I’ve been a brand strategist for 25 years. In that time I’ve developed an eclectic way of thinking that’s a blend of the many things I’ve read, learnt, experienced and observed along the way. For me, the last two of these – experience and observation – are the most important. They are also the least structured and, as much as others try to insist that brand strategy is a science, we all know that it isn’t. There is science in it, but that’s not the same thing.

Today I read an excellent article in JP Castlin’s Strategy in Praxis newsletter by Claire Strickett.  These two passages in particular struck a chord.:

1. “There are probably many occasions when you’ve found yourself presenting a recommendation you were convinced was strategically, rationally, completely sound, solid and utterly necessary, to a stakeholder or colleague who, despite your very best efforts, remained utterly unmoved by your argument. No matter how many pieces of evidence, charts and graphs, data points and learned sources you threw at them, something just didn’t land.”

2. “Alongside my day job, I’m currently undertaking an introductory course in counselling and psychotherapy.”

All of us have experienced the first scenario but too few think enough about the second, with which Claire is making an astute and important point.

Claire captures it in her conclusion:

“Businesses are, ultimately, just made up of people, and people are complex, layered and often vulnerable creatures, no matter how big their title. That goes for me and for you too, of course. No matter how acute our analytical approach, how learned or expert we are, or how solid our strategy, paying closer heed to the human undercurrents that shape decision-making can pay dividends, and smooth the path to influence.”

I have always been mildly suspicious of data and research, (see this old blog post for more), but am careful not to make sweeping statements because there’s always some over-analytical and over-educated data expert out there to tell me how wrong I am. But am I, really? If I look back over my 25 years in branding, almost all of the strategies that have worked best have two things in common: gut instinct on the course of action and empathy with both the client to get it signed off and the target audience that needs to be engaged by it. Data does not deliver instinct or empathy. Humans do.

This is not to say that data isn’t important. It clearly is but I subscribe to the John Hegarty school of thought, which is that brands have become risk-averse, that ads are often boring and that our industry needs to lose its obsession with data and get back to its roots. The older and more experienced I get, the more I look at data analysis and insights as barriers to good strategy rather than enablers of it. They feel like a safety catch and a crutch that client and agency can lean on, just in case it all goes wrong and they can say that they followed the science.

Our industry spends so much time digging for data driven insights because it needs the safety they provide as well as the revenue they generate from clients they’ve often bamboozled through deliberate over-complication. We talk about these people called consumers who act in accordance with a prescriptive model of behaviour. But ask yourself, seriously, have you ever met one of these consumers? They don’t really exist. They are just a crude approximation of human behaviour. I’m being harsh, of course, as the truth is a little more balanced than that, but I prefer to moderate brand strategies towards the instinctive and empathic rather than the safe and the dull.

I’ll add something I always say in my brand strategy workshops: I genuinely love what I do. It’s largely because brand strategists have the rare privilege in business of dealing with emotion and ‘feelings’ on a daily basis. It is our currency. It’s a wonderful thing that can influence, educate, entertain and inspire millions of people which comes with significant responsibility. Whilst others have to deal with numbers, logistics, operations and things that are defined by structure, process and, often, physical limits, we get to deal in something so wonderfully different, imaginative and impactful. And just because it isn’t data-driven does not make it less important. The majority of interactions in the world have nothing to do with data.

So, after all that, what’s my point? Well, I’d like brand strategists and creatives to stop over-thinking and obsessing with data. Instead observe, experience and absorb what’s going on around you. Watch how people react to events and circumstances and how they interact with each other. Apply it to your work and the relationships you have with your clients. Sure, check the data and use it to minimise mistakes, but have the courage to lead with the way you feel because that’s what your audiences will do when they meet your strategy out in the real world.

If you can’t feel it, then neither will they.

I’m running the risk of making myself look silly, but I am looking for some help with information about a sleep disorder that I have. I’d love to know if anybody else out there experiences the same and can shed any light on it.

Here goes.

I have suffered from sleep paralysis since the age of 11. It’s nothing serious and affects millions of people. I can remember the first time it happened. I was in my dorm at boarding school, drifting to sleep when I suddenly ‘awoke’ to find that I couldn’t move or make a sound. My brain and body felt like they were full of electricity. I tried to shout at my friends to wake me up and couldn’t understand why they weren’t helping me. After 30 seconds or so it just stopped and I was wide awake and able to move again. All the while, nobody else had noticed a thing.

It became a regular thing. I’d sometimes mention it to friends but they just assumed I was having nightmares. I always woke up unharmed, so I figured it wasn’t dangerous and did my best to live with it. It only happened a few times a month, wasn’t debilitating and I was too embarrassed to tell anybody. It was my slightly scary little secret.

I had a breakthrough in the late 1990s, when we were living in Singapore. The internet was still a relatively new thing and one night, after another episode, I got up and typed my symptoms into Hey Jeeves (remember them?) It was a hallelujah moment. I discovered that I was one of millions of people around the world who had it. It even had a name and, most importantly, a scientific explanation. Sleep paralysis. Lucid dreaming. Exploding Head Syndrome. Yes, really. But most of all, at last I knew it wasn’t some kind of weird supernatural phenomena and there was an online community of fellow sufferers. It was such a relief.

The thing is though, there’s something else that happens that I have only ever shared with my wife. I still get sleep paralysis but I am now experiencing something even weirder that I can’t find any references to and sounds bonkers. Last night, it happened again. It was so vivid that I got up and started writing this so that I didn’t forget the details.

This is what happens.

I will be drifting to sleep. Suddenly I am simultaneously asleep and awake. I know I am dreaming but I am also able to comment on the dream to myself. My brain and body are in some kind of electrically charged frenzy. My body is frozen. So far, very similar to sleep paralysis, but much more intense. I know where I am. I can see the bedroom and know my wife is next to me. It is not a dream in any traditional kind of way. Weirdly, I have the distinct feeling that something is trying to communicate with me which is very unnerving. There’s a noise in my head that is thunderous and building. My chest tightens and I brace myself for something ominous to happen. It often feels like my heart is about to stop. It’s exhilarating and scary. I often wonder if I’m having a fit.

I can see a brilliant kaleidoscope of colours around me. A wall of noise and colour that feels both threatening and benevolent. There are indistinct shapes and figures in there too. It’s buzzing and alive. I can sense something reaching out from behind the wall, occasionally touching me or squeezing my hand. I am scared but also desperate to know what it is. I try to to move towards it but I’m paralysed.

At this point, I always try to wake up. I shout at my wife, pleading for help. Sometimes I thrash about to get her attention. Most of the time it’s pointless because I hardly move or make a sound, which is incredibly frustrating. Occasionally I do manage to move just enough for her to notice and wake me up. Sometimes I’ve managed to shout “No!” loud enough for her and occasionally the kids to hear, but that’s rare. My wife tells me that all she usually sees is me breathing in a clearly agitated way. But she knows that I want her to wake me up because we’ve discussed it many times. Most of the time, it just ends and I wake up, often in a state of high anxiety. But I am used to that from the sleep paralysis so I soon calm down.

So far, pretty familiar but it’s what happens next that stumps me.

When I wake up and open my eyes, I see something that nobody else can. I need to repeat that I am now wide awake. In fact, intensely awake, almost hypersensitive. My brain is fizzing. It feels like I am looking at another dimension. I look up and the wall of noise and colour that I could see in my dream state is still there above me but slowly and quietly retreating. I know how crazy this sounds. I stare at it, almost in disbelief, as it dissipates. If my wife is awake I’ll ask her if she can see it. Of course she can’t. This will last for a couple of minutes. As it retreats, I always have a feeling that’s there’s something behind it trying to contact me that it is potentially life changing. It feels like if I make contact, something profound is going to happen but I don’t know if it will be a good or bad thing. Sometimes at this point I am close to tears and am still scared but have a huge urge to go through the retreating wall. It feels like there are answers to everything behind it. Remember, I am now WIDE awake. I am not dreaming. Again, if my wife is awake, I’ll tell her it’s happened again. We’ll speak briefly about it in the morning which I use to reassure myself that it did happen and I’m not going nuts. As you might imagine, it took me a long time to pluck up the courage to tell her about this

It’s crazy. I know. I’m at a loss to explain it.

I am very careful not to attribute it to anything supernatural. It’s not lost on me that these more intense experiences only started after my son died, so I am wary of wanting to believe in something else. Are they just an extended version of sleep paralysis that somehow crosses into my conscious and awake self, perhaps a grief related mental health issue or a subconscious but over-powering yearning to see my son again? If it’s the latter, why does it happen when I am wide awake? If it’s about our son, why do I never dream of him? He never appears in any of this.

I can even engage with it as it happens. I usually know when it’s about to happen, often ask it not to as I dream and say ‘for fuck’s sake, not again’ to myself when it starts. I then lie there through the dream knowing exactly what’s going to happen. I wake up and I see the retreating wall. If it happens when I am alone, which I hate, I will turn on the light just to check that there’s nothing on the ceiling. Of course there isn’t. It’s baffling and hard to get back to sleep.

There are some nights when it happens multiple times and I have to get up to make sure that I don’t give it the opportunity to come back. On occasion this means I don’t get any sleep at all. And yet, I like having them too if they come less frequently. It feels like I’m seeing something that’s a privilege. It’s nuts.

I am a night owl but I don’t have trouble sleeping most of the time, so I know it’s not insomnia. That said, I usually sleep from 1am until 7am, so maybe I am more tired than I think but I’ve survived most of my life so far on 6 hours sleep.

Right now, writing this, I feel very self-conscious. I’ve never said anything about ‘the wall’ to anybody other than my wife. A few months ago I asked on Twitter if any of my network had contacts at sleep clinics but was too embarrassed to say why but on reflection I think it’s more productive to share it. 

I know that the first part is sleep paralysis but I can’t even begin to explain what happens when I wake up. It’s happened enough times for me to note a few specifics – it mostly happens when I am sleeping face up, occasionally when I am sleeping on my left ear and only once has it happened when sleeping on my right ear. I am deaf in my left ear and wonder if this is a contributing factor, ie hearing things might be a trigger. There are even some nights when I know it’s going to come before I go to sleep. I can just feel it. There’s a buzzing in my head and a metallic taste on my tongue.

Mad, isn’t it?

I’ve talked to my wife this morning and she’s suggested I show this to my GP as a start but I thought I’d post it here to see if it resonates with anyone else.

I’d love to know if anybody else sees the ‘wall’.

This is a post for other bereaved dads, so is unlikely to be of interest to anybody else. As always, it’s unapologetically cathartic and I hope it helps anybody else on this journey. It comes from a good positive place with the best of intentions.

The seminal scene in the film Good Will Hunting is the one in which Robin Williams’ character keeps telling Will (Matt Damon) that “It’s not your fault” and ends with Will collapsing in tears. It’s a very powerful moment. I watched it for the first time in a while a few weeks ago. It appears to have had quite an effect. Let me explain.

I’ve written about my challenges with grief many times, mainly around the struggle I’ve had with anger. It ended up with me in hospital, which in turn led to a course of counselling which may well have saved my life. That counselling helped me to understand where my anger was coming from, how to deal with it, and since then my grief management has been so much better.

But the problem with intense grief is that even years later it throws curve balls at you, like the one I’m going to talk about now – lack of confidence.

Prior to Edward’s death confidence was never an issue for me. If anything, I was too confident. I was the 26 year old who sat in Covent Garden eating a sandwich one day, saw an advert for a job in Singapore and, realising that the company who placed it happened to be just a few minutes walk away, walked to their office and told them I wanted the job. I had no relevant experience. One hour later I was offered the job, and one month later I was living in Singapore. Over the course of the next 4 years I worked at different companies, getting promoted quickly and ended up Managing Director of the Thai office of the world’s largest brand consultancy at the age of 30. When we returned home, the path continued. I went from senior role to senior role, each with a higher salary. And then Edward was born.

Having a child with a life threatening condition changed my life. Suddenly a world that I thought I was always in control of was in control of me. And when he died aged 4, it just got worse.

Edward died of sepsis. It was, frankly, awful. I still have flashbacks to the worst moments. Him shaking so hard in pain that the bed shook. I can still hear it. Him looking at me and asking what he’d done wrong to deserve this awful pain and me not being able to respond because it upset me so much. The fear in his eyes when he looked at me and my wife when they wheeled him away for the operation that he would never wake up from. These are burned into my psyche.

But probably the most damaging effect, and the one that triggered my anger issues, was guilt. I can recall the exact moment it began. One afternoon I asked a doctor where the sepsis had come from. He gave several scenarios but I could only hear one of the least likely. He said that the bacteria that had caused it is common on our skin, especially around our noses, and that Edward could’ve caught it from close contact with one of us.

I can’t remember if I’ve ever written about this bit before. My wife and I never left Edward’s side whilst he was in hospital. We took it turns for a month to be with him, alternating day and night shifts, and together whenever we could. He was hardly ever alone. However, our other two children were at home in Cirencester, being looked after by my parents-in-law. Mid-way through the month we decided it would be a good idea for Clare to go back home to see them for a few days.

During that time, I stayed by Edward’s side and slept with him at night. I would lie next to him, stroke him, hug him, kiss him, nuzzle him with my nose. And it was also during this time that he sepsis developed.

So sitting there as he lay dying 2 weeks later, hearing the doctor say that he could’ve got it from close contact with one of us was horrific. I have told nobody but my counsellor this, but I felt that I was the source of his sepsis. My wife had gone away. My only job was to look after him, and I’d let her and Edward down.

It didn’t matter that there were more likely sources of his infection. Grief doesn’t do rational. Not only had I failed to do what a father should and protect his child, I’d contributed to his death. Such are the silly mental games that are played in a grieving mind. I told myself it was karma.

As well as being very confident earlier in life, like many young cocksure men, I’d also been an idiot. I’d been arrogant, often insensitive and I know that I had hurt some people with my words. My grief riddled brain wanted someone to blame, so one of the people I pointed the finger at was myself. It was payback. I didn’t share it with anybody because I didn’t want it to look like self-pity, and I didn’t dare tell my wife, but it festered away inside of me.

It destroyed my self-confidence. I stopped making decisions and would just agree with everybody. I talked a good game but I let others lead and make decisions. Even up until very recently, I’d default to anybody else, have no confidence in my own opinion and, most debilitating of all, avoid all confrontation. There was no point. I’d lose because I deserved to, for being a bad person. If I got into arguments, even with colleagues, I’d feel tears coming and back off. It effected everything, even how I organise my work which would often be chaotic.

So, back to Good Will Hunting and that scene. I stayed up late a couple of weeks ago and watched it again. As the tension built, and Robin Williams kept on saying “It’s not your fault” again and again and again, it felt like he was talking to me. I sobbed away quietly downstairs whilst the family slept. But something else happened too. Something good.

Maybe it’s just the passage of time and the film was just convenient, but I seem to have turned a corner. I have felt confident for the first time in years. It’s not a great example but I told somebody off the other day. I haven’t done that except with the kids for years. I also disagreed, with some force, with somebody else earlier this week, face to face and didn’t back down. I didn’t try to avoid the confrontation or go along with them just to keep the peace, which is something I have done too much of in the last few years, and let people take advantage of me. It’s time to be confident again, but this time without the arrogance.

What’s the point of this post? Well, it’s for me and for other bereaved dads, nobody else. I’m clarifying this because, unbelievably, I still sometimes get criticism from people who think I’m doing this for attention. I’m doing it to share, to demystify grief, to get it out of my system and hopefully help others at the same time. I find it very cathartic and it has led to me a small but very supportive community of bereaved dads who share stuff like this so that we know we’re not alone, or going mad and that it’s ok to talk about it, even if it seems silly.

(For those who are interested, I wrote a blog throughout my son’s stay in hospital, his death and the immediate aftermath. It’s not an easy read and is a bit raw, especially towards the end but the link is here: http://hlhsdiary.com/wp/)

It’s been over 3 years since my last post about grief, which is probably a good thing. In that time, I’ve been to hospital for two grief-related incidents and finally accepted that I needed some help. It’s been a bit of a ride.

There is a lot of irony here. Those who’ve read my old posts know how much I talked about anger and how I was dealing with it fine on my own, thank you very much. Well, it turns out I wasn’t. Yes, I know, told you so.

This update starts just over 2 years ago on the evening of Valentine’s Day 2018. I was in the kitchen washing up when I started feeling unwell. I remember leaning against the kitchen sink and thinking this is all a bit odd. The next thing I knew I was picking myself up from the floor, the sink was overflowing and several chairs had been knocked over. I had clearly passed out.

My wife came in just as I got to my feet. I told her I was fine and must have tripped over.

Well, at least that’s what I thought I said. Although it was crystal clear to me, she couldn’t understand a word of it. Just gobbledegook. She was obviously concerned, but I soon recovered my speech, said I was off to bed and would see how I felt in the morning. The next day, she was taking the kids to see her parents in Yorkshire for half term but before she left made me promise to go to the doctor just to make sure.

So of course I just went to work. At lunch time I laughed as I told one of my colleagues about my funny turn but, to my surprise, he didn’t see the funny side of it. He too told me to go to the doctor. Then my wife called and asked why I hadn’t been yet. She wasn’t amused either. The last straw was a message from my equally unimpressed mother-in-law. Reluctantly, I booked myself in for the last appointment of the day.

I told the doctor what had happened. By this stage I wasn’t expecting her to find it funny either. And she didn’t. Two hours later I was in a bed at Cheltenham General Hospital plugged in to numerous monitors where I stayed for the next 3 days. Nobody explained for the first few hours what was going on but I did notice how gentle they were being with me.

Eventually, in came the consultant.

“We think you may have had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) and may be in danger of having a serious stroke any moment now.”

I nearly had a fucking heart attack there and then. No wonder they had been treating me so gently.

Over the next three days I had a barrage of cardiac and blood tests. One by one they revealed that I hadn’t had either a TIA or a stroke and that my heart was OK. Phew.

A few months earlier I’d been at the same hospital for an endoscopy. I’d been passing blood for a few weeks and experiencing pain in my stomach but hoping it would go away. Yes, I know. Before I go on, a quick word of advice. If you ever have an endoscopy, have the anaesthetic when they offer it. I decided not to and had to have two porters hold me down during the procedure. It was awful. Take the drugs. Seriously.

Anyway, the endoscopy revealed nothing more than a stomach ulcer, which was a relief considering what Google had suggested. (Another word of advice, don’t search your symptoms on Google. They all end in death.) As I was waiting to be discharged, the doctor came over to me and surprised me by putting her arm around my shoulder like a concerned mother to a child.  She told me that she’d read my notes, knew that we’d lost our son, that I wasn’t ill but grief-stricken and needed help before things got worse. She left me with a gentle, but stern suggestion that I get counselling as soon as possible. As lovely as she was, I of course ignored her. 

So there I was, a few months later, talking to a cardiologist about exactly the same thing. This time though, it felt urgent. There’s something very sobering about a heart scare for a middle aged man. I thought about my wife and kids and the impact my death would have on them. After five years pretending to be ok it was time to get some help.

I’m not going to go into the detail of my counselling in this post but I can’t recommend it highly enough. The first session was pretty uneventful but during the second, despite my best efforts to keep it together, I completely broke. Proper, hard core sobbing.

But it was a huge release. I was able, for the first time, to tell somebody what was really going on in my head and to talk about the guilt that had been haunting me for the last five years. The guilt of being unable to protect my son – the fundamental role of any father – and of letting him, my wife and my family down. I was able to say things I would never say to somebody who knew me, to cry without feeling like a failure and to admit my  darkest thoughts without feeling ashamed. Some of what I have written here I had not discussed with my wife but that’s one of the advantages of the confidentiality of therapy. It allows you to admit to things because you know that it won’t be shared anywhere else. Besides, she’s a brilliant mother who lost her son and doesn’t need the additional burden of an emotionally dysfunctional husband to deal with.

In all, I only did 8 sessions but they were transformative. I’ll never be cured of grief but I now understand it and have techniques to manage it. I’ve also learnt a lot about myself, how inappropriate my self-taught coping strategy was and how I’d mistakenly thought my dark sense of humour was adequate. I was the stereotypical stubborn man, brought up on the myth of being ‘strong’ and determined to deal with things on my own terms. Sometimes those terms involved self-imposed levels of danger and behaviour that I now look back at in horror and which, still, only I know about. I was never suicidal, but I wasn’t too bothered about living either. The repercussions for my wife and children could’ve been awful.

The pain of child loss never goes away. Even now, almost 7 years on it can still feel raw. But, I’m ok. I’m working, living and have lots to be grateful for. I still have very low moments and anger remains the most challenging aspect of it. I am much better at handling it but it requires constant management. Anger is a destructive emotion which still sometimes gets the better of me but I am far more aware of it. Admitting it is a problem is part of dealing with it, otherwise it’s a form of denial. Thankfully it usually now only shows itself in a stupid or petulant remark but given that it used to involve punching walls and other self-destructive antics, I’ll take that. Hopefully it will continue to mellow over time. I’d also like to clarify that I am not a seething ball of anger – I just happen to know that I have an issue that needs to be acknowledged and managed when it rears its ugly head.

After my therapy finished I did think about deleting all my earlier posts as they now feel a little foolish. However, I’d rather people saw the journey and know how I got here, warts and all. If it helps anybody else, especially another bereaved father, then it’s worth it. (Please see the posts tagged with Grief if you’re interested)

So, the point of this post is simple. If you are grief stricken or suffering any other kind of mental health challenge – and even more so if you are a typical bloke – please don’t be too proud for therapy. It’s all confidential and there’s no shame attached to admitting that you can’t cope on your own. It really could make a huge difference.

If I can do it, so can you.

(For those who are interested, I wrote a blog throughout my son’s stay in hospital through to his death and the immediate aftermath. It’s not an easy read and is a bit raw, especially towards the end but it might help put this post in context. The link is here: http://hlhsdiary.com/wp/)