COVER STORY | MENTAL HEALTH
MIND OVER MATTER SIMON WESTON is backing the ISM’s initiative to promote mental health in sales. Tom Nash describes the Falklands War veteran’s triumph over adversity – and his thoughts on personal resilience
“W
e can all be the right sort of leader, not shouting and screaming, but calm, compassionate and communicative – and, above all, listening.” As leadership advice goes these days, such a view is fairly mainstream, but coming from Simon Weston it has “cut through” – and that is what really matters. Weston willingly admits he is not a management guru, and his thoughts on leadership are not revolutionary, but because of his own extraordinary life experience, people rightly listen to him. He hopes to make a difference by describing some of the lessons he has learnt, and how adopting a commonsense approach can help. That’s as important as ever right now, because with the world still fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, there are people all around the world, at all levels of society, in crisis, with some of them facing mental health meltdown. A report 18 WINNING EDGE
by insurance giant Aviva in December found that over half of workers had neglected their mental and physical health during the pandemic, while another recent survey by Purbeck Insurance Services found that two-thirds of workers in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) feel their mental health has suffered. Inevitably, such worrying statistics will include a fair proportion of sales professionals. In typically down-to-earth fashion, Weston is keen to help out, lending his support as an ambassador to mental health consultancy, Wellity Workplace Wellbeing, and to the ISM’s mental health and wellbeing thought leadership group, a new initiative to promote good mental health in sales, led by Wellity’s founder and ISM Champion, Simon Scott-Nelson (see page 20). As Weston explains in mellifluous Welsh tones,“I’m proud to be involved with Wellity and the ISM because we all have the same desire, which is to help people succeed against whatever stresses and adversity they come across in life.” Weston, of course, is the personification of ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM
