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Dark Coffee Podcast

Starting brave and bullshit-free conversations around mental health and wellbeing.

Bullshit-free burnout advice? Yes please 🙋🏻‍♀️ •

If you’re not following Leah already - @leahsteeleuk - you are missing a treat!

A fellow advocate of the fluff-free school of well-being support, Leah Steele helps burned out professionals get back on an even keel.

She’s wise, witty, and full of common sense delivered in ten seconds or less!

Plus her stories are always an insightful mix of social justice and Business Bullshit-busting.

She provides a range of services for corporates to support their teams as well as easily accessible 1:1 support for individuals who want to get things back under control.

I love her.

You’ll love her.

Thank me later 😉

- ☕️ Alice

Real talk: we can’t do this thing alone • The

Real talk: we can’t do this thing alone •

There’s a lot of talk in the business community about ‘self-made’ people.

The solopreneurs who have ‘gone it alone’ and beat the odds when no one believed in them.

I’d actually suggest they are the exception and not the rule.

How many people have TRULY got to where they are without:

- mentors?

- team members?

- collaborators?

- and, erm, customers?!

😊 I’m happy to admit that I haven’t made it to where I am (wherever that is) based solely on my own merits.

🥳 I’m so proud to have an army of supporters and cheerleaders around me who help me along the road and let me enjoy the journey as well:

🙌🏼 My small business buddies who have shared their empathy and support on the really bad days.

🙌🏼 My accountability partners who have kept me motivated and working towards small goals so I don’t feel overwhelmed.

🙌🏼 My awesome collaborators who have swapped skills, given advice and volunteered their services to help my projects move along.

…. And my very patient partner who makes sure I take my weekly walks so my head doesn’t explode 😂

I’ve been officially running my business for two years now.

But I wouldn’t have lasted two months without the incredible people around me.

Not because I’m not good at it.

But because this shit is hard.

And it’s difficult, if not impossible, to do it alone. 💛

- ☕️ Alice

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😊 If you’re looking for a cheerleader to help you with your personal and business development, I have two spaces left for 1:1 coaching in July.

📱 Send me a dm if you’d like to find out how I can help you get your work and wellbeing working better together.

When we’re busy, we convince ourselves that we c

When we’re busy, we convince ourselves that we can’t do the things that we want to do.

We can’t see that friend because we don’t have time.

We can’t do something fun because we need to finish that project.

But the truth is that often the fun, relaxing or enjoyable things we are saying no to could be exact things we NEED to help us hit our goals.

Case in point:

This week I took some time to visit a wonderful client, who just so happens to run an amazing experience company in Yorkshire - @farmadventure

💁🏻‍♀️ yes, my clients are inescapably cool, I can’t help it.

I worked for the two days I was there and probably got more done than I did in the entire previous week.

Was it being surrounded by ADORABLE animals?

Maybe.

Was it because of the multiple hot tub sessions?

Potentially.

Was it the fresh air and the ability to get away from my usual routine.

Definitely.

Because that’s the thing we need to remember:

Our brains need rest in order to do their best work.

Let me repeat that:

Our brains NEED REST in order to do their best work.

I’ve had more creative breakthroughs, insights and business development ideas this week than I’ve had in a long time, and it’s because I gave my clunky, overworked brain the opportunity to switch off fully.

😆 Which, ironically, was exactly what it needed to fire back up again!

This is your Friday afternoon reminder to look after yourself this weekend.

Because you need it, and so does that big, beautiful brain of yours 💛

- ☕️ Alice x

🤔 When did you last take a break? • A lot of

🤔 When did you last take a break? •

A lot of us say we’re ‘too busy’ to take time out of our crazy work schedules.

Even though we know…

🎨 it helps with creativity

🧘 it let’s us relax and recharge

🔥 it keeps our minds sharp and body firing on all cylinders

🧑🏼‍💻 it’s amazing for focus and productivity

😁 it puts us in a better mood and makes us better to be around

🤷 and you know… it also just feels good!

I know it’s hard.

We’re not brought up in a culture that values wellbeing.

And we’ve been trained to treat ourselves like machines that can just endlessly churn shit out.

But in practice, we know that’s not true.

Irrespective of how busy you are right now, I challenge you to take some dedicated rest time over the weekend.

Whether it’s two days, one day or a few hours:

👉🏼 screens away

👉🏼 get some fresh air

👉🏼 thank me later

- ☕️ Alice

🎉 Wellbeing Icon of the week 💃 There are s

🎉 Wellbeing Icon of the week 💃

There are so many people doing great things in the wellbeing space that I thought I’d share some of them with you!

This week’s ‘Wellbeing Icon’ is Mike Richard at @talkaboutitmate (pictured here with the adorable Lenny 🐕)

@talkaboutitmate run FREE peer support groups both in-person across Manchester and virtually.

They started with men’s groups to encourage men to open up about their mental health and support each other in an encouraging and safe space.

Then through lockdown they expanded into women’s and mixed sessions due to popular demand!

They also have a podcast exploring some of the cool subjects that they approach in the sessions, as well as interviews with people sharing their mental health stories.

Follow, connect, chat, go to his events… all of the things!!

😊Thanks Mike for all your work and we’re chuffed to be supporting you at the Mental Health Meetup this month.

- ☕️ Alice

Real talk: working harder is not always the answer

Real talk: working harder is not always the answer.

In fact, if it feels that hard, then the chances are you already need to rest.

I get it - it feels counter-intuitive to take time away from work when you’ve got so much on.

There’s a horrible gut-wrenching feeling that if you step away for a few hours, everything will fall apart.

The work will stack up.

The deadlines will haunt your dreams.

Your clients will hate you!!!

Actually, it could be more harmful to keep going as you are.

If you’re not taking time away from your business, you could be massively reducing your efficacy in it.

Think of your brain like your web browser – the more things you’ve got going on, the more tabs you have open.

And we all know the more tabs we have open, the slower our laptop runs.

If you’re unlucky it might completely crash.

So, you need to run the basic maintenance checks to stop it from having a meltdown:

- shut it down properly at the end of the day

- run antiviral scans and system updates

- complete tasks and close tabs so your browser runs smoothly

Might be a naff analogy, but our brains are genuinely the same (albeit with thousands of times more processing power.)

We like to think we can just keep pushing forward with the bare minimum recharge time… but how often are you even giving yourself that?

Be honest!

How often do you actually CLOSE a tab by focusing on ONE task until it’s finished, instead of being distracted by another 20 things?

When did you last fully shut down and recharge by giving yourself an early finish on a Friday, going to sleep at a reasonable time, or maybe even having a WEEKEND OFF? Remember those???)

How many ‘system updates’ have you performed? Have you had that post-lockdown haircut, long-overdue dentist appointment or session with your personal trainer yet?

Investing a bit of time in yourself NOW can stop a bigger, more time-consuming system failure further down the line.

Consider this your nudge – what are you going to do this week to reset?

😎 If in doubt, follow our Julie and give fewer

😎 If in doubt, follow our Julie and give fewer fucks!

Easy to say and hard to do... so how can you do it?

1. CELEBRATE YOUR WINS

Often we’ll be wrapped up in problems and worries and anxieties that make us feel a desperate need to cling on to everything around us.

Giving fewer fucks means you have to let things go, rather than hold on.

And celebrating your successes and wins for the week can be a great place to start.

No matter how small the wins are, make the effort to recognise them and give yourself a bit of freaking credit.

2. ASK YOURSELF IT THAT THING REALLY MATTERS

Whatever that thing is that you’re really stressing over... is it really as scary as it feels in your head?

Sometimes it definitely will be - but maybe there’s another way to look at it that you haven’t thought about.

Grab a clever friend, talk it out and see if you can defuse the situation.

3. DENIAL IS YOUR FRIEND

No. Not forever, but sometimes putting your worries in a box and dealing with them later can be a great short-term mechanism.

Especially if you’re trying to focus.

Telling yourself “I’ll deal with that later” and even blocking ‘worry time’ in your calendar can be a great way to give fewer fucks in the moment (and maybe circle back to them later!)

💫 Happy Friday!

- ☕️ Alice

Want to get improve mental health in your workplac

Want to get improve mental health in your workplace?

💃 Then you need the Mental Health Meetup!

It’s a monthly, virtual networking event for mental health professionals (or people who want to meet them!)

Each month we’ll have a series of breakout rooms discussing the topic of the day.

You’ll get to meet some super cool people doing great work around wellbeing so you can share ideas, gain new knowledge and find out how to move to action.

Last time we spoke about how to move from mental health awareness into action and we came away with some absolute gems including:

💫 starting small

💫 being consistent

💫 embedding wellbeing practices into your workday as standard

💫 leading from the front

💫 investing in third parties

💫 asking your team how they want to be supported

Next week we’ll be talking about the language around mental health...

🤔 should we be calling or mental health or wellbeing? Or something completely different?

🤔 why do our words matter when it comes to supporting our teams?

🤔 how does the language help or hinder mental health conversations at work and beyond?

It’s a juicy subject put forward by the attendees, so I’m really excited to dive into it.

😊 will you be joining us?

Pay as you feel to support the event and our community partner @talkaboutitmate or come along for free 😊

📲 Link in the bio to come along!

- ☕️ Alice