Mens Health Awareness Month

Men’s mental health is an important issue, yet discussions around it can be hard to start, which is why last month I hosted a panel event to coincide with Men’s Health Awareness Month.

After the event I caught up with one of the panellists, Adam Whittaker of Admia, to explore how he finds running his own business, the pressures men face, and how men are represented in media.

Adam Whittaker

So, can you firstly tell me a little bit about yourself and Admia?

I've been in marketing nearly 25 years now.

For the first 10 years of those, working for various organisations, including the NHS, defence companies. hospitality companies, and for the Royal Albert Hall. And then 10 years ago, nearly, I set up my business, Admia.

A lot of my work is one-on-one consultancy with small businesses and small business owners. I run workshops for various organisations across the UK for small businesses and aspiring small business owners. I’ve also worked with homeless organisations, working with young people who are looking to set up their own business when their circumstances change. I go into prisons to do workshops with people who are looking to go self-employed when they get released. I work on a longer-term basis with businesses from a strategic point of view or as an advisor to their board.

Okay, so quite varied then.

Very varied. That's one of the things that I love about the job, really, is that it is very varied.

And that was my next question, what is it that you love most about your work?

I think when things work. And I know that might sound a bit strange, but I spend a lot of my time running virtual workshops, so I'm almost talking into a void sometimes and you don't really get to see with a lot of the virtual workshops what happens from there.

I got an email yesterday from someone who’d been on my workshop a few weeks ago, who was talking to me about how things have changed, and how they'd taken on board what I'd said in the workshop, and how it had worked, and just hearing little things like that can be so rewarding. Because when you're working one-on-one with a client, it's different, but when you're running 2-3 virtual workshops a week, I love when I know that even if it's just one little bit of my advice has really helped somebody. So that's probably the thing I love the most.

And as I've just said the fact that I get to work with a really broad range of people on a daily basis, everything from a security business to a hospitality company to a chef, which is nice.

So one of the things is that it's very much about seeing the difference that you make?

Very much so. I think it's key, really, that I feel like I am making a bit of a difference, and hopefully as I say, even if it's just one little piece of advice that someone takes away from one of my workshops, and it means that they do things differently, or it helps their business be successful. Or it gets them on the road to setting up the business if they were thinking about it, and it reaffirms that decision to do it, then that's what makes it all worthwhile.

 And then what are the challenges?

I'm not getting any younger and it's quite a young people's game, which, in some respects, plays to my advantage in that I knew the world before social media and I worked in marketing before social media.  I kind of hope that that brings a different kind of angle to the way people might look at their marketing so it isn't just about social media. There is so much more that we can be doing to fit to our strengths and the business’s strengths so it's not about being pressured into “You’ve got to be on TikTok” and that kind of thing. So, although I do look around when I go networking or to some events at people doing similar to me, I think it can be to my advantage.

Plus, I think one of the other main challenges is that the marketing landscape is changing all the time with AI, new social media platforms, and the social media platforms that we've currently got evolving almost on a daily basis with changes in algorithms, so it can be quite hard to keep on top of it all. But again, I try and use that social media isn't your marketing strategy; it's part of it and for some people, it's going to be a much bigger part than others. But it still doesn't mean that you should discount all those other tools that we've got available to us.

Talking about different platforms and keeping up with the changes in social media leads nicely onto one of my other questions, which is, social media can be really useful, but it can also have its downsides, so what do you think that we can do to make sure that it's being used in a positive way?

I think you're right about the downsides; there's so many. 

It's very interesting to see the current legislation that they're bringing in in Australia, and France will probably follow suit, for no social media for under-16s. I don't know how they're going to enforce it, but there is so much toxic stuff out there on numerous levels, whether it's the high level kind of Andrew Tate stuff, right the way down to just people's perceptions of other people on social media.

But I think there are lots of positives. For example, with what you do, you may be able to get in front of potential people that need your help and support, who you may not be able to reach if it wasn't for social media.

I think also using communities and groups on there to engage is really crucial, and I always think back to when I did my NHS work. We were doing a lot of work around sexual health services and around younger people's health generally, and we were able to talk some young people in to see our GPs and into our clinics that I don't think we would have been able to have done if it hadn't been for Facebook.

We could go into schools and do outreach work, but none of them would come up to us and then talk to us or go and talk to their parents where they needed their parents’ support to be referred in to see a clinician. However, through social media we were able to have some conversations, which is the better side of this stuff.

I also think it can help with the aspirational side of things - that instead of looking at the negatives of people putting out this perfect life - from a business perspective, it shows that you work hard and you can take that dream or that passion project and turn it into a business.

So, there are the positives and there are the negatives, and although we can get obsessed with the negatives, there is some good stuff out there.

November was Men's Health Awareness Month, and you were part of the Breaking the Silence panel event, where we explored why men struggle to seek help, how we can challenge stigma, and practical ways to support men’s wellbeing. In terms of your experience in marketing do you think that the way that men are represented on social media, or just generally, affects how open they feel about talking about their health and mental health in particular?

Again, I think there are some positives and some negatives.

I know we talked on the panel around things like high-profile men quite openly discussing their mental health on social media, which I think is a good thing. It shows that even celebrities, sportsmen, and sportswomen, can be vulnerable.

I think, though, it's that thing again of where you have got your Lawrence Foxes and your Andrew Tates and some of these people who are trying to define a toxic masculinity, that will deter younger men  and boys from talking about their mental health, because it's seen as not masculine, whatever that word means, and it's not the thing they should do as a man. They shouldn't be emotional, they should be like it used to be years and years ago - this stereotypical breadwinner - and I think that side of it is just incredibly damaging.

I think another perception of men can be, almost man to man is where I see it in marketing, is where you've got some people on social media, who are so incredibly confident in the way they approach social media, with the way they're promoting their business, or themselves so they come across on LinkedIn and different platforms as just this incredible personality and they're getting all these likes. And I think that this can have a detrimental effect on the mental health of other people in the way that they are thinking  “Why aren't I getting these likes?” and “Why can't I be like this guy that I'm seeing who's so incredibly confident on camera.”

However, there is the also aspirational side, and there is some good stuff that has been done around men’s health. We talked on the panel around the Norwich City video, which was just absolutely superb. But I think social media is just the start. I think there's so much more work that needs to be done on the ground and at a community level for support for younger men, in particular. That's where the work's got to be done. If we can get some positive messaging out there, it doesn't become almost jingoistic and commercial, it's actually meaningful mental health conversation.

So my next question is who or what inspires you?

I listen to a lot of podcasts, Mel Robbins, Rangan Chatterjee, people who I think are incredibly eloquent but talk a lot of sense, and it isn't that kind of commercial jingoistic claptrap that you sometimes hear. So, I listen to a lot of podcasts which inspire me.

But then I've got some incredible people around me that inspire me as well. You inspire me, the work that you do which I couldn't do and I think how you approach it in the way that you do is just inspirational. I get a lot from people that I work with.

And then some of the guys on the panel that we had last week I find incredibly inspirational. It's not necessarily the high-ticket people that really inspire me, it's people that I can see doing what they can for the people they're working with, like yourself, and it isn't  - we've all got to make money - but it's not necessarily a commercial thing, it's more about giving something back and the caring thing, and I find that incredibly inspirational.

You mentioned there about the commercial side but also about giving something back, which I think ties in with the next question, in terms of what does success look like for you?

Well, if I can continue to pay the mortgage, then that's a success in some respects but also continuing to enjoy what I do.  I'm very lucky that I get to meet so many people and I get to work with some great people.

I think next year, for me, success will be very much based on accessibility.  I really want to make the work that I do as accessible to as many people as possible, and I'm not just saying that because it’s particularly good work, which I hope it is, but the fact that I think there are so many people out there that are unable to access some of the support that we can give them.

When I did the work in prisons some of the ideas that they had were just incredible for their own businesses when they were released, but the fact that their support societally and financially is so limited got me thinking how can I help these guys make those ideas come to fruition.

But I also think there's a lot of people who are stuck in the Monday to Friday routine to make that first bit of success to pay the mortgage, that have got ideas, side hustles and things that they may not be able to concentrate on because they've got to pay the bills, and they then can't come on a workshop with me at 10 o'clock in the morning because they're in a Monday to Friday 9 to 5.

Then, as I said, with communities such as the homeless, veterans, those struggling with PTSD, if there are places where they can come together, where they've got these ideas for the businesses they want to really give a good go of, then if I can help make it accessible in some way.

That was an incredibly long-winded way of saying success next year is that I just want to get my work in front of as many people as I can and make my work as accessible to as many people as I can. But as I say, you can't get away from the fact that you've got to pay the bills, so that's obviously got to define some of the success as well.

In terms of that accessibility, I know that one thing that you're working on, or it might even actually have launched, is an online course.

Yeah, it's been delayed slightly, but I am working on an online course.   I've been heavily criticised from people for how much I'm charging because I want to keep the costs down.

You see some things like a LinkedIn workshop in Manchester a few weeks ago that was something like £200 for an hour which isn't accessible  - that's big corporate stuff - so the course which I’m hoping will launch next week is a 4-hour downloadable course that people can work through in their own time. It goes through everything from the very essence of marketing through social media, marketing strategy, etc.

You sound very busy, Adam, so how do you maintain a good work-life balance, whatever that might be, and what do you do for self-care?

I walk a lot. I live in Ancoats, so I'm lucky to have the River Medlock not far from me, and I try and get down there every morning if I can. You wouldn't know looking at me, but I do go to the gym 5 or 6 times a week but that's more for my mental health, actually, than it is for my physical health - it's my time, it's my hour where I can switch off, listen to podcasts, I'm not really worrying about stuff, and I can focus on me.

I journal every day just to try and reset. I think we don't give ourselves enough credit sometimes for how hard we work, whether we're self-employed or not, we always tend to lean towards the negatives, “Well, I didn't get that done today, and I didn't get that done today” rather than actually  “I did get that done”.  Sometimes it's just the small wins that I think we lose. You said about the course - my intention was to launch the course a week ago - and I've kind of berated myself for not doing it, but on the other hand, it's not that it doesn't matter, but it's I'm still doing it, so that's the win. So I journal every day as well, just to give myself a bit of a reset, and also to take that step back and go “You are ticking things off on the to-do list” even though that to-do list grows longer and longer every day!

I think also appreciating the things that you've got helps. When you asked me about what success looks like, in some ways, I don't think we live in the present perhaps as much as we should, and realise what we've got now. That's the other thing with the journaling, when you reflect back on one year, two years ago to where I am now. But instead, we tend to look forward, don't we? And it's kind of like, “Well, where do I want to be in 12 months?” and “Where do I see myself?” and the whole manifestation stuff, which is great, you've got to be aspirational, you've got to have something to aim for, but I sometimes think we don't celebrate what we've got right now, and where we are right now. One of the things I journal every day is something that I truly appreciate and that could be family, it could be friends, it could be opportunity, it could be anything, but it means that you can actually go, “Hang on a minute, even when things can feel a bit tough, you're doing alright.”

And then finally, what advice would you have given to your younger self?

I think some of it comes back to that - always give yourself more credit.

I'm not saying big yourself up all the time, but I think the majority of us spend our time constantly criticising ourselves for one thing or another, when actually there's absolutely no need. Whatever point it is in your life, you're very often looking at the negative, and I’d loved to have thought to myself  “You're actually doing better than you think.”

But I also think that you never know how this stuff's all going to work out. I desperately wanted to be a teacher and I remember my sixth form tutor telling me, “No, you're much better at economics - you should go and study economics.” I went to university, studied economics, and hated it. But then, 30 years later, I am, I guess, a teacher.

So, at that time, the bitterness and the anger and the resentment was that someone's stopped me from doing what I want to do. Well, it's kind of all worked out, and in my 50s, I'm probably a far better teacher than I ever would have been in my 20s, because of everything I've done and everything that I've learned.

###It was at this point that the roles reversed, and I found myself answering Adam’s questions for his blog ###

What about you? You asked about next year and what success will look like. What plans have you got for next year?

I think, for me, I have to really separate out in my own head, and sometimes ask myself that same question, what does success mean to me?

Because I think I can be drawn to thinking that success means how much money I'm making - which, obviously, I've got to pay my bills - but I also forget that success might be about, or is a big part of why I do the work that I do, seeing the difference that I make. So I think from that point of view, it's to continue to keep on doing the work.

In terms of the more monetary success, next year may be about building on the foundation of this year and maintaining it. However, something that I'm still weighing up is.... I do quite a lot of work in the employee assistance arena and one thing that I'm actively looking at the moment is developing my own mini Employee Assistance Program for local businesses in Manchester.

Does that mean that you'll be able to switch off over Christmas, or are you one of these people that cannot switch off, or will you be able to get some downtime?

It's a mixture of all three; because I think as a business owner I have to be quite firm about giving myself time off and actively blocking it out in my diary, because I find that if I don't do that there’s a temptation that if somebody says, “Are you available next week?”, I go “oh, I could fit you in there.” So I have blocked out the whole two weeks of Christmas, that is on the one hand thinking about it being that time to rest and sort of reset.

But on the other hand, there's also the awareness that Christmas can be quite a busy time with family and friends, which is something that I enjoy, but actually doesn't necessarily mean that I'm resting.

And then the other thing that I'm doing to myself is thinking “oh, if I’ve got that time off, that would be a really good time to get those plans more concrete” but already I know I can't do all those things over 2 weeks!

Do you think, though, from a professional point of view, that you're always thinking about other people, because that's what your job is all about? So will you be thinking about those that may be feeling very low, or lonely, or challenged over Christmas because of personal circumstances?  And I don't mean this coldly or clinically, or are you able to switch off and  get yourself away from it?”

I think a mixture of the two in that obviously doing the work that I do, I'm very aware of how difficult the Christmas period can be for people, whether that's loneliness, difficult family dynamics, being estranged from your family, being bereaved. So I'm aware of that and it does give me that appreciation. Certainly it's something that comes up and I suppose, a bit like when you work in retail, Christmas comes up earlier as a presenting issue in counselling, when even around September, October time people may be already thinking about Christmas.

In terms of switching off, without being cold and clinical, I always do have people in mind, and it may be that if there's been a particularly difficult session, it might be harder to switch off, but there are things that I've learned to do as a professional that help me with that switching off.

So one of the things that actually helps me most on a day-to-day basis is almost that psychological transition between work and home, which now I'm working in Manchester, I do get practically, because I've got the commute home. But one thing for me is always making sure that I've written up my notes for the day because in some ways, that's signalling to me that, yes, I do care, and I have done the work, but I'm not going to then take that work home with me.

The other thing that's really important to me, which is something that is mandated by my professional body, is that I have to have clinical supervision and although part of that, or a big part of that, is about professional ethics and making sure I'm working ethically and responsibly, it’s also a time and space for if something is affecting me or I am worrying about a client, that is a space where I can go and talk about that. So there are those, I suppose safety net things for me, which help me be a bit more able to switch off.

I interviewed you for my website back during the pandemic because you were giving advice around how small business owners, because we were both small business owners as well, could deal with the stresses at that time. Since the pandemic have you seen a massive shift in the way your work is, because obviously it changed during the pandemic considerably, because there was no face-to-face and so on. Do you think that's had a knock-on effect with clients that you may see now and that it's still kind of playing a role?

I think so. In some ways, it's still the same, so I'm still doing similar work and all the same issues are still there that there were before the pandemic, but I think it is inevitable that there is some hangover from that, and even, I think there can be a sense now that the pandemic's over and in the past, and maybe people don't appreciate, how much of a big transitional period that was.

I think, for people who had anxiety to begin with, and especially around health anxiety actually it's been quite hard to manage that afterwards, because in terms of challenging anxiety, some of that is about looking for evidence that contradicts your worry, and yet during the pandemic, we were given all these messages about how, rightly so at the time, you need to wash your hands, you need to wear face masks, you need to socially distance yourself from other people and your mind doesn't go, one day we're doing that, and now we're not. It can take a little while for that transition to happen.

During the pandemic, I think there was also suddenly the reality that we're less in control of our lives than we thought. The plans that we make and assume are going to happen – a lot of those had to be put on hold - and I think people can be, maybe without realising it, not planning as far ahead or may be worried about making plans, because that veil has been lifted.  Where we thought we were in control of our lives, which to some degree we are, like what cereal we might eat, or that sort of thing, it's been a big reminder of actually how much is outside our control.

Do you think you've seen any evidence of isolation, because so many more people are still remote working and a lot of people I speak to, find it sometimes can be incredibly isolating when you work for yourself, because you can go days without speaking to anyone apart from family? I wondered if you’d seen that as well, that there are some people that are struggling because of the remote working side of things - there isn't the water cooler chat in the morning, and there isn't you know that kind of thing?

It's one of those that is that mixed experience in that remote working for some people has been really positive.

In lots of professions, before the pandemic, it was like “We could never work remotely”. Counselling is one of them – although there was some video counselling, and I did do some video counselling  - I think there was still a bit of a reticence or a feeling that somehow video counselling was less than in person counselling.

Going back to something like my previous career of law, I think very much law was a profession where everybody had to be in the office at least 9 till 5, if not 9 till midnight or 9 until the early hours of the morning, and suddenly being forced to go remote has shown that it's possible.  So I think for some people it's been a real benefit.

For other people, though, exactly, as you said, it can be very isolating. I think particularly for junior members of staff, where, without realising it, a lot of your learning is by osmosis through being in the environment, it's been a lot harder.

But what I would say is that what I find doesn't work is organisations mandating it one way or the other, so either saying you must work from home 100% of the time, or everyone’s got to be back in the office, or even 50-50. I think it's about that wherever it is practical, and I know there's some occupations like healthcare e.g. doctors, nurses, etc where there isn't that option, but where it is the option, I think it's about making sure your offices are staffed,  but working with your staff to find out what works for them, rather than saying, “You've got to be in on a Tuesday and a Thursday” and actually there's no real reason for that.

And just bringing it to my world as well, we work closely together on marketing and social media, but what are the things that really you find challenging - I mean, I know the answer, but I'm going to let you answer it - what you find challenging, Susan, from a marketing perspective?

You know there's a lot that I find challenging from a marketing point of view, and I think one of them is that double-edged sword between knowing that the whole point of marketing is to make myself more visible but actually not really wanting to be more visible. So, obviously, I want what I do and my business to be visible, but there's that reticence about making myself visible. So I think that's a constant battle.

I do challenge myself, maybe not as consistently as everyone else, to put a video out, or put a photograph on some platform, which I think before we were working together, I would have talked myself out of and never done, however since we have been working together, I have been doing more of that.

And then the other thing is consistency. So, I recognise that I'm not always consistent, and some of that can be quite often overthinking the content - we've talked about that - in terms of me thinking “Well, what do I say?” and “How do I put it?” and that sort of thing. Then the other challenge can be time. So, over the last week and a half, I've realised I've not posted very much, but I've been really, really busy and just trying to find that time where I put a post on LinkedIn, or do a video on Instagram, it's been quite hard to find that extra time for it as well.

I had someone I chatted to the other day who said I've only been getting 2 or 3 likes on my posts over the last few weeks. I went  “Are you busy?” And they went, “I'm absolutely rushed off my feet, I can't do anymore.” And I'm like, “Well, there you go, then. Don't worry about it.” But again, I think this is some of the preconceptions that are forced upon us that we should be posting 3 times a day, we should be doing this, and we should be doing that. There is so much pressure out there to be and do things in a certain way. And I often use you as an example with other people I speak to, in that you're not going to get thousands of likes on a post, you're not going to get people in the comments going, “I'm so glad you said this, Susan, because I'm really struggling at the minute.” That's not what a lot of people are going to do. They're not going to be public, you just hope it evokes thoughts or emotions or feelings in people that then will get them to pick up the phone or email you. You can't expect your whole counselling session to play out on a LinkedIn post. It just isn't like that but we tend to think “Well, I'm only getting 3 likes at the minute”. So what? That doesn't tell you how many people have actually seen it or thought about it, or they've gone and told somebody else and said "I saw this post the other day from… her name's Susan Carr, and she's a counsellor, and she was talking about what you were talking to me about……" you just don't know that someone's going to go away and tell somebody else. I think they should ban social media for under 60s to be quite honest, never mind under 16!

I was going to say - I can't say that I'm completely over this - but I have definitely got much better now at not being bothered by how few likes I get. Now my thinking is more around if I've set myself not so much a goal, but, if I’ve said to myself “Right, this week I'm going to do this post on X subject” and I do the post, my reward is the fact that I've done that, not how many people see it. So I'm getting better at posting and not worrying about how much interaction there is. Obviously, it's great if there is, and if people do comment, I'm not posting and ghosting, I will engage. But in terms of that worrying about the number of likes or comments, I am getting better at that not being a concern for me.

The most likes I get on Instagram are either of my wife or my rescue dog. So technically speaking, if I put my wife and my rescue dog in every post, I get loads of likes, but that's not what it's all about, is it? If you'd written a thesis on mental health in the workplace and it went in the library, you've got no idea how many people have read that thesis. It's in the library but you don't know. Whereas now we know everything about everything, and that's where I think some of the overwhelm can come in with this, and we get so obsessed with it, but I always think if five people saw your LinkedIn post, but it helped one person in their life you've done your job, haven't you?

With over 25 years experience in marketing, Adam runs his own consultancy, Admia, helping small businesses turn ideas into reality. He’s passionate about making marketing and social media accessible for all and runs workshops that give people the tools and confidence to grow their business.