THE SPEAKERS
Meet Simon, Jonny, Hope, Adam, James, Alex and Tom....
There's no better way to introduce our speakers than to introduce you to their books...
Simon Thomas
In his heartbreaking memoir, Simon Thomas (former Blue Peter presenter and one of the leading faces of Sky Sports Football) reveals how grief nearly destroyed him.
When Simon lost the woman he had loved for 16 years, the future he’d imagined for their happy family disappeared forever. Just three days after being diagnosed, Gemma died from acute myeloid leukemia.
In Love, Interrupted, Simon is brutally honest about his journey through grief and opens up about how close he came to ending his own life. Simon didn’t know how to carry on without Gemma; he just knew that, for the sake of his eight-year-old son, he had to find a way…
Love, Interrupted is a moving story of love, loss, faith, and family.
Alex Holmes
The Host
We live in a super-connected world, yet men specifically struggle to connect and share.
This is changing… but not quickly enough. Award-winning podcaster Alex Holmes sets out to accelerate this shift, debunking lingering myths around masculinity, love and connection by exploring what causes this sense of loneliness.
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Starting with "Real Man Myths" and features designed to encourage us to open up and share, Alex motivates us to move from:
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Ignoring to Acknowledging
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Being Closed to Opening Up
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Can’t to Can
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Avoiding to Embracing
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Expecting to Accepting.
Sharing his experiences on his podcast and as a young British black man, Time to Talk is a love letter to all the men who have lost their way and to the women that love them.
Adam Shaw
Being in control of your mental health and understanding your own mental health wellbeing just makes everything in life better – it’s that simple.
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From the heart and soul of Adam Shaw, who battled OCD for decades, and the expert insight of his psychologist Lauren Callaghan, comes the definitive recovery guide for OCD, anxiety and related depression. This unique self-help book brings you advice and recovery tools from the separate perspectives of a leading psychologist and her patient and gives an insight into mental health recovery and CBT techniques that you can really relate to.
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This new edition contains a bonus chapter on how Adam has used this approach to maintain his recovery and wellness several years on.
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Find your book, find your recovery
use code:
ManTalk
For 35% off!
Hope virgo
For four years, Hope Virgo fought a grueling internal battle, keeping her anorexia hidden from friends and family. Having pushed her health to its breaking point, and with her skin turning yellow and her heart failing, it became impossible to hide. Barely recognizable, Hope was admitted to a mental health hospital in 2007.
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Twelve years on, Hope has been in recovery from anorexia for over a decade. But it hasn’t always been an easy ride, and after a relapse in 2016 where she was refused help for “not being thin enough”, she knew she needed to raise awareness about the disease that almost took her life.
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And so, in August 2018, Hope launched the #DumpTheScales campaign, which calls on the government to review their guidance on support for eating disorders. Since then, with relentless campaigning, her petition has gained over 70,000 signatures and counting.
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Stand Tall Little Girl is the inspiring account of how Hope fought back from rock bottom, built a healthy life for herself, and used her story to affect real change for others suffering from the same devastating condition.
Jonny benjamin
MBE
There is always hope, even when we cannot seem to seek it within ourselves.
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From the best advice you’ll ever get to the joy of crisps, the 101 brilliant contributors to The Book of Hope will help you to find hope whenever you need it most.
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Award-winning mental health campaigner Jonny Benjamin, MBE, and co-editor Britt Pfluger bring together people from all walks of life – actors, musicians, athletes, psychologists and activists – to share what gives them hope.
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These 101 key voices in the field of mental health, from the likes of Lemn Sissay, Dame Kelly Holmes, Frank Turner and Zoe Sugg, to Joe Tracini, Elizabeth Day, Hussain Manawer and Joe Wicks, share not only their experiences with anxiety, psychosis, panic attacks and more, but also what helps them when they are feeling low.
This joyful collection is a supportive hand to anyone looking to find light on a dark day and shows that, no matter what you may be going through, you are not alone.
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Dr James Espey
OBE
“Drawing on my observations, learnings, and experience in global marketing and senior management, I thought I would put into words some simple, hard truths about the requirements for success in the world of business.”
– James Espey, OBE
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With over 50 years of experience in managing and developing top global brands such as Baileys and Malibu, James Espey has harnessed and refined his wisdom into 100 bite-sized tips that reveal what it really takes to be successful in the world of business.
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His clear, down-to-earth advice will help readers at all stages of their career; from novices to middle-management, and from start-up entrepreneurs to chief executives… anyone looking to progress their career in business should have this book on their desk.
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Easy to dip in and out of, or read cover to cover, James’ advice gives readers encouragement to help them achieve business success and career fulfillment… and pushes them to make their mark on the world, wherever and however they work.
Tom Chapman
Up to a certain age, Tom Chapman rarely had any reason to worry about his – or anyone else’s – mental health. Aside from a bout of loneliness when his friends left town to go to university, he didn’t struggle too badly with his emotions either.
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But when he suddenly lost a friend to suicide, Tom knew that he wanted to do something to change the culture around men’s mental health. Through his work as a barber, he recognized how important it was to encourage men to talk to each other. He knew that if he could just help men to open up, then perhaps he could save lives. And so the "Lions Barber Collective" was born: an international group of top barbers, all of whom came together to encourage conversation and help raise awareness for the prevention of suicide.
