The Men’s Mental Health Lie - What Men Need To Realise Instead

00:00 Everyone is telling men that we've got a mental health problem, that the problem is that men aren't talking about their mental health problem. But I'm here to tell you today that that's a lie! Most men do not have a mental health problem they have a purpose crisis and the help being offered isn't working because it isn't solving the right problem. Roll theme Welcome to The Jonnie Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches relationships and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvaluemanproject.com Let's go!

00:45 Hello men, welcome back to the Jonnie Jensen podcast. Well I say welcome back to all those returning men and yes welcome back if you're here for the first time as always how did you find us? What brought you here is great to have you my name is Jonnie Jensen I am the founder and head coach of The High Value Man Project and of course host of this podcast we are now It turns out we're on about episode 183, but I've kind of got it wrong. Says about 175 or something in the episode notes. But yeah, I was looking on the RSS feed the other day and it turns out we are at 183!

01:22 Today's episode, and by the way we've had a little bit of a hiatus. I've been doing a lot of work in the background on really the strategic side of The High Value Man Project. The marketing aspects of it, the digital marketing and really cracking the code on what I talk about and how it brings people in. And I hope that the work I've done in this period that I've been missing Jonnie Jensen, highvaluemanproject.com

02:00 And today's episode is absolutely spot on for that. It's in many ways a review, or rerun on my origin story and it has been brought about because of a conversation I had with a woman at a networking event which i'll tell you more about today. An incredible evening with the former Premier League and England striker, Spurs striker Paul Stewart. Like I said, I'll tell you more about that in a moment but a very powerful and moving story which some of you may or may not be familiar with already but what she shared with me about her ex-husband and how they came to break up is everything that The High Value Man Project is all about

02:46 She said to me, we just started talking. What do you do? What do I do like the classic networking conversation? And I said, I work with midlife business owner and career minded dads who want to create the success they have at work at home before they lose it all. And she says straight away, wow my ex-husband and I could have done with that! The moment he lost his purpose our marriage was over and she nailed the thing She nailed the thing that very few people are able to articulate with me when we talk about this. And even men who've been working with me for a while, it takes them awhile for them to realize...for them to be able to say it and I was the same! In the middle of all the struggles and strife and marriage breakdowns and burnouts and all that, I didn't realise what was going on was really about ME

03:42 And this has made me reflect very powerfully on an issue, a point of view that I've had bubbling along, bubbling around in my mind for awhile. And it's along the lines of this mental health crisis for men. You know you can stand there having a piss at some public toilet service station whatever and they have those posters in front of the urinals And so often they're there and it's great that they're there because the increased awareness on men's mental health and the need to support men's mental health is vital because we know about how many men commit suicide, about how many men try. Right? All of this stuff that's going on but

04:27 Very few blokes who are standing there having a piss will look at that and go, oh yeah that's me. I'm having a mental health crisis! No that's not what we do in fact we're in absolute denial about it because we don't realize... It's that classic expression of you don't know what you don't know. I was unaware that I was having a mental health...it wasn't even a crisis to start with....It was a mental health incident Which we'll go into all of those details in a minute, just about my journey. And then you may recognize yourself on that journey yourself but the reason why this is important is that

05:07 You know, men's mental health is kind of like a spectrum. At the one end at the glorious end is the man who's thriving happy and successful both home and in work healthy fit vibrant The husband he wants to be The friend he wants to be The dad he wants to be The businessman or career you know leader that he wants to be That's a man whose thriving that what we should all want for ourselves And in many ways that is what most men believe they can have. The pinch, the mental health crisis if you like which is at the other end of that spectrum is a slow slow

05:48 Is the word degradation like a grinding down, like just slow descent which eventually turns into a nosedive or as we call it here at The High Value Man Project. The low value death spiral but it's a spectrum and its realizing where we find ourselves on that. It's somewhere along the dirty end. It's that four out of ten existence to too many men put up with And this woman nailed it. She said, when my husband lost his sense of purpose our marriage nosedived the man I wanted to be with the man I fell in love with just stopped showing up and I waited and we hoped and we tried to fix it and that trying to fix it turned into arguments and the arguments in the end turned into dismay and I left him

06:43 This was an eloquent woman. Turned out she's some kind of coach herself, she actually works with women midlife women around financial success and creating businesses like literally that thing they've always wanted but never thought they could do. She helps women create that so in a way no surprise that she should be able to vocalize verbalize this easily And But one of the most powerful ways for you to start out on this high value man journey is to get your High Value Man score. If you go to highvaluemanproject.com forward slash score, it's like an MOT. It'll help you identify where in the different parts of your life you're leaking your

09:59 Weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men. I might have just balls that up but it's a good book. I read a great book by this guy name escapes me but it's along those lines I'll look it up for you. If you get the High Value Man Ultimate Booklist, then my Audible's got about 170 or books in it now and yeah the ultimate book list is a great way to start yourself on a journey of self development and understanding and knowledge personal awareness of all the things that I've learned along the way. Of course a quicker version than that is to just get on board but anyway...I will always share the books that I've been reading

10:44 So yeah, this spectrum, this journey that we might find ourselves from thriving to suicidal is really the reality check that we all need to have. Because when on the news in newspapers on radio they talk about men's mental health crisis and they bring some guy in who If you're a woman, if you're a man and you've got a family or a friend who's had an accident. You know what I mean? And it can be really hard to get that conversation going with someone who has been through something like this before because they don't have the skills, the knowledge, the experience, the experience of being in a relationship where there are so many things happening at once.

11:35 And if you're listening to this podcast, I want you From getting both made redundant after our wedding, we got back from our honeymoon and that hit us 2008 sort of sub prime recession. Couldn't get another job started up my own digital marketing agency started to win contracts. My wife wasn't very happy in Brighton so we moved back to Maidstone had our first child everything was rosy the things were good and then the first miscarriage came and then the second one and then the third one

12:28 And during that time, our relationship changed completely. And there we are living in a... although we did come back to my hometown, we're living somewhere new trying to wrestle with all these things financially under pressure people sending us debt collection letters navigating that whole process in the same vein I've got a baby boy, I've got my stepson. Business we're winning clients it's like oh is happening but then my wife isn't very well didn't occur to me then really that it was having an effect on me. I just thought if we can get through this week out the other side we're going live happily ever after so all conversation at that time around mental health problems didn't register and it won't be with you quite likely

13:20 Because what's really going on is that we're so focused on creating the dream of having it all. That our own needs get a little bit lost inside of that. And it's, and that's okay right? The having it all becomes for most men about providing about giving our wife the life that she wants about giving our kids the fun times, the toys, the dance lessons, the football boots like whatever it looks like about giving them all those things even the growing in business It becomes like who we are is the business, who we are is the family. We lose sight of that's not who we are at all. Who we are is who we are and we have to keep a hold of that because when the chips are down, we need to be able to come back to it as the baseline, as the foundation of everything that we stand on, that we build upon every... we stand for your values your strengths your hobbies

14:23 Your commitments. You know, really too many men if it's not the business it's the relationship like who I am is husband who I am his her and me together that was very much me again still never really associate those things with a mental health crisis but on this spectrum we've gone from thriving at one end when we're sliding back down thinking yeah it'll be all right in a bit will jump back up As men do it though, as we go into that I'll work my way out of this. I'll look after everybody else and we'll get out the other side of it. That loss of identity and that loss of purpose occurs. And when that happens ability to pull ourselves through, the ability to stand up for ourselves in a conversation let alone an argument diminishes because

15:18 If our identity is this relationship, this marriage and it becomes very hard to say no I don't agree with you. And if you keep on being like that then in marriage we may not find a way through all this. Like sorry to say! That was definitely me or you end up in arguments the classic couples arguing about every bloody thing I'm Jonnie Jensen, and this is my podcast.

16:12 So, but it is actually a pinch on our mental health because if you're going to bed exhausted. If your marital bed is a lonely place, if you're not looking forward or you're not proud about what's happened during that day and you're not looking forward to the next day, not looking forward to the weekend ahead then that becomes a very lonely and dark existence Still, I'm not going to call that a mental health crisis because no man's gonna want to do that. When I finally ended up in the doctors' that was really at the first point that I was able...I was able to accept....I was able to be told

17:01 Antidepressants aren't a admission of failure. A mental health problem, a mental health illness, a mental health crisis isn't admitting failure it's an awareness it's like the tyre light coming on in your car because the tire has got slightly less pressure than is recommended It's not got enough air to perform at its best Now if you think about it like that What does it take to just top up the air in the machine called you? Like that's a really powerful metaphor. It's not flipping tires burnt out and shredded, and we've got to throw it away or we've hit this central reservation because he had a blowout. Yeah, you just need a bit of a top-up in there before things go too bad.

17:52 So when you see the poster and it says mental health problem, X number of men have got a mental health problem. Most people aren't going to look at that most men aren't gonna look at that and go oh yeah that's me in fact the opposite so that's what we're up to here at The High Value Man Project is to raise that awareness of demanding more for yourself Demanding more for your quality of life, your experience of life so that you stay up at that top end. You stay a 7 8 9 10 in thriving and by the way, a lot of guys I work with even when things are going really well kind of score themselves as seven and i'm like seven let's have a little look at this! Seven if you live in the UK or watch whatever that program is Strictly Come Dancing never watch it but I know

18:43 It's not a good score. It's like, it's like a comfort zone. People that want to think they're doing better than they are might say you say seven and people that don't really feel it's okay to show off, to be proud of what they've got. They'll say seven out of sort of martyrdom, like oh well I couldn't possibly say I'm nine out of 10 let alone ten out of ten so I'll say I'm a seven no It's our job, our God-given opportunity to be living an 8, 9 10 out of 10 existence. Why? Because we flipping can! We've got everything we need to thrive this body this healing machine that we live in that can achieve incredible things it's geared for us to win but you have to know

19:36 I'm And covering it up with booze, porn, gambling adultery, flipping whatever version of that gives you enough of a fake dopamine hit to distract you from how your really feeling. But here's the kicker in it all

20:20 Too many men will run out of road. The, I'm going to get through this and feel better. I'm going to get through this and we're gonna live happily ever after it is a gamble. It's a gamble on the result you expect to happen happening before you run out of road yourself mentally physically emotionally We don't really realize it though until It becomes really flipping close, like an airplane out of control. There might've been opportunities to reverse the situation but when you're staring at the mountain in front of you before you hit the bloody thing that's a little bit too late to pull out

21:02 You exceed the capacity to carry the weight of the problem and everything on your own. As I've said increasingly often these days, that picture of Atlas with the globe on his shoulders... To many people it looks and we've been told that look how strong he is but another version of that is the guy's virtually on his knees doing it all on his own carrying the weight of the world on his own shoulders so We're going back to this point of where are you at on the spectrum? Where are you at when someone says men's mental health, men suicide. And here is the important part we want to start putting some numbers on it not actual numbers but just like metaphorical numbers in what's the thing... It's a maths thing!

21:50 It's not a Venn diagram because that's the three circles that overlap, but it's when one circle fits inside another circle. It's a bit like the Russian dolls kind of thing. The number of men who attempt to commit suicide is Like the arse end of this thriving scale, the number of men who actually succeed is the final pot of guys there. It's the X percent of men who actually take their own lives out of the whole population but of that final percent there was a slightly larger group who tried to do it but didn't succeed

22:32 My dad was in that group. Quite a funny story, tablets he took slowed down his metabolism and saved himself from the flipping tube that he plugged into the car let alone the angel truly the random guy in the middle of you know a dark winter's evening who happened to be walking through a field and pulled him out beyond that is the group of people who are thinking about it but never actually do And I can put myself in that group, that group of men. They're thinking about suicide not because they want to kill themselves it just becomes one of the options like this is a tough situation how are we going to get through this? How much longer am i going to put up with this? How much more pressure can I take what are my options you could leave you could jack in the business you could top yourself you could go and get a job like you just run through it as one of the options

23:32 But as those options get tighter and tighter, as the walls close in sadly. And I believe this is how a lot of men end up attempting their life it just becomes a flicker of switch like I'll sod it and you chuck yourself off a bridge. A lot of men and women by the way who survive suicide talk about how they kind of regretted at the moment they'd done it and they're happy that they pulled through Then there's a group of people who wouldn't think about doing that, but they're fundamentally miserable. Stuck not really sure how to get out of it don't know whether to stick or twist should I stay? Or should I go and that is just a couple of incidents away from

24:24 And I'm Jonnie Jensen, and this is my podcast.

25:14 And you know, you can imagine that prior to that point actually is people who you would hopefully be, you know, will we say they're scoring themselves six seven eight nine 10 out of life. Ups and downs few challenges but there's still a strong team lives working out I really enjoy my work um i'd like to be a bit fitter but i'll working on it like i'd like to see my mates a little bit more but i'm working on it that end of the scale So none of those guys are going to read a poster that says men's mental health, call this number. The day you search Google for am I burnt out is too late? The day I was screaming in my counsellor s face there is nothing wrong with me definitely too late and you would have heard all those things but there is reason why I m bringing this story back up it is about this woman who said to me yeah

26:09 When my husband lost his sense of purpose, lost his identity then that ultimately was the end of our marriage. So you know the way that men's bodies, the way that our brains work and by the way I'm not a scientist but we have this...we're biologically predisposed to survive So when there is a struggle that we're facing, our body will produce cortisol as a way to get us out of the shit. Okay? But it's high stress and high impact. It's a low dopamine scenario. That is a man who doesn't really know what he's up to and he's just constantly fighting fires. When we live in a high-stress

27:02 Link attaching yourself back The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, highvaluemanproject.com What do you even like doing? When was the last time you watched a movie that made you laugh. When was the last time you had an adventure that got your heart racing and left you thinking, wow! what a life to be living. What a time to be alive. You have to take responsibility for that because when you don't have that how you show up, how you occur first of all to yourself is I feel a bit shit maybe I am a bit shit

28:18 But the energy you're giving off, people have been picking up on that way before. So your wife's experience of you is nothing like the man that she married. Your kid's experience of you is not very inspiring and when your kids aren't inspired by who you're being they play up they give you a hard time they shit test you which To be fair, more of an expression to be used against women. But you know kids do it as well set your little traps to see how you're going to respond just so they can be right about that's how you are. That isn't really them it's them in response to how your being. So if feels like you want to have the arse with them for being like that but actually the responsibility lies with you. That

29:03 That's you living with purpose. That's you living tuned in to who you are and what you stand for. So these posters, these men's mental health posters I'm here to tell you today that it's actually about a high value man message. It's about asking you are you being the man? You want to be all you live in the life that you wanna live? Are you creating something worth shouting about? Are you inspiring the people around Because when you are, you will feel awesome about yourself. You will feel purpose driven whether you're introverted or extroverted, you will have charisma. There will be some passion there. There'll be something about you that will leave other people saying yeah tell me more what are you up to? Like that sounds exciting!