Despite a growing body of research on mental fitness, there remains a significant gap between theoretical understanding and practical application. That’s why in Bizpedia, mental fitness has long been a key subject.
In this article, two Bizpedia members share how they bridge the divide between advice about mental health, and practical application, in the sincere hope that their experience will help other members to feel a greater sense of happiness and fulfilment.
What do we mean by the term ‘mental fitness’?
Mental fitness is the ability to manage thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in a way that promotes overall wellbeing. It encompasses cognitive functions like problem-solving, memory, and attention, as well as emotional resilience, stress management, and positive coping mechanisms. Mental fitness is essential for leading a fulfilling and productive life, and it’s certainly important in building and sustaining a successful company.
Why do people find it hard to understand, and to practice?
Many individuals are aware of the importance of mental health and fitness, but struggle to implement effective strategies in their daily lives This may be because they are not aware that they have poor mental health; they may have limited access to resources, and probably most importantly of all, societal stigma surrounding mental health issues means it feels easiest to ignore the subject. In Bizpedia we want to bridge this gap, promote mental well-being, improve our members’ overall quality of life and equip them to spread mental fitness amongst their families, colleagues and friends.
Here’s why two Bizpedia members practice mental fitness, and how they do it.
Shaun Ramazannezhad
Shaun joined the Winchester group just over a year ago. Having taken a law degree, he realised he didn’t want to become a lawyer, and fell into an ‘accidental’ and highly successful nine-year career in food manufacturing, before in 2020 qualifying as a financial planner. He now offers a high value personal service for business leaders and their families, and his success is due in no small measure to his rigorous adherence to his mental health strategy.
He joined the food manufacturing industry as a result of a family friend inviting him to take a supply chain role in a company they had just acquired as part of a larger group. He was part of a team charged with bringing about change, and within nine months, he had become manager of the department. Within just over three years he took on a Continuous Improvement Manager role, followed by a regional role as continuous improvement manager and for four years, he virtually lived in hotels. During this period, he met his now wife, and whilst he enjoyed the travel and the challenge, the novelty wore off. He realised he only saw his girlfriend at weekends, and looking ahead, it was only going to get worse. If he took on the next promotion, it would cement him to the company for too many more years.
An old university friend introduced him to the financial advice organisation St. James’s Place (SJP), and before long, he was offered a place in the organisation’s academy where he was supported to qualify as one of their financial planners.
Everything was ten times harder…
So, one momentous Friday, he left his job, moved from Eastbourne to Southampton where his girlfriend lived, and by the Monday he had become self-employed and started at the SJP academy in London. He was planning to travel to London daily to study – then Covid happened, and the learning went online.
Soon, he was able to start giving advice – and had zero clients.
“Everything was ten times harder than I expected. It took ten times longer, and it was ten times more complex that I ever imagined,” he says. “20 people were in my cohort in the SJP academy, and a few of them ended up going back to their old jobs.
“We had done role plays as part of our learning, but I soon discovered these didn’t reflect how people actually interact with you in the big wide world. Even when everything seemed logical and made sense, it still didn’t always work. I took it very personally when things didn’t go right, because I put my heart and soul into every case. The first few times I was devastated; it used to stress me out.”
So, what enabled Shaun to stick with it and become the highly valued advisor he is today, supporting a growing number of clients?
Partly family support, for sure. His Dad had been self-employed for thirty years or so; two of his sisters are self-employed and they, along with his brother-in-law helped him to rationalise what was happening. His wife gave him massive support, taking on certain responsibilities to free Shaun to concentrate on his new role.
Whilst this kind of support is invaluable, it’s still up to the individual to take responsibility for their own results, and Shaun embarked on strengthening his capacity to control stress.
“I didn’t do a great deal of reading before, and mainly using audio I read many, many books that taught me how to manage. I learned to ask myself when things went wrong, “Has anyone died? Has anyone lost any money?’ The answer has always been ‘no’ to both questions and I still ask it now; it increasingly dilutes the effect that stressful situations have on me.
“I know rationally that nothing good ever comes out of negative thinking and the more I practice, I better and faster I can combat it.
The best and worst things to do when you’re stressed.
“The best thing to do is to ‘get back on the horse’ and use positive thoughts to take the emotion out of a situation. For example, I tell myself, ‘It’s not just me, it’s other people as well’, and ‘Most things are completely outside my control, so let me focus on what I can control.’
“When I am out networking or visiting a client, I know those around me pick up on different energies, and this motivates me to keep my energy good.
“I have learned that the worst thing I can do is sit, depressed, having negative thoughts, generating negative energy. Nothing good is going to come out of that state. The more I repeat the process of replacing negative ideas with positive thoughts, the less something has an effect on me.”
How exactly does Shaun do this? “The process starts when I recognise that I am having the reaction I don’t want. I notice that I feel down, demotivated. I recognise it, am aware of it. Then, I talk to myself, or sometimes I talk to my wife. I ask myself something like, ‘Have I got loads of other good things coming up?’ Before I started regularly working on my thoughts, my whole weekend would have been ruined by a knock back. I could not get out of the negative state. I wouldn’t feel great again until Monday afternoon, when things around me and the passing of time had brought me back to positivity. Now the ‘down’ state might last about an hour at most. For example, on a Friday afternoon a bad thing happens. By Friday evening, I am fine. My strategies are more efficient now and indeed, I go back stronger thanks to a knock back. I turn the negative into something that has a positive effect. So, if I am feeling frustration, I turn the thought into energy by thinking ‘I will show them!’
“It’s like exercising your muscles, the last few repetitions are the ones that make the change happen in your body. So, the last few thoughts might be the ones that alter your neural pathways from negative to positive.”
Shaun explains that he sometimes falls back to old negative ways – there are times when he doesn’t use the approach, and some things still hit him harder than others. He explains, “It’s not always easy speaking to other people, and I continue to consume a lot of business books, which also make me feel better. I haven’t read a single book where someone has been through an easy journey. These authors give me reassurance, that what I am doing is normal, and in fact, it would be weird if I didn’t experience downs.”
Shaun explains, “I take the best bits out of each book I read, and my current strong recommendation is The Wealth Money Can’t Buy, by Robin Sharma. I have spoken to a few people who have successfully sold their companies. You’d think they would be over the moon, but they described their lives as lost; they had a total lack of purpose. I thought, ‘Wow you have achieved what most of us want to do’, and it shocked me, it just did not make sense. They were not my clients, and I made my mind up that I don’t want any of my clients to feel badly like this when they reach their goals.”
So, he ran an event for clients and their guests, where he told them, “Whatever I help you to achieve wealth wise, it won’t be enough.” He explained that the book breaks down wealth into eight parts, with financial wealth being only one part, and gave each participant a copy of the book.
It was so successful that he is now looking at running the event again next year, with the aim of adding as much value as possible. “I ask myself how I can make the next 12 months better, and I am curious to try new ideas.”
Shaun’s mental fitness isn’t only in his mind, of course. He says, “I have been going to the gym four or so times a week for 17 years now. Weight training is my stress release; it gets me out of bed, releases endorphins, energises me for the day. If I start the day feeling more energised, I can attack the day more positively. In the gym I drink a litre of water so by the time I leave, I am already halfway to the recommended intake – it hydrates the brain
I make sure I don’t go to bed too late because sleep is massively important; I make sure I get at least seven hours, possibly eight.
“I make sure I take supplements, to get my body into optimum performance, and I eat good foods that stop me feeling lethargic and changes my mentality and I don’t get ill that often.
Finally, every night for the last four years. my wife and I ask each other to name three things we are grateful for today, and one thing we are looking forward to tomorrow. This manifests good in the brain whilst we are asleep.”
Kaz Downing
“When I was 14, someone close to me took their own life,” Kaz says, “and looking back, it was the trigger that made me want to listen to people and support them. If that person had just had someone to talk to, they may still be here.”
Years later, when Kaz was working in accountancy for Skandia, the greater sensitivity that she had now developed towards others, made her realise that people around her were nearly always stressed about their financials, and as a result, she decided to train as a Chartered Financial Planner.
As a new IFA in 2018, Kaz’s approach to her own mental fitness changed quite drastically in 2018, a close friend went through a terrible divorce, and tried to commit suicide. Happily, the friend sent a text, so their family could get there in time to prevent a tragedy, and is now confident being single, but Kaz reflects, “I never wanted anyone to go through that again. I became acutely aware of my need to be strong mentally, to enable people to unburden to me; for me to be a safe space for them.
“When stress hits me, it’s awful. I get claustrophobic, dizzy, and almost watch myself living my life. I know if I get palpitations they don’t go away until I step back and take a break. I have worked very hard at overcoming this and these days, I appreciate the stresses I have been through because they have made me very strong mentally.
Precious times of the day
“As I know many IFA’s will attest, clients pour out lots of worries to us – not just about money – and I personally get very involved in them. To make sure it doesn’t take its toll on me I have become very disciplined about making sure my own ‘cup is not full’, so I have room for the waves of negative emotion coming at me from others.
“So, in the week, my mornings are precious, extremely so. I used to say ‘yes’ to everything, then realised I needed to curb this tendency. From 6 a.m. until at least 8 a.m.., I say ‘no’ to everything. Instead of getting straight into work, I have coffee, I read a few pages from a business book, (currently The Commando Mindset by Ben Williams), I take the dog for a walk with no distractions, I listen to nature, always conscious of the need to stop the otherwise constant noise. I take care to be ‘in the moment’ and it doesn’t matter if it’s raining. The impact of getting out is so strong that very little will get in the way of it.
“Then, I will do yoga for half an hour three times a week, to counter the fact that I will be on my bum for most of the rest of the day. In the mornings also, I put my phone on ‘do not disturb’, so I no longer go down the rabbit hole of Instagram – I used to think I had to keep up with it all, but of course that’s not true.
“After work, particularly if I have had a stressful day, I make sure my evenings are free for belly laughs with friends and my husband. I love being happy within my support network.”
Kaz has a relatively small number of people that she is very close to, and each seems to have a fairly specific role in her life.
“I have two very best friends from school and both still live near me. They are very different people. One is a go-getter, a great mother, she’s organised and on top of things. If I am angry about something, she will put lots of energy into cheerleading me. I can lean on my other best friend by going round to see her in my pj’s and lay on her sofa with a bottle of wine and watch crap movies together.
“My husband is a vital support to me; for example, in the evenings we nearly always go for a ‘walk and talk’ and download stuff from our respective days.”
The couple’s garage is converted to a gym and at least twice a week, they work out together, pushing each other along to make sure they feel good about themselves.
“If I have business questions, I go to my dad, he is a typical farmer in that he would never say something is wrong with him, but when I have a concern, he will question me whether I like it or not! He makes me think about things I may not have thought of.
“My mum will just feed me wine, which is great!”
As Kaz winds down at the end of a day, she reads fiction, something that she can really get her teeth into such as fantasy sci fi, horror or a thriller.
She knows that physical health is tied very strongly to mental fitness and is really conscious of ‘not eating processed food’, and her husband shares this very health-conscious approach.
“I bake fresh bread every Saturday, all our vegetables come from the farm or the garden so it’s all seasonal. I buy meat from proper butchers, fish from independent fishmongers and we never have takeaways; we always cook from scratch although it’s my husband who is the chef of the household.”
Kaz has other outlets too. She has played the piano on and off since she was seven. More recently she has decided to use the piano much more as a way of learning something completely different from her normal life, so has been taking weekly piano lessons and loving the practice in between.
She does watch TV, but she finds it’s not enough just to sit there, so whilst watching she colours in by numbers, liking to be told where to colour and what to do.
“I don’t like targets, I don’t like focusing on money, money, money. My aim is to be in partnership with someone or run my own business, and when I take people on, I want to make sure that they don’t have to go through the stress I went through at the beginning.”
Have you some of your own tips for staying strong?
Please let us know if you have a specific tip or philosophy that would help fellow members when they are feeling alone, stressed and generally down. We will share them here.