So I lead teams of data scientists and we solve business problems using difficult analytics. And when I start working with someone new, I ask them how I will know if they're struggling. And I don't mean struggling with a business problem or with a difficult analytics. They don't struggle with that. I mean struggling with their mental health.
我领导了一个数据科学家团队, 我们使用复杂的分析方法 来解决业务问题。 当我开始与新人合作时, 我会问他们我如何知道 他们是否在挣扎。 我并不是说要为商业问题或 复杂的分析而苦苦挣扎。 他们在解决那些问题 并不会感到吃力。 我的意思是 与他们的心理健康作斗争。
And to make them feel comfortable to tell me, because I want them to tell me, I tell them how they will know if I'm struggling. So I might be just unrealistically calm, or they might get any kind of message from me at all before nine in the morning. Because I'm not a morning person, message before nine, very bad sign.
为了让他们在告知我时 感到舒服放心, 因为我想让他们告诉我, 我告诉他们,如果我在挣扎, 他们会怎么知道。 我可能只是不切实际地保持平静, 或者他们可能会在早晨九点之前, 收到来自我的消息。 因为我不是一个早起的人, 在九点之前发消息, 是一个非常糟糕的信号。
Now, I do this because I have suffered from anxiety and depression and it was horrible. And if there was a magic button I could press that would rid the world of those two things, I'd press it straight away. But if that button only worked for me, if all it meant is that I wouldn't have got depressed, I'd leave it alone.
现在,我之所以这样做 是因为我受到焦虑和抑郁的折磨, 这太可怕了。 如果我能按下一个神奇的按钮 可以让世界摆脱这两个情绪, 我会马上按下它。 但是如果那个按钮只是对我有用, 如果这仅仅只意味着我不会感到抑郁, 我不会用它。
And that's because of some things that happened in the weeks and months as I was recovering from depression, but also things that happened years later when I started talking about it at work, and it improved my relationships with colleagues. So let's step back in time.
这是因为在我从抑郁症中恢复 那段时间里发生的一些事情, 同时也包括几年后发生的事情 在我开始在工作中谈到它时, 它改善了我与同事们的关系。 因此,让我们回到过去。
It's 2012, it's a Friday morning in May and the sun is out in London, and I'm walking to work along the banks of the Thames. And all around there are British flags flying. And there's this quiet excitement in the city. And that's because the Olympics were coming there in two month's time. And that morning, like every other morning at the time, I'd woken up about three hours earlier than normal thinking and worrying about work. And I'd got up just retching with anxiety and gone to the bathroom and been sick. And I felt a bit better after that, made my way to work.
那是 2012 年, 五月的一个星期五早晨 伦敦的太阳刚刚升起, 我正沿着泰晤士河岸步行去工作。 到处都飞扬着英国国旗。 这座城市弥漫着一种安静的兴奋之情。 这是因为奥运会将在两个月后举行。 那天早上, 就像平常那个时间的早晨一样, 我比平时早了大约三个小时醒来 思考和担心工作。 然后我起床时焦虑得干呕, 去了洗手间就吐了。 之后我感觉好了一些, 就去上班了。
But by the time I got to work, I could barely speak. So I could just about order a cup of coffee. But apart from that, for the mornings, I was pretty much silent. And coffee was about the extent of my diet, so I'd pretty much given up eating. And that's probably not what you would have expected if you'd been walking past me on that sunny Friday morning with the flags flying and the Olympics coming.
但是当我开始工作时, 我几乎无法说话。 所以我几乎只能点杯咖啡。 除此之外,一整个早上, 我几乎没怎么说话。 咖啡几乎就是我饮食的全部, 所以我差不多放弃吃东西了。 你可能都无法想象, 即使你在那个阳光明媚的星期五早上 从我身边走过, 即使周围旗帜飘扬, 奥运即将开幕。
And after a couple of weeks things hadn't got any better and so I decided I shouldn't go to work. So I phoned the team and told them, and a few days later, I got professional help. And what a difference that made.
几周后情况没有好转, 所以我决定不再去工作。 于是我给团队打电话告诉他们, 几天后, 我得到了专业人员的帮助。 这带来了多大的不同啊。
So my psychologist gave me really simple, practical advice. Things like, you really need to eat because feeling anxious and feeling hungry are very similar feelings in your body. Another bit of advice was, don't get up and go to the bathroom and be sick. Get up, go to the kitchen, make a cup of tea, read a book. So I did that, helped a bit with the morning vomiting.
我的心理学家给了我 非常简单实用的建议。 比如说,你真的需要吃东西, 因为在你的身体里, 焦虑和饥饿是非常相似的感觉。 另一个建议是, 不要起床后直接去洗手间吐。 起床,去厨房, 泡杯茶,读一本书。 我这样做了, 这对早上的呕吐有所帮助。
I had to learn how to switch off from work. Now anyone can stop working. That's easy. The difficult thing is stopping thinking about work. And to do that, I would imagine a green force field around the house that would keep thoughts of work out. And I still switch that force field on from time to time. It helps me put off until tomorrow things that I could do today. If I do them tomorrow, they'll be a bit rushed. They will be less good, but they'll be good enough.
我必须学会如何 从工作状态中切换出来。 现在任何人都可以停止工作。 这很简单。 困难的事情是停止思考工作。 要做到这一点, 我会想象房子周围有一个绿色的力场 可以让让大脑脱离工作。 我会时不时地开启这个力场。 它帮助我将今天可以做的事情 推迟到明天。 如果我明天去做, 会有点仓促。 那些事情就不会那么好, 但它们已经足够好了。
And my wife, who saw this change in my working patterns, was convinced I was going to get fired. I actually have been promoted twice since then. Now I also had to learn how to enjoy spending time with my wife and with my family and friends. And it sounds easy, but it really wasn't at first.
我的妻子看到了我工作模式的变化, 确信我当时一定会被解雇。 事实上,从那以后我已经升职两次了。 现在我还必须学会如何享受 与妻子、家人和朋友相处的时光。 听起来很简单, 但起初真的不是。
So I remember going out for a pizza with the family, and all I wanted to do was lie on the floor, curl up into a ball and groan. Now, fortunately for everyone in the pizza restaurant, I didn't do that. But it was still really awkward because all I could think of to talk about was how miserable I was. Anyway, with a bit of practice, it got less awkward. I got a bit less self-absorbed and I learned to enjoy other people again.
所以我记得一次和家人 出去吃披萨, 我想做的就是躺在地板上, 蜷缩成一团呻吟。 对于披萨餐厅里的所有人来说, 幸运的是, 我没有那样做。 但还是很尴尬, 因为我所能想到的就是我有多痛苦。 无论如何,只要稍加练习, 就不那么尴尬了。 我变得不那么专注, 学会欣赏别人。
And one day, about a few weeks after I first got professional help, I woke up in the morning feeling fine, just feeling normal. And I have done every day since then.
有一天,在我第一次得到 专业帮助大约几周后, 我早上醒来感觉很好, 感觉很正常。 从那以后,我每天都这么做。
Now, some people can do a really good job at work when they're anxious or depressed. And I am not one of those people. So I really did a terrible job. The team had to carry me. It's really very difficult to contribute if you can't speak all morning. It was the first time I'd ever really failed at anything.
有些人在焦虑或抑郁时, 依然能把工作做得很好。 但我不是这些人中的一员。 所以我真的很糟糕。 我的团队必须扶持着我。 如果你整天上午都不能说话, 要做出贡献真的很难。 这是我第一次 在某个事情上真正失败。
And I can't tell you how comforting it is now to know that I can fail at something, even something quite important, life will go on and I'll be fine. And because I'd done such a terrible job at work, I didn't want anyone to know about it. It was this kind of shameful secret. So the strange thing is what happened when I did start talking about it at work, and it started very privately. So if I was working with someone and it seemed like they were struggling, I'd tell them some of my story. That seemed to help a bit. It wasn't as awkward and horrible as I thought it might be.
我无法告诉你, 现在知道我可以在某些事情上失败, 甚至在一些非常重要的事情上 失败是多么令人欣慰, 生活会继续,我会好起来。 因为我的工作做得太糟糕了, 我不想让任何人知道。 这是个丢脸的秘密。 所以奇怪的是, 当我在工作中开始谈论这件 非常私密的事时,发生了什么。 因此,如果我和某人一起工作 而他们似乎在挣扎, 我会给他们讲一些我的故事。 这似乎有所帮助。 这并不像我想象的那么尴尬和可怕。
So I got a bit braver and I said to our HR team, "If you come across someone who's struggling with their mental health, I'll be happy to talk to them one-on-one if you think it would help." I did that a few times and I still do. And what that meant was when the HR team were putting together a booklet about what to do if you're struggling with your mental health, they asked me and some other people to share our stories anonymously. And I did that. But when I sent the message, I asked them to print my name next to it.
所以我变得更勇敢了, 我对我们的人力资源团队说: “如果你们遇到一个 正在与心理健康作斗争的人, 如果你认为有帮助的话, 我很乐意与他们进行一对一的交谈。” 我曾经这样做过几次, 现在仍然如此。 那意味着, 当人力资源团队整理一本 关于心理健康状况不佳 该怎么办的手册时, 他们要求我和其他一些人 匿名分享我们的故事。 我同意了。 但我提供信息时, 我要求他们在旁边打印我的名字。
Now, have you ever sent a message and thought, "I wonder if that was a good idea?" So that was what I felt. And I was quite scared, it was going to hundreds of people, there was no going back. It was in writing.
现在,你有没有 发过一条消息然后想: “我想知道这是否是个好主意?” 所以这就是我的感受。 我当时很害怕, 它会面向数百人, 这是没有退路的。 它是书面形式的。
And I was worried people would think it would happen again and they wouldn't want to work with me. I was worried they'd think I was weak and self-indulgent, and maybe some people do. And I was worried that even if they didn't think either of those things, it would just be on their minds when they were talking to me later on. That's not what happened.
而且我担心人们会 认为这种情况会再次发生, 他们不会想和我合作。 我担心他们会认为 我很虚弱且自我放纵, 也许有些人会这样做。 我也担心 即使他们没有想到这两件事, 这些事情在他们以后和我说话时 也会浮现在脑海中。 事实并非如此。
What actually happened was people got in touch to say there was really comforting to have someone quite senior say, "I had this experience. It was horrible. I got through it, I'm still here and I'm doing fine."
实际发生的事情是, 人们动情地说, 有一个相当资深的人发言 真的很令人欣慰, “我有这样的经历。 那太可怕了。 我度过了难关, 我还在这里,我过得很好。”
And gradually I started talking about it to larger and larger audiences. So there's a podcast about it. We did a session for people who were struggling during lockdown, and if you're not sick of hearing about me being sick in the mornings, you can read about it on two websites. And one day, about ten years after that sunny day in London, I stood up in front of 600 of my colleagues and told them the full story.
渐渐地,我开始 向越来越多的听众谈论这些事。 所以做了一个关于它的播客。 我们为在封锁期间挣扎的人们 举行了一次会议, 如果你不厌倦听到 我早上生病的消息, 你可以在两个网站上阅读。 在伦敦那个阳光明媚的日子 大约十年后的某一天, 我站在 600 名同事面前 向他们讲述了完整的故事。
And after that, people from all levels of the company, right up to the very top, took me aside and shared that they had either been through something like that, or they were going through something like that at the time. And then I'd say the most common emotion that I picked up from them was relief, that they were just relieved that someone was talking about it openly. One person actually took me aside on the stairs more than a year later, to say that it had given him that push he needed and wanted to go and get some help for some things he was struggling with at the time.
之后, 公司各个层面的人们, 一直到最高层, 把我拉到一边, 分享他们曾经历过这样的事情, 或者他们当时正在经历类似的事情。 然后我想说我从他们那里 得到的最常见的情绪 是松了一口气, 有人公开谈论此事, 他们才松了一口气。 实际上,一年多以后, 有人把我带到楼梯旁边, 说这件事给了他所需要的推动力, 而且他想去寻求帮助来解决 他当时遇到的一些问题。
Now, one of the people in that audience of 600 was new to the company. And she said to me, "Hearing that talk made me feel like this was my kind of place." And I think she actually got to the bottom of what it made me feel like. So if I could stand up in front of all my colleagues and tell them this story that had been terribly embarrassing and upsetting and shameful, felt shameful at the time, and I was fine, well, it made it feel like my kind of place too.
600 名观众中, 有一人是公司的新人。 她对我说, “听到那段谈话 让我觉得这里非常亲切。” 而且我认为她实际上 已经深入了解了那给我的感受。 因此,如果我能站在所有同事面前 给他们讲这个故事, 曾经非常尴尬、令人沮丧和可耻, 当时感觉很可耻, 但现在我很好, 这也会让我感觉有一种归属感。
And we know from Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety that that feeling improves the performance of teams. Now, I didn't stand up and tell 600 people about vomiting in the morning to improve their performance, but if it does, I'll take it, that's great.
我们从艾米·埃德蒙森的 心理安全研究中得知 那种归属感会改善团队的表现。 我没有站起来 告诉 600 人早上呕吐的事 以改善他们的表现, 但如果是的话, 我会接受的,这很好。
It is possible to go too far with this, and I know that because I did. So I got some great anonymous feedback that said, "Adam is always talking to me to make sure I'm not depressed or anxious. He never talks to me about work or my career." So after that I changed a bit what I talk to people about.
这可能会做的有点过火, 我知道这是因为我做到了。 因此,我收到了一些很好的匿名反馈 上面写着: “亚当一直在和我聊 以确保我不会感到抑郁或焦虑。 他从不和我谈论工作或我的职业。” 所以在那之后,我稍微改变了 我和别人聊天的内容。
Now, I'm not saying that if you've suffered from mental illness, you should tell everyone at work all about it. If you're experiencing it now, you probably won't regret telling someone you trust. If you've recovered, you may find, like me, that telling people about it goes better than you expect. There's no guarantees and there's still plenty of prejudice around.
现在,我并不是说 如果你患有精神疾病, 你应该把所有事情 都告诉工作中的每一个人。 如果你现在正在经历, 你可能不会后悔告诉你信任的人。 如果你已经康复, 你可能会像我一样 告诉人们这件事比你预期的结果要好。 这并不能提供保证, 而且周围仍然存在很多偏见。
Nor am I saying that if you are suffering from anxiety or depression, you should be really thankful because of all these terrific benefits you're going to get that I got, and it's good for your character. I'm not saying that at all. It's really horrible and I feel for you.
我也不是说 如果你患有焦虑或抑郁症, 你真的应该心存感激, 因为我给你带来了很多好处, 这对你的性格也有好处。 这不是我的本意。 很可怕的是 我和你有同感。
If you are lucky enough to be able to get professional help, please do. I cannot tell you how much of a difference that has made to my life. If you can't get professional help, look for free resources online. And in either case, remember that you're not the first person to have gone through something like this, that depression and anxiety are treatable. And that you are not alone.
如果你有幸获得专业帮助, 请务必这样做。 我无法告诉你这对我的生活 产生了多大的影响。 如果你无法获得专业帮助, 那就在线查找免费资源。 无论哪种情况,都要记住 你不是第一个经历这样事情的人, 抑郁和焦虑是可以治疗的。 你并不孤单。
Now on that sunny Friday morning in London, I had no idea that within a few months I would have recovered to something better than I was before I started to get anxious. And when I felt really worried, sending the message to the HR team about printing my name next to my story, I had no idea what would follow from that and how beneficial it would be for me and for other people.
在伦敦那个阳光明媚的星期五早晨, 我不知道在几个月之内 我会恢复到比我开始焦虑之前更好的状态。 当我感到非常担忧时, 我向人力资源团队发送了关于 在我的故事旁印上我的名字的信息, 我不知道这会带来什么 也不知道这将 对我和其他人有多大好处。
There's no guarantees that anyone else will experience the same thing. And that's why if there was this magic button for ridding the world of anxiety and depression, I'd press it straight away. But unfortunately that button is still an imaginary button. It's not real. And while it stays like that, I think we would all do better by talking about it.
无法保证其他人 也会经历同样的事情。 这就是为什么 如果有这个神奇的按钮 可以让世界摆脱焦虑和抑郁, 我会马上按下它。 但不幸的是, 这个按钮仍然是一个虚构的按钮。 这不是真的。 尽管情况一直如此, 但我认为谈论这个问题 会让我们做的更好。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)