Great Minds

Great Minds Great Minds is a training provider of mental health awareness workshops in the workplace, including

Here's something I learned the hard way:Training without infrastructure is hope without a plan.I've seen it countless ti...
15/01/2026

Here's something I learned the hard way:

Training without infrastructure is hope without a plan.

I've seen it countless times:

Organisation invests in mental health training. ✅
Training is well-received. ✅
Managers leave feeling inspired. ✅

Then what?

They go back to desks piled with urgent tasks.
There's no clear process for when someone struggles.
The policies are vague. The support pathways unclear.

Within weeks, the training fades.

Because training alone isn't enough. You need infrastructure.

That's why The B.R.I.D.G.E includes dedicated infrastructure development:

→ Mental health policy creation (compliant, practical, usable)
→ Return-to-work procedures (clear, supportive, consistent)
→ Resource pathway mapping (who to contact, when, how)
→ Manager toolkit development (conversation guides, checklists)

Training gives managers skills.
Infrastructure gives them somewhere to put those skills to work.

You need both.

Tomorrow: I'll share one of the practical tools from the manager toolkit—completely free.

14/01/2026

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A piece of feedback that stopped me in my tracks:"Yohan has the skills to engage, inspire and create a safe space for pa...
14/01/2026

A piece of feedback that stopped me in my tracks:

"Yohan has the skills to engage, inspire and create a safe space for participants. He makes something that's really difficult to talk about feel real, and has a skill for allowing participants to feel the weight of the subject without being overwhelmed by it."

Here's the tension I navigate in every session:

Too much safety, not enough substance:
→ People feel good but leave without practical skills

Too much substance, not enough safety:
→ People feel overwhelmed and disengage

The magic is in the balance.

Safety + Substance.

Creating space where people managers can:

Admit what they don't know
Practice difficult conversations
Make mistakes without judgment
Walk away with tools they'll actually use
That balance doesn't happen by accident.

It's designed. It's intentional. And it's at the heart of how the training delivery which is part of the B.R.I.D.G.E is delivered.

Mental health can be heavy.

But learning about it should leave people feeling equipped, not helpless.

People ask me: "What qualifies you to do this work?"Fair question. Here's my honest answer:A rare combination that took ...
13/01/2026

People ask me: "What qualifies you to do this work?"

Fair question. Here's my honest answer:

A rare combination that took 20 years to build.

Lived experience.
I've been the employee struggling silently—panic disorder, anxiety, self-doubt so deep I couldn't see past it.

I've been the manager who noticed something was wrong and said nothing.

Professional depth.
20,000+ employees trained since 2015.
7,000+ managers specifically.
Training delivered for Mind and MHFA England.

Real-world application.
I didn't just train for Mind. I worked there for years. Using these techniques in real situations, supporting real people.

Corporate understanding.
15+ years in corporate environments—I understand the pressures, the politics, the reality of limited budgets.

Most trainers have academic knowledge OR lived experience OR corporate background.

Having all of them? That's what makes the difference in the room.

When I talk about the fear of saying the wrong thing, I'm not describing a hypothetical.

I've felt it.

How much did your organisation spend on mental health initiatives last year?Now here's the harder question:What changed ...
12/01/2026

How much did your organisation spend on mental health initiatives last year?

Now here's the harder question:

What changed as a result?

Not "how many people attended training."
Not "how many resources were downloaded."

What actually changed?

Most organisations can't answer this.

Because they're measuring activity, not outcomes.

Here's why this matters:

Deloitte's research shows proactive universal organisation wide mental health interventions deliver £6.30 for every £1 invested.

But that ROI only materialises if the interventions actually change behaviour.

Training that gets delivered but doesn't stick? Activity.

Training that builds capability and changes culture? Outcome.

The B.R.I.D.G.E is designed specifically for outcomes.

Every phase includes measurement:

Baseline assessment before we start
Progress tracking throughout
Follow-up surveys to quantify change
Data you can take to leadership
Because "we delivered training" isn't good enough anymore.

"We changed behaviour" is the new standard.

How many wellbeing days did you miss in 2025?That scramble to mark Mental Health Awareness Week—three days after it star...
09/01/2026

How many wellbeing days did you miss in 2025?

That scramble to mark Mental Health Awareness Week—three days after it started?

As an HR professional or wellbeing lead, you're juggling competing priorities while trying to build a psychologically safe culture. Proactive planning shouldn't be another thing that falls through the cracks.

More Than Just a PDF!
The Annual Wellbeing Calendar 2026 is your year-round planning partner:

Every key wellbeing date for 2026 in one place

Monthly reminders delivered to your inbox

Next month's preview so you're always one step ahead

No more reactive scrambling. Just confident, intentional wellbeing leadership.

👉 Claim Your Free Calendar Today

Sign up now and lead your organisation's wellbeing efforts with purpose.
https://info.greatminds.training/booking-8176-8645-8647

Time to introduce something I've been building for most of 2025I'm super excited to introduce The BRIDGE MethodologyBefo...
09/01/2026

Time to introduce something I've been building for most of 2025

I'm super excited to introduce The BRIDGE Methodology

Before I tell you what it is, let me tell you what it isn't:

❌ Another one-day awareness workshop
❌ A tick-box compliance exercise
❌ Generic training that fades within weeks

The BRIDGE is a 12-week implementation system designed to create sustainable mental health culture change.

Here's what it's built on:

1. 'Thriving at Work' Alignment
Maps directly to the UK's gold-standard six core workplace wellbeing standards—as embedded practice, not aspiration.

2. Highest-ROI Approach
Deloitte's 2024 research shows proactive interventions deliver £6.30 for every £1 invested—the highest return category.

3. 10 Years of Real-World Testing
Built on frameworks tested with 20,000+ employees and 7,000+ managers through Great Minds and for Mind and MHFA England.

The structure:

B - Baseline Assessment
R - Roadmap Development
I - Infrastructure Development
D - Delivery (Training)
G - Growth & Implementation
E - Evolution & Sustainability

More on each phase in the coming weeks.🙂

A training participant changed how I think about everything.She approached me during a break. Mid-40s. Senior role. Clea...
08/01/2026

A training participant changed how I think about everything.

She approached me during a break. Mid-40s. Senior role. Clearly capable.

She said:

"I've done three of these courses now. I know all the theory. But I still freeze when someone actually comes to me struggling. I don't know what to actually SAY."

I looked at her and thought: That was me.

Years of being a manager. Watching team members struggle. Knowing I should say something.

And saying nothing.

Because awareness isn't the same as confidence.

That conversation haunted me.

I've heard versions of it hundreds of times since:

"I know I should say something, but..."
"I don't want to make it worse..."
"What if I say the wrong thing?"

The gap between knowing and doing—that's where capability lives.

That's exactly what I've spent the last decade trying to bridge.

Tomorrow, I'll introduce the system I've built to close this gap.

Here's something I wish someone had told me 10 years ago:The problem isn't that organisations don't care about mental he...
07/01/2026

Here's something I wish someone had told me 10 years ago:

The problem isn't that organisations don't care about mental health.

It's that caring isn't the same as being equipped.

Every HR leader I speak with cares deeply.
Every manager I train wants to help their people.

And yet:

- Deloitte says poor mental health costs UK employers £51 billion annually
- CIPD reports absence at 9.4 days per employee—the highest ever recorded
- HSE stress management standards remain unmet in most organisations

Good intentions aren't closing these gaps.

So what's missing?

Implementation.

The Thriving at Work report set out six clear standards back in 2017. The "what to do" has been clear for years.

The struggle is the "how to actually do it."

That's the gap I've spent the last decade trying to understand and address, and most of 2025 building..

It's called The BRIDGE.

I'll share more on Friday.

"We've done the training. Nothing changed."I hear this from HR leaders constantly.Here's why most mental health training...
06/01/2026

"We've done the training. Nothing changed."

I hear this from HR leaders constantly.

Here's why most mental health training fails:

It treats training as the destination, not the starting point.

A one-day workshop can create awareness. ✅
It can share information. ✅
It can generate good intentions. ✅

But it can't:

Rewire behaviour
Build lasting confidence (that takes practice, not slides)
Change culture (that takes systems, not events)

Deloitte's research confirms this: the highest ROI—£6.30 per £1—comes from sustained, systematic interventions. Not one-day workshops.

I've delivered hundreds of workshops. Many were excellent.

And then people went back to their desks and nothing changed.

Because training alone isn't enough.

Capability requires more than awareness.

More on what "more" looks like tomorrow.

Your managers are failing at mental health conversations. And it's not their fault.I've trained 7,000+ managers over the...
05/01/2026

Your managers are failing at mental health conversations. And it's not their fault.

I've trained 7,000+ managers over the past decade across hundreds of organisations.

The same story repeats everywhere:

Managers want to help struggling team members.
They know mental health matters.
They notice when something's wrong.

And then they freeze.

Beneden Health’s research confirms this isn't just my experience:

55% of employers have held back from asking an employee about their mental health because they were afraid of saying the wrong thing
(Beneden Health Mental Health Report 2024)

Not budget. Not awareness. Not policy.

Capability.

The ability to actually have the conversation. To say something helpful. To support without making it worse.

That's the gap.

And here's the thing: it's completely fixable.

Not through more awareness training.
Through building actual skills.

This week, I'm sharing what that looks like in practice.

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Wednesday 9am - 5pm
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