Ryan Hopkins (Mental Health)
Ryan Hopkins is on a mission to engage 1 billion people in the betterment of wellbeing. He is the Chief Impact Officer at JAAQ, LinkedIn Top Voice for Work Life Balance, TEDx Speak...
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Who are you?
My name is Ryan Hopkins. I have a deep interest in wellbeing, a self-professed nerd in the subject. Some people call me a LinkedIn influencer or a LinkedIn influencer, which is awfully embarrassing. I've got a girlfriend. I live in Fullham. I train lots and work on myself consistently. It's a journey and something we're enjoying along the way.
What is your background?
My background is chequered. Interesting, varied as all of ours are. You've heard of squiggly careers? Yeah. This takes it to another level. I'm from Hastings in East Sussex, a sleepy little town. I was once training to be an electrician. That was going to be my life. I was working on a building site as my family do. I then had an accident, which changed the trajectory of my life. I worked on the counter in a bank, giving out, getting a little money bags, working on people's past books. Then following that, I quit my job. Flew one way to Argentina, selling everything I could, selling my car for about 800 quid. Managed. Pulled together two grand, travelled around for about a year. Espanol. I taught myself Spanish. I set up a hostel business in Ecuador. Come back once. Go uni. Couldn't do so. I had no A levels because I had to work when I was younger to support my mom and my brothers. Were accepted to the lowest ranked union in the uk. Worked my butt off, transferred to a better university. Then I finally graduated a first class degree, which I'm very proud of. Ran a bar in Spain, ran a school in Italy. Think of a job. I've done it. Following that, I got a job in consultancy. The world's oldest graduate at Deloitte. Taught me a lot. I left. Went to Leeds Wellbeing at Sainsbury's. Got made redundant. Went to a big tech company to lead the future of work. Got made redundant again, thinking maybe this ain't for me, but I knew I was onto something. Came back to Deloitte to create and lead their wellbeing business. They took to market. Wrote a bestselling book that I, Ted Talk now and now I'm the Chief Impact Officer at JAAQ. I told you squiggly didn't I?
What was your upbringing like?
My upbringing. It's something I find really difficult to talk about. I talk a lot. I spoke to over a hundred thousand people at events. Now, not bragging, but it's the real number. I measure everything, but I struggle to look back on myself. I talk about myself previously in the troubles I've had as if I'm talking about someone else. It's easy to disassociate. My parents split when I was about 13. It was pretty normal up until that point. Dad was having some trouble. So it was me, my mom, my two younger brothers. Mom had to work to work nights. So I would come home from school, help cook for my little brothers. Quite a lot of disruption at that time. It means I wasn't able to focus on my studies or anything else and very much change that part of my life. Potentially. It would've been somewhere else if that didn't happen. But loved very much by my mom, very close knit family, close knit wild man now as well. But it defined that part of my life and then led me to becoming electrician, because that's what people in the town I grew up in Hastings do. So it was difficult, difficult times at school, undiagnosed NeuroD diversities as well. Neurodiversity NeuroD diversities even. And then this all led to a lot of challenging years, a lot of mental health troubles. Is it because of upbringing? I don't know, but it's made me who I am and deeply appreciative for everything I have, and I very much care for my family, and I'm proud of where I'm from, although I wasn't for most of my life.