Did you know?
9 our of 10 employers are investing more in mental health benefits than they ever have before (source: https://www.aihr.com/blog/workplace-wellness-trends/).
Concerns about burnout, employee churn, and psychological emergencies have led workplaces to developing a more comprehensive and proactive mental health and suicide prevention strategy.
Benefits like coaching, tele-mental health, personalized wellness plans and stress management tools are becoming increasingly popular for large employers.
In addition, workplaces are starting to shift away from reactive, downstream approaches to more proactive prevention. They are focusing on building caring cultures and psychological safety and they are connecting the dots between DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) work and mental health.
In this conversation, I speak with Mike Veny, a man who has been living these connections and is now training workplaces on how best to support their workers.
About Mike Veny
Mike Veny convinced the staff at psychiatric hospitals to discharge him three times during his childhood. In addition to being hospitalized as a child, he was expelled from three schools, attempted suicide, and was medicated in efforts to reduce his emotional instability and behavioral outbursts.
By the fifth grade, Mike was put in a special education class. Aside from getting more individualized attention from the teacher, he learned that pencil erasers make great sounds when tapped on a desk. He had no idea that drumming would become his career or his path to recovery. As an adult, Mike spent many years facilitating drum workshops for children with special needs, teaching them to channel their energy by banging a drum while also learning how to listen, focus, work together and succeed through teamwork. The project was such a hit that he continued to expand his drumming program, first to adults in recovery and eventually into the corporate setting.
Today he is a Certified Corporate Wellness Specialist® and his presentations move past simply educating an audience to providing them with actionable steps they can take to change their lives and work environments.
His bestselling book Transforming Stigma: How to Become a Mental Wellness Superhero and The Transforming Stigma Workbook have become valuable mental health resources for people of all ages.
Recently he was the opening keynote speaker at T-Mobile’s Insight Out Diversity and Inclusion Conference, and he has also delivered keynote presentations for Heineken, Aetna, Salesforce and many more.
Show Notes
About Mike Veny
Website: http://www.mikeveny.com
YouTube: https://goo.gl/XbkDzB
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mikeveny
Twitter: @MikeVeny
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/mikeveny
Other Resources and References
National Speakers Association: https://nsaspeaker.org/
Pain versus Suffering: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/some-assembly-required/201401/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is-optional
Jung and “Shadow Work”: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evil-deeds/202101/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-what-is-the-shadow
DEI and Mental Health Intersection: https://makeadifference.media/newsletter/3-ways-you-should-be-thinking-about-mental-health-and-dei-in-your-workplace/
Anger - Letting Go (David Hawkins)
Trauma - The Body Keeps Score (Bessel van der Kolk) https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YZEQNJ3W92B1&keywords=the+body+keeps+the+score&qid=1639087858&sprefix=The+Body+%2Caps%2C248&sr=8-1
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