Clarke Carlisle, the former Premier League footballer and now mental health consultant and advocate, discusses the results of the latest Annual Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey with Jason Berry, co-founder of the Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC).
Clarke understands, from painful personal experience, just how important it is to look after your mental health. During his 17-year playing career, he made more than 500 appearances for nine clubs, and was the Chairman of the Professional Football Association. But throughout his life, Clarke struggled with his mental health.
In a wide-ranging discussion with MIMHC, Carlisle shares his view that mental health and having a strong basis for wellbeing are fundamental for life. He explains that mental health provision isn’t a single strand solution and that businesses need to adopt multi-layer solutions that are employee led and easily accessed without stigma.
From the MIMHC survey findings, Carlisle expressed shocked at the long hours that brokers work and the impact lack of sleep may be having on their effectiveness. Businesses need to realise that ‘presenteeism’ is more damaging than ‘absenteeism’ with brokers simply not having enough rest.
Carlisle stresses the need for brokers to find the time to decompress and calls for them to be meticulous in establishing their boundaries between work and their home lives. ‘Me time’ is vital – in whatever form that takes.
MIMHC is a not-for-profit organisation that was founded to raise awareness of employees’ mental health and how the industry can take positive action to improve it.
MIMHC is made up of seven co-founding firms plus over 60 signatory companies across the mortgage industry. All these firms agree to be bound by MIMHC’s 6 Governing Rules which apply best practice health and wellbeing guidelines and are summarised as ‘The MIMHC Charter’.
