Season 2025: Episode 11. Jonathan Kemp shares his lifelong mental health journey

For years he struggled with his undiagnosed BiPolar disease. He had several careers and tried several healing modalities. 

Oddly, he found focusing on his work and working hard did help and when he went back to school as an adult, he ended up developing a note-taking method that he grew into a business.

When he finally found a good psychiatrist, and was put on the proper medications, he said it was like a miracle -- he could function normally and he has felt better ever since.

To keep his health balanced, he follows 14 Foundations, which he outlines in his book "Finding Peacce of Mind." 

Some of Jonathan’s 14 Foundations are:

1.      Get good regular sleep, go to bed at the same time, get up at the same time.

2.      Be part of a community.

3.      Being present and in the moment.

4.      Meditation

5.      Having structure to your day (having breakfast at the same time, dinner at the same time, etc.)

6.      Have a written plan for the day (write it the night before).

7.      Not letting your slip-ups define the whole rest of the day {“You can start your day again at any time.”)

Jonathan’s new book is called "Finding Peace of Mind" (and all of his profits will go to mental health nonprofits). About the book:

Finding Peace of Mind: An Inspirational Journey Through Bipolar, Depression, Addiction And... Dyslexia is a memoir by Jonathan Kemp that details his experiences living with bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, and dyslexia. The book chronicles his path from a difficult past to a place of healing and resilience, offering insights into managing mental health and neurodiversity. It serves as a resource for those seeking understanding and hope, providing practical strategies for emotional resilience and self-awareness. Jonathan Kemp was born a future Viscount, but wealth and privilege did not protect him from his own brain malfunctioning. 

He is also planning on doing a 7-month walk through the UK to support mental health efforts and raise awareness (he will give talks and interviews along the way and donate those proceeds to mental health nonprofits as well).

PLUS, if  you buy the book, you get a code for free access to his note-taking training called “Smart Wisdom.”!! It’s the complete high-quality online course you would get from him in person.

Find him on social media:

He is on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathankemplondon/

and Facebook: Jonathan Kemp (add  “London” to your search)

Website will be available soon – Jonathan Kemp.com

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Original music "Saturday Sway" by Brendan Talian (for all interviews before 2025)

Transcript

Transcribed with Cockatoo


0:00:38
(Speaker 2)
The Storied Human. Today, my guest is Jonathan Kemp. He's a mental health advocate, entrepreneur, and creator of Smart Wisdom, a scientifically validated note -taking technique. Born into privilege as the future third Viscount Rochdale, he built careers in law enforcement and entrepreneurship and undertook postgraduate study, unaware that bipolar disorder, depression, and dyslexia were shaping his life. His mental illnesses were diagnosed at age 39 when he finally sought professional help. Jonathan won the British Dyslexia Association's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2011. 

0:01:19
(Speaker 2)
And today we're going to take a closer look at how this can shape your whole life despite coming from privilege. Welcome, Jonathan. 

0:01:31
(Speaker 1)
Thank you very much for having me, Lynn. 

0:01:33
(Speaker 2)
I'm so glad to speak to you today. I love what you're willing to talk about and the enlightenment that you're bringing. I mean, people need to hear this. So why don't you let me know? I love to know how people started, however you want to, you know, wherever you want to talk about that, like education experience or troubles that you first, I mean, were there signs before age 39 that you didn't interpret? 

0:02:00
(Speaker 15)
correctly? 

0:02:01
(Speaker 1)
Oh, absolutely. I would say it was roughly about age six or seven. I knew something was wrong. Wow. 

0:02:11
(Speaker 4)
I didn't know what it was, but I knew that in some way that I was different from others. 

0:02:17
(Speaker 1)
Yeah. And I remember at primary school thinking, you know, if somebody has got a broken leg, well, that's, that's okay. Cause you, you can see, and you know, that you've got a broken leg. But whatever was happening with me, it wasn't something you could visibly see. And this just carried on through my schooling. I really struggled at school, particularly with the studying. 

0:02:48
(Speaker 1)
And when I left school, I left with poor exam results. I had to do retakes and I still didn't get good results. And by the time I left school, I knew that there was something seriously wrong with me. And it had been getting worse. So I just, I didn't feel comfortable being from the background I was from. I didn't feel comfortable going to the schools I went to. 

0:03:19
(Speaker 1)
And I think now looking back, it wouldn't have mattered where I went to school, where I'd be brought up, how I'd been brought up, privilege or no privilege, I would have felt exactly the same. And And the reason for that is, and I was only getting to understand this much later on, is bipolar disorder. So I would have these sort of very quick mood shifts. And, you know, sometimes I would say things or do things. that I really regretted doing. And I thought, right, I'm never going to do that again. 

0:04:00
(Speaker 1)
But I always did. And then also with the studying, you know, I sort of made attempts to try and write, I'm really going to study this time. And I just couldn't seem to crack it. So I left school. I, most of my contemporaries went on to university. I worked at a job in a restaurant for a bit. 

0:04:28
(Speaker 1)
I was doing cleaning, worked on building sites. And then I actually had a job in the Australian Outback and it was on a cattle station. And I was employed as, they called them Jackaroos, which are essentially young people who were farming. And the American equivalent is a cowboy. And it was probably one of the best years of my life. Yeah, it was just amazing. 

0:05:06
(Speaker 1)
And, but again, the problems sort of maintained. Yeah, I just didn't fit. It was more than not feeling comfortable. I felt disassociated from sometimes just from everything around me. And then there was this continual interference in the brain. And I used to sort of think, well, right, I'm not going to think this anymore. 

0:05:35
(Speaker 1)
I'm not going to think that anymore. You know, if this comes up, I'm going to do that. And I could sit there and think, right, this is how I'm going to think. And that would last for about, I don't know, a couple of minutes if I was lucky. I came back. I was lucky. 

0:05:53
(Speaker 1)
I got, I then trained as a bricklayer and I then got a job in the Met Police as a police officer. And I was a police officer for about 12 years, just under 12 years. And I actually, the reason for pausing, I was just thinking of, you know, what was the reason I joined the police? And it was, I think it was because it was like, It was an occupation that was dealing with reality on a day to day basis. And it was dealing with people. And I thought, yeah, I could do that. 

0:06:36
(Speaker 1)
But more importantly, I thought, right, I'm going to this time, I'm not going to buck, you know, fight the system. I'm not going to rebel. I'm going to really try my best. And that's what I did. But I still was getting myself into trouble. You know, I still had these mood swings. 

0:06:59
(Speaker 1)
Whatever I did, it was never enough. So while I was in the police, I got involved in renovating a property. I then realized I could make much more money on the stock market. So I immediately stopped the property and got stuck into the stock market. And so this sort of carried on. And what I had during the police, and I now know only because of my sort of knowledge about mental health, I had about maybe three or four really bad bipolar highs and crashes. 

0:07:30
(Speaker 1)
one of which was around the stock market. I left the police to do postgraduate study. So I've never been to university. And I thought, so the interesting thing is that I had no idea or concept that what I might be struggling with was an illness. I associated everything that was going on with something that I wasn't doing right or something I haven't achieved or done. 

0:08:00
(Speaker 1)
So, you know, I tried making money, that didn't work. You know, I tried sort of doing separate type of business, property development, that didn't work. Police, that didn't work. And I tried all sorts of things, you know, sort of like self -help groups, religion, and I was constantly searching. 

0:08:23
(Speaker 20)
In my own head, what I was looking for was peace of mind. 

0:08:27
(Speaker 1)
That was it. Well, actually I was looking for two things. One to prove I wasn't stupid and the other one was peace of mind. 

0:08:34
(Speaker 19)
I did really well on my postgraduate courses and I developed a new note -taking technique, which eventually became my business. 

0:08:40
(Speaker 2)
That's so cool. But you know, what's striking me through this whole journey is I'm thinking in college, and in the jobs that you had, you're surrounded by people. And I've experienced this a little bit myself where people just were like, well, this is easy. What's your problem? Or this is just how you do it. Like not when you're surrounded by people that don't have these issues, they're just like, well, you just have to organize yourself. 

0:09:04
(Speaker 11)
Or you just have to like, I remember when I had a mild depression, my friend said, well, you just have to get up early. 

0:09:12
(Speaker 2)
Do you know how hard that is? When you're depressed, it's really, really hard to do that. And I'm just thinking that Two things I'm thinking is that people around you are just not getting it, right? They're expecting you to just, you know, solve it, just do this. And the thing that hurts me the most about your story so far is that you're struggling all by yourself the whole time. You're struggling all by yourself with it and telling yourself, I'm going to improve. 

0:09:39
(Speaker 2)
and trying all these things. 

0:09:42
(Speaker 1)
It's just a terrible burden to have. 

0:09:47
(Speaker 8)
Yeah. 

0:09:47
(Speaker 1)
And I think I might be minimizing it, but I think it's because that's all I knew. 

0:09:53
(Speaker 11)
Right. 

0:09:54
(Speaker 1)
It was just, that's just the way it was. Yes. In terms of like people seeing things. So I was, I was at school in the sixties and seventies, and I don't think I ever heard of neurodivergence or, you know, autism or dyslexia. 

0:10:16
(Speaker 10)
And I didn't know anything about mental health at all. 

0:10:21
(Speaker 1)
I think I sort of, I'd heard of therapists, but that was some weird thing from America. 

0:10:26
(Speaker 18)
Yeah. 

0:10:27
(Speaker 2)
And I'd heard of psychiatrists, and they were basically people who worked in, I mean, this, we use the slang, nut houses. Yeah. I'm a little older and I do remember, like, we didn't know much at all about mental health. We just knew that some people, it's funny how we, the label that we used, if someone went crazy, right, if they needed to be put into a facility, we said they had a nervous breakdown. 

0:10:57
(Speaker 1)
That's all we knew, really. We just didn't know. Yes. And that would be, that rings the bell as well. 

0:11:08
(Speaker 4)
A way of sort of defining that something was wrong. 

0:11:13
(Speaker 1)
I also heard that expression, oh, it's a nervous breakdown. Right. I actually started, so with my sort of friends at school or friends at work, what was the sort of personal side of where I was struggling wasn't something I would discuss with anybody. And I was quite happy with it that way. But I did go. So I actually stopped drinking and taking drugs when I was about 21. 

0:11:48
(Speaker 1)
And the reason for that is because I knew that if with either of those things, I couldn't control my thinking or my brain or my behavior. I just lost that element of control. And I actually went to 12 -step fellowships on and off for 20 years. And so within that environment, I did get sort of used to how I was feeling or the difficulties I was having. But there's quite a set formula on how you actually do that. And my hope was, again, the 12 -step fellowships, it was another, I hope this is going to work. 

0:12:29
(Speaker 1)
I hope if I really work this program and really do all the things that you're supposed to do at the end of it, I will feel better. And at times I did, but it wasn't a solution. 

0:12:47
(Speaker 2)
So in the same way for me, I think if one has, if all one has is, I say all one has is quite enough, if one has an addiction and nothing else, then these fellowships are fantastic. 

0:13:04
(Speaker 1)
If one has an addiction plus something else, then they're still good, but you also need to deal with something else. And a lot of people do medicate with drugs and alcohol if they have something else. So you're going to find people in those programs that are at some point, yeah, you're going to feel a bit more comfortable, you're going to be a bit more outgoing. And then it's a way of just changing how you think you feel. 

0:13:30
(Speaker 2)
you behave. And then in my case, usually I was very ill. I drink too much. I still get sad with that idea that you're, you're slogging through your life, trying everything you can, and maybe Like you said, it's all that you knew, but I feel like some people, they have things that they're carrying and they don't even understand them. And so everything that you're doing is like, everyone's moving along the racetrack, right? But you're carrying all these boulders and everybody's like, why can't you go faster? It's insane, right? 

0:14:03
(Speaker 1)
You look back and realize I carried this and you still succeeded at things. So that speaks to your perseverance and your intelligence. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I was very, very, very focused and driven. And I think a lot of that was to do with my background and accomplishments of my grandfather and great grandfather and my great grandmother and so on going backwards. It was only in my late thirties when I reached another fork in the road. 

0:14:41
(Speaker 1)
I'd had another really bad bipolar crash. I'd been severely depressed. I only know this looking back for about two or three years. In my own mind, I tried everything, could not think of anything else. And I'll go and see a therapist. 

0:14:57
(Speaker 2)
That was my sort of last port of call, or I would have called it a day. So that was basically the two options. Oh, that's scary. I just want to mention for the listeners that I just recently learned that depression, when it's part of a bipolar disease, is so much worse than we can imagine. It's depression with a capital D. It can be very debilitating. It's not like what we think of when people have depression. 

0:15:25
(Speaker 9)
that comes and goes, or mild depression. 

0:15:27
(Speaker 1)
That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about something truly debilitating. Yes. It's interesting. I mean, I talk about having both bipolar disorder and depression, because I think most of the time, you know, when I was younger, I had depression. And the bipolar you know, I suppose one could say, well, it's all bipolar. 

0:15:51
(Speaker 1)
But for me, there are long, long periods of where I just had this like, down feeling doesn't come doesn't do it justice. But it's this, this feeling of just everything was a huge effort. Yes, living was an effort, breathing was an effort. And then the bipolar, the me, I associate that with these highs, and they can happen. So I've had different types of highs, I've had highs where very short -lived, you know, I'll meet someone in the afternoon and I'll start talking about something I'm doing, a project that I'm doing. And then I just can't stop talking and it gets really embarrassing. 

0:16:34
(Speaker 1)
And then I leave the person. I then have an immediate slump and I'm horrified. I just think, you've done it again. You know, why can't you just keep quiet? And I couldn't. I then had sort of much longer duration highs and they, my experience in the stock market was one. 

0:16:52
(Speaker 1)
that lasted for about six months, seven months. And I would just push myself, push myself because in my own mind, because in reality, I hated who I was. I hated everything about me. I thought I was useless. And so I deserve to be punished. What then happens with the bipolar disorder. So there are two, well, there's a couple of types of bipolar disorder. 

0:17:17
(Speaker 1)
So there's bipolar disorder type one, where when you go up, you experience mania. And mania is where you actually lose touch with reality. You might start hearing voices, you might start seeing things, you might believe someone else. I mean, it's truly frightening. And you have, once you've gone into that, you're also unaware of what you're doing. 

0:17:39
(Speaker 1)
So this new reality is reality. And often the only way to get back into a sort of good health is to be hospitalized, have medication, and then bring you down to a normal. So I have bipolar type two, where I will go up to, right up to the sort of the boundary point between hypermania, which is what I have, and mania. And with the hypermania, it's just, everything is exaggerated, so. you know, I'll take enormous risks, I will, anything I do is to the nth degree. And to me, some of my guide go to when I'm hyper manic, and this might sound a bit odd, is like hyper, hyper planning, hyper organizing, hyper analysis, I've done things like I had a dispute, property dispute, And I look back on what work I did, it's terrifying. 

0:18:41
(Speaker 1)
You can't believe the amount of time and effort and detail I've gone into. But at that point, I was, I was hypermanic. Then what happens when the stress becomes enough? And for me, it's usually when I financially often it's when the financial risk is just too great. And the stress becomes too much, I then crash. And when I crash, it's within 24 hours and the low, the depression is, you described it nicely, it's a difficult 

0:19:15
(Speaker 1)
type to regular depression. And how it manifests for me, it's literally like my brain has been removed. So I will see it happening. I'll think, oh God, I'm back here again. There's nothing I can do to stop it. And then when it kicks in, it's like there's a sort of sandstorm and it's taken out my eyes, taken out my brain. 

0:19:36
(Speaker 1)
And the sand is just whirling and grating around inside my head. and my brain just doesn't work. And it's a mixture between frightening and tough. The other thing is, every time it happens, it's like, this is the first time it's ever happened. It's a really weird experience. And then the other thing is, you know, beyond any shadow of doubt, it'll never finish. 

0:20:02
(Speaker 1)
Even though, I mean, I've had - It's so horrible. 

0:20:05
(Speaker 2)
20 plus probably. 

0:20:06
(Speaker 1)
And for me, I'll be in that that point for about four to six weeks. I will start to come out of it. But the first week - I'm sorry, you broke up a little bit. Yeah. So that bipolar crash and this sort of bipolar depression, for me, worst bit is the first week to two weeks when it's like even putting one foot in front of the other seems like a momentous effort. Yeah. 

0:20:33
(Speaker 1)
And I'd used to have, I had coping technique. technique. So if I was outside, I'd sort of set myself targets. And I'd say, Okay, I've just got to walk to that lamppost. Can I walk to that lamppost? 

0:20:44
(Speaker 7)
And I think, yeah, I can do that. 

0:20:45
(Speaker 1)
I'll walk to the lamppost. And then I'll think, Okay, I just got to walk to the next to the next junction. Can I do that? And that's how I would actually try and manage it. Wow. often the way I got out of it, but I didn't realise what I was doing actually until COVID, is that the way I got out of it is I'd focus on my work and I would just like become 

0:21:10
(Speaker 1)
laser focused. I'd start phoning people, trying to get meetings, trying to get new business. And even though I was feeling terrible, I would force myself to do it. And sometimes after say making a phone call, I would feel slightly better. But what I didn't realize was this sort of laser focus on work is that once I came out of this bipolar down or this bipolar crash is that then I would almost automatically start to trigger another high through because I was just working all the time. I was working, you know, in the evenings, working weekends. 

0:21:47
(Speaker 1)
I always had a big project on the go. Yeah. And so I was in like a repeat cycle. 

0:21:54
(Speaker 2)
And I didn't fully realize this until COVID when it suddenly dawned upon me because I'd always thought all I've got to do is manage a crash. And then during COVID, I had three or four highs and crashes in quite quick succession. So within about a year and a half, two years, and it suddenly dawned on me, actually, I'd got it all, I think, a polite expression, but asked about face, that actually, I can't think of another way to describe it, that all I needed to do was focus on not having a high, because if I can moderate not and particularly that take -off point. So if I can moderate my behavior, my thinking, which I have some control of at the beginning, then I won't have a high. And if I don't have a high, I won't have a crash. And to me, that was like, you know, I was in my early sixties at this point, and that was like sort of a clouds parting revelation. 

0:22:55
(Speaker 2)
That's amazing to me. Yeah. That you realized, okay, I have a little bit of control in the very beginning. 

0:23:00
(Speaker 1)
There's a point where I can actually manage, manage it. And this whole time, it's your brain chemistry. I think people really need to hear that. This whole time, that's the way your brain works. You're having to deal with your brain telling you things and revving up things and crashing. And that's what's happening. 

0:23:25
(Speaker 1)
It's inside your brain, and it's a chemical thing. Yeah. 

0:23:29
(Speaker 2)
And I think the The clearest evidence of that for me is, so I flatly refused, well, get medical help to start with, but when I eventually did, the people I saw who were two therapists and a psychiatrist over a period of about a year and a half, all said that I was severely depressed. And I said, no, I'm not. 

0:23:54
(Speaker 1)
And the reason for me saying, no, I'm not, and I honestly believed it is because I knew no different. it took another year or so for them to persuade me to take medication for depression. So initially I was diagnosed with depression. 

0:24:13
(Speaker 2)
And once it, and then the thing with mental health medication is it's not a certain process. So what works for one person won't necessarily work for someone else, both in terms of like the make of the product or the dosage levels. So it's a bit of a Wild West experimentation. which is very frustrating. Yeah. It's it takes time. 

0:24:35
(Speaker 2)
Yeah. Yeah. And after about four or five months, when some of the side effects started to subside, I realized that wasn't an effort to think nothing is really weird. And I suddenly realized looking back, oh my god, I was depressed, but I needed to experience not having depression. appreciate what depression really is. Because that had been your normal for so long. 

0:25:05
(Speaker 2)
Yeah. It's funny, too. I was diagnosed with mild depression in my late 20s. And I was surprised the same way. I was surprised that somebody said that's, that's what was happening with me. I just thought I needed to sort of, you know, quit my job and move home and live with my mom. It was all these things I thought I had to do. 

0:25:26
(Speaker 2)
And it was my mother that identified it and sent me to a psychiatrist because she was a therapist. And he convinced me to go on medication. And it was the same kind of thing. I tried it and it was a terrible first six weeks, you know, the side effects were terrible. And one day I just said, Oh, I'm functioning. I just made an observation about myself that I was, it wasn't huge, right? 

0:25:52
(Speaker 2)
it was just like, Oh, I did a few things today and it wasn't this crazy, big, you know, dramatic effort. And I think that it is really hard to see that you are in a place that, you know, they're telling you you're in, right. It's hard to really, when that's, I feel like I, when I look back on my life, I always was a little bit tending towards depression. And so that's felt normal kind of, but this sort of hit like a critical level in my late twenties. 

0:26:22
(Speaker 1)
So I was able to get real good help and, you know, to manage it going forward. It's been like a blessing to know these things. 

0:26:30
(Speaker 2)
And I'm so glad you're talking so honestly about it. And I had someone on, I think it was one of my first episodes, like second or third episode, somebody talked about her bipolar and she didn't know for a long time either. And it's so nice to have it named. 

0:26:47
(Speaker 1)
It's so nice to understand, to be given tools. Like that's what people, you know, we would wish for them that they would have learned long period of not knowing and having to struggle by yourself. And this person I interviewed is a comedian on the side. So she, she's great with it because she tells people jokes about it. Like, I think it's a wonderful coping mechanism, but anyway, back to you and the meds are really important. 

0:27:13
(Speaker 1)
And sometimes it's hard to convince ourselves that we need them. Yeah. So for me, if I had a sort of hierarchy of things that I need to do or take or an approach, medication is number one, because without that, I have an expression, it's a non -starter. I mean, certainly for me. You lived it, right? You lived the non -medicated, right? 

0:27:41
(Speaker 1)
You've lived it for years, so you know what it's like without it. And I actually, I had a really, another fork in the road moment, towards the end of COVID. 

0:27:54
(Speaker 2)
And I agreed to see a psychiatrist again. 

0:27:58
(Speaker 1)
And I agreed to change medication, because I've been on the same meds for about 20 years, and they hadn't worked for probably 10, the last 10 of which I've been taking them. 

0:28:09
(Speaker 17)
And so she started me off on an anti psychotic medication, which was supposed to help with depression. 

0:28:17
(Speaker 2)
Well, it certainly leveled out my mood, but it flatlined me. That's a level of depression below what anything I'd experienced before. 

0:28:25
(Speaker 1)
It was extraordinary. And then she, she was brilliant. She then said, once she realized what was happening, she said, okay, keep on that medication, but add an antidepressant. And what the antidepressant did, it was then just lifted that flatline up to a median level of comfort. and after about six weeks of taking them both it was the same. like a miracle. 

0:28:52
(Speaker 1)
It wasn't an effort to think, it wasn't an effort to breathe, it wasn't an effort to walk. I mean, it really was like a complete and utter miracle. She really affected your brain in a way that helped you function. 100%. That's wonderful. What a blessing. 

0:29:11
(Speaker 1)
And I want people to really hear that, you know. Yeah, so going back to your point that with mental health, I think they're all different illnesses. So for me, it was only during COVID. So this is nearly 20 years off my original diagnosis that I really started to understand actually, I have bipolar type two. And then I started doing more reading about what is the difference. And actually, that knowledge in itself, is really, really important, because you then have a better understanding of what you need to do. 

0:29:47
(Speaker 1)
And there are some key differences. The other thing that I found was I've experienced, you know, I've had 30 years, so from the age of, let's say, 10, to the age of 40, for simplicity's sake, as you say, trying to do it myself. So I know what that feels like. Yeah. And it wasn't just sort of sitting on the sidelines trying to, you know, just get along, I was proactively trying to find solutions. The only thing I was talking about in addition to medication, for me, I call them 14 recommendations, which I find improves the quality of my life. 

0:30:31
(Speaker 1)
And they're sort of things that are obvious, but not that easy to do consistently. 

0:30:38
(Speaker 2)
Number one for me is like getting good quality sleep. on a regular basis. 

0:30:44
(Speaker 9)
You're going to bed at roughly the same time, getting up at the same time. 

0:30:47
(Speaker 1)
Another one for me is just being part of the community. So rather than working, I have my own business and rather than working at home is getting out to a coffee shop and I go to one in the morning, I go to one in the afternoon. If I eat out, there's about maybe four or five restaurants and I always go to the same restaurant. 

0:31:08
(Speaker 2)
And that is all about just being a small part of you know, the community around me. 

0:31:15
(Speaker 1)
Another thing that I do and sort of make a consistent effort to try and do is be mindful. So when I'm doing something, I focus just on that. Or when I'm out, you know, I focus on how I'm walking or how the air feels on my skin or the beauty. I live in central London, you know, the beauty of the buildings or the beauty of the sunshine reflecting off the buildings. And meditation is another one. 

0:31:46
(Speaker 2)
And all of these things help me to have a better quality of life. 

0:31:52
(Speaker 16)
But the foundation building block, which enables all of this to be possible is the medication. 

0:32:02
(Speaker 1)
I was going to say, those are good tips for anyone. Those are very good tips for, you know, maintaining your, your physical and mental health. Yes. And actually, I mean, there are other ones like having structures the day. So I work, I have the same working hours, Monday to Friday. I'm still not, I'm actually now much better about not working in the evening. 

0:32:25
(Speaker 1)
That's good. Working at weekends, if I'm honest, is a work in progress. Yeah, so having structure today makes a substantial difference. 

0:32:39
(Speaker 2)
So having breakfast 

0:32:40
(Speaker 1)
the same time, supper, the same time, um, lunch. 

0:32:44
(Speaker 15)
And then also another thing that really makes differences, having a plan for the day of, you know, what are the core things I want to try and achieve? 

0:32:53
(Speaker 2)
That's excellent. Yeah. Um, and a written plan and often I'll do it the day before I find that helps to, I can't really explain it, but I find if I do my plan the day before. two things happen is on the following day, when I look at it again, I think, oh, is that all? Whereas I know when I wrote it, I was thinking, oh my God, I've got to do all this. So that's one benefit. 

0:33:22
(Speaker 2)
And then the other benefit is I don't have to think, I just get up, start work, got my list, let's go. And it's flexible, you know, things sort of come in all the time. Another thing that I use a lot, which I found really helpful, um is a saying but also a shift in mindset and the saying is you can start your day again at any time oh i love that yeah yeah instead of that doom kind of you know i think i tend to have like that doom feeling like well you screwed up the day that's it but it's not true it's not true And so it might be four o 'clock in the afternoon, it might be eight o 'clock in the evening. And I'm thinking, oh, God, I've just exactly as you described, I haven't done this and I'm no good. 

0:34:09
(Speaker 14)
And I just think to myself, OK, you can start your day again at any time. 

0:34:15
(Speaker 1)
I do love that. And that immediately switches the thinking and also provides like a little, little juice of energy. 

0:34:24
(Speaker 2)
That's good. I find that I talk to myself more nicely now and part of that is if someone else was talking like that, right? If your friend was saying, oh, I've 

0:34:34
(Speaker 9)
screwed up the whole day, it's over. 

0:34:36
(Speaker 1)
You wouldn't tell them, yeah, you're right. You would say, no, you can start over at any time. Like you should be as nice to yourself as you would be to a friend. And so now I do, I practice talking to myself more like a friend. And I negate that when things come up, I tell myself, no, no, you're going to finish that. You'll give it time or what, you know, just be kind to yourself. 

0:34:59
(Speaker 1)
That's a difference for me. Yeah. And I, I sort of replicate that concept in sort of multitude of ways. And, um, yeah, it's, it's very, very valuable. This sounds so helpful. Are these 14 things in your book? 

0:35:18
(Speaker 1)
Is this part of what's going to be in your book? Yes. So I, I decided to write the book, um, during COVID, but I wasn't really prepared to write it. And certainly I wasn't prepared to publish it unless I had a reasonable period of sort of mental stability. And so now I've had about two and a half years of pretty good mental stability. I'm still me, you know, and I still I think of doing something. 

0:35:53
(Speaker 1)
And within a millisecond, I'm thinking of doing so much, probably more than anybody else would think of doing. But I don't give myself a hard time. And so I decided to write the book. And I thought, And it was also actually another shift in mindset. So I thought actually, my greatest wealth in life is my knowledge and experience around mental health and neurodiversity, having dyslexia. And I thought, you know, I've got 20 

0:36:29
(Speaker 2)
30 years of trying to do it myself. And I've got 20 plus years of following medical advice, sometimes more than others, sometimes completely ignoring it, but in a overall arching sense, following medical advice. 

0:36:48
(Speaker 14)
And I thought, well, you know, that has huge value. 

0:36:54
(Speaker 1)
And so then I sort of decided, well, if I want to be successful, which is what I, which was something I'd always been hankering after. Success for me would be to put that knowledge into the public to vein, uh, for the best, to the best of my ability. So I've written the book. Um, it's sort of three books in one, really. So the first part is my memoir. The second section is my analysis of what works and doesn't work. 

0:37:22
(Speaker 1)
So I've put in the 14 foundations that I use and I've explained why I use them and how they help. Um, Because I wanted the analysis to be a really quick and easy, oh, what's he talking about? How does he do it? So you're not having to flip through the memoir, trying to piece things together. 

0:37:43
(Speaker 11)
You can just go to the second section and it's all there, easy to find. 

0:37:49
(Speaker 1)
It's coping strategies for people. I think it's lovely that you're sharing that. Yeah. And actually my plan, so that I wouldn't get sidetracked, which I do very, very quickly. I decided that when the book's published, all profits from the book for the first year will go to mental health charities. And the reason I decided to do that was so I'm not trying to sort of make money out of it at the same time. 

0:38:22
(Speaker 1)
I've got enough funds to self -fund myself. 

0:38:25
(Speaker 2)
And by taking that approach, then I don't need to have that concern in the back of my mind that people think, oh, you're just doing it to sort of make money. And actually I'm going to do, I don't know if I told you when we first chatted, I'm going to do a walk over seven months. Did I mention that? No. So, and again, it's a bit like, you know, Jonathan, why can't he just do a two week walk? So it'll be over seven months, it'll be going from the north of Scotland, so the Shetland Islands, which are above the north of Scotland, through the Orkney Islands, through Scotland, down through England. 

0:39:10
(Speaker 14)
Part of the walk that I'll do in England will be the same walk my great -grandmother did as a suffragist in 1913. 

0:39:17
(Speaker 2)
I love that. I'll then walk along the south coast for a bit and then back up through Wales and then across to Ireland, because I'm also an Irish citizen. And I walk through Northern Ireland and then Southern Ireland down to Cork. And it will take about seven months. I'm going to do talks on the way down. And I'm going to also do like interviews with either random people or people who want to be interviewed. 

0:39:47
(Speaker 2)
So I hope to do 50 or more interviews just with people as I meet them over those seven months about mental wellbeing, mental health. And again, any money that I get from doing talks either before or after for the first year, everything goes towards mental health charities. 

0:40:09
(Speaker 1)
I love this. I love all of this. 

0:40:11
(Speaker 2)
I just, I think the awareness that you're going to create, and you're also, you're literally helping them with money. It's fantastic. 

0:40:21
(Speaker 1)
When you first said you're going to take a walk, I thought of, you know, what is it called? 

0:40:28
(Speaker 13)
The Santiago one through Northern Spain. 

0:40:30
(Speaker 3)
Oh, yes, yes. 

0:40:31
(Speaker 1)
Yeah. 

0:40:32
(Speaker 7)
I've always kind of wanted to do that, but it would take a really long time to do all of it. 

0:40:37
(Speaker 2)
No, it sounds like a great plan. I'm just very inspired by you. And I always want to ask people, I mean, people go through things, right? And they figure them out. 

0:40:47
(Speaker 7)
What makes you want to share? 

0:40:49
(Speaker 1)
Like that to me is a special kind of person. What makes you want to share this? I think, well, I don't think I know. It's it's partly in my family's DNA. I was wondering. It's like noblesse oblige almost. 

0:41:11
(Speaker 1)
Yeah. So I was actually disinherited by my father, which was. No. Yeah. 

0:41:18
(Speaker 10)
Another saga. 

0:41:19
(Speaker 2)
Oh my God. Which I covered in the book. We didn't even talk about being a future Viscount. We didn't even talk about that. I mean, you were raised in a very different way. Right. 

0:41:28
(Speaker 2)
Yeah. Um, but actually it turned out much for the best because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now had things been different. Um, but I've always wanted to feel that my life has had some value. 

0:41:47
(Speaker 1)
And I know, you know, again, from my background that money and possessions, I need them, but they don't really make a difference. 

0:41:59
(Speaker 12)
Cause you know, I had them growing up. 

0:42:02
(Speaker 1)
I don't have them now, I live a very minimalistic life. 

0:42:05
(Speaker 7)
And that suits me much better. 

0:42:07
(Speaker 1)
But the important thing for me is feeling that my life has had some value. And so if 

0:42:14
(Speaker 2)
by capturing my knowledge into one source and then sharing that to the best of my ability, so I don't have to set, I'm not setting myself a target of a thousand books or 10 ,000 or a million. My target is just to do the best I can for one year to put my knowledge into the public sphere. 

0:42:34
(Speaker 1)
That's it. 

0:42:34
(Speaker 11)
It's such a lovely way to both make sense of your journey, but to also It's just a beautiful thing because you're shortening other people's journeys. 

0:42:45
(Speaker 1)
I mean, that's such a great impulse. It's like, I don't want someone to have to go through 20 years. I want them to learn. You don't have to do this. You can prevent some of that pain for others. 

0:43:00
(Speaker 7)
But I also wanted to ask you, and if it's too private of a question, that's okay, but these things usually run in families. 

0:43:07
(Speaker 1)
So you can't be the only isolated person in your family. 

0:43:12
(Speaker 7)
I mean, did you notice that there might be some other people in your, maybe. 

0:43:20
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, so one of the things I was really careful to do in the book was not really involve any members of my family. I understand. Because, yeah, I didn't want it to sort of cause problems that didn't need to be caused. Right. And then the other thing that I was really careful about was avoiding any form of sort of self pity or resentment. But certainly, I mean, I can talk to, a little bit about the people who've popped their clogs, as they were, on the male side, which actually is quite, so do you know the expression to pop your clogs? 

0:44:01
(Speaker 1)
No, I love it though. I instantly loved it. So popping your clogs is dying, and it's an expression from the Norse. England. Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed. I thought you meant something else. 

0:44:13
(Speaker 1)
It's a great expression. So when say, oh, he popped his clogs, it means that someone's died. And the expression comes from the north of England. And all the all the workers, the mill workers, the miners, they all wore clogs. Oh, okay. And that's where the expression comes from. 

0:44:33
(Speaker 1)
Okay. And then there's also another expression about families who sort of make great wealth and then lose it. And that expression is clogs to clogs in three generations. So the first generation makes the money, the second generation spends it, and the third one loses it. And I say we're special and different because it took four generations. 

0:45:02
(Speaker 2)
But yeah, so on my father's side, my grandmother was a Christian scientist, you know, and you have to have a certain mindset to be willing to sort of go down that route and commit yourself. And I think, you know, my great grandfather fought in the war, First World War. He fought in Africa, he then fought in Gallipoli. And I think that has a huge impact. And yeah, I think, I think on the male side, undoubtedly, there were mental health issues. But there's also issues around sort of emotional 

0:46:04
(Speaker 2)
intelligence. I hate that expression, but yeah, around sort of emotional wellbeing. And I think that was impacted by the wars. 

0:46:19
(Speaker 1)
I think it was also impacted hugely by British society. So, you know, my great -grandparents were, in some people's eyes, were what they call aristocrats. And, you know, in the Victorian era, there was a whole load of rules and regulations about what was appropriate and what wasn't appropriate, you know, who you should marry, who you shouldn't marry, what sort of roles were important. 

0:46:49
(Speaker 2)
Making money was vulgar, which is all very well when you've got it. 

0:46:59
(Speaker 1)
Having that attitude is a privilege of the rich. 

0:47:05
(Speaker 2)
So I think, you know, I think wartime experience, I think had a big impact. 

0:47:11
(Speaker 1)
I think cultural experience had a big impact. I think just the nature of society in the 1800s, 1900s in the UK had a big impact. So although my grandfather died, I think 1995, you know, he was very much, in my mind, part of that Victorian era, albeit that it finished 100 years before. Well, almost 100 years. I think there were so many forces and the wars were big. I mean, that's just huge. 

0:47:52
(Speaker 1)
And we are just beginning to understand what that does to people's mental health. There's something else you said and I didn't comment on it. 

0:48:00
(Speaker 2)
I just want to comment on, I think, especially in America, we worship this overworking, you know, like workaholic kind of thing. And that's really bad for everyone's mental health. And you had noticed you, you know, you're working on that. You don't work nights and you're, the work in progress is not to work too much on weekends. I think that's really important to underscore here that society sort of rewards you for overworking and that's not good for anybody. 

0:48:33
(Speaker 10)
Yes, I would agree. 

0:48:36
(Speaker 1)
And again, I think that has a sort of historical background to it. 

0:48:41
(Speaker 2)
In the West, in England, in basically Anglo -Saxon countries, there is that sort of religious work ethic. 

0:48:55
(Speaker 1)
Right. Particularly that the Protestants had. Very much so. 

0:49:02
(Speaker 5)
And in the 1800s, there were certain religious denominations who placed great emphasis on hard work. 

0:49:17
(Speaker 1)
So I think that's where we've come from. In terms of, for me, my perspective now, in terms of mental well -being, one way of maintaining well -being is to reduce stress. And if I'm working every evening, and if I'm working every weekend, at some point, that stress level is just going to keep building and keep building and keep building. And at some point, not unless it doesn't happen for everyone, but certainly for me at some point, I will crack and then I'll go straight down. But there's something else about working long hours. 

0:50:05
(Speaker 1)
It's not that productive. Oh, that's a really good point. Yes. It's a myth, right? Yeah. I mean, you feel busy and everybody is admiring you because you're so busy, but what are you actually accomplishing after a certain amount of hours? 

0:50:21
(Speaker 1)
Most of us are not too productive. Yes. 

0:50:28
(Speaker 2)
So I find one of the benefits of working less hours, it forces me to be more focused as to what my priorities are. Yeah, that's really good. It also enables me to be more creative on how to get things done. 

0:50:45
(Speaker 10)
I also don't, I'm more likely to actually think, no, I don't need to do that. 

0:50:56
(Speaker 1)
I often, another thing that helps me enormously is the Pareto principle, 20 % effort equals 80 % of the result. Yeah. And actually, the 20 % isn't a huge amount to achieve that 80%. So when I was, you know, going through this big dispute, I had two really legal disputes, you know, I produced crown court, old Bailey quality evidence, because I'm partly driven by my police background, you know, and you look back and say, Oh, my goodness, I overdid it. Yeah, yeah, I overdid it in the first week. Never mind the subsequent six months or whatever it was. 

0:51:43
(Speaker 2)
And I found that also by taking breaks in the evening, is really helpful. I sort of feel more refreshed in the morning. 

0:51:53
(Speaker 1)
Taking lunch breaks, it's like a reset. 

0:51:58
(Speaker 9)
And it's a bit like being a long, I used to, and I still do, really enjoy running. 

0:52:05
(Speaker 1)
And you've run your race. Well, you've run for four hours and you're starting to taper off. But actually, if you have a break for half an hour and you come back, you then have this sort of new burst of energy. And it's the same with taking weekends off as well. So I never used to take holidays because I was always on some project, you know, in my head. And I think my point is that's rewarded, you know, in the society. 

0:52:37
(Speaker 1)
So we have to just take care of our own, not listen to that. 

0:52:41
(Speaker 8)
We have to take care of our own time and give ourselves those breaks. 

0:52:46
(Speaker 2)
Yes. And an analogy that helps me is like professional athletes. 

0:52:55
(Speaker 1)
or a professional soldier, but you don't expect professional athletes to be performing all the time, because if they do, they're going to get injuries. 

0:53:04
(Speaker 2)
They're going to get leg injuries, muscle injuries, bone injuries, so on and so forth. 

0:53:11
(Speaker 1)
And for people who are doing physical work, they will have the same problem if they don't have time to recuperate. 

0:53:22
(Speaker 7)
And people who are doing sort of mental -based work, Exactly the same. 

0:53:27
(Speaker 2)
They're using their brain in the same way an athlete is using their brain and their body. It's a great analogy. They need breaks, it seems obvious, but we do too. So is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to add? I think that's it. Oh, yes. 

0:53:53
(Speaker 1)
Um, there is one thing if, uh, as, and when the book comes out, as I say, all profits go to charity for the first year. But the other thing that I did was because this note taking technique was instrumental in me, you know, doing well at university when I went and then also became my business. I didn't want anyone to feel that my book was like a sales pitch for this technique. Um, And so what I've done is in the back, there's a short chapter with a free access code. So anybody who buys the book will be able to have free access to the note taking training called Smart Wisdom. And it's a really high quality online course. 

0:54:34
(Speaker 4)
It's exactly the same as what I would do if I was training people face to face. 

0:54:39
(Speaker 6)
That's amazing. 

0:54:40
(Speaker 2)
That's so good. And what is the book called? It's called Finding Peace of Mind. And it's available in October? Yeah, on the 10th of October. Okay. 

0:54:54
(Speaker 2)
I'll put all that in the show notes, but I like to say it. I like to have you say it during the episode because some people don't read the show notes. Of course, I wish they would. 

0:55:03
(Speaker 1)
I wish they would read them all, but if they don't, they'll hear you say that. Also, is there any way that, I mean, are you on social media? 

0:55:10
(Speaker 5)
Can people contact you or can people see you? 

0:55:12
(Speaker 4)
Yes, so people contact me. 

0:55:15
(Speaker 2)
So I can be found on LinkedIn and Facebook, just Jonathan Kemp. There are quite a few Jonathan Kemp. So if you type in Jonathan Kemp London, or Jonathan Kemp's Smart Wisdom, I'll come up. And I'm just in the process of creating an author's website. So that'll be jonathankemp . com. 

0:55:34
(Speaker 2)
Oh, great. That's so good. Thank you so much for talking to me today. I think it's was, I think we're going to help people that we don't even know about. I think we get this message out there. 

0:55:45
(Speaker 2)
It's such a great thing. And hopefully people will read your book and learn about the note -taking technique and maybe incorporate some of those great 14 things into their own lives. So you've done a great service, I think, to people. And I really appreciate the time. 

0:56:03
(Speaker 3)
Oh, it's been a real pleasure. 

0:56:04
(Speaker 2)
And actually, I really appreciate you sort of, that it's been more of like a conversational and you asking the questions. That's been very helpful. That's what I do. I try to do that. I'm trying to stick with it. I don't want to mess. 

0:56:17
(Speaker 2)
It's been about 100 episodes now. And people say, do you have a set script? Or do you, you know, this or that? And I'm like, no, this seems to work. So I'm not going to mess with it. I just try to be present. 

0:56:29
(Speaker 2)
And I try to listen. And I'm so grateful for people. sharing. It's just so important. I really do believe in this topic and getting the word out, but it's been wonderful. Some other day we'll talk about you being raised as a future Viscount. 

0:56:45
My goodness, we skipped that whole part of your life. That's very boring. Well, I doubt that the rest of Jonathan's story is boring, but I want to thank him so much for sharing and I can't wait to read his book and to learn his note -taking method. I think I could really use that. I wanted to thank him again. And thank you for listening. 

0:57:09
I don't say it often enough, but I really appreciate my faithful and loyal listeners. I see you. I know that you're listening. I know that you're downloading and I super appreciate it. If you could take a moment, it really helps the podcast and the ratings and my success. If you go to Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen and leave a quick review, good or bad, feedback is so helpful. 

0:57:35
I don't like how one -way this is sometimes. I would love to hear back from you, whatever you have to say. I super appreciate you and I'll see you next episode on the Storied Human. Thanks.


Transcribed with Cockatoo