotional support or network opportunities, I used different people for different things, not used in a bad way, but utilized their position in my and they were also very happy. to support me. So it also strengthened our relationship. So it wasn't just smart for me solving the challenges faster. It was also smart because I strengthened the relationships that I had in my network. And they finally felt, remember I said that I was probably not authentically connected to many of them, some of them I were, but suddenly I got more authentic relationships as well. And they started feeling that they knew more of who I was. I wasn't just this character that they looked up to. Now I was a human being with depth. And that was also a little bit eye-opening to me in that context. And that we have also seen. Now, of course, I've interviewed more than a thousand people. The library in the human aspect, as you said, has video interviews of people sharing their lived experience journey, you know, even much deeper than I have done now in this podcast. When they share, even with strangers in our platform, but of course, then they also share with the people around them. They have given me similar feedback. It strengthened the relationships. I would say that it was smarter to go through with it not alone. So this is not just me saying it as well. This is also, you know, hundreds of people that I've interviewed and worked with over the last years that is kind of echoing the same kind of pattern that actually is smarter than just thinking that you're going to solve it alone.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:On the other side, I've, of course, looked at the lived experience library as well. And a lot of the stories up there are, as you said, extremely deep, actually, in my opinion, heartbreaking. There is so much trauma involved, oftentimes abuse, violence. So how do you also in that work protect your peace now?
SPEAKER_02:Of course, number one, I am fortunate that I interview and speak with people that have gotten a little bit to the other side we only interview people that have found a way in a journey through it so
SPEAKER_01:you know
SPEAKER_02:compared to a psychologist that would mainly speak to people when they're in the middle of their problem and some of the psychologists never speak to their clients again when they're out of it you know they're kind of just part of the toughest part of the journey so I'm fortunate with that so I'm even though it's tough as you said and of course some of the interviews touch you personally even more because it touches upon something that I've experienced my Or is it just so heartbreaking, as you said, that it just touches upon humanity? You know, if people have gone through something that other people have been part of, you know, exposing them to, or they've just been incredibly unfortunate, then obviously you feel with them and it's tough to listen to them. And I take upon a lot of that emotion in the room, of course. I'm the one there staring down the face when I'm doing the interview. And we're crying together, you know, we're smiling together, we're silent together. But it's also so inspiring to see the way you can see a human being. So when they come into the room, most of them, I don't know. So I see a stranger in that sense. And I do my little judgment on the evaluation of that. I see their clothes. I see their height. I see how they look. All the traits we identify people with. And then I start the interview. Very open. So it's not like a journalistic interview where I know what they've got. through and i'm kind of targeting looking for that you know most of the time is very open and we are exploring their journey together with them And the way that my perception of this human being in front of me changes while I do the interview is still what fascinates me the most. And this really proves the point of we don't know the people that we work with or that we meet or that, you know, the ones we don't know deeply. We have an impression of them, which is not holistic. It's not authentic. So the beauty of seeing an ordinary human being that you may be judged a little they were fancy in their clothes maybe or they looked like a tough person here or maybe a little bit quiet person you know the opposite as well maybe they didn't take so much space when they arrived they don't look you straight in the face you know all those stereotypes and then when they're done you're like oh my lord how did you get through that you know you're so impressed with how you look upon them so you look upon them as these little heroes and some of them are well known and achieved a lot in the stereotypes of society, but most of them are ordinary human beings that are just a normal person. But when they leave that room, I'm in awe most of the time. That is a really cool feeling because it reminds me as well that the people that I see in the supermarket or in the subway or in my own office or with partners, All of them are carrying a story. So if I remind myself that I don't really truly know anyone and I don't know what they're carrying and what they're in the middle of, it makes me a better human being because we're so judgmental. We human beings and that's not really helping, you know, the polarization and the societal developments that we see. So I'm very glad that I have a job that keeps me on my toes and reminds me that there's much more to the story than what you can judge on the first impression.
SPEAKER_05:Seeing everybody as little heroes. I like that one. Yeah, you just mentioned a part that is actually, it couldn't be more relevant the day we talk. We're talking a few days after the second inauguration of Donald Trump as a president of the United States. There is, as I said, a lot of crisis going on worldwide in general. It's not just politically, you know, it's also climate change. We have artificial intelligence where we do not know where that's going to lead us. And a lot of that That, to me at least, and I think to a lot of also young people, sometimes looks very grim. And also on your website, you described that a lot of times people struggle because they have a lack of hope. Do you have any strategies there? How can we keep up hope when we seem to experience setbacks every day? I
SPEAKER_02:think all of us now are much more exposed to global context than we were just 10, 15, 20 years ago, obviously, because then we had to actively lean into watching the Thank you very much. So that has definitely impacted us more. I wrote an article when I worked for Doctors Without Borders when the first refugee European wave hit after the Syrian war and the Arab Spring. And then I wrote, we are in danger of collective apathy as a people because we're exposed to so much that our brains will automatically just shut this down because you can't to be exposed to so much things triggering your empathy or frustrations, your anger, you know, all these very tough feelings all the time. You're just not, you can't survive that. So the body will just turn it off. And the challenge with that is, of course, that when we see a conflict at work, or if we see a child doing something bad to another child, or we see something being discriminated on the metro, we We're so used to seeing so grim, horrid things that the things happening in front of our eyes seems dull compared to it. And suddenly we don't interfere. We don't think too much about it. So we're disconnecting ourselves from reality around us because we're so kind of taken with the grim reality of the world and we're so engaged with it in our minds or in our digital interactions. So I think one of the strategies is to really look upon the way that the world is impacting you. And sometimes we are, especially young people, I can recognize myself in that, we put too much responsibility on ourselves. There's 7 billion people on planet Earth. There are close to 5,000 Ashoka fellows. So meaning individuals who have been, for some reason, spent their life on a cause. And obviously there's many more. That was just one example from one organization that cherishes people that spend time to do something. It's also very important to say, okay, you are not the only one that is supposed to fix the world. There were thousands of people who are engaged in this and are willing to sacrifice to be a positive impact. So if you start looking at your own life in a much more pragmatic way, I think it becomes much more hopeful than if you can say, okay, what can I do? What is my contribution here? Is my contribution local, despite by being a good brother or sister to my cousin who is very ill right now? And if that is the answer and that's the capacity that you have right now, then that's something we should cherish. That is that little hero. We don't need the world to have every young person wanting to become the new super activist or the new super social entrepreneur. Then we will just be in the way of each other because we need people to work for those social entrepreneurs. We need people to support those activists. So I think sometimes we take too much of this burden upon ourselves and we kind of ruin our own lives with expectations that are not aligned with who we are and what we can contribute with and what cards we have been dealt in life. And then you will live a very unauthentic life and you will also live a life much more in your head than in life. And you won't notice. We've interviewed people that have gone through through their whole life with doing important things, social entrepreneurship and things, and then suddenly they realized that they didn't notice that their sister, for example, was struggling or that had been abused or that something bad had happened and they weren't there for them because they were doing this life mission, this important work. Then suddenly you realize that, wait a minute, I can't be a bad human being in my own social circle and do great work and think that that's going to work out. You need those two worlds to kind of be aligned. So when you see all this hopelessness, Acknowledge that it's there. Make an analysis. Which of these things can I impact? And which of these things are just a frustration and problem in my life? Because you should be upset with what you're seeing. It is not okay that a person who has done all the negative things that Trump has done, that he's given that position. That is wrong. As a value standpoint, that is wrong. I don't care if he's doing a good job or not, to be honest. With all the things that he's done and he's not taking responsibility for those things, he don't deserve that position. He's a bad role model. So if you care about that and the refugee crisis and the environment and all of these things, that's great. But then decide what you want to use that energy for. Because if you allow that energy to be crumbling... then they are winning, if we were to talk about it like that. Then the Trumps of the world, the Elon Musks of the world, all these double standards people will win. And the world will be more polarized. We will be more detached. And if you look into history, that's exactly what happened in the 30s. We are very much going in that direction right now. And that is grim. That's much more grim than what we see now. If we are going in a direction where it will be complete chaos. So I think it's healthy to look at it like that and say, okay, I will define what I can do and I will do something about that. I will engage at this level with the global things and you need to decide that. Do you engage at all? Do you engage just a little? Do you talk to this friend about it? Do you support these five activists, for example, who is working with it and you do legwork for them? And do you work for a company, for example, that is trying to to solve one of these things. That's also an important effort into that. And you also then need to look more into what is your strengths? What is your born contributions here? Because if you live more in those in your everyday life, as I said, either with your family or friends, the people around you in a smaller context or in a context that is impacting more people, both of those are equally valuable that's very important to say I didn't choose this life because I wanted to achieve something. As I've now told my story, this happened to me. And by chance, I was engaged in something that was in front of me. Very ADHD of me, you know, to do that. But if I could have found something else that I would lean into, which I've done many times earlier in my life, like I supported a lot of young people through football, for example. By using that, I made their life better in a context. that was also just as fulfilling and meaningful to me as the work that i'm doing now it's just that my life has changed since then so i want us to be celebrating more the little heroes the little heroes that makes an impact in their life because if all of us or even 50 or 20 percent of us do that then the world won't look like the way it is now. Then we'll be powerful enough to break up the structural discrimination, the structural self-upholding systems that makes all these powerful people controlling the world in a direction that we don't want to see, where we see all these double standards and it's more visible than ever. But I believe in goodness and I believe in a lot of people doing good work more than I believe in that we will all all align in the same truth because there's no one truth. So we all need to fight the causes that we see as aligning with who we are. I believe more in that. And then trusting that other people will do the same. So the environment, it's not something I care a lot about in the work that I do, but it's something I care about as a human being. So I do the things I can as an individual. I support the other social entrepreneurs and activists in that cause as much as I can. But I have also accepted that they will deal with that. They will do 99.99999% and I will do my zero point something something contribution. And in mental health, obviously, my chunk is much bigger. And then there's other people that are supporting me with their 0.0% like you, for example, taking me on this call so that our message and my journey can be shared. And then together we will then make that big impact that we're all talking about.
SPEAKER_05:That is indeed a more hopeful picture. But I see a dimension here to it because you mentioned a lot of times now that aligning things with your values and your strengths and then finding your path to go. And on the other side, earlier you told me, which I think a lot of people do, that you identified so much then also with the roles you played and the masks you had earlier on in life, being smart, being very good at Do you have any strategies here that you can share how we can be better at not identifying so much with the roles we have and dismantling those masks a little bit?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So, of course, as I said earlier, one of the things is identifying your subconscious truth, because your subconscious truth is driving a lot of our actions. And to do that, you need to do some form of analysis. You could do Joe Harry's window, psychological assessment perspective tool. Or you could do what I said earlier, look at your choices and analyze them and see if you find the pattern. Or in general, you can just analyze your life with someone else, talking to someone else in a similar fashion as we're doing now, where you start in the beginning and where you just walk through your life and be a little bit more open. Don't just overly tell your story like you have practiced it. Be open that something might pop up in your head while someone is asking you questions like you're doing to me now. And once you've done that, instead of looking at who you are on your achievements, because as you said, it's very easy to say if someone asks you, okay, so who are you? You will say, okay, I'm a lawyer. I'm an engineer. I am a journalist. I'm a designer. I'm an artist. You know, you very quickly go to the box of your LinkedIn. That's why I normally ask people, what was the abilities that you had in the sandbox when you were a child before you were shaped by? adult life? And if I answered that question with me, and of course, here, you need to ask your mother, you need to ask people who knew you when you were a kid, you don't hold the answer to that alone. And then it started coming up. Okay, I was incredibly curious. I asked a lot of questions, some very politically incorrect, and some questions more aligned. But I asked probably what came to my mind. I was curious. I was very, I was very non afraid in that curiosity So I didn't see borders and limitations in the sense of if I spoke to a celebrity when I was a teenager, I wasn't stressed or scared or anything. I just spoke the questions that came to me. So that was part of it. I was very energetic. So I had a lot of energy, which means I could do more than my peers without being overly tired. And I had a mind that was focusing on the larger picture. I wasn't so into the details. I was much more seeing, okay, what's really going on here? I was an analytical bird's view mind. And in the sandbox, I was also the person who would naturally gain the position of being the organizer, the leader. So other kids would, you know, suddenly we're making a sandcastle together and I'm the person telling people where to put it and give them feedback and support them and, you know, being kind of the ones that get collaboration to happen. So if I looked into those roles, that's where I find what I use the most today. And then, of course, you can re-recognize those in your journey or your studies or your work or the position you have. But if you start with the position you have, you're starting on the wrong side because Because a lot of us also find out suddenly that, wait a minute, like I did when I worked in shipping. I don't really use a lot of these in my job, which means you're in the wrong place. And that's what I realized. I was in the wrong place. I had learned a lot and I had harnessed new skills in shipping and I'm very grateful for that time. But if I had continued in that job, which many do, I would have gone too far away from the abilities that I described now. I wouldn't have used them enough. And another way to identify that you probably have that challenge is I said I also engaged in sports and things outside. I had a lot of energy, as I said. I also studied part-time. So when I looked at those components, I saw, ah, the reason why I'm not fulfilled with my job and using a lot of energy on all these other things is not just because I have ADHD. It's because I'm missing something. I don't have an outlet for these abilities. So in my sports, building a team, I was very much using the leadership, building the team, hands-on, energy, young people, caring for humans. And in my studies, I was getting the curiosity, learning new things that I was doing part-time. So I think if people ask themselves that question, and especially, as I said, with other people that knew you at that time, so that they can give you a third-person perspective into that analysis, there's a lot of exciting things. If you start seeing if that picture or that person aligns with what you do right now, that's a lot of power in that, that you can then slowly start identifying yourself as something different. And when people ask you in the party next time or in school or in the lunch break at work, then you have a new analysis. So when they say, who are you? Then you say, I'm incredibly curious. I'm very passionate. about collaboration. I'm someone who loves the bird's view. Details, not the most important thing for me. And I love community, building something with other people. And then suddenly it's a much more interesting conversation because you're breaking stereotypes. So if you introduce yourself like that, then the other people will also say, ah, okay, then they will answer differently as well. If you then say, and then who are you? So suddenly you will have some fun party conversations. I can guarantee you that. I've done this many times and I love doing it because it really shifts people from just giving you this trained answer. So that alone will just make life a little bit more fun.
SPEAKER_05:I can already see our listeners here calling their siblings and their parents and being like, what did I do in the sandbox? Yeah, it's a good one, actually. I really would like to touch upon one last point because you have mentioned it so often right now, the part of stereotypes as well. And also, I would really like to have your view on how especially men also face mental health struggles, because also in your personal stories, men play quite the crucial role, right? You said your father, your stepfather, your grandfather, a lot of them probably also you said struggled with mental health um are men more prone to mental health struggles how how come and and how can we address that look
SPEAKER_02:into statistics we see that much more women try to commit suicide than men but much more men like two-thirds succeed compared to women one-third if you're looking into the statistics of the harshest measurement of poor mental health or challenging mental health right so the answer the short answer is no we're not more prone i think that's you know that's life dependent so it's it's nothing to do with with gender but the way that society is structured we are much more prone to be in it and not deal with it because as we know when we're younger and growing up again stereotyping females and girls are normally much more given space to be in their emotions especially when and we're talking about struggling emotions so being crying or being in sorrow or being in that space that would be very healthy to grow your vocabulary of talking about your emotions so normally again stereotyping so it doesn't mean that all girls have it like that you have had the opportunity to work on that skill in the context but men many men and many boys have been kind of cut down very early and been met with you know you're tough you will be Okay. Just hit the bully back. You know, we were not in conversations that allows us to understand and break the stereotypes. So that means that many men and boys lean into their masculine traits and they neglect men. the more empathic, feminine, caring traits, which I believe has nothing to do with gender. I believe all of us are born with masculine and feminine traits and we need both of them and we need them in good flow and we need to explore and be better at both sides. In society, then when you are then a teenager, this just gets worse. When you're an adult, this just gets worse. And then the shame and the distance that I described starts growing. Now, if I'm 27 and the first time I'm exposed a big emotional trauma that I can't handle alone the chance of me opening up is close to zero because I don't have the language I feel ashamed there's nothing in society that is telling me that this is okay and then you're there alone and then you end up in the statistics where you take it so far that you end up in suicidal ideation or just very depressed or you start drinking or doing drugs or these stereotypes where men are higher in statistics so When you look at the statistics with the bird's eye view, you know, with Jimmy's mind, it completely makes sense. The storyline is so clear, so easy to explain why men dominate these statistics. And that has nothing to do with the gender of who we are. It's to do with the way that we are raising people. That means there's hope. You can change it. But that's where, of course, you really need to make spaces for the men that you have in your life, no matter if it's your brother or if it's your colleague or if it's your partner men are very I even get goosebumps when I say it men are very vulnerable for the moment of when they can share their vulnerability. This is very important. I've also seen a good TED talk about it. So when men have that tiny window of saying, I think I should be vulnerable, and it normally comes in a moment and you can't be prepared for it. And the toughest part about it is that if you're not used to your friend, brother, cousin, partner being vulnerable, How would you recognize it? You know, it can happen on an idle Tuesday, you know, because men carry things inside. So you don't know. And then suddenly it's there. And if you don't hold space for that moment, the chance of that man closing that down is enormous. So we really, really need to talk to each other in a way where we're much more aware of of those moments. And that means that we need to detach ourselves from our phones. We need to detach ourselves from all these distractions. And we need to pay attention to now. And then when we have someone in front of us and you can see it on their face, or I normally say when they do something that gives you that feeling that something is different. That's that window. You don't know if it's that massive vulnerability window and it doesn't need to be so dramatic, but it can just be a tiny vulnerability window about your relationship. It can be a tiny vulnerability window about work. It can be a tiny vulnerability window about a small surgery that they're going through or that their kid is bullied at school. You know, it can be anything. And then you need to take that moment and you need to be brave enough to stand in it because if you say, you know, how are you really doing with what is going on? Do you think that you're just going to open the book and it's going to be an Oprah Winfrey session or a Jimmy Human Aspect session? No, you will have to ask again. They are probably going to say, ah, you know, it's okay. It's hard, but it's okay. Then ask again. As you said earlier, the answer to the question, how are you, is not busy, right? is not hectic. It's not stressed. You know, the answer is not a diagnosis. The answer is not depressed either. The answer is not anxious. That is a diagnosis. That's not an answer. The answer is... Why do you feel anxious? Why do you feel stressed? Why do you feel depressed? And some of us thinks that the answer is obvious. So if we have too much of an obvious answer, like with my injury, for example, or if there's a deadline at work or, you know, the world, as you talked that this week is hard because Trump is being inaugurated. Don't allow that obviousness to not be spoken about. Even though the answer is obvious, even though you're asking someone because they've gone through something and you know what it is, still make them say it. Because too many of us are in the energy of thinking that if it's obvious, we shouldn't say it out loud. And that goes for any gender. And in all honesty, what I said now goes exactly the same thing for women. You think that you are incredibly vulnerable, but in today's modern society where we're all overachievers, men or women are also much less vulnerable than what we saw in the past. It's actually the opposite of what you think. We all give young people the credit of being so much more emotionally mature and so much better at mental health because they use words as depression, anxiety, burnout. But that's actually not true. We are less vulnerable because we are generation performance. We are so much into being great and being good that we can say that we have a diagnosis, but we can't say that it's hard to have it. It's a fascinating dilemma. You can say you're depressed, but it's not socially accepted to say that you're struggling with being depressed. And that's where the value of the conversation lies, is why are you stressed? Why do you feel depressed? Why do you think that the thing with Trump is so hard, even though you think the answer is obvious. And that's normally the start of a very beautiful conversation, much more interesting than the things that we speak about 90% of the time, because we're normally, we're just repeating ourselves, which is not so interesting in all honesty. So I think it's something we can all practice. Remember what I said about that window of opportunity for vulnerability. Start looking for it and start opening it because then we will get a world that is much more connected with the now and connected with what we're feeling on the inside. And then those small conversations will make it so much easier to go through the same things because you don't need to change my problem to make me feel better. And you don't need to have the solution to make me feel better. You just need to hold space for my vulnerability and I will then get a little bit more energy to deal with the challenge myself most of the time or just stand in the challenge if I can't change it if I have cancer I have cancer so I just need to stand in it in an energy that is a little bit more nurturing and that might be the whole answer to what you can contribute with in someone's life and then you should be grateful for being that
SPEAKER_05:friend I'm very grateful for this conversation it was very healing I feel like there is so much more we could talk about which we have not talked about yet but is there any question I have not asked you or anything you would really still like to say at this moment?
SPEAKER_02:Not really. I would just have to say sorry to all the listeners. As you know, the one ability that I left out from the sandbox is that I'm very chatty. Obviously. I
SPEAKER_05:think that is fantastic. I think that is a fantastic skill for a podcast guest. So please do not be sorry about that. Thank you so much for being here today, Jimmy, and for being our guest and sharing your stories and for the work you do.
SPEAKER_02:My pleasure. And thank you to all the listeners as well for all the small hero efforts that they all do. Remember, you don't need to do something of scale to be a massive impact. I think that's the message I really want to leave people with because everyone in my team is as important as I am. I was just by chance the one who started it. But in the end of the day, no one cares who started it. What we care about is what it can do for the world. So I really want people to... to say that I want to do this small local good valuable impact and then to be as proud of that as the people that we lift up and if you have some people like that in your life as well remember to lift them up and cherish them applaud them don't just applaud the people that you know do the stereotypes of larger impact because that's I personally think that's a very bad trait of our society and it's fueling the generation performance. So we need to lift the small heroes and all of us have something we're a small hero in. So let's live that role and that film instead.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you. We're sending out all the best to all the small heroes that are listening to us and we hope you have a great day and join us the next time. Thank you, Jimmy.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Ciao.