 So we went on this recent trip to the USA for work and we thought we'd share the adventures and the stories, the highs, the lows, the ups, the downs. We know some people like to know the details of the journey and we thought it was a very interesting journey. Maybe this is warranted this time. We don't usually do this but let's see, maybe you'll enjoy it. So the reason we went there in the first place was for an organisation in northern Michigan who had enquired much earlier in the year about coming out to their all staff event to upskill both their managers and then all of their staff as well around resilience and how to stay strong obviously. In healthcare services they've had a really rough time over the past few years and they're getting everyone together for an in-person event to feel good but also give people some tools and some skills and prepare them for the next chapter moving forward. Which is great because this was the number one, or is the number one mental health organisation in Michigan, a government organisation and they called us to come over and train the people. So that was a very big privilege for us to be invited and then we had to go to the States. Yep. So the normal things of turning up to the airport, going through customs, which here in Malaga is not too bad. No, easy. It's very easy. And then waiting for the plane, taking off. We left late actually, we were leaving late which meant that we had a very tight connection in Heathrow. Yes. And I remember we were ready to go off the plane, run, you know, because Heathrow is a big airport and if anyone's been there it's massive. And we literally were already meant to be boarding our next plane when we got off. Yeah, we had to run a lot. We ran. We got through security and the guy goes, ah, you'll never make it. And I thought, well, thank you very much. But nobody was hurrying up. No, no, no. Because we were late. This is the start of a big adventure. We need to get there. It's positive thinking. We went through and of course I left something in my, you know, a bottle of water in my bag so they had to stop, security, but long story short we ran 27 minutes actually. It wasn't a bottle of water. It was the bottle that we bought as a gift in the duty free, which was sealed in the duty free and they still took their time to open it up, making sure, check it, even though it's their own stuff. But yeah, everything seemed to work against us. Yeah, that was the very start of the journey and it was a sign of things to come. So that was very interesting because there was a lot of things like that in the journey that was trying to undermine our attitude and our spirit. Even though when we turned up to the event and the interview later, everything went better than expected. But it was interesting. I mean, we landed in... We were being tested. So in one week we had three different cities that we visited in the US for different reasons. So we landed in New York and that was a day or two just to acclimatize to the time difference and I've never seen New York so I wanted to see it. And New York has a reputation for people being direct and abrupt and whatnot, but that wasn't my experience. We had met so many really nice people. Really nice people, really helpful people too, especially when we went to Central Park. Yes. You know, we go into Central Park is a fairly big place. So they've got this information, drawings, maps, and we were just standing there working out where to go and a few people came over and said, how do you need help? You know where you are, you know? And they're giving extra information, it's like so many kilometers around, like really lovely people. But nowhere outside of the park did anyone just come and offer assistance for no reason. It was like as soon as you go into nature, as soon as you go into the park, everyone just turned lovely. Very nice. I went to a lot of delis. New York, I found you could get pretty much anything from anywhere in the world, which was really cool. Yeah, it was very good. There's a lot of variety, at least in Manhattan, there was a lot of variety, but people are lovely. That was very nice. So really just... We also did the Chicago show and by that time I was so tired, I fell asleep two or three times. It was a 7 p.m. show and you were like... I know, by 7 p.m. here is very late at night. My body was all over the place. It was a great show, really professionally done. From a professional aspect of production, it was brilliant. Really good. Yeah. And it was the first time I've actually seen that show and there were some really interesting themes, like the psychologist in me is always like analysing and there were really interesting themes about crime and justice and punishment and responsibility and men and women and very, very interesting and relevant and still relevant. Even though you couldn't understand what they were saying with the accent. They didn't have subtitles, so I couldn't understand half of it. But it was well produced, the acting was good too. Like seasoned actors, they were not young, but they had a lot of skill. Highly recommended. So then the next day, I think we only had a day in New York to pretty much do everything and then we landed in Michigan late at night, so just went straight to the hotel but beautiful area, Traverse City. Very nice. Gorgeous and... Very nice. Worth visiting. Yeah. One of the staff... And we didn't even have really sunny days, but I imagine in summer that would be a gorgeous area to holiday in. Absolutely. And they went out of their way because we got in late, we couldn't get any food, nothing was open, but the staff went out of their way to find something that we could eat at night and then the next day one of the staff from the organisation we're working with came and picked us up and took us on a little tour of the area, which was lovely. They've got lots of fresh produce and fruits and wine, etc. She was lovely, she is lovely. And then we went straight into an afternoon, like a half day workshop training the leaders for this organisation. Yeah, that was the first workshop, the one for leaders, which was three and a half hours, half a day. That went really well. I had a couple of issues with the sound a couple of times and some people couldn't hear what I was saying, but otherwise I think the content made a difference and got everybody thinking on the right way for the next day. The big event. The big event. Yeah. So this was more contained. It was a small... Yeah, pre-event. Yeah, 40 people, 30, 40 people only and then the later event was 300 people. To the event, the big event was at the same hotel that we were staying. Yes. Right. Yeah. It had a great gymnasium too. The gym was great. Yeah. It had a lot of machines. Yeah, we managed to get... Actually, the whole way through the trip, it was only a week, but we managed to get to the gym. Some exercise. At least every other day through the trip, which was good. It was good. But yeah, then big event day, we had all of our facilitators from different parts of the US flying in, ready because 300 people for the big event. So we needed a team to be able to make sure everyone was supported through the event and so they all flew in and it was all go, all day. Yeah. You know? It was good. It was good that I just went into the zone for some reason. I just was in the zone and I said, you're in charge of all the logistics, don't bother with everything, just make sure nobody gets in my way. Yeah. Fantasticly because I just waited for it. And the venue, I have to say, the organization and the venue, both of them had everything really well set up. Really well set up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Best that we've ever experienced. Cynthia, Stacy, everybody, Ryan, they had everything so well organized. So when we come in and said, oh, it would be better if this table was there. No problem. We move it. We need a chair here. We need this set up differently there. We had two IT people taking care of us. At least. I've never had that before. You know, people, they really solve problems. They were on to it. And that's important because so often minor details can make such a big difference to the experience of the participant in the room that people wouldn't think about. But you know, just things like the way the room set up and the stage is set up and those sorts of things. They play a big... And the microphone was perfect. It never failed once, it never gave any problems with a little Britney Spears type of microphone. And we'll see all that in a video that will be, is already being edited and that. But it was good to have everything nicely organized, really professionally done, a professional venue, two projectors on each side so people could easily see the slides as they came up. And we had people, because the training is always really interactive. So we had people as mic runners to run around and get feedback from the groups when they did different activities and people were standing up and moving around. And then we had, like you said, the camera crew there as well, capturing bits and pieces. So I think it's going to be good videos that come out of that and people will be able to see that. They invited us, they took us out for dinner as well one night. So hospitable. They really were. That really stood out. And it was really nice to deal with. So after that we took off, we had to share our goodbyes, which I'm sorry because I didn't get my bottle of extra virgin olive oil from the area, because I know they make very nice extra virgin olive oil, but I missed out on getting it, we'll have to get it next time. But it was very interesting because we had been thinking how this is going to go over. Obviously, we both have the Australian accents and we're talking about things like well-being. And there are a lot of organizations actually ask that around like, well, we've got staff in different areas and there's different cultures. And it is true that obviously different cultures have different ways of doing things. What we found was that at the end of the day, and we've said this many times, humans are humans and fundamentally our brains kind of all work more or less the same in the same ways. While we're very much open to people are diverse and we encourage people to respect diverse ways of viewing the world and diverse, even when it comes to resilience, different tools, people connect with different tools differently. And that's fine. But in psychology, the beauty of our psychology, true psychology is evidence-based psychology, it looks at how the brain works and how it helps us function. So that's a commonality to that. It's not that diversity. My brain doesn't work any different than yours. I may have a different thinking patterns, but specifically the mind works pretty much the same. But even if you are neurodiverse, for example, I mean, that's a new term, that term's come up more and more lately, it's kind of a new term out there in the psychological world. But even so, I mean, everyone's neurodiverse and everyone's the same at the same time. I understand what they're trying to say, but I think it's the wrong term. There is no such thing as a diverse neurology. We all have pretty much the same neurology is how we use it. It can be different. Yeah. The software and the hardware. Yeah. That's right. You know, you have the same hardware, pretty much the same hardware. And then how do you use the hardware? The software can be very, very different between one human being and other. But the principles that work. And the thing is, it doesn't matter what culture you come from, everybody or what, you know, who you are. Everybody has stresses sometimes, everyone is well sometimes, everyone suffers at times, you know, we all have common experience. My phone company stopping my service in the middle of the trip, for example, just when I needed it the most. The printer, when we urgently needed things printed and then the printer broke down, the cartridge exploded inside of the printer. We had to come up with plan B at the last minute. So we were tested. Right throughout. And if we had focused on those things, it would have, it would have impacted the results. But we didn't. Well, we're there teaching resilience, you've got to practice what you preach and be okay. Stay calm. It was a good lesson. Plan B. And plan B. Like personally, it was a good lesson. Like how we both reacted to things. It was brilliant. Yeah. And the team as well. They are brilliant. I'm really, really happy with our team, both in the U.S. and in other places around the world too. We've got a very strong team. Very happy. We had four people there. Yeah. From the U.S. come in and help from our team. Yeah. And it was very nice to meet them in person as well. Yeah. Lovely people. We don't always get the opportunity to come together in person. Very nice. It's good. It's cool. And in Nashville, the third city. Yes. We headed off to Nashville and... This is my third time in Nashville. I love Nashville. Yeah. This is your second time in Nashville. Yeah. I didn't try the grits this time. You didn't need to. I didn't need to. But I didn't try them this time. And I'm just trying to remember Nashville, straight to the hotel, which was actually a little bit outside of the city. And then we went into the city because it was a Friday night. Yep. Friday night. Let's go. Downtown Nashville. Downtown Nashville. Everybody's out partying. And we were just like... The reason we were in Nashville is because we're being interviewed by Joel Roberts who's an ex-number one radio host in L.A., so brilliant, brilliant man. And we had that interview on Saturday morning the next morning. So Friday night, everyone's out partying and we knew we needed a quiet night. So we took a few photos in the main street and then headed off to a nice restaurant to have something to eat. But people... It was very lively. Yes. It was the country music capital of the world, Nashville. And almost every bar has got a stage with live music. So you're walking on the street and you can hear all this music coming at you and you can just stop in wherever you like. I think it's probably the loudest area in the world ever that I've been to. Yes, probably. You've walked down that street. But that's not typical. Yeah, that's good. Dinner, home, get an early night's sleep and then the next day, the interview. And the whole day went by with the interview. You know, the makeup and the setting up of the cameras and all that stuff. Yeah. Again, a very professional production crew that came in. I was just brilliant to see Joel and his wife Heidi, who we've known for, gosh, a decade at least. Probably. But haven't been able to see in person over the past few years. So that was great to see them in person. And Heidi being a producer. She had a lot to say and to direct the camera. Workout outfits, what are you wearing, the colors. She was brilliant. She was brilliant. And then, of course, Joel is the master at getting things out of people. So that was a very good interview. I think we'll have a very nice video for you guys with lots of topics that are relevant in today's society around mental health and wellbeing. But what was also really interesting is this trip to the States, you could really see the change in their understanding about workplace wellbeing. Absolutely. Because when we first used to go way back and we would tell people about the Institute, about what we did. Six years ago, not so long ago. They didn't really understand, like, what is that? And in Australia, we've been doing it for 20-something years. They didn't compute. They couldn't even grasp what we did. Now you tell, this is what we do. Oh my God, we need that. The change has been night and day. But that's what I was saying. Back then in the beginning, people, what is workplace mental health? What is that? I don't get it. So you're counsellors? No, we do education. They didn't get it. Now, every workplace is either they've got it, they've had training or they want it or they say, we need it. Yeah. Definitely. But I think what's going to be interesting as well is, as I said, Australia and the UK have been doing this for quite some time, quite a lot of over 20 years now. It's been part of our workplace health and safety. It's a lot newer for a lot of other organisations. So there's kind of a journey that people go through from the beginning saying, oh, we need to, for example, raise awareness about this. We need to start the conversations and make it more comfortable for people to talk about it. And that's great if that's where you're at. But the next step that you see organisations need is, well, okay, now we're aware of it. Now we're talking about it. But now we need skills. Like what do I do? What do I say? What do I not say? And that I think is crucial. And then there's all the other pieces that surround it, like how does this sit in our regular systems? What's our overall well-being strategy? And so there's lots of different elements. And that's just the mental health side, then you've got the resilience side of things as well. So, yeah, every, we see differences in different locations, but also different organisations are at different points in their journeys, and it's important to match where they're at with what initiatives are being offered in the organisation too. So the interview went well, and then we got invited by Joel and Heidi to go and have dinner at their house, and we're travelling towards their house in the Uber, and then we get a text saying, your flight for tomorrow has been cancelled because of bad weather conditions. And we look out the window and it's fine. It's brilliant. It's great. And I check on Google what's tomorrow's weather. Fine. Okay. Well, that's weird. Because we needed, that was from Nashville back to New York with one airline where we had a completely separate booking with another airline to get from New York back to home in Europe. So we needed to go back on to the next thing. And it was critical. We've got family waiting for us, like the little family who needs us there. Yeah. And so we had a lovely dinner. So we just, you know, but that was the moment in the taxi or the Uber it was. And I went, all right, I'm going to deal with this after dinner, right? I'm not going to panic right now. We're here for dinner. We haven't seen them in years. Like we're going to enjoy it. And we did. We had a nice dinner. Yeah. It was great. Lots of interesting conversations. You always have interesting conversations with Heidi and Joel. And as we go to places, very few people go, I think, so that's always fun. I like it. I love it. I wish we were close that we could do that more often, really. But after dinner, we went out to the hotel and you got onto the laptop. Okay. How do we get from that? And this is, again, the resilience thing. All right. We're going to find a way to get to New York in for our 8pm flight tomorrow. So how do I do it? How do I figure it out? It's 14 hours to drive. Yeah. Even if we hire a car first thing in the morning, there's no way we're going to make it in time. You know, even if we didn't stop for 14 hours, there's no way. So that's our question. Are there other flights out of Nashville to New York? No. Can't do everything sold out. It's the next day. You know, what if we went to, we fly to Atlanta and then we, but can we fly if the weather's bad? Well, it looks like other airlines still have flights available. So what was the solution? You came up with a good solution. It took me two hours, but eventually I found a route that worked. So I had everything booked in and that was midnight. I went to sleep. I was at the alarm for 3 a.m. I, he didn't know anything about this cause he was already asleep and I didn't want to disturb that. So I just set the alarm at 3 a.m. I woke up and I said, right, you got half an hour to pack, pack your bag and let's get out of here. Down to reception and we called the Uber cause we're a little bit out of the city. We're away from the airport. So it took about 20 minutes for the Uber to come, but we got to the airport in Nashville to check in. Our airline that had canceled the flight had nobody lined up outside the desk. No one was there. Every other airline, no problem. They were all operating. I don't think it was weather. No, something else. I think it was something else. But it was major for them to do that cause everything was closed. Staff issue, maybe. But anyway. Maybe they needed some mental health and resilience for the rest of the time. Maybe, maybe. Well, they didn't need it before. They needed now after that. Then we went to Washington. So we flew Nashville to Washington. Pick up our bags, catch a taxi, go to a different airport in Washington. An hour away. An hour away. Check in. Do the same process. Catch another plane, go to New York, pick up our bags, get another taxi. Two JFK, wasn't it? With a JFK. Yeah, a JFK. But we made it there in time. We didn't make it. So flight, taxi, flight, taxi. And then we finally checked in for our international flight back on time. We made it. Did a good job there finding that. Cause it would have been terrible to delay it. And exhausted. But we made it. There was one of those times like, well, it's just going to do whatever it takes to find a way. We've got to get home. Cause if not, it would have been a delay of another two days by just the way that they had the scheduling done. And are proud of us that we didn't hold on to the negativity energy around these events. It was almost like we were being tested. We're going to throw another ball at you. We're going to throw another thing at you. See what you do with this. That's fun. It's like tennis. I'm just going to keep hitting it back. Just bring it on. Cancel flight, no problem. No problem. Oh, and then when we landed eventually back home, our bags didn't make it. Yes. That's another one. Until the next day, we didn't have our bags. So everything was like that throughout the journey. Like say, are you real about this resilience thing or you just preach it? But you know what? The event, the interview, those things were amazing. They were the things that were perfect. And that's what's important. And I think it's because we were in the zone, we had made a decision. We knew exactly what we wanted, what the outcome was and how we were going to perform it because we prepare beforehand. We go through that mental exercise and then we say, nothing is going to stop that. We had that attitude. So well done. Yeah. From that regard. So that was a trip to the States. And then it took me about a week to get rid of the jet lag. Pathetic with jet lag. But that was probably the hardest thing for me. It took me about a week to catch up on emails and check in with our team. Our wonderful team who holds down the fort all the time when we have these commitments to do. But we're very excited because we think that the camera crews that we had in Michigan and in Nashville will be doing a wonderful, wonderful job with what they've got. Coming soon. Content. So we'll be able to show you with more detail what happened at those events. And also you'll be able to watch the interview. So that's us. Thank you. Hope you have enjoyed yourselves. Leave us some comments or questions. Hi, I'm Amy Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. We hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. We have more and more videos being released each week. 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