Mind/work with Jasmine El-Gamal Jasmine El-Gamal

Courage is defined as “the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.”
It’s no wonder then that courage is an integral component of mental health. By calling on the strength inside each and every one of us, we can face challenges that, on the surface, seem insurmountable. Whether its persevering through difficult moments, confronting past demons, or choosing to accept the things we can’t control and focusing on those we can, we will all have to summon courage time and again throughout our lives and our careers. 
But believing in your courage, let alone using it, is not always easy. Like the Lion in the Wizard of Oz, we may spend years of our lives searching for it. But the good news is that if you believe in yourself, the journey on that yellow brick road is shorter than you think. 
My guest today knows a thing or two about courage. In 2003, Retired US Air Force Colonel Kim “KC” Campbell was flying a combat mission over Iraq when her A-10 aircraft was hit by enemy fire. In a matter of seconds, KC had to find the courage to get herself back to safety…or risk losing her life. I spoke to KC about her career as a pilot, why having a wingman at work and at home is a game-changer, and what we can learn from her bestselling book “Flying in the Face of Fear: A Fighter Pilot’s lessons on Leading with Courage. 
Bio:
Kim "KC" Campbell is a retired Air Force Colonel who served in the Air Force for over 24 years as a fighter pilot and senior military leader. She has flown 1,800 hours in the A-10 Warthog, including more than 100 combat missions protecting troops on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2003, Kim was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for Heroism after successfully recovering her battle-damaged airplane after an intense close air support mission in Baghdad.
As a senior military leader, Kim has led hundreds of Airmen both at home and abroad in deployed locations and enabled them to succeed in their missions. She has experience leading complex organizations and driving cultural change. Kim knows what it takes to be a successful leader, to inspire and empower high-performance teams to achieve success. Kim is passionate about leadership and feels strongly that leaders earn trust by leading with courage and connecting with their team.
Resources:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kchawg987?s=20
Website: https://kim-kc-campbell.com
Flying in the Face of Fear: A Fighter Pilot's Lessons on Leading with Courage: https://kim-kc-campbell.com/book/
It Takes Courage to Seek Mental Health Support: https://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/Home/News/662
How To Be Brave About Your Mental Health: https://www.talkspace.com/blog/talking-about-your-mental-health/

For every single one of us, grief is a certain and profound component of the fabric of our lives. And yet grief is one of the hardest emotions to process and the most difficult to discuss, particularly when it comes to the workplace. 
A 2021 survey of employees by the Marie Curie support charity found that 29% of employees were not confident in knowing what to say to a bereaved colleague while 14% of HR professionals were not confident they'd know what to say to a bereaved employee.
And even more difficult than talking about it at work, is showing up at work while grieving,  and worrying about the impact of taking time off. The same Marie Curie survey found that 58% of employees felt their performance was affected by grief months after bereavement and 54% of employees worried that taking time off after a bereavement would affect their job security.
For those reasons and many more, how the workplace responds to grief can greatly impact our healing process. And as with all aspects of mental health at work, it starts with a kind and compassionate leadership.  
In this week’s episode, I spoke to Kelly Davies, a communications consultant at the World Bank who, in 2017, tragically lost her husband Charles, with whom she shared a young child, to AML leukaemia. Kelly shared her grieving process and spoke about how to create a grief-informed workplace, as well as how to ask for what you need at work, how to recognise when someone is struggling and the importance of taking care of our workplace community in both easy times, and those that are not so easy. 
Bio:
Kelly Davies has worked on behalf of a variety of organizations dedicated to diverse issues ranging from eradication of poverty to the reduction of learning-poverty to fostering US-Middle East relations in a post-9/11 context.
Over the last two years, Kelly has spearheaded the overall communications program for the World Bank’s umbrella trust fund the Foundational Learning Compact, where she designed and implemented the communications and visibility strategy focused around disseminating knowledge and best practices to key stakeholders and counterparts across global education.
Earlier in her career, Kelly successfully led multiple fundraising initiatives to increase corporate, foundation, and individual support to increase organizational impact and sustainability.

Resources:
Grief and bereavement at work: https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/help/support/bereaved-family-friends/work 
The Danger of Neglecting Grief in the Workplace. Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMgE7_V5Po
Huberman Lab -The Science and Process of Healing from Grief: https://open.spotify.com/episode/75CPy69yUW4SBSMa8eeuVJ?si=eEpxg0j5QyyEd_Ny_SVDxg
Terrible, Thanks for Asking: https://ttfa.org/
Fear, by Tich Nhat Hanh: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13623836
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13623836

When it comes to mental health in the workplace, the buck stops at the top. A survey of 34,000 people across ten countries revealed that 60% of people worldwide say their job is the biggest factor influencing their mental health. And whether we realize it or not, the way we show up to work, as managers, leaders or colleagues, affects the environment around us, and the people in it. 
Managers in particular have an outsized influence on our mental health in the workplace. The same study showed that managers have just as much of an impact on people’s mental health as their spouse, and even more of an impact than their doctor or therapist. A whopping 81% of employees say they would prioritize good mental health over a high-paying job, demonstrating just how much the workplace environment can make or break an organization’s ability to attract top talent, and keep it. 
In today’s episode I spoke to Florence Gaub, the Director of research at the NATO Defense College in Rome about how to show up as our best selves at work and how to notice and prioritize the mental health of our colleagues and employees, including in times of crisis. We also spoke about fostering our self-confidence in order to show up authentically at work, how a good manager will notice and nurture the mental health of their team, how to learn from our failures and those of others, and what sports can teach us about resilience in the workplace.
Bio: Florence Gaub is Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College (Rome). She was previously foresight advisor at the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, special advisor to the EU’s Commissioner on Strategic Foresight Maros Sefcovic, as well as deputy director at the EU Institute for Security Studies. Before that, she was the institute’s resident Middle East analyst, and started her career at the NATO Defense College as Faculty Advisor in the Middle East Faculty. Florence also serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Complex Risks and is Vice-President of the European Forum Alpbach, an Austrian non-profit.
Her career has taken her from conflict and war in the Middle East and North Africa to institutional change and geopolitical shifts. In her work, she focuses on long-term trends, challenges and opportunities, and how to future proof societies for them. Florence has authored numerous publications, her more recent ones include “Arab Climate Futures”, the EU’s "Global Trends to 2030" report, as well as “The Cauldron: NATO’s Libya Operation”. Her book “The Future: a manual” will appear in September 2023. She holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin, as well as degrees from Sciences Po Paris, the Sorbonne and the University of Munich. She’s a French-German national and served in the French Army as a reserve officer.
In her free time, Florence likes to surf, box and ski.
Resources:
Florence Gaub: https://www.ndc.nato.int/about/organization.php?icode=189# 
Twitter: @florencegaub
Losers [Netflix Series]: In a "winning is everything" society, how do we handle failure? This series profiles athletes who have turned the agony of defeat into human triumph.
 https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80198306 
Mental Health at Work: Managers and Money (Report) https://www.ukg.com/resources/article/mental-health-work-managers-and-money?ms=4000
Should Managers Matter that Much to Mental Health? (Forbes) https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2023/02/21/should-managers-matter-that-much-to-mental-health-3-critical-considerations/?sh=65586b066211

Some people see work as a job, a means to a paycheck they need to live their lives outside the office. Others see work as a career, climbing the ladder one job at a time. But what happens when your job is not only work, but a mission, a passion or, in the case of my guest today, your life?
In 2011, the Arab Spring reached Syria. Syrians of all ages took to streets and town squares to peacefully protest against the government’s corruption and economic policies, and to demand democratic reforms. Rather than listen, President Bashar Al Assad and his regime responded with brutal force. The ensuing war ravaged the country and displaced millions. Hundreds of thousands more were brutally murdered or imprisoned in Assad’s dungeons, their fate unknown to this day.
My guest today, Asser Khattab, grew up in Syria, where he studied journalism. Little did he know he would end up reporting on his own country in the throes of the most brutal war in recent history or that he would be forced to flee Syria to neighbouring Lebanon, where he worked for some of the top international newspapers in the world, only to have to flee once again to Paris, where he received asylum and lives today. 
I spoke with Asser about his incredible journey, how his identity impacted his work, whether he thinks news organisations do enough to protect the mental health of their employees and why, ultimately, he decided to leave the journalism field altogether and choose a job that allows him to prioritize his mental and physical health.
Bio: Asser Khattab is a former journalist from Syria who reported for various international media outlets, including the Washington Post and the Financial Times, on Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. A year after he moved from Beirut to Paris, Khattab chose to stop his journalism career, citing structural issues that the industry fails to tackle. He nonetheless continues to write essays for publications like New Lines while working as a media and communications associate at the Clooney Foundation for Justice.
Asser's article on why he stopped writing about Syria:
https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/why-i-stopped-writing-about-syria/

Mental health takes on a whole new meaning when you live in a country in constant crisis. At the age of 40, my guest Karma Ekmekji, a mediation advisor and peace and security professional, along with millions of Lebanese, has lived through multiple upheavals in her lifetime. A devastating civil war, internal conflict, political crime and economic strife have traumatized generations of Lebanese. The COVID pandemic battered an already exhausted population. And as if that weren't enough for one country to handle, in August 202o, nearly 3 thousand tons of stored ammonium nitrate exploded at the Beirut Port, sending shock waves of destruction across the Lebanese capital and causing untold physical, emotional, financial and psychological damage to its residents.
Despite all this, perhaps because of it, the Lebanese people have always been described as unusually resilient. And while it's true that they had to become so, one has to question whether that label has been taken for granted. 
In this episode, I talk to Karma about the meaning of resilience and mental health in Lebanon today. We discuss how mental health in the workplace is coloured by collective trauma and suffering; how to model healthy coping mechanisms to children; how the mental health conversation has evolved across generations and whether Gen Z is overcorrecting the mistakes of our parents. 

On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was stormed by a violent mob, a traumatic and terrifying experience for the entire nation, but particularly those in the building. My guest today, Congressman Andy Kim, was present that day. A photograph of the Congressman cleaning the floors of the Capitol building afterwards went viral, capturing the gravity of the task that lay ahead not just in cleaning up the Capitol but also politics in America. 
Congressman Andy Kim is a Democrat representing the 3rd District of New Jersey and a former career public servant under both Democrats and Republicans, having served at USAID, the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House National Security Council, and in Afghanistan. In our very candid discussion, Congressman Kim talked about why he thinks mental health is one of the most important issues on his agenda. We discuss the unique challenges faced by those in the national security field and ways in which they can protect their mental well-being, how he works on preserving his own mental health despite working on the toughest national security issues of our generation and why he believes the events of January 6th should be a wakeup call for how politics is practised in America.
Throughout our conversation, and despite his career-long commitment to public service, it was clear that Congressman Kim is first and foremost a family man. We discussed how he went into politics to make a better world for his children and the toll it takes having to be away from home in order to fulfil that mission.
Bio:
Congressman Andy Kim represents the Third Congressional District of New Jersey. Congressman Kim has dedicated his life to serving the country. He worked as a career public servant under both Democrats and Republicans, having served at USAID, the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House National Security Council, and in Afghanistan as an advisor to Generals Petraeus and Allen.
In the House of Representatives, Congressman Kim is working on an agenda to bring this country together and strengthen its national and economic security. He supports strong measures that boost our economy by investing in small businesses and innovation, creating fairness and opportunities for working families, and honoring America's promises to military families and veterans.
Congressman Kim and his wife are currently raising two little boys down the street from where he grew up.
Episode Resources:
Congressional Page: https://kim.house.gov/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyKimNJ 
Articles: 
A national mental health crisis. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/04/numbers-national-crisis 
Congressman Kim Helps Cinnaminson Police Department Secure Funds for Additional Officers and Mental Health Support. Press Release. https://kim.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-kim-helps-cinnaminson-police-department-secure-funds-for-additional-officers-and-mental-health-support 
Congressman Kim Introduces Bipartisan Legislation to Protect VA Caregiver Benefits. Press Release. a href="https://kim.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-kim-introduces-bipartisan-legislation-to-protect-va-caregiver-benefits" rel="noopener noreferrer"...