You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello, welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching In. I'm Claire Pedrick, and I'm delighted this week to have my friend from a very long time ago, Patrick Regan. So Patrick, you've started two charities since we last met. As you do. Like you do, and done all sorts of other amazing things and some difficult things.
So tell us what's your journey to get to this point? Wow, that's a question and a half. I think, well, it all started when my first charity started when I was in London. I was a youth worker in a church and there was a stabbing in the school just down the road from where we were. And the school phoned the church up and said, can you help us get the moral fibre of our school up? And the vicar didn't really fancy it or the pastor, whoever you would call it.
So sent me as a local youth worker to see what I could do. And I arrived in a school that was very alien to the culture that I was brought up in. But I guess I just really went in with trying to understand what some of the key issues for the young people were, you know, and this one particular school had 65 mother tongue languages in it. So it was that the kids were stupid. They just didn't understand what was being taught.
And so we started helping with literacy and numeracy and And I guess I just, some of the issues, you know, I remember doing an assembly and a kid came up to me wearing a bulletproof vest underneath his school uniform and he said, I'll be dead by next week. And I was like, is he bragging? Is it just bravado? Then six weeks later, he gets stabbed through the neck, hapus free outside the school. So I decided to find 17 people to give me 25 pound a month. And I started a charity called XLP.
Excel standing for wanting people to excel in everything they do in piece to for project. And that charity over 23 years grew to quite a large charity, working in all sorts of intervention programs, access to work programs, mentoring programs, schools programs, arts programs, mobile buses that travel onto estates and off the estates, just engaging with thousands of thousands of young people. And And you know, it was popular, Claire.
It was like, you know, I was in and out of number 10 doing policy stuff. We had a visit from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I hope you caught that name as it dropped there. I also saw your picture with him and, you know, the Prince and Prince William and Princess Catherine came. They were the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge then. And I think that I was working incredibly hard and all these photos and all this.
publicity, you know, these they go around the world and and I realized that my my Facebook post looked amazing, but behind the scenes I was actually really struggling. I was really struggling with anxiety. I was really struggling with mental health. I had lots of physical health issues. I had to get, you know, go for serious operations of my legs. And and really, I guess that started me on a journey of trying to understand.
my own mental health, but also, you know, the mental health of others and then Kintsugi Hope, my newest charity came out of that experience really. Wow. Yeah, I remember when you were in waiting rooms, we were also in waiting rooms, do you remember we used to text? yes, with your husband's eye. well, with everything in our family that fell apart. Yes, you had quite a lot going on, didn't you? I remember that now, yeah. And Ellie, I remember now you say that, yeah. As did you.
Yeah. No, it's a weird thing, isn't it? It's, I feel like when you are sick, if you're long -term sick in any capacity, and if anyone's listening to this that's been there, your world suddenly contracts. It becomes quite small. And your values constantly get challenged because you start thinking, well, what are the stuff I was worried about before? Actually now all I care about is if I can get out of bed, you know, and if I can eat properly and if I can connect with my friends and my family.
family and so I think it's an interesting journey. It's a roller coaster for sure. And now you've got a passion to change the world around mental health. Yeah, when I was in one of my really lowest points, actually, I came across this Japanese art form called Kintsugi. Kintsugi is a Japanese word that means golden joinery. So if we break pottery or break a plate or cup, we tend to mend it with super glue and we hide the cracks, we pretend it's not broken.
But what they do in Japan is they put gold powder in the glue. So instead of hiding the cracks, they make a feature of the cracks. So arguably the object becomes more beautiful for being broken, it certainly becomes more unique, you know, and there isn't a bowl like it on planet Earth. And I thought that is a beautiful metaphor for life, for my life and for people's lives who I interact with.
And so about eight months before COVID hit, me and my wife died and we were like, let's write a wellbeing course loosely based on Alcoholics Anonymous. but looking at all the biggest issues of our time, you know, honesty, stigma, shame, forgiveness, resilience.
And we wrote it all in learning styles, which was fascinating, because I really appreciated living in the inner city that sometimes some of the materials that come out work very well for the middle classes, but don't work for some of the inner city areas. So I was like, let's make it a buffet rather than a set menu, you know, where people can pick and choose and adapt it to their culture. And so we started training people. People are getting excited. People are going, this is great.
I'll run this in a cafe. I'm going to run this in a farmer's market. And I'm like, why are you going to run it in a farmer's market? And they're well, suicide rate amongst farmers is really high. And we're going to run it in schools and in prisons. And then COVID hit. And because I'm really into catastrophizing, that's one of my challenges. I was like, that's it. We're doomed. We've had it. We might as well give up now. And my wife is a lot more level -headed than me.
She was like, well, maybe there's something we can do. And we moved all the training online. So then anyone could, you know, train it from anywhere really. And they didn't have to come to London for training. And in COVID it grew by 455%. And because everyone was looking for something to do some support in terms of mental health. And, and it was incredible, you know, over 10 ,000 people being through the 12 week program. Now I think there's 1500 leaders, 400 different locations.
And, and yeah, and the stories are incredible. You meet people are going, I'm not sure I'll be alive today if it wasn't for Kintsugi Hope or a funny one, actually, this woman came up to me and she went, I'm getting married because of you. And I was like, I'm sorry. And I said, What do you mean? And she said, Well, I had a marriage breakdown many, many, many years ago, and I convinced myself that I was unlovable. and I'd never meet anyone because I just thought that's what it was.
And I went on this Kintsugi thing and I started to realize that I am lovable and started to accept myself, even my flaws. And I found someone else that thinks I'm lovable as well. So I'm getting married in a couple of months time, which is really sweet. So I've done that for five years and I've just handed over the CEO role of that to do a bit more speaking and stuff. But yeah, it's been a bit of a journey, Claire.
Yeah, but isn't it interesting because in in my new book, The Human Behind the Coach, one of the things that we say in there is that it's the broken things that make us better at what we do. Yeah, I think so, because I think there's there's definitely a level of empathy and compassion that you can have when you've been through a level of brokenness yourself. And hopefully, I think that it is quite humbling.
And so you get rid of ego and and all those things where you sort of start thinking like, what were we doing beforehand? And you realize that you can connect with people in a different way. So yeah, I think you're right. I think most people that I've spoken to who have been through a really tough time, they're not glad they've been through the tough time, but they also don't want it to be wasted. They want to be able to help others through what they've been through.
And I think that's why the pottery thing's a beautiful image. So it's not denying that actually, you know, great, we're broken. It's actually going, you know what, there's things we've learned here and hopefully that can make you feel less alone and more, more part of a community. More connected. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because when things are broken, there's nothing worse than assuming incorrectly that everybody's life is very sorted, right? Yeah. Absolutely.
And you know, it's fascinating now because I wrote this book called brighter days, 12 steps to strengthen your wellbeing. And so what I do is part of my time is I go around to businesses and schools, doing staff training, local authorities, I'm starting to do some working and also go to prisons and homeless shelters. And the fascinating thing is like, from one end, you know, corporate end to, to, I was in a maximum security prison a couple of days ago. Everyone has a story.
Everyone has a backstory and, and everyone has a situation. Everyone has loved ones. Everyone has stuff that they deal with. And, and I'm always amazed at how more alike we are than unalike, you know, and, and I think that when you start being real and honest and authentic, then, then that creates an atmosphere where other people feel like they can do that as well.
And yeah, and I often think, you know, for those guys in prison, if I was born in a similar context or similar challenges, then maybe that's where I'd be, you know, because it is incredibly challenging at times. Yeah. Yeah. So brighter days. New book, everybody. I'll put the link in the show notes. Thank you.
It's funny, brighter days, because, I've written a number of books, as you know, Claire, and but with this book, I wrote it completely different to my previous books, because when I was going through a really tough time and sort of going through my breakdown, I guess, people kept on trying to get me books to read. And my head was just not in that place. And they were really quite clinical books as well. And I was like, I can't even get through a paragraph, not alone a chapter.
So with this book, I decided to write it for me when I was going through a tough place. wow. And so I wrote it with really short stories and illustrations. And sometimes there's just a quote on a page, you know, and it was fascinating. And then the other thing I do, which I've never done before, is for every chapter on social media, I'd ask a question. So I'd ask a question like, what does anxiety feel like? And then within literally a couple of hours, you'd have like hundreds of answers.
And it was fascinating, you know, just seeing how people put stuff in everyday language. And so I hope it's very raw, very gritty, and hopefully it's got lots of tools that can help people. Because that's why you write books in the first place. Yeah, so they're useful. Yeah, absolutely. So part of what you've written is about caring too much.
Yeah, and I think the, it's a really interesting phrase, caring too much, because I remember when I came to the chapter on anxiety, I always felt like when you talk about anxiety, it's often talked about in a very negative way, you know, and I get that. But I came across this definition, I think it was Kirstie Cullen, who said that anxiety is often caring too much. which I thought was really interesting. And she said that anxiety is often the most caring person in the room.
And of course, what she was saying is that if you struggle with anxiety, often you're also capable of incredible empathy and compassion, maybe more so than someone who doesn't struggle with anxiety. And anxiety can feel a bit like a car alarm. If it's going off all the time, it's tough, it's tough for you, it's tough for your neighbors, it's tough for everyone else. But actually it has a function.
And so I think for me, I wouldn't say that my anxiety suddenly vanished, but I feel like I have learned to regulate it and start to be a bit more self aware, you know, that what triggers it and what doesn't trigger it and what I need to keep myself on an even kill really. Because I work in a profession where over caring sabotages everything. Yeah. I love that TS Eliot quote, teach me to care and not to care, teach me to sit still.
Yeah. And you know, I've been really thinking a lot recently, I've just done some I've just done a course actually, with the Center of Compassionate Leadership. And some of the research is fascinating, because what they're talking about in terms of compassion, is the difference between compassion and empathy. Because they work on different parts of the brain where empathy would work very much on your pain receptors.
and compassion works, it's an action, it's a verb, it's something you do, works very much on your reward receptors. And so very, very different. And I think for a lot of us who are in those sort of professions or wired a certain way that, that we, we have incredible empathy, which is lovely. But if you stay there, you just burn out. was, you know, you can't solve everyone's problem. You know, I keep on saying to people, I, you know, I just.
had to learn, I'm not a sponge for people's pain, I can't absorb it all. I'm not the rescuer either. And, and when you're surrounded by so much pain, or even in your own family, you know, even with my own kids, which is, I think it's the hardest one, is, I just want to fix it for you. Or I want you to make really wise choices. And this is the choice I think you should make. It's like, you can't do it.
And so I've been learning a lot about the difference between compassion, which I think is around awareness, it's around connection, it's around empathy, and it's around action. Those four things, I think really sum up compassion for me and just the difference between that and empathy and not saying empathy is bad, but I think compassionate leadership is where we need to go. Yeah, and I had, you'd love this book, Patrick, I had Kirsty Papworth.
on recently talking about the book she's just written about compassionate leadership, which was really extraordinary stuff in there. I'll send you a link. Thank you. Yeah. So what about perfectionism then? Because is that connected? Yeah, I mean, I think perfectionism probably is one of the key drivers to anxiety. And I think then it and then anxiety often, you know, drifts into depression if it's not dealt with. But I always describe perfectionism as a moving target you'll never hit.
And I have a dog, Claire, called Hope, which I know is a really stupid name for a dog. So you can imagine my poor neighbors the first six months of me trying to train this dog. They basically just heard me shout out at the top of my voice, no hope! In fact... But basically I used take a hopeful walk most mornings and when I take a hopeful walk she has one thing on her mind and that is chasing rabbits. And she'll literally get off the lead and she's boom, she's gone.
And in five years, Claire, of taking Hope Before a Walk, I can report she has never caught a rabbit once. And I often say to people, I think that's perfectionism, is like, you're trying to get somewhere, you're trying to get something that you're never gonna achieve. And of course, you know, then your identity and that striving and I am what I accomplish.
comes into it and and one of the things I talk about in brighter days is the difference between trying your best and perfectionism and Which I think you know, we want to do our best the course we do But perfectionism can really really scupper all sorts of things and and of course the funny thing about perfectionist It can reveal itself in in such different ways for different people One of the ways it reveals itself in my life is catastrophic thinking.
I'm not totally like all or nothing, you know, yeah ever occasionally most days me and Diane will have a row and and I'll be like, that's it. It's the end of our marriage. And she'll be like, we've been married for 28 years. Don't be so silly, you know. Or you I did this quite a lot when I speak, you know, you start mind reading, you're looking at people going, I wonder what they think of me. And I wonder if I'm, you know, doing well.
And, and then obviously, the conclusions you come to are negative because that's And then you all need to get out of here quick, you know Another way perfectionism reveals itself for me is decision -making because I want it right I often say to the kids, you know come down dad's gonna choose a family film Which is code for I'm gonna sit there on Netflix for 45 minutes trying to find a film that everyone's gonna be happy with you know And in the end the kids like that just choose anything.
We don't care anymore Yeah, perfectionism it's a tough one. It's a tough one to deal with. Yeah. I interviewed Kay Young, today who's on another podcast and she said the change for her was about learning about the difference between enoughness and not being good enough yetness. Slips off the tongue. I had to read that off piece of paper. Isn't that beautiful? Enoughness. This is not good enough yetness.
Because because that perfectionism says there's always been better and actually good enough is good enough. Yeah. And I think there's a lot isn't there about contentment as well as learning to be content. I think that that you're right, it's you know, that constant striving to try and be enough.
And I think what often drives perfectionism is that that that that shame, you know, and I think like very famously, Brené Brown's done a lot of work on this, but she talks about shame being very toxic, but shame being thrives on secrecy, silence and judgment. And it has to gremlins, you know, who do you think you are when you're not enough? That's what shame says to us the whole time. And shame will drive perfectionism. And then often perfectionism will drive anxiety.
So sometimes I think going to the root issue, which is often shame, and dealing with that sense of feeling worthless, or, you know, shame and guilt, guilt, I've done something wrong, shame is I believe I am wrong, which is huge. And I've seen a lot of people struggle with that over the years. And, and I think, You step out of shame by owning your story and treating yourself with compassion and empathy and having other people that can do that for you as well.
Yeah. So what about resilience, Patrick? Yeah, resilience. I feel it was fine. I used to hate the word resilience because I used to think people like it was always reserved for that, like, you know, Olympic champion who gets up at like five o 'clock in the morning and then just doesn't give up. and I am definitely not that person. Or the boxer, you know, it's just like, that just seems impossible for me. But I guess I came to the conclusion, I did a lot of studying on resilience.
And I think the interesting thing is a lot of people think resilience is resistance, you know, it's never given up, it's never. And actually, we describe it as the ability to bounce back quite a lot, don't we? And I've heard people say it's like an elastic band that goes back into shape or, you know, and, and I was very conscious of after COVID, there's a lot of this, will we bounce back type business, you know, will the economy bounce back? Will NHS bounce back? Will Prince Harry come back?
I don't know. It's like, it's all about coming back. And then I found this definition about resilience that talked about bouncing forwards. I thought I quite like that. And the idea is, is that like we take all the stuff that's happened in our past, and we don't go back, why would we want to go back to our pre trauma self? Why do you want to go back and relearn all those painful lessons that we've had to learn?
Surely that resilience is about learning to bounce forwards, it's about that forwards momentum. But it's not about bouncing back. And so I thought that was that was a fascinating thing. And so I've done a lot around, thinking about how do we build our resilience? How do we become more resilient people? Because I think resilience is around thriving in adversity. I don't think it means adversity is going to go. And so I think it's learn how do we do that? And which is fascinating.
Yeah. Yeah. When the going gets tough, do we become all or nothing? Or do we say, actually, what's the best I can do here that might not be the ideal? Yeah, one of one of the most amazing allergies I came across was by a guy called Patrick, Professor Patrick Bertoni. He talked about the resilience river and he said, if you imagine everyone's got a river and at the bottom of every riverbank, there are boulders. And he said they can symbolize some of the challenges we have in our lives.
So anxiety, perfectionism, loss, you know, people lost stuff. And of course, a lot of self help stuff is all about how do I remove the boulder from the river? And he was like, I'm not sure that's always possible. You know, if you've lost someone, they're not coming back, you know, anxiety. Like for me, you know, I haven't miraculously got rid of anxiety. But he said, what you can do is you can probably work out what are the things that keep your resilience with a high so you can flow above them.
And what's the things that drain them so you're more likely to crash against them, you know, and that was really good because I think that one size never fits all. So. You know, I started thinking about, well, what's the things that drain my levels of resilience and what are the things that raise it up? You know, and it's really interesting when I go into companies and businesses and stuff, we do that exercise, you know, I've got like some charts and we all do it together.
And it's fascinating just to see because everyone's rivers different. And I love that because one size never fits all. But it's saying that those things may not disappear from our lives, but actually. We don't have to be completely controlled by them every time. And I think that's a helpful analogy. As you're speaking, I'm thinking actually often there's an assumption that the answer to resilience is in me.
But with your resilience thing, you're actually describing that the answer to resilience is in the water, which is outside of us. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's very true. I think that our choices can affect that. But I think also we need to be aware of others as well and how we draw others into helping us in that sense of connection, which you talked about earlier. So say more about connection, Patrick. Yeah, connection. I think it's that sense of being seen and allowing others to see you.
And it was really interesting. I was watching the Mr. Bates versus the post office. And of course, I'm sure people listening from overseas may not have heard of it. But basically, you know, all these post office guys, postmasters, they call them in this in the UK were basically told that they owe the post office lots and lots of money. And they'd counted all their stuff up and they'd, they'd, they'd for hang on a minute, this can't be right. There must be a glitch in the computer system.
And of course they rang the help line up and they rang and the help line said, basically, no, there's no glitch. And then says, I'm really interested. You're the only one that's struggling with this. And I think that was the really interesting piece. And so when this guy basically, Alan Bates, I think his name was, he managed to find eight or so other people that had the same issue that he was. And he said to them, were you told that you were the only one that struggles with this?
And they were like, yeah. And they were like, did that keep you quiet? And he went, yeah. And then he turned to them and said, you know what, what you need to know now is you will never be the only one that struggles with this ever again. That now you have a community of people. And as soon as they realized they weren't the only ones, I think in the end, they found hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people realize that they were struggling with exactly the same thing.
And I think it's about, that vulnerability, isn't it? It's about that courage. It's about showing up and letting your true self be seen. And I think when you do that, you do connect with other people and you find that sense of, you know, everyone deserves to be seen, valued and heard. And I think that's what connection does. It says, I see you, you're valued and you're heard. And when you do, then that's a really powerful place to be, you know.
At the end of the day, when you look throughout history, what's really changed the world, isn't being politicians, it's been social movements. It's been when people are around a course, and they've gone this course is so important to me, and it's really important to you and they connected and boom, suddenly things have to change, you know, and that little story now, it's been headline news, I think in England for the last week.
They're getting real compensation, the Prime Minister's had to get involved, people have had to give their CBEs back to the royal family. And it's amazing when people realize that they're not on their own. Yeah, that's such a good story, isn't it? I'll put a link to the story in the show notes so that people can have a look. So, so not being alone and you said they're feeling heard. feeling valued and feeling seen.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's the work that I do and that coaches do in the world is to enable somebody to feel seen and heard and felt. Yeah. And I think that that that felt is a really important word as well, isn't it? I think Daniel Seagull talks about feeling felt. And and I think that is that is, you know, people, you know, a male angel. I mean, I think the quote where she says, you know, People will forget what you've done. People will forget what you say.
People will forget what you do, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And I think that is that sense of actually feeling felt, feeling that that connection is so important. And that's important in coaching. I think it needs to be important in leadership and it's important in every sphere. And I think the challenge for our society is that we've often put statistics above people.
And particularly in education, I feel it quite strongly that, you know, we say you're valuable and you're worth something if you get a certain grade. I have a daughter who's got additional needs and I know that she probably won't get GCSEs, but I went up to her teacher the other day, we're having a meeting and I said, if there was a GCSE in kindness, how do you think she'll do? And she went, she'd get A. And I went, as a dad, good enough for me.
Yeah. you know, and there's someone who's interviewed hundreds of people over the years. I feel competence is important, but I feel like it can be taught. I'm always looking for character and chemistry, you know, I'm like, give me those qualities any day of the week, and not too worried if you don't know what stem leaf diagram does. Yeah. So what's your hope for brighter days? Yeah, when you're not catastrophizing. Yes, yeah, which is a lot of the time.
So with brighter days, I'm I'm there's two things. So I'm working two days a week as a business. And so the idea is, is that we really want to see sort of employers really take the issue of well being seriously. You know, I think wellness and self care is the best business strategy that you'll ever come up with.
Because, you know, How can we possibly be creative, innovate if our nervous systems are constantly wrecked and we're constantly in fight, flight or freeze mode, you know, which is out one fire after another. So, so really encouraging people and realizing it's just a massive issue around the world. You know, in this country, I think it's costing the economy 119 billion pounds because people are losing days to sickness to do with mental health.
And so we've devised this Steps to Wellbeing program that looks at some of the key issues and it's really trying to give employees a toolkit which they can use. Because not everyone's going to have mental illness as such, but everyone has mental health. Just in the same way we all have physical illness, but we all have physical health. And some of us, we wear glasses because we struggle with our... with our site and it's not a major illness, but it's still there and we need help.
So I think it's exactly the same thing. And I really want to encourage companies as well to think more about how they use compassion in their culture and their philosophies and stuff like that. So trying to get out there doing that in local authorities, in businesses. But then also using some of the funds that that generates to enable me to go and volunteer my time free of charge to prisons and homeless shelters, which I really love.
I was in a homeless shelter the other day, Claire, you'll appreciate this. And I was known as the after -fag dinner speaker, which I feel like I've made it in life now. Definitely. After -fag, vape and cigar. And all these guys, they went out. And it's funny because I've been doing a business during the day, then I was here during the evening, well, business a couple of days before. And these two guys, they were after they, I noticed they didn't come back in after their cigarette.
They stayed outside and this one guy got really agitated that they hadn't respected me by coming back. So he marched out and I heard a bit of a ruckus and they came in looking really sheepishly. They just, you know, took so much attention of what I was saying and I said to him, what do you say to those guys? And he said, well, I went outside and I told him, you better get in there because he's an effing brilliant speaker. And if he don't get in there, there's going to be trouble.
So I was going to put that on the back of my new book. But my publisher said no. So. Your new book is called. Sorry. What's your new book called, Patrick? What's my new what? What's your book called? brighter days. brighter days by Patrick Regan available from all major online bookstores. And if people want to talk to you about coming into their organization, Patrick, how do they contact you? Yeah, if you just go to the website, it's www .brighterdays .life.
And there's loads of information on there that you can talk so you can think about and yeah, you get in touch with me through the via the website. It'd be amazing. Well, thank you, Patrick Rigan, for coming back to the coaching and let's not make it 20 years before we speak again. Thank you so much, I really appreciate that. And thank you everyone for listening. Bye bye. See you later.
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