The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 62 - Mens Mental Health Isn't Talked About Enough, Here’s Why: Roman Kemp

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. With it being Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, I felt it was important in this week’s moment to focus on the importance of checking in with this prevalent topic in our current society. Roman Kemp tells us about the time he nearly lost his life, and how he was saved by a simple phone call from his mother checking up on him. Suffering from depression since he was a teenager, Roman has sometimes had trouble finding balance in his life. Thankfully, no one knew the ins and outs of his struggle like his mother. When she phoned him up asking how he was doing, he gave her an answer she was not expecting. She would never have imagined having to receive something like this from her son. Simple check ups with our friends and loved ones can have much more impact than we ever anticipate. Likewise, being open about our feelings can help to change them if they’ve gone down a bad path. I hope this moment from our conversation will help you to open up with your friends, and make this something normal to talk about. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/ogPdfQtzUqb Roman - https://www.instagram.com/romankemp/?hl=en https://twitter.com/romankemp?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue talk about toxic masculinity there one of the things that's always associated with that is just men's lack of willingness to like make a phone call and to a friend and say listen i am not okay and you know you you also have been very open about the day where you were feeling like that and your superwoman mother yeah once again um she she called you coincidentally or yeah yeah yeah coincidentally well it was kind

of like yeah i went to call her and then like shit like i texted her a couple times and then she just called me because you're feeling bad so you text her yeah i mean people will tell you this but when you're in that zone you know if you're in a absolute spiral everything goes into a right blur all i know is that i was in my house and i was in my pants and i was i could not stop crying and i couldn't stop worrying about everything and my head was going like a whirlwind like i was worrying about stuff that wasn't even logical like what was your brain telling you i can't even like i can't even describe it like it's like the only way it feels like anything in my head that could have been a problem was a problem have you ever had like

you know when you're you're hung over and well like the next day I don't know if you drink but the next day right if you have a hangover you have this like paranoia thing like throughout like stuff just makes you feel a little bit edgy whispery like yeah yeah yeah it's like that but a million times the only way also that i talk about it is like it's like paranoia and it's like mike your brain becomes mike tyson and is just beating you up and you've not had one boxing lesson in your life so you're just kind of like you can't do anything you're just taking it right and it's like your things like you look bad you've not done this your tax bill's this you're this you're this you're this you're this are you ever going to do this you're never going to do this loads of like voices and at that point i just said to myself you know i can't

i don't know what to do and the only thing i can think about was i was okay well i'll just i'll just you know take my own life. I'll just kill myself. That's how, honestly, how I felt. Because I was like, that's the only way to stop this. Your whole mind just blanks. And that's, that's the same thing that I've spoken to a lot of people that have attempted to take their own life. And they all say the same thing. moments that you have are completely like just so intense that your mind goes

implodes and and you don't even know and that's why a lot of men will will tell you that when they you know if they take it to that step which is a huge step to to decide okay i'm going to take my own life a lot of men go that was my happiest moment because i felt like in that time i was in control of my life which is a really scary thought and a really sad thought that they feel like the biggest amount of clarity that they've ever had in their life and the moment where they felt at peace was when they felt like okay i'm gonna do this and everything will stop but the problem is is that that's not the answer and it's really not and when i speak to you know in the documentary i speak to to joe's mom keep in mind this is three months after her son has

passed away and she's had to be told that her son who she's raised has taken his own life she she sums it up in such an amazing way which is kind of touching on a very dangerous topic of selfishness around suicide which a lot of people don't want to talk about but it's the the truth which is suicide isn't necessarily a selfish act by that person but the problem is is that no matter what pain that person is feeling in that moment no matter what pain you're going through in your head or sadness you do not get rid of that by taking your own life all you are doing is you are transferring it to everyone around you and you are transferring that on average 180 people get um affected by one singular suicide and and that

is what you are doing and it's just a fact you know like for two months I absolutely hated Joe I hated him after he died I felt quite cold because I was just like how could you do that I felt like how could you leave me your mom your dad your sister how could you do that how could you let someone find you like do you know what I mean so it's it's it's it's in that that you realize that no matter how much that clarity is there and you feel like you're escaping a problem you are passing that on to someone else and that's what's left behind you and i know for a fact that i know like i would put so much money on that if he was here right now he'd look at me and say sorry mate made a mistake 100 so much I was thinking about there so the first thing is my

business partner also said to me he wanted he was considering jumping in front of a train that's what he said to me in our private conversations the other thing is just this this um it's really it's really hard for someone who's not been through what you're describing there what you went through and evidently what joe went through to understand the that place if you've not been there that's this is why it's so valuable and like i was thinking you know must as you kind of alluded to there you didn't choose to for everybody to ask you in every interview about this topic but the the immense value that it's like it's doing on someone like me who's been fortunate enough not to be in that place who can now understand from your description there that mike tyson description can now understand that how that

must feel yeah i can't but i can almost but the thing is the thing is is what's better is because you are in a higher risk category than me yeah i know which is fucking terrifying yeah because but but now that i've spoken to you about it and that you're you're not because because that's that's the problem is that you know all of the guys that i spoke to said to me they were like didn't think mental health was a thing didn't think what i was going through was depression thought i was just rubbish and just thought i you know i wasn't where i wanted to be in life just wanted that to end mental health was a thing, didn't think what I was going through was depression, thought I was just rubbish and just thought I wasn't where I wanted to be in life,

just wanted that to end. That's the realization of it. And again, it's that thing of, it's a topic that no one really wants to talk about and is also why I was so adamant that the worst, okay, this is the worst thing, right? Is if you're in that state, your mate's in that state, right? The last thing he wants to do is talk to you about that. So why is the kind of push always, oh, if you're feeling depressed, you should talk. No, that's the last thing I want to do. If anything, you're going to make me revert more, right? You're going to go

back more. The pressure should be placed on us as friends to make that call and to make that conversation happen with anyone that you would ever suspect. Even if you don't suspect it, make sure. How sure are you? How sure are you of the people in your phone book or your close friends that they're not thinking these thoughts? Not sure enough. But that's what I mean.

So all you have to do is have that conversation, but that will take you having that conversation. I always say, I do a lot of talks for businesses about mental health. And I always leave it with, you know, go away today, choose three people in your phone book that you speak to regularly

and ask them, are they okay? But do it twice, you know? And that's something that I learned from a group of lads who had lost their mate. They now look after each other by asking at the beginning of the conversation, are you okay? Have the conversation and then just go back to it and be like, so tell conversation, are you okay? Have the conversation and then just go back to it and be like, so tell me, are you okay? Choose three people, do that two okay rule on them

and tell me that you haven't found something new from at least one of those people.