Burnout, balance & blue skies ahead: An honest talk about mental health in hospitality | LowKey Podcast (ft. Linus Fredberg) #31

This is a quick disclaimer that the following episode mentions mental health issues and cancer. If you're triggered by these topics, simply skip this episode. Hey there, you're tuning in to Loki by Oki, our easygoing sessions for hotel professionals where we chat about industry trends, issues and solutions. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Loki by Oki.

My name is Clément Denarier and I'll be your host today. And today we have a bit of a different topic. We're going to speak about mental health and hospitality, as well as mental health in hospitality. And today I have the pleasure to be joined by Linus Fredberg.

Can you maybe take a minute to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. So my name is Linus Fredberg. I work for Accor, for the Sofitel and M Gallery branch of Accor.

And I'm the Regional Director of Revenue for Northern Europe. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here with us, as well as thank you for sharing your experience on this topic.

We're here to talk about mental health and hospitality. It's not a topic that's really discussed and not really represented enough, in my opinion. It's almost just like a taboo topic in this industry. You sounded actually quite passionate and agreed to discuss this.

why bring this topic to the mic now and share this with our listeners yeah I'm not sure passionate if I'm passionate but it's certainly very close to my heart and very top of mind I am today 15 days out of my last chemotherapy treatment from a six-month-long treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma which is cancer of the lymphatic system I was diagnosed in February and very happy to say that I'm cancer free and I'm in recovery so it's been a strange six months but it's it's very glad to be out of it and focusing fully on recovery and then on top of that last year in spring I was going through a burnout and took some time off work as well to think about my priorities at work and how I see self-worth if it's connected to my performance at work or if it's how I can move it away from being connected to my performance at work and more centered within myself.

So between those two experiences, it's something that's very close to heart. And I speak very transparently about because I think it's important to feel more comfortable around these topics, both as someone who's going through it potentially of your listening ship to be more comfortable talking out about it. but also if you know someone to be more, have a better understanding of what that experience looks like. First of all, I want to thank you so much for being so open and transparent about this.

I also want to congratulate you. This is, wow. I mean, really, it is an achievement. It's a battle.

It's a fight. Oh, yeah. And I'm so, so glad to hear this good news. Going back to, well, this super important topic, which is self-worth and mental health, so important as well in keeping the positive agenda that you have on life when you're going through different challenges, right?

It can be, of course, very tough illnesses, but it can also be regular troubles that actually trouble you a lot more than you would think. What part of specifically hospitality and hotel life do you think make mental health harder or a harder topic even to discuss today? Yeah, I think we are very exposed in this industry to mental health issues for various reasons. Long and irregular hours, working hours.

The pay is sometimes not that great. Just those things alone puts us in a kind of vulnerable situation, socially and personally. But also the fact that we're very often, if not always, on stage we have to play a certain role we we are you know smiley welcoming at service and many of us are genuinely like this and that's why we're in this industry but we're not always like this right so then being in in situations where we need to express these qualities and sometimes in a very stressful condition as well and stressful environment means that we need to suppress our own needs and mental well-being and suspend it for a moment while we're giving this service to our guests and creating these magical environments.

So that means that we are in quite an exposed space, definitely if you're in operations. But even behind the scenes, if you're commercial, engineering, whatever it might be, it's still a very fast-moving environment where you're expected to act quickly on things, collaborate a lot, keep a positive attitude. So it's a difficult industry from that perspective. And you also expect it to, of course, be always on and almost always with a smile on, when potentially, indeed, inside.

It's not every single day that you have that smile going, but it almost is a synonym to hospitality, that you should at least look that way or pretend that you are that way Yeah no that it And a lot of that of course is linked to being a great example right Especially when you step into leadership position, you expect that of your team. This is literally part of the brand standards that you should be friendly, welcoming, and then, of course, have that positive attitude. What would you say, and now we're going very specific on maybe tactical signs, that a leader would be able to also feel that something isn't completely right with some of their team members, some of their colleagues, some of their peers.

Yeah. How would you say are ways that you could find that a person is potentially going through something a little bit more than another? Yeah. The beautiful thing about this world is that we're all different, but it also makes this question quite tricky because we're all reacting differently to the same situation.

But if we, just to mention two ways that people could react that I've seen myself is either someone is, you can see it in their performance declining. And I would say a bad leader would then pester them about the performance and hold them accountable and push them primarily without doing anything else. I would say that's bad leadership. We still need to do these things, but I think we need to understand what's behind so that would be a sign of someone potentially struggling with something on their personal side or at home so if that's happening it's great to open that open up a question and saying how are things at home or are you doing okay sometimes they don't want to open up but just to mention one sign another sign that I see quite regularly with my ambitious colleagues and i was the same with myself is when you hear the words um i'm falling behind or um i haven't done what i expected or i need to work on the weekend or things like this but you're seeing that their performance is fine that is an indication that they're taking things on to prove to everyone else that they're up to a certain standard that they have set themselves so between performance slipping being one and them expressing that they're behind when they're actually not i think those are two good good red flags to keep looking for and i think you mentioned there is something that's very important um it's also from a leader perspective then um giving a platform giving a possibility to to speak about this but in no way forcing the other person to share right um it's also very important that people kind of speak on their own terms um if they're ready when they're ready um rather than kind of a prying manager that says hey are you sure you're doing okay because maybe you don't seem that way yeah yeah no for sure i think um i think the people that we're talking to are different but we are also different right so the approach that i'm about to suggest right now might not work for everyone but with someone that likes to be transparent uh this conversation being an example of that uh i find that creating that environment and leading by example helps people opening up when i've been talking about my cancer diagnosis i've heard so many people talk about their cancer cancer experience from themselves for someone in the family, which is a topic that hasn't come out when we've just been talking usually.

So if you feel that someone is struggling with mental health, it could be an option to somehow open up about your mental health issues in a discreet way and seeing if they bite, so to speak. That was the case for me last year when I spoke about taking time off and burning out. Two of my colleagues came out with similar concerns that I had no idea about, but I created that environment by talking about my own experiences. So that could be one way to open up or create the environment where they can open up without forcing them.

Yeah, the safe space that allows for people to open up and also hopefully open up early enough that they recognize the signs themselves. Yeah. Hey, this is going too far. And then you're two human beings talking about how you're dealing with a particular issue.

For me, it helped to do this, or I've heard someone do this. And so you mentioned obviously success and you mentioned targets and you're in a commercial role in a commercial team, in a commercial company. So obviously progress and results are very important. How do you balance revenue targets as well as care in a tough month or in a tough period?

Yeah. How do you manage to kind of bring these two together? How does that work? Yeah.

I have a two-prong kind of answer to that. One is priorities. We cannot be everywhere all the time. So making sure that you've taken some time to think about what is the most important or what are the most important things.

And then you focus there. When you have less gas in the car, you can only reach a certain place. Which place would that be? You cannot get everywhere.

That would be one point. The other point is teamwork and the people you surround yourself with. You can not choose all of them and you cannot choose your manager. But when you're going through the recruitment stage, it's important to when they ask you, do you have any questions for us?

Try to get a feel for the ambience in the team. You know, try to make people crack a laugh or a joke or ask what they're doing for fun. Because if you're in that environment and I'm extremely lucky to be in the team I am in right now. I have I had a great manager and I still have a great manager The teams around me are fantastic So when I a little bit down like I been unlucky to be twice now in two years the team is there to pick up the pieces.

And when they're having bad days, I'm there to pick up pieces. So teamwork and without the I helped you, so you helped me. There's no keeping tally. It's just being there and standing up for each other.

So that helps a lot. Yeah, true support. And probably for you to know that you have it. Yeah.

That already is a great relief. Yeah, it's a bit hard to get to that place. But keeping that in mind and that being the goal, we hopefully can get closer to that. Sounds like you're in a lucky place.

Very much so. That's amazing. All right. one boundary and one habit that protect your energy at work what would that be i kind of touched on it a little bit earlier i think um the um i think that the things i'm going to give you are both outlook related uh one thing is uh this feature in outlook that will block focus time for you uh you say that i need two hours every day of just me working.

Otherwise, if you're one of those people that are in an environment that would like to have meetings, that your calendar will fill up quickly and you end up coming in in the morning leaving and not having done anything. You've just been in meetings. So blocking times for yourself is a really good boundary and habit, I suppose. And then also to change your mindset about your inbox.

That flagging things on your inbox, I did for years. 10 years or so and if you have that approach you will never reach inbox zero you will never get through everything because there's small and big things that will just be sitting there so again that list of priorities is so key an inbox think about that as the mailbox when you grow up in your house you go check it in the morning and you check it in the evening you can check it a few more times a day but you're checking what's in the mail that is not your to-do list you are senior enough to know what is important those are your to-dos you can check your inbox then to see how you're at with where you're at with some initiatives there might be some things that are coming in that will be added to your priority list but you are deciding where you want to focus your attention your inbox does not decide when you focus your attention wow two very very powerful ones um outlook related as in microsoft outlook uh yes um but i i love that that second one there um with the mailbox back as a mailbox yeah and not a to-do list yeah take control of your time as well um all right so you mentioned it yourself uh you went through uh on your own words two tough years i think that's a pretty gentle way of saying it too um and now it is in your own words too blue skies ahead yeah amazing once more what does that look like for you now um well personally uh six months of chemotherapy if you it's terrible i don't want that on anyone but if you're as lucky as me to go through it with still a little bit of hair on my on my head and the smile on my face uh 10 kilos heavier but still looking okay i hope um then uh that means that i can go pretty quickly into recovery which means starting gently to exercise and run and build my body back up because i've lost a lot of muscle mass because i haven't been able to to exercise and move as much as i wanted to and then also starting with expanding on the hobbies that i like to do i'm a weird nerdy guy so i like bird watching i've been doing that a little bit in the spring i've been able to walk but i can do that a little bit more now traveling has been an issue before i can now get back to traveling to see my wife's family in latin america and my family in sweden i haven't been to sweden since january so personally i'll be able to kind of put my life back together and build up what i want it to be and then professionally again i've been lucky to be able to work at about 60 70 percent so far uh through the year but now i'll be able to kind of ramp that up a little bit and and dig into the initiatives that i kind of put on put on the side gently to recover right people always remind me when i'm excited about work because i love what i do and that you know take take take your time and come back but um the next uh six months uh to a year will be all about building which is exciting it's it's the downtime the down times are difficult and we have to be resilient and fight but in the way up it's all about excitement and fire amazing and not take all of it on too fast either right yeah yes that is yeah sorry i think i rolled my eyes when you said that but i hear people say say that so much and it's but it's so true but i'm so excited about both of the private and the professional part um well maybe you can um uh continue on on that with maybe an advice um for early career talent that is feeling overwhelmed uh in under in our industry or somewhere else um what is the first step that you suggest today to uh to actually um what remove that feeling of a wall yeah uh when i know this is not answering exactly your question but it is so important when you're interviewing i know we're all eager to join that company in that role and so on but you also pick your employer you're being picked and you pick your employer so ask about the culture ask get a feel for the the boss because you don want to be in a popular term but a toxic work environment because it drains you and it puts you in a very difficult spot And I unfortunately have friends who hasn't recovered for years after being in a toxic work environment.

So that's really important to, if you are so lucky to be in a position where you're choosing between different roles, let culture play a big part in that decision. The other thing is to, as much as you feel comfortable, be transparent with your manager and express when you're feeling overwhelmed. Try to not express it as a complaint that they have to resolve, but rather that you collaboratively have to solve this problem. Otherwise, I'm not sure if I can keep up with it.

I don't feel like I'm happy going to work. And then together you would work on a solution. Because no manager likes to be handed a problem. you'd rather be handed a proposal for a solution.

But when your mental health is not great, you might not be at the point where you can do that, but at least try to approach it as a collaborative problem. Very, very powerful. Maybe last message that you want to share. One message, one point that you want every hotel leader to hear.

Okay, this might be a little bit long, but I promise it's worth it. when I was going through chemo I had a consultation with a great doctor and he was telling me about a an acronym that's a mix doctors or Mexican doctors but mex drs because we were asking how can you avoid getting cancer which everyone wants to know and no one has the answer but he was saying I'll give you these this acronym of this six things so pen and paper ready so next doctor first m m is meditate right so to make sure to take time to reflect you don't have to be in lotus position and you know it's if that if that's your your game then do that but do take time to to reflect on maybe the day that's passed before you go to bed or take time to breathe or go for a walk make sure that you don't wake up, rush, go to bed, meditate.

Two, E, exercise. Whatever you think is fun. So it could be running, lifting weights, playing sports, whatever. Make sure you move.

And then X is what he referred to as X factor. So something in your life that makes you excited that's not work. So it could be a hobby, it could be spending time with a partner, something that makes you excited about the weekend. m-e-x-d diet so make sure that you you know eat whatever you want don't let anyone tell you what to eat but do do have a plan for what you're eating don't just do things because it's convenient because diet is a huge impact on how we feel both mentally and physically so you should take that very seriously and then then we are at r which is relationships so that could be with your your partner or your your family having healthy relationships has a direct impact on your health as well i'm not a medical professional at all but this is what i've been told and if you're in in an environment where you don't feel like you can trust people you have no one to fall back on to to get that support so that's a key one and then the last one is s so sleep make sure that you are prioritizing your sleep you're not compromising on your sleep sometimes when we travel or have something that could be one or two nights that's okay but consistently make sure that you're letting your body wake up a few times a week naturally um maybe by by you know sleeping with the curtains open so you wake up from sunlight or going to bed early or make sure that you're taking sleep seriously.

So between these six, according to my doctor, Dr. Gupta, then no cancer. Or at least you're well covered generally with your health, mental and physical, to do the best you can. Some things we can't control in life, but between these six, you're good.

I love this. Mix doctors. All right. Time's up.

thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart Linus for being so open transparent with us for sharing well all of the toughness but also all the success and actually the blue skies ahead that are in front of us yeah we have time for shameless plug so this is going to be a different one maybe yeah but please yeah i want to um recommend uh really and give a shout out to the online therapy apps that are out there um better better help being the the biggest one probably uh but there's also insta help is the one that we're working with actually with the company i'm with i've asked my hr department if we have any resources and sometimes your company is working with with one of these companies so you could ask your hr department but if they're not then BetterHelp is one of the bigger ones.

It's fairly affordable, very easy to get started, and having regular therapy is a very, very good way to deal with your mental health and talking about it. Thank you, Linus.