NEW PODCAST – Living Well

When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic back in March, I had my livelihood ripped out from under me.

All of my speaking and consulting contracts cancelled under their force majeure clauses. Over the course of only about three days, I was suddenly facing a very different picture of my financial health for the year. The mental health impacts rolled in quickly.

I was anxious, afraid, embarrassed, and completely uncertain as to how I could get out of this mess. I blamed myself – that I, like many others, didn’t see it coming. I felt like I had let my family down.

I wrote about my experiences for CNBC, in an article that shot to the #1 most read spot across their platforms in only ten minutes. It turned out that a lot of other people were going through a similar struggle, and that the pandemic was impacting people in far more ways than anyone expected.

Through grit and grace, a series of tough and forward-looking decisions, we were able to figure our situation out. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how suddenly and completely my mental health and well-being had been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hearing about how so many other people were experiencing similar stresses only reinforced my concern for a coming echo-pandemic of mental health problems and illnesses. We need to get out in front of this.

That’s what my new podcast is about. I’ve partnered with Morneau Shepell, one of the largest employee support providers in the world, to produce and host the Living Well podcast. It’s a weekly show that will explore many aspects of mental health and well-being, with this season’s focus on the pandemic. I’m back with my producing partner, Dave Trafford, who also helped to make my So-Called Normal podcast. The podcast is supported by Morneau Shepell’s free mental health resource, WellCan, which is available as an online hub and as an app available in the App Store.

I’m proud to launch Living Well today.

You can find the show wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple Podcasts and on Libsyn.

In this first episode, I talked to Morneau Shepell CEO Stephen Liptrap, as well as Paula Allen, their Senior Vice President of Research, Analytics and Innovation. This should give you a good background on in importance of this conversation.

I’m also posting two more episodes today! Have a listen to the others, one on Pride and one on the toll of racism. I’ll write a bit more about those in another post.

So, please have a listen, let me know what you think. I’d appreciate if you could head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave a star rating. That kind of feedback is super easy, but it’s a big help in getting the show discovered by even more people.

Thanks again!

Mark