Mark Stewart

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Coming to you from Rockingham IPL Radio. And it's my very great pleasure to introduce Mark Stewart to the microphone. Welcome, Mark. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Good afternoon. How are you? [00:00:12] Speaker A: Excellent. And Mark is the managing director of a very successful contracting company. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah, Classic Contractors. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Yep. Been doing that for a number of years. [00:00:22] Speaker B: 29. [00:00:23] Speaker A: 29 years. And also past president of the East Romantle Football Club. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a great journey. I was there for 19 years in the last 10 as the chair. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Yep. And you got to the sharks to a premiership. [00:00:36] Speaker B: 23. So it was the longest. The club's been around 125 years. That was the. The longest drought in the history of the club and it was great to break it. [00:00:44] Speaker A: Yes, certainly was. There you go. A pity the. The dockers couldn't get over the line on Saturday night. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I think the opportunity is there to, to go forward. You just need more exposure to those sort of games to be able to build your ability to withhold that level of pressure. [00:01:04] Speaker A: Yep. All good. Now, the subject that you've got to speak on is a very. A subject that not many people like to talk about, but really we need to have conversations around this particular subject and that is the subject of suicide. And before we start, I better say that if any of this affects you or people you know, please contact Beyond Blue on 1322-4636 or Lifeline 1311, 14. Now, Mark, you had the. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Unfortunate. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Unfortunate? Well, I was looking for a more expressive word, unfortunately is probably at the lower end of the scale because it would have been a really tough time to deal with, with a brother committing suicide. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it was just over a year or close to 18 months now. Remember getting a knock at the door, it was about 3 o' clock in the morning. We thought someone was breaking in and we called the police that it was my father who'd just been told and Kate had been trying to ring me, came over unsure and, you know, as he walked in, he. He made us aware of what had happened. It. You don't realise in the moment as it. What's unfolding and then what then leads after that. He. He took his life in his. In. In his house. You know, there's then police involved as a coroner, and then you. You nearly consume for the next 12 months trying to work through, you know, the question of why and. And then you become aware of how. And yeah, it becomes quite sort of consuming. You look at the impact of my mum and dad. Yeah, I think for my mum, I think there is something. When someone bears a child and then they lose them like that. I think the impact on a mother is something as men we don't probably understand. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Yep. And going through all the questions of why is there any sort of time that you sort of go through, what could I have done? Is there anything I've done? Or. [00:03:23] Speaker B: This is a bit of a tricky one. He was a little bit distanced from the family, so you could see him and then you may not see him for a year and then you'd see him. So as much as you tried to do things, that was. Yeah, Mum spoke really well at his service at Medina hall and she talked about how he beats to his own drum and he did that his whole life. It was quite. The service was quite. We put out 230 chairs and there was more people standing up than sitting down. So There was over 500 there. It was, yeah. That in itself represented the magnitude of how he was known in Kwana, but also the representation of the different types of people that were there. Yeah, it was for my mum especially, she was quite overwhelmed by the amount of people. But also the message was that, you know, he was always the person who'd make sure everyone else was okay. So there was really a sense of frustration with some of his friends that why would he do this when he was the one always making sure everyone else was okay. [00:04:29] Speaker A: And he hadn't shared any of his difficulties with anyone. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, again, we're still trying to piece some of it together. It was obviously there was some mental health at play. There's some things that are difficult, they're still being looked at, investigated. I guess you could say that is difficult. What would I say? There was certainly mental health at play. I had the opportunity to speak at a conference. I'm a part of the network with Dulux and we have a conference every year and all the members are at the Gold coast and they asked me to speak into this and I think one of the things that I've taken away from that is that when you get stuck and you're in a place, our natural disposition is to try and get unstuck or navigate away from it. And I think what we've got to do is to help journey people through a difficult period. We live in such a society that we think, right, okay, if we do this, we'll be out of that. And sometimes people can have mental well being issues, depression, etc. For years. So this whole idea of trying to fix it quickly, it's not realistic. I think what we've got to try and do is Work out how we can journey people, walk with people, to navigate a way forward. At that conference, I spoke about the Stockdale principle. General Stockdale was in the war. He was captured, he was in a POW camp, and he was able to navigate through that. A lot of his friends died and they died because of hope. And it's an interesting thing. In society, we talk about hope. You know, we've all got to have hope, but hope's not necessarily a strategy. And what General Stockdale did was he just applied to three principles. What do I need to do to get through today? I need something to drink, something to eat and somewhere to sleep. And I think when you're in a dark place, I think the whole idea of navigating through today and then you worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow what happens is people get so overwhelmed. It's like, what am I going to do? And what we've got to do is, is help people just navigate that day and then you reset for the next day. And I think people get overwhelmed. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Do you think. Because men have a great difficulty in talking about the deeper issues, the emotional and the spiritual issues. Do you think this is. Plays a part in. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. I think part of the problem is how we've, you know, society has a suggested model of who we should be. You know, for me, I have a lot of close mates and I think in our life things change and the mate network can change. But I think, you know, if you look back and we're brutally honest, I think, yeah, you look at a pub. How did a pub come about? It was a group of men who wanted to go and have a beer and talk to their mates and. And we sometimes not shun it, but we need to have environment. Alcohol's another subject, but we need to have environments where people can get together, have a chat and feel safe. [00:07:40] Speaker A: I remember years ago, the Rhema Church was trying to get a men's group together. And the very first meeting the Brian Baker spoke, read an article out of Bulletin magazine as it was then, and there was a story of two guys who'd been best friends all their life, and then one commits suicide. The other guy had no idea that his friend was sort of struggling with life and communication. We have to get communication better. I think. [00:08:22] Speaker B: I think we do, but I think we also have, you know, we need to be asking questions. So, you know, I have a network where, you know, you'd be saying, hey, what's going on? And, you know, yeah, if, you know, if, you know, we think someone's not going, okay, well, actually you know, I've got a mate. I said recently, I can smell bullshit, you know, and that's what it was. And, you know, he had some stuff going on and we just had a bit of a chat and it's like, okay, how do you navigate through that today? Don't worry about this week, next month, you know, the next six months. How do you just navigate? Because suicide is very. You transfer it. So if a father takes his life, he's actually sent a message to his children that when it all gets too hard, you can tap out. And what actually happens is when someone takes their life, they're trying to end this pain, but they don't realize they're actually transferring it to the next generation or to a spouse and sending a message that it's okay to tap out. And we've got to have the conversation that it's not, but it's okay not to be okay. How do we navigate forward? [00:09:24] Speaker A: But the point of actual doing the act of suicide, you obviously, the rational thinking is gone. So how does a person get to that level of. [00:09:44] Speaker B: But, but this is the problem is I think the rationalness is gone because they're so overwhelmed. [00:09:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:50] Speaker B: And, yeah, if, if, you know, a day back, a week back, a month back, if we were just navigating each day as it came, we probably wouldn't be in that overwhelmed state. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But it's. You, you really need a person external to yourself. I, I know you tell the story of this prisoner of war who was able to do that for himself, but generally, I think when we get into that sort of way of thinking, we really need someone externally to break us out of it or help us go through it. Yeah. [00:10:24] Speaker B: I think anyone who's exposed to grief, you know, whether that's divorce, someone dying or whatever, I think we, you know, to have a psych, to have a counsellor. I think it's really important to be checking in when you're going through significant change in your life, whether it's grief or just a massive. Yeah, they talk about the. The three biggest challenges. I think it's moving house, someone dying and getting married. You know, like. So generally, you know, we should, you know, when you get married, you generally get some marriage counseling, but we don't do it with the others. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Yep, yep, that's right. So what was the impact on you, on your mum and dad? [00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, mum's still processing it today. I think it's going to be around for a while. We painted a tree blue on Gilmour Avenue. [00:11:06] Speaker A: I was going to ask you about that. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's been helpful. Yeah. So I think I remember taking mum and dad into the state coroner and saying a physical goodbye. And that was probably one of the most, you know, that'll live with me forever. And these are the things that, if people were aware, the impact that that sort of stuff has, I think we would just pause and it gets back to that thing getting through today. I think if people can get through today, you'll. You'll really significantly reduce this because they're overwhelmed, they can't get through today. [00:11:44] Speaker A: And suicide's not. Doesn't. Statistics don't appear in the paper or anything like that. I guess to get people away from thinking down this line. [00:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah. The reason that it's not reported is. Is. And I think people would be quite surprised how much we have it. You know, I'm aware of a number of cases in the last few months where. Where people have jumped off buildings or jumped in front of trains and it's not reported because they don't want other people doing it. [00:12:20] Speaker A: That's right. [00:12:20] Speaker B: And yeah, so it becomes difficult to talk about it because you don't want copycats. But again, it gets back to that. How do you navigate someone through today? That's what we're going to be doing. [00:12:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. So is there something we should be doing to create that environment? [00:12:40] Speaker B: We've got to be having the conversations. But yeah, we all come from a tribal. There's a tribal thing, whether it's your footy club, whether it's your cricket club, whether it's your bowling club. And I think within those clubs we have networks and, you know, the onus is on us within those networks to be saying, hey, are you okay? But also to be saying, if you're not okay, that's okay. Let's work. How do we navigate? Because when you're under pressure, generally the problem looks two or three times bigger than what it actually is. You know, some of the things with my brother, he just needed to be taken out of his environment and to live somewhere else for a short period of time, that. That would have been significantly more helpful. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you know. Yeah, I know when I went through a sort of difficult time with the business and we sort of were facing liquidation and that sort of thing. When you. When you go to bed at night, you. You're just all in your mind and your mind can do incredible things and some peculiar thoughts come into your mind when you're on your own. So being part of a group or a network is really very, very important. [00:13:55] Speaker B: I think what happens is people get to a T junction in life and they're trying to work out whether we turn left or right. Right. And it becomes so overwhelming. Again, what do we need to do to navigate through today? [00:14:05] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [00:14:07] Speaker B: What do we need to do? Generally? Something to eat, something to drink, and somewhere to sleep. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:12] Speaker B: And if you've got a cave to live in, you're half a chance. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Yep, yep. It's all good. But, yeah, we, we. I know that we say this often at church, that we are designed for community. [00:14:26] Speaker B: We are. Excuse me. Yeah, we are. I think we're designed for the right community. So I know for me, when I'm on under pressure, there's certain individuals I don't want to be around, and we should never need to apologize for that. We should be encouraging to get the right people around us at those critical times. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Yep, yep. And getting back to the significance of painting the tree blue. Yeah. [00:14:51] Speaker B: So there's the Blue Tree project, which is. Is around mental health. It was. I think what happens is when someone passes away, you want to do something. I think sitting there with a paintbrush, painting something, it's part of that grieving process of, okay, what do we now need to do? Because when someone dies, you know, you're organizing funerals, you're organizing affairs, you're doing this, you're so busy, then all of a sudden it stops and it's like, what do we do? [00:15:14] Speaker A: What do we do now? Yeah. [00:15:15] Speaker B: And at David's service, what we did was we decided not to do the, you know, when they put the rosary on the coffee, what we decided to do was to give people the blue plastic beyond blue bands. And what we wanted people to do was as they came up to the coffin to say goodbye, we asked people to take a band to wear it. And then over the coming days, weeks and months, if you thought someone may be struggling, was to take that band off and give it to that person. So for us as a family, what we want to do is we want to make sure we can make a difference by stopping, helping, assisting, put a post on LinkedIn and the amount of people, we've had something like 233,000 engagements with that post. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Is that right? [00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And people from the US army have messaged me regarding that post. There's a young guy in England who was in a really bad place, and we've been able to navigate him. If you read some of the posts, he talked about how he hadn't had a shower or a bath for a month. He was Just living in this dark corner and we were able to somehow assist him. He since got a job. You know, life's going well, but, you know, there was a journey of just sort of asking him if he's okay. Hey, you need to look at this. Go and have a talk with a psych. Just slowly journey him to a place. We've got another guy in Sydney who reached out. We put him. Yeah, again, go and talk to a psych. Go and speak to your doctor. Again, Just navigate that little bit. And it just, it was amazing the amount of messages we got from people who were stuck, and we're just able just to navigate them to somewhere. [00:16:57] Speaker A: So the, the point of being stuck might. Might be a small thing and, and just need someone to give them that little. [00:17:07] Speaker B: A little thing might be just making someone down and having a beer with them somewhere. Yeah, it might be just a little thing like that. And then from that, you know, you get to know a little bit more. And yeah, the next thing, what we, hey, go and see your doctor. Get a mental health plan. Let's start the journey of getting you better. [00:17:22] Speaker A: So this has become quite a huge thing for you. [00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we're doing some more stuff with Dulux. There'll be some podcasts around this. They've asked us, asked me to be a bit more involved. Some members have reached out. I was quite overwhelmed after I spoke. We had about 150 members and their partners. So we had 300 people at the conference. And from the conference, there would have been probably 20 members who've experienced this. And some of them are horrific. You know, one guy came home to see his daughter hanging in the garage and he had to cut her down. She was gone. Another member had lost his sister, and then a few years later, his other sister passed. So you're talking about stuff that is horrific. It takes, you know, we live in a society where we've got to try and get over things. And I've formed a view that. That you'll never get over it, but you'll work away to get along it. Okay. And yeah, we should never really encourage people to get over it, but how can we. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:27] Speaker B: Go along it? And there's a very big difference. And that sort of takes the pressure because, you know, for my mum, for instance, she doesn't want to forget his memory, so you don't get over that. But you work, you find a way to get along, to move forward, but it's very slow. [00:18:45] Speaker A: A. A subject that's. I've had a couple of people sort of Respond to my promo saying, you know, the subject dear to my heart. So we need to have more conversations and people need to be more aware and as you say, asking people if they're okay, even if they. On the. Outwardly, they appear okay. [00:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think life's like a duck. You know how a duck is on the water, it looks pretty good, but underneath it's going flat out, it's gone. And that's how we live life. You know, on the outside, some people hold it really well, but underneath it is going to flat out. And this is where, you know, whether it's churches, whether it's footy clubs, whether it's. Whether it's basketball clubs, cricket clubs, we all have a role. You know, they're members of that organisation for a reason. You know, they're engaged in community. So there's a role there to be making sure. You know, one of the things I loved at my time at East Romantle is, you know, at quarter time, after the huddle, you go for a walk around the oval and you just meet some members and see how they're going. Yeah, that's just so, so critical. Excuse me, just. In our business, we have a thing called the gas factor. And you hear this term in society, who gives a shit? We invert it to say to give a shit. So we call it the gas factor. What we want is we want people to genuinely care and we'll say in our business, who's putting gas on that? And that's the ability to reach out intentionally to actually make sure that they're okay. And whether that's grabbing a coffee, whether that's going. Grabbing a beer, you know, go and have a sandwich, just, just intentionally be on the lookout to make sure people. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Are okay, sort of. Because we live in a society where we're sort of more and more all about me. We need to sort of reverse that. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Well, we live in a society where people say such is life and things like that. So it's nearly as well. What it is, is what it is. Well, no, what we can do is just slow it down to navigate through today. You know, we talk about the birds. Don't worry about tomorrow, you know. Yeah, they're not worried about where they're getting their food from, but they navigate through the day and I think we've got a 10. We've got to have a tendency in our life to live this. How do we get through today? [00:21:04] Speaker A: Excellent. Okay, well, appreciate that. I guess it was initially a very difficult thing to talk about when you're talking about family, but you've obviously. Excuse me. You've found a way to use what, your experience to help others. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I think we all want to do something. So if that's my little bit of contribution, when I look at that guy in the UK who was contemplating in one of the text messages, he talked about how dark it was and he didn't think he could go any further. So if my contribution and showing my mum that, if that can be our contribution, when you do something again, that gets back to your meaning and your purpose and, you know, so, you know, you might be running five minutes late to a meeting to respond to him. Well, I'm sure the clients would be okay. You're five minutes late. [00:22:01] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Well, good. Yeah. Now, on Sunday, we were in praise and worship and I. We were doing I Speak Jesus. And I thought it was a good song to end this particular session on. So the people watching the video won't be able to listen to it, but I thought I'd read out some of the words. I just want to speak the name of Jesus. Till every dark addiction starts to break. Declaring there is hope and there is freedom. I speak Jesus. Because your name is power, your name is healing, your name is life. Break every stronghold. Shine through the shadows, burn like a fire. I want to speak the name of Jesus. Over fear and all anxiety. Through every soul held captive by depression. I speak Jesus. Jesus. And that's my phone, so I apologize for that. We go into the song.