So what do you tell somebody who's out there and they are really facing the same problem?

I would say that we need to think about what safe spaces we have.

We don't need too many safe spaces, but think about, is there someone I can trust? First, think perhaps about the workplace.

Do I have a colleague, one or two, who I feel I can trust? Is there someone I can start to open up with step by step to build some trust? And maybe that means going over a coffee or lunch, or maybe there's someone in HR or our boss who we can open up to.

So that's inside the workplace.

And then think about externally.

Do I have some friends who I can trust? Someone, even one or two who I can have a conversation with to share what's happening in my life? And then otherwise also think through perhaps all the colleagues you had in the past, old mentors, old bosses, and so on.

To stay informed about serious side effects, go to roe.co slash safety.

What have you been doing since? Where has the last eight years taken you?

Yeah, so let's go back then to the first year of recovery.

So I kept just doing what I share there.

I kept coming to meetings, start working with a sponsor.

I also start to work with coaches, working on myself.

I start to be vulnerable with my mentors and asking for help and getting myself into another job as well.

And working on myself getting the sport sorted out I was struggling with my marathons and triathlons now having a coach there as well being vulnerable not grinding through but actually asking for help there so really sorting myself out and then Just after about one year sober and one year in recovery, something happened that changed my life forever again.

What would you recommend to that person?

But what else can we do to help with loneliness, like to help prevent loneliness?

Yeah, and I think there's been a lot of talk and understanding that we need physical health and then it's been mental health.

And I say that now is really the time to think about social health and that is, you know, to overcome the loneliness, especially for someone who, like you and like me, is working online and do the most of the connections there.

I say we need to be very disciplined about structuring our days and weeks so that we get social connection and social health built into it.

So where I'm today is my back office.

You could say it's where I prepare my sessions.

And when I do admin work and all these kinds of things, and I'm in Phuket, Thailand, and I base myself in an Ironman training camp here.

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Give us an example, if you could, Nick, of what some of the open conversation topics with your 17-year-old son might include.

For a start, I have completely owned my alcohol addiction to him and made amends for that because I was a distant, lousy father for two, three years when I couldn't be there for him.

So I made full amends on that.

I take an ownership for what's there, explained what happened, and he appreciate that part.

So I've been an open book within what happened in my life.

And I said, I'm sorry I didn't show up at that time.

But I'm here now.

take us through those those five steps if you could

And do you see a rise in the work that you're doing in terms of men in these areas where they don't quite know where they should be, who they should be? So is that tide rising? And then the second part I was going to say with that was, nowadays especially with social media you see so many people online coaches and there's coaches left right and center largely unqualified who are giving out often i see information that's been spread online you've got oh my god that is just really not a nice message so is it becoming more of an issue for men and then secondly how do we regulate or police that when people maybe are giving out advice that maybe is not really proper advice

Yeah, wonderful question.

I think an important conversation to have.

So as a start, yes, more men are having these conversations.

More men are reaching out.

I'm getting almost daily messages, emails, connection calls with men who perhaps are 40, 50 or 60 years of age who has never worked with a therapist or a coach personally all their life.

Maybe they've had some professionally in the career allocated by the company, but not someone they ever appointed by themselves to work on their life.

Would you have any advice for them right now? What would be the first step on the pathway to them to go down that kind of road to, I don't want to dare say enlightenment or to be better, but If somebody is struggling, what would you say is the first thing that they should do?

Um, how did that ex- that experience change your outlook and perspective on leadership?

Yeah, it, it hit me by surprise when I went through a difficult time.

I was already, before this, a high-performing executive, and I was an athlete as well.

I was running marathons, complete- competing in Ironman events.

I had it all going for me.

Uh, suddenly though, I, I started to question myself.

I thought maybe I should have another job, I deserve something better.

It would have resonated with me at some point, for sure.

It's all about these principles, but is it more specifically about the leader?

Yeah, so basically I started to write the book in 2019.

So I'm one year into my recovery, and something has happened here.

Because at that time I lived in my own world with the recovery.

A few people close to me knew that I was in recovery.

My parents knew at the time.

A- my closest friends, recovery community.

Could you talk to the listener maybe briefly that is maybe suicidal and what they need to do to realize that this is somewhat normal for them as well?

What advice would you have to someone who's fearful of opening up?

Yeah, I think first we need to be careful of not oversharing.

I know there's a lot of talk about vulnerability and it's not sexy to come into the office and spray out over all your colleagues, all the shit that has happened on the weekend and all the drama and personal things that someone might have gone through.

That's not what we're talking about here.

It's about finding a couple of safe spaces.

And as we discussed earlier, it might not be anyone in the office that we feel safe with.

But we can be curious.

How do we encourage people to, how do we become a welcoming person that someone can come and share with us, you know, to us?

What, at what point did you decide something needs to change?

Well, I remember 2018 on my birthday, May 1, I just had enough.

It was just the body was breaking down.

It was burning.

I had such a heartburn.

I was coughing.

And sometimes when I tried to exercise, I lost my voice instead.

around to the shame of having to drink more than you want people to know you're drinking.

Are there benefits to having connection as a skill, as a leader or business owner, when our world is changing so much?

Yeah, certainly.

I mean, we have to remember that we are social animals or social beings, and for that, connection is a big part of our health.

And there is this wave now talking about social health.

We understand that physical health is important.

With this been also the last decade has been about mental health.

But more and more now we talk about social health, and what is social health? Well, it is to hel- have a healthy connection with the people around us.

How do I connect with my team so that I can have a team that can thrive over time?

Tell me exactly how this all came about.

Yeah, so from that time in the advertising and PR agencies, I climbed the corporate ladder.

Looking back at it, you could almost say elbowing my way up to the top because it is competitive.

And I love the money.

I love the promotion.

So I was going for it.

And I studied how to climb it.

What was the catalyst for that? for writing this book? And why did you feel like you had to get it out?

How do you start to help people embrace vulnerability in a way that doesn't make them feel weak or shameful or doubtful of themselves?

Yeah.

What I do when I do my workshops and keynotes, I share my story, the Nick who wasn't vulnerable, and that was not pretty.

I actually went down the rabbit hole myself by not being vulnerable, and that was led to my corporate career and the crash of it.

I even fell over to alcoholism for some time.

I gained about 50, 60 pounds.

I became a very unhealthy person for the simple reason that I wasn't vulnerable.

Are there any other kinda specific to this moment in time things that people are coming up to you about?