Change the narrative and get unstuck

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released Resilience Unravelled – Change the narrative and get unstuck.

 In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Russell Heath, a life and leadership coach who is based in New York City. Russell has been a life and leadership coach for over ten years but before this he ran an environmental group that protects the national forest in Alaska. Over a period of time he came to realise that what the organisation could do was limited ,not by finance or by circumstances, but by his leadership - he could only take it as far as he was himself was developed and able to go. He attended leadership training courses but found that these focused on skills like presentation and staff management rather than the underlying behaviours needed to deploy the skills. In 2010 he moved to New York City where he undertook training and coaching to learn how to be a leader but eventually decided to go into business himself and retrained to be a professional coach

Russell now works with high performing professionals who are stuck in some way- they want more out of their professions, are very successful and have a good family and home but want something more and don't know what it is. The framework he uses works around the idea that we all develop a way of looking at the world and a set of behaviours and values at a young age. These are developed for our own physical and emotional survival and, whilst they produce results for some people, others often in their 30s or 40s find they aren’t producing any satisfaction or meaning.. They are stuck because this is all they know but what they need to do is look at the world to see what would produce meaning, fulfillment and excitement.

Russell uses the Ontology style of coaching. Ontology is the study of being and is about developing the ability to choose our being regardless of circumstances so we can choose the way of being that best enables us to fulfil on what is important to us. Ontological coaching expands our capacity to choose so we aren’t driven by our “default” behaviors but have the freedom to choose who we want to be. This allows us to accomplish our goals, deepen our relationships, and live a rich and rewarding life.

If we’re not getting the results we want we need to ask ourselves what we need to do differently to get better results’? ‘Do we want these results? What do we need to do differently? Who do we need to be to get different results? Money and status are external to ourselves but we can sometimes have difficulty giving them up for something more meaningful. How then when we achieve something can we avoid getting stuck? If we win is it what we wanted?  When we get so focused on getting there we realise we didn’t enjoy the journey.

Changing purpose or narrative is a key part of getting unstuck. We are in conversation with ourselves and that conversation determines how we see the world. Changing this can produce different results but we need to shift more than our linguistical world. To bring lasting change we also need to need to shift our emotional and physical worlds.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Russell here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available as is our full blog archive.

You can find out more about Russell or get in touch with him through his website.

If you would like to find out more about Russell’s Alaskan based thrillers visit https:/russellheathauthor.com/

Understanding gambling addiction

Patrick Chester is an author and speaker on the subject of gambling addition. A former addict himself, he now lives in Washington State with his wife Erica and his two sons.

If you take a group of people playing slot machines or cards, or backing a horse or football team, some won’t be affected at all, a couple may develop a mild gambling habit whilst one may end up with a with a severe problem. It’s hard to say what the trigger is, as its different for each person but Patrick traces his trigger back to when he was young.  His father took him and his sister to parties where people were gambling and drinking and having a great time. Patrick didn’t recognise the dangers of gambling because he had grown up seeing it as fun and harmless, something you could do as a family. Before he knew it though, it had taken over his life.

Patrick doesn't know when was the point of change. It was difficult to recognise but he got to a point where he was in very deep and it had gone being fun to being the solution to his problems. In his mind the only way to recover and pay back his debts he was in was to gamble more. Patrick started to realise he had a problem around 2012 when he started committing crimes. He had exhausted all his access to finance and was no longer working for himself as he had been reported to the state. He was gambling with other people’s money by taking money as a deposit and using it to gamble.

At the end of 2014 Patrick had rented some heavy equipment for a job he had been hired to do but his plan was actually to sell the equipment and gamble the money. He had convinced himself that he would win the money back and pay off all his debts.   At this point he realised he had crossed the line. Nobody else knew and he looked and appeared normal but inside he was a mess, stressed out and confused. It is easier to recognise someone with a drugs and alcohol problem as you can see the toll the addiction takes physically but with gambling there is nothing to see. Patrick had also become very creative with his lies. His wife trusted him with the bills and the mortgage and he diverted mail so she didn’t see bills weren’t being paid. Deceit and having to live on your wits almost seemed to be part of the enjoyment. Talking his way out of situations and convincing other people gave him a sense of satisfaction but that was part of the illness. Some days he just felt a huge sense of sadness when he would ask himself how he could continue to lie and do this to the people I love.

Patrick had to figure out what was going on in his head and why he was doing these things. What he sees as his ‘Day of Comeuppance’ happened in 2015. During 2013 and 2014 criminal changes for theft were brought against him. He decided the best thing would be to let the charges to play themselves out and plead guilty. At this point he reached out to a family member.  He and his family were living with his wife’s parents as they had lost their house. He told them he was going to work but at that point he had no work. His father in law called and said they knew everything that was going on and not to come back to house, to book in a hotel and that they would all talk tomorrow. It turned out they had taken out an intervention. The next day they all sat down together and five hours later Patrick was on a plane for treatment.

Patrick feels that there were many points particularly in 2010 and 2011 when his wife was questioning him when he could have told the truth about his gambling problem and that her needed help but he was scared he would lose his marriage. As it turned out it was a 100 times worse carrying on. It takes a different form of courage to ask for help. He wished he had the courage but he kept searching for ways to get out his mess – he was going to win and pay everyone off and stop gambling. He knew it wasn’t reality but reality doesn't work with a full-blown addict. When Patrick went into treatment they did a full assessment and gave him a base plan to work with to help him understand what was going on in his brain but it took a couple of years before he could see the addiction patterns. Patrick feels he was very fortunate as his wife and her family put together a life plan for him. It was very much take it or leave it but he was ready. There are very few specialist gambling treatment centres in the USA but Patrick was fortunate in that a place was found for him. It helped him to release that he wasn't alone and that gambling addiction happened to other people as well. 

Therapy was very intense and lasted for eight hours a day for thirty days. After that he continued to work with them as an outpatient. Three weeks after he left therapy he was due to be sentenced for his criminal convictions. Patrick attended thinking that as he had completed treatment the judge would view his case favorably but the judge had listened to the victim impact statements and sent him to jail for four months.  Patrick had nothing to do but think of ways to improve his life and self and he now thinks the jail term was good for him.  He also had to pay back all the money he owed which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Patrick very much respects his wife and her family. He doesn’t know another family who would have gone to the lengths they did. His wife was pretty tough on herself for a while and kept asking herself how she could have allowed him to manipulate her for so long but as Patrick says it is hardest for the person closest to you to see it. Patrick now focuses on being the best father and husband he can and trying to help people understand what gambling addiction is and helping people who are suffering. After taking from people and causing them financial and emotional pain he feels it is time to start giving back and turn it into a positive. He is working on a book which will hopefully be out in the summer/early fall and on a website.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Patrick here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and full blog archive is also available.

You can get in touch with Patrick through his Twitter account patrickchester9

He also recommends that anyone who feels they has a problem gets in touch with Gamblers Anonymous and the National Suicide Prevention line in US or the Samaritans in UK.

You may also be able to access help in the UK at https://www.okrehab.org/