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Ian Hurst on Changing the tune of Mental Health

By Ian Hurst

Managing Director of We are Hummingbird Health Ltd

Spending 17 years conforming to what society would deem a highly successful career – working for a large global insurance company with high-profile clients including Rolls Royce, Bentley, Porsche, and Nestle – Ian Hurst hadn’t realised how much he was struggling with his mental health.

Upon attending a revelatory mental health course in 2016, Ian had an epiphanic moment that motivated him to change his life, and consequentially countless others since.

Ian became a mental health instructor and established We are Hummingbird Health Ltd, the education wing of the non-profit mental health awareness organisation, We are Hummingbird.

Working in an area that doesn’t discriminate, Ian has helped thousands of people to better understand their mental health, working everywhere from the Royal Navy to nightclubs in Ibiza to change the narrative of a subject that is all too often misunderstood.

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What's your motivator?

We're so uneducated about mental health that it's dangerous. When it gets to the point where things go wrong, it's too late.

Whenever someone comes on one of my courses, my role is to give them all the tips, tricks, and education they need before they might have a mental illness.

Lots of people with mental illnesses learn the hard way about what they need to do and what their triggers or symptoms are. Anyone with a mental illness will tell you that the hardest thing is learning about themselves.

The aim that I have is educating people early enough, so they never get to that point – it’s about prevention over cure.

What's your proudest moment?

It’s impossible to pick just one. I’ve worked with people who planned on ending their lives who are thankfully still here today and that's always a very proud moment.

Lots of people that I’ve worked with have been in difficult spots and through training and conversations have stopped drinking or indulging in drugs. Or people who have been at that burnout point and come on a course with us who have then taken that needed time out to refocus.

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What’s a common misconception about Mental Health?

People have no idea what mental health means and the biggest challenge is that people think they know what mental health is because they’ve watched something on TV.

We’re living in a dangerous time when people are talking about a subject and trying to help other people with no real understanding of what it means.

TV programmes can reach millions of people instantly with incorrect language, and it’s taken me seven years to train 7000 people.

You hear people all the time saying they feel depressed, but it’s impossible to feel depressed, depression isn’t an emotion, it’s a clinical name of a mental illness.

The dangerous thing is that our children are starting to hear more language and they’ll grow up using it too so we’re moving further away from fact.

What’s on your bucket list?

I would like We are Hummingbird Health to be the biggest mental health educator in the UK. And I would love to help change the narrative of mental health, giving the topic more correct media exposure. I’ve made some TV programmes, I’ve been on podcasts, radio, news, and featured in a couple of books.

I think it’s so easy to educate people around this topic and a different way of portraying it could change everything.

When I was ill, I didn’t relate to anything that currently existed in the world of mental health, and because I didn’t relate, I probably spent more years than I needed to, not very well. The aim of Hummingbird is to interact with people who don’t currently have a voice.

"We're so uneducated about mental health that it's dangerous. When it gets to the point where things go wrong, it's too late."

Ian Hurst, Managing Director of We are Hummingbird Health Ltd

What are some tips for Mental Health?

One of the biggest barriers to mental health, and the reason why people don’t understand it, is that they can’t see it.

When I train people, I talk a lot about everyday things that people can visualise, I hang all my hints and tips over these elements so that it becomes relatable.

One principle I use is thinking about mental health like a bank account. The way that we are wired is that we only attach emotion to good things if we deem them big enough, but we attach emotion to all negatives no matter how big or small. Cash goes out of your mental health bank account with negative emotions, but you also need to cash in and force the brain to attach positive emotion to all the small things too. When you have a nice cup of coffee, hug someone, or hear a favourite song, I encourage people to tell themselves to cash in. The more money you have in your mental health bank account, the easier it is to manage the negatives.

What is your go-to way to switch off?

I always have a beach day when I’m in Ibiza. I love to travel, and if it’s for work, I always have a day on my own to not talk to anybody and just lay on a beach and read.

The biggest thing for me to put money in my mental health bank account is my daughters. We have a shared interest in women’s football, my daughters play, and we go and watch, and that’s one of the biggest things to recuperate myself.

I have very good boundaries. I don’t take stuff home and it’s something I’ve had to learn over the years. I look after myself with self-care like sleep, early nights, I’m not a big drinker – the simple things all add up.

"The biggest challenge is that people think they know what mental health is because they've watched something on TV."

Ian Hurst, Managing Director of We are Hummingbird Health Ltd

Favourite place in the world?

Greece. I’d love to retire to Rhodes eventually to live in the sun.

Favourite Artist?

Sam Fender.

What’s your favourite book?

Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff probably changed my whole life. I read it when I was changing careers and it had such an impact on me that when they wrote their second book, We are Hummingbird and I are featured.

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