It was a Friday afternoon in late summer & I was heading home after a long week at work. As I exited my local Tube station in North West London I came across a man, in his mid 50’s, collapsing onto the floor & struggling to breath. He was in the middle of cardiac arrest…not that I knew that at the time. Scrambling together first aid that I had learnt a decade and a half before, I ended up being the first responder on the scene – putting the man in the recovery position, calling the ambulance services, trying to conduct the circle of shell-shocked people that were gathering & performing CPR.

A short while later the ambulance arrived & in spite of everything, this man – who had just been on his way home from work like me – was pronounced deceased. The Emergency Responder took me aside. He told me there was nothing further that anyone could have done. That his best guess was that the man had died of a stress induced heart attack.

A few years before, I was in a business meeting of Senior Executives. At the time, I was working in the construction industry – as a women in her late 20’s – and was no stranger to stress. But in this meeting, someone dropped into conversation that if you work in the UK construction industry, you are 3.7 times more likely to die by suicide than the national average rate for suicide. And the reason behind this was predominantly stress - caused by multiple complicated & multifaceted reasons endemic within the construction industry. The statistic was dropped quite casually into conversation before the meeting moved onto other ‘important’ matters, but I was stunned into silence. It was a shocking statistic that I could not just hear & carry on from like others seemed to be able to do.

These experiences affected me on a fundamental level. I am fortunate enough that this was the first time I had dealt with a serious & fatal medical emergency. And for the weeks after, all I could see were other stressed out individuals headed, potentially, in the same direction. It made me ache with sadness.

It wasn’t long after that experience outside a London Tube station that I decided to change a few things. I resigned from a great job - where I was on track to become a Partner - to travel, move abroad & set up my own business. In that year I allowed myself to forget about the ups and downs of Corporate life & relearned how to live in the moment. We hiked in the Rockies, danced at Carnival in Brazil, tanned ourselves on the beaches of Greece, observed other ways of living life & got married. I went on a journey of inner exploration – completing The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (I still do my morning pages…(if you know you know!)), reading books, listening to podcasts & culminating in qualifying as a Yoga Teacher. I spent a year building on something that I had been doing for over a decade alongside Corporate Life…learning how to live mindfully & creatively, but now I had the time & space to lean into it.

When we landed in our new home in Dubai, I knew I wanted to do something different. To help makes things better. To be a part of the solution, rather than accidentally part of a problem. But I didn’t know what. These two parts of me – the part interested in creativity, how the mind works & lifelong learning just didn’t seem to fit with my previous life as a Project Manager within the construction industry.

It is somewhat ironic then that it was in meditation in a beautiful waterfront yoga studio that it came to me...perhaps reconciling these two parts of myself actually was exactly what others might need. That, like me, other Project Managers & professionals might be struggling with anxiety, stress, overwhelm & the inability to feel like they were living life on their own terms. After all, I had almost 12 years of Project experience, & in that time I’m not sure that I met a single other Project Manager that didn’t in some way struggle with finding the all elusive notion of ‘work-life balance’.

Shortly after that meditation, BuiltWell was born. My version of changing things for the better by bringing Project Management training & wellbeing skills together. Because learning how to look after ourselves IS a teachable skill. It is just one that we have forgotten to teach people.

For 6 months I got my head down, crafting course outlines that would combine these two disciplines, collating resources that I (& others) had found useful over the years & digging into the neuroscience of how our brains work so I could create courses that are truly effective. I started reaching out to my network & was amazed by how many others were struggling, but also amazed how all it took was starting a conversation & learning a few new skills for people to start to feel better – like they weren’t alone & that there were tangible, palpable things they could do to find balance. I had conversations with individuals who wanted personalised support & guidance in their careers rather than qualifications for the sake of it. I had conversations with team leaders who genuinely wanted to help their teams but didn’t know how. And I had conversations with other amazing people who have been passionately fighting the same cause for much longer than I had.

Now, BuiltWell is 2 years old & I am fortunate enough to still be living this dream of bringing Project Management, wellbeing (& often my grassroots in the construction industry) together. I am lucky to work with some amazing people & by speaking openly about my mission I have managed to find others who are on parallel missions to make life better & make a positive dent in the world.

It is with a heart full of thanks & gratitude to everyone that has supported me & BuiltWell that I write this article. And to that man who sadly passed away on that summer evening all those years ago, I hope that I can do you justice by helping others live happy, healthy ,less stressful lives. You will always be in the heart of the BuiltWell Project Management mission.

If this resonated with you or you’re interested in finding ‘Project Success without Stress’, schedule a call through my website at www.builtwellpm.com to discuss how we might work together.