Workplace Mental Health Triage Tools from The Mental Health Comedian

Speaker: 00:00:00

Maartje van Krieken: Hey, thanks for tuning in. I'm glad to have you back here. We have a very important episode this week or a very important subject, and the speaker, of all speakers to talk about it, so it should be good. Today, we're going to talk about suicide prevention, mental health in the workplace, and maybe in a slightly wider sense too, and to talk about that subject, I'm here with Frank King. Frank King is my professional friend, the man who knows all about public speaking, because he's a world record holder when it comes to TED talks, which is why the TED song in the background. But more importantly, Frank's subject is suicide prevention, and he goes around the world advocating himself as the mental health comedian. So important subject, and the best man to talk about that. So welcome Frank.

Frank King: 00:00:50

Well, thank you very much. Nice to be here.

Frank King: 00:00:53

Maartje van Krieken: So yeah, personally, unfortunately, I've had ample experience with this subject, both in my student days and in the workplace, and I would like to hope that I'm annoyed, that maybe I'm not how big of a subject is this? How big is suicides in the workplace as a subject?

Frank King: 00:01:14

Well, 85% 85% of suicides occur with people 18 to 65 years old, and where are they most of the day in the workplace. So it is definitely a workplace health and safety issue. Of course, there are certain industries that have higher rates. I generally work with the top 10 at risk. Occupations for suicide, construction, agriculture, mining, excavation, fishing, farming, forestry and white collar dentists, veterinarians, physicians, all have high rates of suicide, in part because they are male dominated industries, and eight out of 10. Eight out of 10 people who die by suicide nowadays are mad. So it's a, it's definitely a. It's in part due to male masculine Is it male? Masculine toxicity? Male toxicity. Basically, big boys don't cry. They don't reach out for help. So it's my job is to come in as a man and tell my story and be vulnerable and hopefully give them permission to give voice to their feelings, as you were talking about off air with me, that what you do is, in your work, you may not be the ideal person to solve the problem. However, you're the ideal person to go to first to figure out who the ideal person to solve the problem is, and that's often why I get booked. They say, you know, we've had people come in and talk about suicide prevention, but I have personal experience. I live with two mental illnesses, and I've come off the close of suicide myself, so it gives me a different perspective and different credibility than just a mental health clinician coming in for an hour and talking about mental health and wellness workplace to check off a box this year on, oh, yeah, we covered that. So I'm a specialist in that way. It's, yeah.

Frank King: 00:03:08

Maartje van Krieken: We talk plenty on this podcast that, if you can speak from real scars, that messaging is very different, right? It's so yeah, I think an important subject, because I talk about businesses who are in overload or in chaos, right? High pressure, dynamic environments where there is or is or has been, a build up of tension and stress and activity levels and so, yeah, typically, that should make the situation worse. What is some of Why should cobanes Invest in doing the prevention in the workplace? Why not create the space to do it outside the workplace?

Frank King: 00:03:49

Well, again, 85% of the people who die by suicide are in the workplace. Most of the day. They the reason to do it at all is that the good news, I guess, eight out of 10 people. Eight out of 10 people who are suicidal are ambivalent. They cannot make up their mind. Nine out of 10 give hints in the week leading up to an attempt, which means co workers with whom they spend most of the day, can make a difference. They can save a life, and they can do it by doing something as simple as starting a conversation, if they know how. And that's what I teach when I go is how to start that conversation. There's an old urban legend. You should never mention the word suicide in front of somebody who's depressed. It might give them the idea make it more likely, and the reverse is true. If you mentioned it out loud, they're less likely to die by suicide. So I think that's And again, most people are, you know, most of their time, probably more time than they spend with their family, actually, in the workplace, interacting with other employees.

Frank King: 00:04:51

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, and a different emotional relationship, pan so sometimes, in a different way, better able to see because you're there's. Slightly more detachment, a buildup or changes in behavior in individuals. Is that also true? What are we looking for to get an idea whether somebody is going down the wrong way of the slide?

Frank King: 00:05:15

Well, for example, one of the top symptoms of depression is having trouble getting out of bed in the morning. So they're late for work, often late for work or school, often, so that that's, you know, that's work involved. However, in the afternoon, they tend to rally like they're a different person. So if you're working with them all day long, and they come in late, and they seem depressed from the afternoon, you know, like a different person, also people who are depressed let their personal hygiene go. So if you're working with someone and you know, as long as you guys been working together, they've been pretty well put together for the last couple of weeks. You know, the hair is kind of dirty, the clothes, clothes aren't quite so clean. It may be because they're having trouble getting out of bed in the morning simply to shower and run a little watch. So those are things you can you can observe visually. And I think the those are probably my top two in the workplace, because they relatively easy to observe. Yes, late. Hadn't been late, and all sudden they're late. Frequently, something has changed in their personal situation, perhaps some maybe they may just be lazy, but if they haven't, you know, they've been on time, you know, in the past, and are not on time. If they've been pretty well, you know, dressed and put together, and now they're not so, you know, put together that you begin, what you're looking for is a pattern in their behavior. Everybody the business should be something of a gatekeeper. They actually have what they call gatekeeper training. It's QPR Question, Persuade, Refer, and it's they teach you the questions to ask and then what to say, and then how to refer them for psychological evaluation and help QPR, because it's called that, because it's a lot like CPR, with CPR, the sooner you recognize someone's having a heart issue, the sooner you can begin, you know, either chest compressions or getting an AED and, you know, restarting the heart. And the sooner you get them to a professional, the better the outcome. QPR, the sooner you realize someone's having a mental issue, the sooner you can get them to a mental health facility, and the sooner they get to see a professional who can help them. You know, with that, the better the outcome. So that's why, that's why they use QPR, because it's, it sounds a lot like CPR, and that was the point.

Frank King: 00:07:40

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah. Yeah, then you would hope that there's some general care between colleagues in general, right the flag when something different appears to be going always, when I talk a lot about having openness and transparency in your organization before the crisis hits, right before things get tough, because then you're if you are used to seeing your employees and seeing how they're doing and truly seeing what's going on, even without knowing all the private details, but having being able to assess whether something's having a good or a bad day, or is maybe overloaded or not, etc, seeing these things and having a Trust in the organization to be open and transparent from where you sit. So before you get to the QPR, what do you think are some of the big things leaders can do to create the trust and the transparency to facilitate that people look after each other like that?

Frank King: 00:08:39

Well, and I've spoken on this. I was speaking to a big safety organization, and I said, How many people here have either taken or given a an active shooter drill training? And all the hands went up, and I said, Well, I got bad news for you, safety folks, active shooter drills, they're not prevention. They're just trying to help you keep the body count down. It's too late by that point, what I recommend you do is bring somebody in like me. Didn't have to be me, somebody to teach all of the you know, the middle management, the suicide prevention, so they know what to look for and listen for. And then after I leave, bring in somebody who is going to teach all of them conflict resolution, so that there are two people on the floor of the factory that are having a beef, you know, an issue, you get them to conflict resolution, and maybe you never have to use those, those active shooter drill skills, because here in the US, sadly, there's one mass shooting a day on average. Mass Shooting means one assailant and four or more victims. And a lot of that happens in the workplace. So it's Desmond Tutu said, if you're busy pulling dead bodies out of a river, you need to stop doing that go upstream and find out how they're getting in there in the first place. So it's. Preemptive so you get ahead of the problem. You're not chasing it.

Frank King: 00:10:05

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, so what you're saying is, by bringing in somebody like you and then signaling to your organization that you as a leader, hear about these subjects, that you want people to learn some of the tools and tricks to deal with the situation and to be armed with that is signaling that there is space to talk about the subject, and that you want that transparency or that communication and those skills present in your organization.

Frank King: 00:10:31

Yeah, the reverse is also true. I've spoken to I was doing a dental conference, and I spoke to more than one person who worked in a dental office, and they said, Look, Frank, this is all well and good, but the folks I work for, they know I have these issues, but they tell me, you need to leave those at the door when you come in, as if somehow you can, you know when you pass through the door at work, you can leave those in a locker behind you somehow. So that tells the people that they don't care. I did a military base, the National Training Center for the army, Fort Irwin, and one of the soldiers asked me at Q and A, is the army doing enough for suicide prevention? I said, Well, I can't speak for the army. I can speak for Fort Erwin because I'm here. And then I didn't I didn't know the one star general who ran the place was standing behind me with a microphone. So I said to the soldier, here's the deal. Chief fort Erwin gives a shit. And the general steps up, and I see him, and I turned to the audience and said, anybody besides me just pooping your pants? And on the heels of that, the general had a microphone, and he said, soldiers, Frank King is absolutely correct fort Erwin does give a shit. That's why he's here. And several months later, I got a DM on LinkedIn from the base psychologist said, Frank King, I believe you may have saved a life today, a soldier walked into my office and said, I'm depressed and suicidal, and I'm here because Frank King said I had to come in if I felt that way. So the fact that the soldier felt comfortable enough to go in to see the base psychologist, I believe the general set that up by stating his attitude on this situation,

Frank King: 00:12:16

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, because in the situations I was in there, there was a corporate confidential helpline available, right? And once a year, it just felt like once a year there was the mandatory kind of talk saying, Oh, we have all these resources. Or when there was, you know, the annual staff survey and subjects come up, and it's like, well, but we have these resources. But that feels then like a tick in the box exercise, right? And so it makes a huge difference to have Ahmed, actually openly talked about, and commit to it beyond a number that's on the back of a card or that you have to dig through the directory to find, right? Or then hangs in the poster in the in the past or something, compared to somebody actually being brought in to actively talk about a subject that's that's really hard to talk about, and that also, unlike, yeah, not very likely anyone in the organization has the skill set or the practice to to bring up in a way that works in the professional context.

Frank King: 00:13:22

And in the professional context there are, there are careers that a mental illness, you know, a declaration of an issue can be career limiting. I was doing a dental association to Washington State Dental Association, and they had a speaker every year in the past for an hour, as you mentioned, breakout session and the the persons have been from the Dental Board, the people who license the dentists, and that sessions are not particularly well attended. And I'm guessing was because the dentist saw, wait a minute, if I go in there and show an interest in mental health, you know, and say the wrong thing, perhaps my license is in jeopardy. So when I when they hired the comedian to come in and talk about suicide, the dentists were hanging from the rafter. We didn't have enough seats because I can't take their license. That's another reason to bring in somebody, a specialist, from outside, even outside the industry, that where there's no threat that this will be career limiting,

Frank King: 00:14:21

Maartje van Krieken: yeah, yeah, create the safe space to talk about it. But also, I think listening to this with your colleagues and knowing or your peers and knowing that you all hear the same message. I talk about that so often too, because I think it's important, or it may there, it adds to the feeling of safety and trust. If you know that somebody else was at that same talk and word all that being brought up, it somehow then makes it more accessible to bring up the subject with others, because, you know, they were there, you know, they had the same thing, you know you were not in groups of three or four doing training. Scrolled away, and you wonder whether the senior leaders got a different training or a different talk than other people down the line, right? Everybody got the same story.

Frank King: 00:15:08

yes. And I did another dental convention, and about six months later, one of the dentists called me so frank, you're going to love this. He said, we're downsizing. And one of the things, one of the signs and symptoms of thoughts of suicide, are getting your affairs in order, especially if you're giving away prized possessions, because you want to make sure they go to the person and you want them to go to when you're gone. So giving away prize possessions. So the dentist said, Frank, we're downsizing from a 4000 square foot two story house to a ranch style, 1500 square feet. So we have a ton of stuff on Facebook, marketplace, giving it away. I mean, things that I really like, we just don't have room for. He said, another dentist who was there and heard you say, give it away, prize possessions. He called me, and he goes, Man, are you okay? Are you feeling suicidal? Why would I be feeling suicidal? It goes because you're on Facebook marketing, but I know how much those golf clubs mean to you. So he felt comfortable enough to call him up and address it because I approached the topic and they had both been there, you know, say, Hey, you are correct.

Frank King: 00:16:17

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, cool. That's a good success story, right, of being open and able to go there the what if I'm an employee, or somebody like, you know, who experienced it, either close by, or had, you know, had an experience with this, and it's like, I don't, I don't want this to happen to others. So I want something like this in my workplace. I want it to address, but I don't, I don't feel that the leadership in my organization has the ears for it. You must have encountered people who wanted to bring you in but weren't sure how to go about it. What's been successful to try and as a more junior person in an organization, try and broach the subject?

Frank King: 00:16:59

Well, they need to be persistent. I did a show for Washington Labor and Industry in February, and there were two young people there that worked for BP, British Petroleum at a refinery in Blaine, Washington, which is about six hours north of me. And there were, they were on the safety committee. Every year, different people are on the safety committee, but they saw me speak, and they spent, that was February. They spent three or four months hounding management. Have you called Frank King? Have you talked Frank in yet? Have you booked Frank King yet? And I got a call at the end of October, and the person said, we'd like you to come up and speak on suicide prevention. I said, when? And he said, November 6. And I said, 2025, he goes, No, next week. So, but they wouldn't give up. They, although Junior, you know, they were not in they weren't even in middle management. They were just on the safety committee. But they'd seen it, they knew, and they the refinery had lost two or three people the last couple years to suicide, and so they were, you know, they were going to have me come and they were going to bug them until I did. And interestingly, the next day, I got a call from one of the contractors that was there. Half the audience was BP employees, half was contractors who work on site. And the contractor, contracting company said we were there. We want you to come and do that, just for our company. And today, just today, I booked that for the 17th, next week. I mean, that's you don't usually get a booking that short, you know, that close in. But the young man, Matt, had seen me at the BP event, and the next day, contacted me and said, We want you to come and do that just for us. So it's, I think there's a value in starting the conversation like them.

Frank King: 00:18:54

Maartje van Krieken: yeah, yeah. And I think the other way for for me, I was in that position, right? There was too much going on, and I wanted somebody to come in to talk about the subject, and unfortunately, I'd had the negative experience, right? So I did not want somebody else to go through that. I also wish I would have you know, could have undo what happened, and I think that can drive your persistency, right? So that can fuel what you need, the energy you need to keep, keep going after your bosses, because it's important, right? Lives depend on it.

Frank King: 00:19:28

Yes. And sometimes the boss is like the general at Fort Irwin. And I spoke at Lackland Air Force Base, and the commander was the first woman to command Lackland Air Force Base, O'Brien, general O'Brien, and she had lost an airman to suicide on the evening before a court martial. The airman had asked her to dismiss the court martial, since couldn't, and the next day, he didn't show up at the hearing, so they went looking, and of course, he had ended his life. And so she told me, I. Told myself, Frank, that was not going to happen again. And that's when we when we reached out to you, and she sat in the front row at the event, and I said, anybody besides me nervous the general is sitting right now. But that's why she so everybody there saw that she as top of the pyramid, you know, top of the org chart cares about. And the PR woman who booked me says she walked through the lunchroom on her way to get me and into the car and back to my hotel. She goes every table I passed Frank. That was what they were talking about, and that was what we were after. So to make it okay to speak out loud about this,

Frank King: 00:20:47

Maartje van Krieken: yeah, I wish that was way more normal than it is, right? But, yeah, agreed. So you, this is, this is what you do and help the world with. But you also are a speaker expert, right? So you you believe, if you practice what you preach, and you believe in the power of speaking about subjects to get the message across. If people heard you now, here today and want to go back to their bosses and say, Hey, go. Where do they find you? What do they do?

Frank King: 00:21:22

MentalHealthcomedian.com mentalhealthcomedian.com and people ask, you know, comedian suicide. It's not a joking matter, but I do have funny personal anecdotes, things that have happened to me that are funny that they call it comic relief for a reason. It's a very difficult topic, but if every now and then during the keynote, you can toss in and something that happened actually happened me, something somebody said that they didn't realize how awful it was till I pointed it out. It's, you know, it can be very, you know, and it makes it makes the material more digestible, more memorable. I had a woman come up after the Ohio Contractors Association. She said, Frank, we do this every year. And last year we were in Florida, and the guy did an hour, and it was basically the same information you gave us. But I mean, she said it was just death, dying, mortality, morbidity. Said, by the end of it, I felt like, oh god, why bother? Why go but yours, you know, your personal experience and your person to the way you use humor in your presentation to, you know, make the make it more digestible and memorable, and kind of give us a break every now and then from the Mad news.

Frank King: 00:22:35

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah. So what I'm taking away from this people dynamics is everything right? That's what's what makes things work or not work, and on difficult subjects, to create the space to talk. It's part of life, and life has got glorious and ugly and weird sights, and so to tackle it with real conversations and real experiences, and bringing somebody in who can talk from their scars, but with eloquently and with the right vocabulary and the right tools and the right experience about a subject, and then showing up as a leader and as a leader, bringing somebody like you in to show that you care and that you want your team to have the tools and the capabilities to to at least deal A little better with something that's really difficult, right?

Frank King: 00:23:22

And the most dramatic that's ever happened to me was in Cincinnati. I was on site in a construction project. I had spoken to an association, and two of the corporations that were there hired me to come in and actually do it on site for their their people, their rank and file construction workers. And I always do general Q, a, and then I say, Look, if you got a question you got a question you want to ask, story you want to tell, don't want to tell everybody, I'll hang out another 3045, minutes. There's always a line, sometimes two people, sometimes Tim and the last guy was like half dozen guys, guys would still normally talk about. And the young man, young black man, probably mid 20s, crying so hard he couldn't speak. So I waited till he gathered himself. I said, What's up? He said, Well, I haven't slept in two nights, and I work on the fifth floor, and I think about jumping off every day. I said, why is that? He said, because I've lost three people in the last year to violence, including my daughter, who died in my arms. So now not knowing or caring about the corporate structure, the HR guy, the HR manager for this giant construction company, standing right there. So I had no, no problem going, Hey, commitment. You need to go and get the EAP, the employee assistance program binder, and you need to find the nearest mental health facility to where we're standing right now, and you need to take this young man by the hand and get him there now, because he's circling the drain. So, I mean, they can't fire me. I don't care how far up the org chart he is, the guy's gonna kill himself shortly, unless we do something. Couple of months later, I had occasion to talk to the HR gentleman, and I was. Terrified to ask. Finally, I said, How is that nice young man who came up after he goes Frank, he was evaluated. He was medicated. He's back on the job. That's the benefit of bringing somebody in who doesn't care where the bodies are buried, doesn't care about the org chart, does has no problem saying anything to anybody to get the job done, to do what needs to be done. Not worry about my career consequences. The worst they can do is hire me, fire me. So yeah, that's the benefit of bringing in the right outside expert who can say things out loud to people in the organization, which probably a lot of people are thinking but just don't want to give voice to because it could harm their career.

Frank King: 00:25:44

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, and it's so valuable to to arm people with more tools to deal with the unexpected and the difficult and the complex. Right to at least say, Okay, I don't need to know everything about it, but I learned a few tricks and pointers from Craig, so as and when things start to happen, I can be part of the seeing. I can do what I need to do to help,

Frank King: 00:26:07

Yes, and I imagine the the because there are people standing around when this happened, watching me and having this interaction with this young man. So they they were fully aware of what was going on, why it was happening, what he was going through. And then watched management respond immediately. And I'm sure word spread throughout the organization of this is too good a story not to retell again, giving the people in the organization, Oh, wow. I mean, he went right. Frank told to get the binder. He got the binder. He took him. Wow. That's impressive. So

Frank King: 00:26:39

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, and I know that maybe others don't want to be. Wanted to have it so public, but to have a case so public, he probably didn't care anymore. He's at the end, and it would send anyway, right? So I'm glad to prepare for him that.

Frank King: 00:26:53

And I'm guessing his work makes had no idea about that. Most his family had no idea what he's going through, but because I was the guy from outside, on stage, being vulnerable, talking about my mental health issues, near suicide, he felt comfortable to come up and share that story. And that's the power of starting the conversation.

Frank King: 00:27:11

Maartje van Krieken: Yes, well, important subject, very relevant. I'm glad you came to talk to us today. Frank, thank you for tuning in. I hope that you are taking this message out, that you look up what Frank does, and that you think about bringing this subject into your workplace or and or other right subjects like conflict resolution or other. Bring in a specialist, bring in a speaker. They can be funny, a good, inspirational, Memorable Person. You know, it doesn't take 100 hours as a leader. You're showing that you care. You're equipping your team with skills that will help you out when the going gets tough and it can be fun. Need to learn something too. So thank you for joining me today, Frank in in closing, do you have a chaos theory for my audience.

Frank King: 00:28:02

Well, I think the good news is, in a chaotic situation such as, you know, thoughts of suicide, you can make a difference. You can say, with life, you do not have to be a mental health professional to stop a suicide, and you can do it by doing something as simple as we're doing right here, and that is starting a conversation. And now you have an idea of how that works.

Frank King: 00:28:23

Maartje van Krieken: Thank you. Alright. I hope to see you tune in here next week, and that was it for today. Thanks.

Frank King: 00:28:32

My pleasure.