THE BRAIN IS MISCHIEVOUS. AND IT'S NOT A FLAW - IT'S ALL PART OF THE JOB.
If you have a brain, you will struggle at some point. Fact. It’s not a weakness, and it most certainly doesn’t have to turn into a lifelong label. Because making life difficult from time to time is just what brains do.
And yet, so much of our culture treats struggle like a secret to be buried deep rather than an experience to be shared. We edit our words like the finest of proofreaders. And we perform that seemingly innocent, enticingly simple word, “fine,” when we’re anything but. Ultimately, we let the mischievous, over-thinking, catastrophising parts of our brain run the show behind the scenes, because hiding away feels safer than being seen.
But alas. This doesn’t work. Hiding away doesn’t make the problem go away, it compounds it. Because the very act of keeping everything bottled up is like pouring a shit-load of horse manure onto a very fertile breeding ground and hoping nothing happens.
This World Mental Health Day, the theme is “Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change.” It’s a theme that asks something pretty basic, but for the avoidant business owners and leaders out there may well send a shiver down your spine, hold space.
Space for people to say the sometimes murky, sometimes uncomfortable, but altogether true thing (no polishing required). A space where someone can say “here’s what’s going on in my head” and the response is “You know what? I get it, and no, you’re not abnormal.” Because all too often, it’s a sweat-beaded brow accompanied by a flinch, a white cape moment of “let’s fix this right now,” or at worst, a change of subject entirely.
At Lauren Stoney, Mental Strength Training (MST), this isn’t a nice sentiment rolled out once a year – it’s the whole premise of what it is to be human, and how we work WITH ourselves to ensure we’re performing at our highest potential. It’s the foundation for everything – from a high-performing brain excelling in their personal life, to what makes the ultimate all-singing, all-dancing, high-performing team.
It’s also the thinking behind Brain Gym for Business, because what shows up in the monthly meet is no different to what shows up in a single human brain, and shame usually gets there before honesty does.
So when it comes to the workplace and team dynamics, we have to remember that none of this happens in isolation. Your nervous system doesn’t just respond to your own thoughts; it responds to the rooms you’re in, and whether the people near you feel safe enough to be honest.
This is why mental load rarely stays contained to one person. Whether it’s a director firefighting every decision alone, or a team member who’s stopped speaking up in meetings, it’s the same nervous-system drivers playing out at scale. And that’s the ripple effect behind “real voices, real change” – one honest conversation regulates the next, at any level of a business.
So the question is: how do you start opening up space for honest conversations? Maybe it’s a confidential space that’s got nothing to do with a performance review. Maybe it’s noticing who’s gone quiet in meetings, and asking why, instead of just moving the agenda on. Maybe it’s going first- saying the honest, and most likely difficult, thing before you ask anyone else to.
And then consider what that does to a team when every person in it feels safe enough to be honest, rather than just “fine.” What happens to initiative, when nobody’s spending half their energy managing how they’re perceived? What happens to drive, when people aren’t quietly burning out in silence? What happens to decision-making, when staff members feel safe enough to speak their opinions and judgements?
Lauren Stoney, MST was created to disrupt the outdated stories that convince people they’re weak, broken, or limited by their circumstances. And the work isn’t about understanding your brain and stopping there. It’s about training it; starting exactly where this year’s World Mental Health Day theme starts- with a voice, heard, without judgement.
WANT TO SEE WHERE THIS IS ALREADY SHOWING UP IN YOUR TEAM?
So if you’re reading this and nodding your head, going ‘Yeah but – HOW do i change this stuff?’, here’s where to go next:
Download the Brain Gym Team Diagnostic – a short, practical tool for spotting mental load before it costs you in absence, turnover, or decisions made by one exhausted person instead of a whole team.
Want to just come and see what it’s like?
Book a Brain Gym taster session (£97 + VAT) – no diagnostic required first. Sometimes the fastest way to understand this is to experience forty-five minutes of it.
About Lauren
Lauren Stoney is the founder of Lauren Stoney Mental Strength Training, where she works with business leaders to build high-performing teams- not through generic wellbeing perks, but through Brain Gym for Business, a practical, evidence-based approach to reducing mental load and building mental and emotional resilience in the face of challenge.
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