trigger warning – three buckets of men – bigmoose international tour

trigger warning, this blog will reference suicide.

when i do talks i always start by asking the audience to raise their hands if they know anyone that struggles with their mental health.

100% of people raise their hands.

i am now going to ask another question, keep your hand up if you know someone who died by suicide.

it seems like a lot of people do.

do you?

it needs to stop.

diary of a mental health charity ceo, wednesday 22nd july

met with angie, a lady who i first met last year and made her cry.

in a good way.

i had done a talk at her networking group, and after the talk she came up to me telling me how much the talk had moved her.

we met again at the polo. (my norf london schoolmates wouldn’t recognise me now)

she told me after the third chukka that she had sold her business, was loving retirement, but needed some purpose.

i looked her in the eyes, and we both smiled.

we met this wednesday, and the conversation flowed very easily, with nearly two hours disappearing before we knew it.

she told me her story of taking her fathers business from less than a million pounds turnover to 7.5 million pounds, and after buying him out, selling it, securing her financial future, she told me how working in a male dominated engineering business had been challenging at times, but how she had coped with the three kinds of men she worked with, and put them into three buckets, her words not mine.

the first kind of men were the ones who didn’t see gender, and just saw her as a coworker, the second were the kind who totally disrespected her as a woman and her capabilities to run an engineering company, and the third kind were the men who just “wanted to get in her pants”, i listened to her raw honesty, never having heard a woman address the three buckets, and whilst disappointed, i enjoyed her frankness, and knew that here was a woman, strong, powerful, able to win in a male dominated industry, and perfect to pass on her knowledge to our team, teaching them invaluable lessons, and hopefully arming them with tools to navigate this world with strength.

so she will be coming in to impart her knowledge, as well as accessing her network, providing us with introductions that otherwise would be almost impossible to get.

all because of a talk.

i need to do more talks.

after meeting angie i checked my emails, and i had a message from a chap who runs a networking group that i did a five minute talk at last year, telling me that this group wanted to take a bike at our spin bike event in november and raise ten grand for us.

i need to do more talks.

i then headed into town, where i met tania for dinner, and had a fantastic experience, with our server chelsea, being the perfect ten.

a thoroughly great day and evening.

as we drove home, i received a message from a buddy of mine.

his brother in law had tried to take his life, thankfully unsuccessfully, but could we help him.

i called him, and we discussed a plan, removing all emotion, and being very practical, and we are now providing hope for him.

as we finished the call, i reflected on my day.

everything was intertwined, and linked together with the same end goal, to help people who are struggling, and to reduce the number of people seeing no other way, than to end their lives.

i feel very fortunate to be in a place in life where i can influence these kind of outcomes, and i accept the responsibility i have to continue growing our charity, suicides need to stop, one person at a time.

so, in conclusion, i love my life, and i need to do more talks.

so, as always i am unashamedly going to ask for your help.

can you please introduce me to someone who might want to hear about my adventures, and ups and downs, possibly making them cry, and possibly getting them to embrace our bigmoose work?

i know the blog has lots of international readers, so i am happy to travel, let’s go on an worldwide tour.

please message me with any thoughts.

thanks for reading, and if you fancy taking a bike, at project 1 million 3.0 drop me a line.

blue skies,

jeff

c