A straight-talking chat on culture, leadership, and mental health in the motor trade. Stephen explains what a “psychologically safe” dealership looks like in practice — people performing best when they can be 100% themselves — and why that starts with managers realising they manage people, not just the sales sheet. He shares the origin of Menable (the “Men-Able” idea and that bracketed M) and how the brand widened to mean enabling open conversations across the trade. We cover early warning signs on the showroom floor — the ever-present workhorse, or the class clown masking things — and what curious, present leadership looks like day-to-day.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk
Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online car-changing destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today's a bit different. I'm joined by Stephen J. Whitten from A Mark Minnable. And I've got to be honest, today we're going to be talking about mental health.
And as a manager in the motor trade, I've been guilty in the past as thinking, well, you know what, that's something that people should look after themselves. I'm in the business of making money and I can say myself and a lot of managers I speak to don't really consider mental health until it hits the bottom line. I don't know if that's right or not, but today we're going to explore that with Steve. Steve, welcome aboard. Hey, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, especially if we're going to challenge that. Well, I don't know, am I the only manager who thinks like that or has thought like that? And unless it affects my bottom line or maybe affects someone personally, is that the first time you've heard something?
Absolutely not. No, I mean, I think to be fair, what you've described there is fairly common has been fairly common. I'd like to say it's a lot less prevalent as an attitude than it was and certainly probably part of the reason why I came into this subject. And I but I still see pockets of that, if I'm honest. And I know we're going to talk about this quite a bit. So I, you know, we've got some thoughts around that later on. But yeah, I think, no, thanks for flagging that up and being honest, because I think, you know, I've got to be honest, I come from management in the dealership as well. And I was to some extent, the same.
Yeah, you know, in the past until it hit me. And then, oh, hang on, that is real. Yeah. Yeah. So listen, for people who don't know, Steve, can you just go back right to the beginning and talk us about your journey in the motor trade? And where did you start? Yeah. So 1985, anyone could remember paying that far, I started as a trainee car sales exec in a scoda dealership when that proposition was very different to what it is today. And yeah, had some great fun, good couple of years. And then probably as fairly typical in the 80s, you know, I was in that sort of rush to get a house and earn loads of money and be a bit of a yuppy.
Anyone remember the yuppies? You're definitely aging me now as well. Yeah. I'm mobile phone and the the suit, the pinstripe suit. Yeah. And a little red XR2 or something like that, probably to go with it. Yeah. And that was that was all the goals back then. So I succumbed to moving around the industry fairly quickly and taking on different roles with the hope of progressing. And I ended up finding myself in a couple of finance companies, actually. So I worked for GMAC or Vauxhall Finance, for those that may not know, I was there for eight years, and then from went from there to Volkswagen financial services. And I was there for another eight years. That's when you're in the training world, won't you?
When you're at Volkswagen? Yeah, very much. Yeah. I went to VW as a trainer. And within a year was sort of plunged into the role of heading up their training department and building it from scratch, which I did that for about the next five and a half years, and then took on the FSA compliance. So before the FSA, it was FSA, if you remember that. Yes, yes. It took on the compliance project with the view of getting VWFS and the VW network, VW Group Network, sort of into compliance. And that gave me a bit of a thing at the end of it. I thought, you know what, I could step out of this company and give up the pension and the company cars and the health, health cover and the 30 days holiday a year and all that stuff, and go off and do this myself.
And that's probably where my mental health issues started. I've got rid of all that trappings of safety and security. But to be honest, there's no disrespect to anyone at VWFS, but I wasn't happy there either. So that's very much a me thing. So, yeah, stepped out. And then the rest is kind of history, I suppose, and in and out of the training world, doing different bits all over the place, Middle East and everywhere. So, Steve, what was the turning point? Okay, to successful automotive Korea and lots of different guys is there to founding Menable. So 2019, I teamed up with my younger son. And we had a really good runner, actually 2019 was a fabulous year was great.
We were doing some good stuff. We ended up speaking in the States twice, working with all sorts of different people. And we had loads lined up. And many people will remember that at the beginning of 2020, there was all this speculation that this pandemic was coming our way and nobody knew what that was going to look like. And then in the week or so before the official kind of lockdown, lots of companies were going, look, you know, we need to make a commercial decision. And they just literally pulled the plug one by one. I mean, the dominoes were falling rapidly. We remember that time. And I think the training come to that time. It's the business stopped overnight.
Just yeah, completely. I mean, my phone had never stopped. I hadn't rung as much. And it was ringing with clients ringing me saying, we're canceling this or postponing this. And originally, it was, you know, we'll postpone till June and we'll postpone till September. And then it was just canceled altogether. And I don't know about you, but I was never a fan of sort of pivoting, which was the word everyone has been doing stuff online. But, and this is the big one. At the same time, my wife of 32 years at the time, and I reached a point where some stuff emerged, and we decided to call it a day. And that was devastating as well.
So I had the the business rapidly falling through the floorboards. My marriage broke down. And that caused major issues and a rift across the family, really. So there was that as well. And then I moved out of the family home into a rented place and went into a period of isolation for the first time in my life. And then Boris got on the phone, didn't he? Or on the TV and said, you know, don't go on the bus, go on the bus, stay at home and all that stuff's trying to do his voice. I can't. You know, I mean, there's a good start of it. It was a day on the bus, don't go on the bus.
And we none of us knew where we were. And there was I in this sort of little flat, all of my own contemplating all the stuff that had gone on. And yeah, thinking, is this it? Is this what I've come to your son was in the business as well. That's added pressure as well, not just for you to survive. It's do you feel the weight, the pressure of I know it's a small company. And I feel the pressure of providing for my staff. But when you start your son as well, that's got to be a added level of pressure. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, I could do a whole series of things around all of that.
I mean, it's funny, actually, over the previous weekend, I was contemplating or reflecting on some stuff. And I was, I was thinking, you know, I wonder if I wonder if I was a bad parent for for kind of trying too hard and trying to project my wants and needs and goals onto my offspring, if you know what I mean. So, you know, did I put him under too much pressure to join me and create something? And then when it all collapsed, it was all like, oh, you know what, where do we go from here? But it was awful for Monos. It was dreadful and awful for them as well, you know, and awful for my ex wife.
So just on that, I suppose that is really the turning point there. But so much that is external circumstances, not yourself. So how much do you beat yourself up though? Because COVID, you didn't come up with COVID. You couldn't affect COVID. Yes, there was a an issue and not going to affect it. But do you find yourself almost blaming yourself? Oh, I mean, I mean, I, yeah, and I didn't even catch COVID for another two and a half years as well. So that added insult to injury. You know, it wasn't like we were all going down like flies with it necessarily. I know a lot of people did, but I managed to skip that first round.
So yeah, I'd lots and lots of time to contemplate what have I done and how have I been and you know, what's gone on. I mean, there's lots to the backstory, obviously, which anyone who, you know, maybe the sun want to pick this up and I'll be featured in that one day. But for the bulk of people, there's just, you know, lots and lots of personal stuff. But my thing around where the pivoting moment was in terms of men able was starting to reflect and think, what part has the motor trade played in this? Right. So I talk now about going into the motor trade as a young man trying to work out my place in the world, but in my subconscious, and I didn't know this till recently, but in my subconscious, there was this massive fear of rejection, loneliness, and being abandoned.
That was that was the four year old boy inside this man's body. And of course, when you fear rejection, a great place to go and work is the motor trade, right? Especially in sales. Well, it's a tough high pressure culture. It is, it is like, as good as your last month, 100% 100% and you miss promotions because someone else is better than you last month and you know, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, so looking back on it, there, you know, I do think, did I join the wrong industry for me? And what part did the culture and the beliefs and the behaviors in that industry have in terms of where I ended up?
Does that make sense? Yeah, I suppose that high pressure, I was going to say, is it just a sales environment? We've all seen movies like Boiler Room and the Wolf of Wall Street and so forth like that there. And the motor trade is a tough high pressure culture there. And it's, I suppose, do some people thrive in that? Or do we all put on the brief face? Because you know what, when it's the start of the month and we let's go again, in symco training, we call it when we're in the Midas touch, everything you touch turns to gold in your sold cars, left, right and center. But the same thing happens in reverse. If you spell Midas in reverse, it spells sadms.
And when we're in the sadms, everyone you speak to turns to crap. And the world already goes to shit. I suppose the pressure on that that we put on ourselves there, it's not just the motor trade I'm guessing it's other target-led industries. Oh, it totally is. I mean, in that whole year and a half, I suppose, when I was locked down, I was working out what was going to do. I did an awful lot of reading, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, and everyone was starting to talk about this subject. And mental health became a proper buzzword like never before. And what you said at the top of this was so true that I was surrounded by many, many people who in the past had been quite dismissive of it and didn't understand it, weren't prepared to accept it.
And that is fairly well publicized now, but that was all part of my story as well. That whole thing as a teenager of questioning my world and exactly what that looked like. But in 1984, 85, there's no way in a million years was I going to be honest about that. Especially then, when I was immersed into this very male dominated masculine energy environment where it was just to put your big boy pants on and just get on with it, suck it up, big boys don't cry, grow a pair, all those phrases that we cry around all the time. All those phrases have been thrown at me. And it was throughout the industry, it's just get on with it.
Get on with it. What's actually happening there? So can you tell us in your words, Menebel, what does actually stand for? Because I said that you got the brackets around the M and Menebel, what does it stand for? Well, so when I, yeah, so my year 2020, we had all that lovely weather and I was out and about and getting lots of long walks in. And I bounced off a few senior people that I knew very well in the industry and said, look, we're a male dominated masculine energy industry. And I as a man, I'm fairly well versed and have lived the experience of it keeping everything to myself and not being open and honest and not having anyone to turn to.
So what I want to do is I want to enable, enable more men to come forward and be a version of themselves that they would want if they needed help. And as I worked that up, it gradually became more of enable, men able men dash able men able. And as I said to you before, I gave this to a sort of design agency and said, make me a logo. And they came back and they put the brackets around the M and I looked and I was like, I really like that. Now that served the purpose very quickly because I very quickly got accused of not being inclusive, not being thinking about, you know, the fact that there are other, not just men in the industry.
And that's changing so much for the better. Yeah, more ladies coming into this at all the time. Yeah, yeah, it is. And so I thought, right, okay, this is good because from two angles, yes, the origin is men able, but actually also works that you can say, no, this is about enabling conversations and the M actually stands for mental health or mental wealth, or motor trade or motivation or mindset, you know, whatever you want to make the M stand for. But but if the logo and the word is enough to get men's attention in this world where I'm not going to say something controversial now, I think with all this work that's happened over the last few years, especially around D, I and gender balance and all the rest of it, I think we are seeing an element of some men feeling a bit left out.
And if they're anything like I was, which is that they're keeping their sort of emotions and feelings to themselves, then they're starting to think, well, where's my outlet for that? So it's a multifaceted view of men able and very long answer. I'm sorry. No, no, it's a good answer. And there's a stat I've seen the other day I've heard on podcast somewhere and you might know better than I do that from 18 to 35, the most reason that someone's going to pass away is themselves. I don't know if that's right, but it's such a high stat there. And it's a scary thing. And that's, I'm wondering about why is it so different to talk about?
And my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She's at the end of that journey now, which is really good. But I've no problem talking about where she's up to and the chemotherapy and how hard it was. But actually, when it comes to mental health, I know I'm definitely one. And I talked before about in my family and my brother, I'll say it now, and some of the challenges he went through. Actually, even here on the podcast, knowing it's recorded now thinking, I find it harder to talk about that. Again, I love it a bit. Why is it? Why is it so historically difficult to start the conversation in the motor trade? Or is it just goes on, on that name that we find it hard to talk about mental health compared to other health?
Well, I think I think there's a mix of things, if I'm honest, I think, you know, you're probably a little bit younger than me, I would imagine. But, you know, we're not doing this. So we're not doing this. So we're not doing this. So thank you very much. You made me feel good there. But I saw the motor trade two years after you. So did you? Okay. Yes. I always say I'm approaching 50, but I'm approaching it from the wrong end. I'll use that one. I think to be fair, the more I look around, the more I talk about this with with men in particular, we haven't been encouraged throughout our lives to talk about our feelings, our emotions.
We've actually been conditioned in the opposite in that you, you know, you do suck it up, you get on with it, you grow a pair and you know, you become the provider and you become the hunter-gatherer. And you know, then we go into it and you're right, it's not just our industry that suffers from this, but we go into an industry that's very male dominated and has a masculine energy. And by that, I mean, is driven by targets and, you know, results and achievement and stuff. And I think when you put all of that together, you've got the recipe for people to not speak about stuff and not open up because, and I know certainly from my perspective, I never did one because it was never really the thing and two, because probably subconsciously, I was afraid of being seen to look weak.
And I said this at a conference earlier in the year that being a man sometimes feels really tough as well, because, you know, when you're told to be more vulnerable, you actually feel that you're being seen as weak. And when you're told to be stronger, you're being seen to be aggressive, you're like, well, where do you want me to sit then? Where do you want me to be? And in the meantime, in our industry, we are a diagnostic and fix it business. So we diagnose someone's transport needs or the problem with their car or whatever it might be. And we fix the problem and we go from diagnose, fix, diagnose, fix, and we do that daily.
And I think we have had a tendency to try and do that when it comes to managing our people. You said before we've been conditioned as men. And this is a big question. Is it nature? Or is it nurture? And I was just sitting there thinking, when you said we've been conditioned, is it ingrained in us from cavemen days that we need to be the hunters and that go and conquer? And we have that testosterone that we've not when? Is it or are we conditioned? And that's a big question. I don't know if we could catch the bottom of that today. But how much of it's a condition of nature or nurture? Well, all I can do is offer up a personal opinion on that based on sort of what I've studied and what I've the journey that I've been on, myself.
I think yet there's an element of nature that we have stronger whatever's, whatever chemicals and stuff. But at the same time, I think it's massively nurture. And if you go back and look at some of the ways that we've been through the centuries, and actually I make reference as well quite often to obviously fairly recently, there's been a lot of conversation around gender, and particularly transgender trans rights, all that sort of stuff. And if you look into some of the cultures in the Pacific Islands, you might know this Simon, because it's not far from where you originate from. Some of the cultures in that neck of the woods, they actually openly encourage three genders. I didn't know that at all.
Yeah, they do. And I mean, I can't remember, I feel fuffy veyas or something. I'd have to look it up and look it up in a minute and tell you what they actually come on. But basically, they identify early on that, yes, there are men and the men are going to be the ones who go and fish and hunt and make stuff and chop down trees and make fires and build houses and so on. So that's what the men do. The women, they do the cooking and the cleaning and the looking after kids. But this middle gender that arrives is identified fairly early on, and it's nearly always boys. And they are identified as actually, they've got a little bit more of a feminine trait about them.
So they're not necessarily going to make great hunters or great fishermen. So these boys can actually be an amazingly good resource to help the women who are bringing up the children, which the bringing up the children is the important bit for ensuring that civilizations ongoing needs, if you know what I mean. Interesting. I've not heard that. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. DIY inclusion. And you're right, it is such a subject that I don't pretend to know enough about it. If I'm brutally honest, when I see the BBC news that comes up, I flick through to sport. Do I go through and see what's happening? It's me alone. Yeah. It's one of those things because I don't know enough about it.
I don't want to get it on the wrong side there. But that's interesting, really interesting, three genders. I've not heard that before. Yeah. I know we're not here to talk about the whole gender thing, but it's an interesting point, because when I discovered that, it made me think, why is it that I've always felt uncomfortable with some of the masculine traits that I see? And why have I also lent sometimes towards some of the more feminine traits that I see? And why is there such a binary split between the two, if you know what I mean? And that's getting a bit deep and philosophical, but it is. It is. But I now just find it fascinating.
And that's when I go off and write, let's read more about that. Let's study it. And that's interesting. But again, this conversation is so important, because you know what, when I saw the motor trade, okay, I come over in 95. So I saw the motor trade back in 1990. And these conversations would never come up. No, exactly. You couldn't have these conversations. Like, get on. What are you? Okay, don't be so silly. Get out there, get that car cleaned. Okay. So what are the struggles you're hearing on a day-to-day basis in car dealerships? What are some of the common struggles you hear from people? Well, I mean, again, we're talking about environments that are geared up around targets and objectives and hitting numbers and results.
And when you've got that, it's a very easy place for people to sort of park, no pun intended, their emotions and their feelings. The stuff that I hear regularly are people who are stressed, people who are in their own words feel that they're sort of overworked, they're burning out, they're overburdened. You know, the World Health Organization talk about one in four of us will report a mental health issue. And I think the last Ben survey showed in our industry is actually more like one in three. One in three. So a third of the people we're speaking to are going through a little week. Like I said, I know stress overworked, burnt out, working for yourself that could definitely happen there.
But that's amazing. A third of the people now, dealerships. Well, and I mean, there's a couple of things I'd clarify as well. And that is that we all have mental health. As you and I are sitting here now, we have mental health just as we have physical health. The difference is physical health is something you can see and feel. And you know, and we are okay talking about that. Someone turns up for work with a raminar sling. Everyone's going to suddenly go, Oh, what have you done? I fell over at the weekend playing football. Oh, no, you know, anything you need? Can I get you, you know, you're going to be okay? You know, that sort of stuff.
Try doing that. If you've had a tough weekend, like you say, and you've you're stressed off the clock and you burn out. What I also hear is happening a lot and happened to me certainly is a lot of men have developed what they might call resilience, but there's actually more of a coping strategy of turning up and blocking it all out and just cracking on. So that what your example just now about, I'll just go and get that car cleaned. Yeah. For somebody who's got a lot on their mind, actually just going and getting a car cleaned and just blocking the world out is actually how they cope. Yeah, actually, I know myself, thinking the tough thing to test with my mother, what my wife or she went through.
And again, it touches so many people, cancer. That's where near the unique there. But the way to cope with that was, I was, I've got the strong, I've got to get out there and work hard at the time there. I suppose that's a coping mechanism, is it? Yeah, it is. It is. And I see a lot now of, you know, obviously I'm out there as a speaker, do you know, talking about this subject? And I've got other friends who speak about stuff and one or two in particular who are booked because they come from the angle of my toolkit can give your team resilience, you know, which presses a button for the for a lot of managers because they go, right, well, my team need to be stronger, they need to be tougher, they need more resilience.
Yeah. And my approach to that is, yeah. But they might actually, some of them also need a bit of an arm around the shoulder and they might need to know that they're in a safe place to feel good about themselves. Because five years ago, if somebody had said to me, you know, grow up, grow a pair, man up, you've got to be strong and tough and all the rest of it, if somebody had said that to me or pounded that into me, I'm not sure I'd be here now. Yeah, that's that's chilling. Absolutely chilling to think like that. Because what that said to me was no one was listening, you know, and in fact, when I did find people and ironically, the people who listened, and I'm going to give them a shout out, but the people who listened were people like Dash Gup to Steve Nash, Peter Vardy and Chris Wiseman.
You know, these were the guys that I turned to and went out there with the idea of men able and they all went, yeah, you've hit something here. It's something you're on to something. And we had very, very open conversations. And I honestly, I remember having a conversation for two hours on a on a zoom call on my phone with Steve Nash when I'd literally come off the phone from my doctor, because my doctor was ringing me every day to make sure I was all right. Wow. All right. And that was that was five years ago. Now, never once did any of those people that I mentioned say to me, you need to grow a pair, you need to manner to be strong.
But what they did was they listened and they understood and they empathized. And that helped me to grow stronger myself. That makes sense. Yeah, it does. It absolutely does. And again, those people that you mentioned, all of them by one, people are love the podcast. They come on the podcast. They listen to the podcast. And it's I just think it's part of the nature of wanting to give back as well. 100% and coming on this for not their own benefit at all. I mean, that's good. He's got enough on his plate at the moment. Just a bit. And to come on the podcast just to give back and a sensational give out all those people you mentioned, all those people.
Any other myths or misconceptions about mental health in our industry is the one that what would it be? Because that's that's one of the myths that for me anyway, grow a pair, get on with it. That's clearly a misconception. Any others? Yeah, I mean, the one the big one for me is when I hear people say, Oh, that so and so's got mental health. I hate that because I just go, Oh my God, you know, open your mind. Everyone has got mental health. So when people say they've got mental health, what what they mean is they've they've gone off with or they're dealing with an issue around their mental health. But that's a that's a narrative change, right?
And I think where we are now five years down the line with the work that we've done with, you know, Ben, I mean, Ben, just been fabulous for the last 18 months or so and see the change there and everything that else that's sort of happening now, this is becoming more of a mainstream. So I think there are less and less myths. But there is one that I would pick on. And that is I've gone into a couple of organizations and asked the question, what's your culture like? And the answer I get is, Oh, it's great. You know, it's brilliant. Everyone wants to work here. Okay, what's your staff turn over at the moment? And the answer's been that 45% of that's about right.
And that's about normal. I go maybe not maybe it is, but not if you're answering the question that your culture's great. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. It's telling me there's something missing. Yeah, yeah, they so so true. So let's also you talked about creating a psychological safe workplace and get that culture right. So that psychological safe workplace, what does it actually look like in the dealership? So if I'm a manager, listen to this, I'm a head of business, I'm an investor and a bill of good. What does it actually look like in the real world? Well, I sum that up in a phrase that I picked up some years ago. And I've used a lot, which is that people perform well when they're feeling good about themselves.
Right. So from the physical sense, if you've not slept well, if you've got a lot going on, if you've got any physical aches and pains, maybe you're not eating properly or you eating too much or whatever, you know, the effect that has on your physical health. If there's stuff going on in your life and you've described some stuff there that, you know, that's affecting your mind, your mentality and your mindset. And that's going that's being played against the backdrop of your conditioning, your culture, your upbringing, your background, all the rest of it, you know, wherever you are in your your life, you know, religion, sexuality, gender, everything else. And we are all a mixed bag.
So that the whole psychological safety bit is about being able to turn up to work and be 100% unapologetically you yourself, who you are, what you are, and not having to fit in or try to do something that's outside of what you want or who you are in order to belong. For that makes sense. Do we all do that sometimes? Are we our own selves when we come to work? Or do we put the suit on that they are signing a podcaster, that they are skipping the sales trainer there? When I get home, am I that same person? So many people and people never believe when I say this, but I run a training course and you've run lots of training courses.
And something I say is, Hey guys, I'm the shy person in this room. And everyone says, no, you're not. No, you're not. I said, honestly, I am. In my head, I have to go into show time. I have to almost mentally go that. So actually, can I come into work and be that shy person? Not the job I've got. Sometimes I have to go show time, but is that part of do we all do that? Now, I'm talking about just being upbeat and enthusiastic. But actually, people say show time to work when mental health is really, they're hiding the mental, I'm hiding just my shyness. That's something easy times. Okay. You know, you just fake it till you make it.
That's that's easy. But you can't just fake it to you make it on mental health, can you? No, and this is where I think the psychological safety bit is so important because you're right, the authenticity side of it. And we're all actors, or some extent, right? And you know, like you have been in sales and, as you say, run hundreds of training courses, do keynote talks now and stuff like that. And I'm very aware that there is a there's a flamboyant out there, confident person that appears on stage and everyone goes, Oh my God, you know, how do you do what you do? And how can you speak in front of so many people and all this sort of stuff?
But equally, I can look around a room of 150 people and spot the one who's sitting there with their arms folded, looking at me going, what the hell are you talking about? And they may not even be thinking out at all, but in my mind, that's what they're thinking. It's not so true. They might just thinking, I hope of enough change in the parking. Yeah, they might be thinking, how long we got because I'm busting for a week or James lunch or heard this before or this is great, you know, or they might just be being comfortable. I don't know. Don't we all just worry about what other people think too much sometimes? Yeah. And I think that's the point.
The psychological safety is stripping that away and going and having the ability to be able to say, you know, how's things in your world? I've got a little tool that I'll share with you on that as well. But how's things in your world? And if someone goes, you know what? Yeah, I'm all right. But you know, things weren't great yesterday or last night or whatever. And it's that safety to be able to go to say that knowing you're going to be supported. So in your experience, I'm going to ask you, where does the responsibility for improving mental health, the culture really set? Is it leadership? Is it the individual? Is it manager? Is it all of them?
And the reason why I asked that question, I saw a Daphne little light aircraft and I have to go and get a medical all the time to make sure I'm fine to fly the aircraft. My son is a commercial pilot. And every 12 months, he's got to go through and get a medical. And the guy does my medical. I've known Pete for a long time. Well, I should call him doctor. But I've known that long. He'll ask all the time. He'll ask a coming to ask a little joke. He'll ask you to, he'll do things on your mental health as well. Now, of course, they have to do that because haven't been there for pilots mental health is not right.
It could be catastrophic in the commercial world, obviously. And they're looking for all the time. And I said, it gives me a sheet of paper and says, how do I feel if I'm ever anxious or nervous, whatever? And I don't mind telling you. I say, Oh, fuck off, Pete. If I actually had an issue here, I'm not going to keep zero here. Because otherwise, you won't give me my license. Okay, you're going to put my medical, I won't do it. And he said, ah, everyone has something there. So someone who's going to say I'm perfect on everything. He said, they're the ones I almost too look at. But here's, I know it's a long question here.
But that's in the airline world. The responsibility is on the CIA. Okay, it's the responsibility is on the airlines and the pilot in the motor trade. Where does the responsibility really sit? I think is a fascinating question. I think ultimately, the responsibility is with the individual. We all have a responsibility for our own lives and to take leadership and have leadership of what's going on for us. Having said that, I know that when everything, when the wheels fell off for me, I didn't know where to start. I was overwhelmed. I was just facing a world of, you know, I hope you don't mind me, but just a ton of shit coming in my direction. But I didn't know where to start with that.
And it was coming at me nonstop from every direction. Oh, that's how it felt. So on the one hand, I can say it was my responsibility. But on the other hand, I did need to reach out and get some some help and support. And that's where my friends and my doctor and the people that we've talked about already came in, because that's where the psychological safety was. I was at a point where I needed, I needed that support and I needed to be open and honest. So on the one hand, it was my responsibility. But if I would been in an employed situation, I would have liked, and this is the purpose of men able now, this is what we're about, I would have liked to be working for an organization where the leadership set the tone, they set the culture, they make it okay for me to come in and go, I might be your best salesperson.
But everything's going to rat shit right now, and I need some help and support, whether that's timeout, whether that's a change of duties, whether that's just help and support, whatever it might be. Don't keep trying to keep keep me going when I've already told you that I'm not in a good place. Do you mind sharing and again, someone who has not been in that situation, and someone might be find it hard, what does it look like in a turn of point of view? When you're thinking, shit is coming out from all different places there, you're not knowing where to turn and quite frankly, thank goodness you did find people to turn to. Can you explain what does that shit come in from every angle?
How does that menstruate itself? Is it hard to get out of bed in the morning? I just think I just don't want to do this anymore. How does it? Yeah, I mean, it's a mix of things and I hear from different people that it manifests in different ways. And this is interesting as well that I do get a lot of women reach out to talk to me and the people that work with me. And their version of what you've just described quite often is take to their bed, go to bed, kind of sleep it out. Or I've recently come onto it in a bit, I've recently got involved in hosting some drag brunches. And what I've noticed is that ladies do like to get together on a Saturday lunchtime and down several glasses of Prosecco.
And that seems to be a bit of a coping mechanism, shall we? I love you said hosting. I'll come back to that a bit of that for them is one way with men. What I've seen is that men do that thing we've touched on already, which is they just get on with it. Yeah. The issue that I had, and this isn't why it's me, is I had nothing to get on with because if when it all happened for me, we went straight into lockdown, the diary was emptying. I was in a flat all on my own. So all I had to do was to go and join my socially distanced queue at Azda, and then go for a walk around the park once a day as I was allowed the rest of the time.
I was just sitting at home, doom scrolling through various things and watching what was happening in the world and endless amounts of news. So I was feeding it, if I'm honest, it didn't get any easier. But yeah, I mean, I would take myself to bed and go, I did not feel in it. Now I'd just go to bed for an afternoon or whatever. But I did know that I need to do something about this. This is on me. The circumstances were on me. And so the answer and the solution is on me. And that's where I reached out. You see, and did reach out, thank goodness. But there was no one else in that environment to see any warning signs or spot the signs of that you needed help.
So if I'm a dealer principal, I had a business or a management person, I'll leave it in the business. Are there some early warning signs to reach out? Yeah, I mean, you say that there was no one there to see it. And part of that was what we talked about a little while ago was that I was very good at putting the mask on. I was good at turning up in the suit and tie. My tie collection was extensive. The shiny, I used to say shiny shoes, shiny mind. Yeah, you know what I mean. Think about what you're putting on in the morning because that's your shop window, you know, all that stuff. But yeah, this subject has become a lot more mainstream.
And I think now it is incumbent on leaders too. And it was interesting. I heard something the other day with someone said, it takes sales managers, for example. Sales managers are quite often people. And I was the same promoted into a position where they think they're managing the sales function. They're managing the sales in that business. I would challenge that and go, no, you're not, you're managing the people who do the selling. It's different. And when you're managing people, your job is the people and you need to be in tune with each and every one of them and their needs will be different. So be curious. So just because somebody and the signs I would say to look out for are the people who are there from the minute the place opens to the minute it closes and beyond.
Never seem to have any kind of life outside of work, are very in a way quite insular and keep themselves themselves equally. I've noticed that the ones who are the class clown, you know, the ones who are always joking and laughing are the ones to keep an eye on as well, because some of that could be masking. So it just, it kind of shows that there's no real sort of specific answer to that. This is where the curiosity as a leader comes in. And I have to be in tune with every single person in my team. That just leads me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk.
Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.
