Mental health at work is often discussed in carefully chosen language. Policies are updated, awareness days appear in the calendar and organisations encourage employees to speak up.
But what happens when the conversation becomes personal?
What does it feel like to live with mental health challenges? And what is it like to love someone who is struggling, while never quite knowing what each day will bring?
These are the questions at the heart of Two Sides of Mental Health, a candid new session from Michelle Flynn and her husband, Matt.
There is no script. No polished answer for every difficult question. No pretending they have everything figured out.
Instead, Michelle and Matt share an open, honest conversation from two different perspectives: Matt speaks about his experience of living with mental health challenges, while Michelle shares what it is like to be the person beside him.
For organisations seeking a more human, memorable and meaningful approach to workplace wellbeing, this is a powerful opportunity to begin a better conversation.
Meet the Author – Michelle Flynn: Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Performance
Michelle Flynn is a Certified Health & Performance Coach and Oxygen Advantage® Breathwork Instructor.
She brings more than 20 years’ experience in high-pressure corporate environments, alongside an impressive track record of:
Delivering more than 450 talks and workshops
Providing over 4,000 hours of coaching
Working with global organisations including Amazon, YouTube, Dell, Boston Consulting Group, Burberry, Thomson Reuters and CBRE
Supporting individuals and teams with stress management, resilience and burnout prevention
Exploring performance, mindset, sleep, recovery, breathwork and menopause in the workplace
Michelle’s approach connects practical wellbeing strategies with the realities of modern working life. Her sessions are engaging, high-energy and grounded in real-world experience.
That makes her a compelling choice when you are looking for mental health speakers who can do more than deliver information. Michelle creates space for reflection, participation and honest discussion.
Two Sides of Mental Health: Why Honest Conversations Matter at Work 4
Why This Talk Works for Mental Health Awareness Events
Mental health awareness events can sometimes focus heavily on statistics, advice and awareness campaigns. Two Sides of Mental Health offers something different: a genuinely honest conversation that brings the reality of mental health into the room.
Matt shares his experience of living with mental health challenges, while Michelle shares what it is like to love and support someone when you never quite know what each day will bring. Hearing both perspectives gives audiences a deeper understanding of mental health — not only for the person experiencing it, but for the people around them too.
The conversation is open, honest and refreshingly unpolished. There is no script, no expectation to have all the answers and no pretending that mental health is straightforward. Instead, it creates space for the conversations people may find difficult to start themselves, including questions they might not normally feel comfortable asking.
For employers, this makes Two Sides of Mental Health particularly relevant around World Suicide Prevention Day in September and World Mental Health Day in October. It helps challenge stigma, build empathy and encourage a workplace culture where people feel more comfortable talking about their mental health and supporting others.
Ultimately, the session is less about delivering another mental health message and more about starting a conversation people remember.
Why Two Sides of Mental Health Matters at Work
Mental health does not stop at the office door.
People bring their experiences, relationships, pressures and uncertainties into every meeting, project and decision. Some may be managing their own mental health. Others may be supporting a partner, family member or friend. Many are doing both while trying to maintain a professional exterior.
That is why a one-sided conversation about mental health can feel incomplete.
The person experiencing mental health challenges has one perspective. The person supporting them has another. Both experiences matter, both can be complicated, and both deserve to be heard with empathy rather than judgement.
Two Sides of Mental Health brings these perspectives together in a way that feels relatable and real.
Matt shares his experience of living with mental health challenges, while Michelle shares her experience of loving someone who does — including the uncertainty of not knowing what each day may bring.
The result is not a conventional keynote. It is an honest conversation that encourages audiences to think differently about:
What mental health challenges can look like in everyday life
How difficult it can be to know what to say
Why people may struggle to ask for support
The impact mental health can have on relationships
How colleagues and leaders can create more open conversations
Why listening can be just as important as offering advice
No Script. No Perfect Answers. Just Honesty.
There is real power in hearing people speak without pretending that every challenge has a neat conclusion.
Workplace sessions often focus on solutions, and those have an important place. But audiences also need honesty. They need to know that difficult emotions, uncertainty and imperfect conversations are part of being human.
Two Sides of Mental Health makes space for that reality.
It does not promise to solve every problem or suggest that one conversation can fix everything. Instead, it offers a starting point — helping people recognise that they do not need perfect words to show they care, or professional expertise to listen and support someone.
And importantly, the session gives audiences the opportunity to ask the questions they might not normally ask — and hear honest answers in return.
The live Q&A turns the session into a genuine conversation rather than a one-way presentation, allowing people to explore the issues that matter most to them.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for mental health awareness is simply make it easier to talk about.
Supporting people’s mental health is the right thing to do. It also makes strong business sense.
When employees feel unable to speak openly about what they are experiencing, challenges can remain hidden. That may affect attendance, engagement, performance and relationships across the organisation.
A culture where people feel able to have honest conversations can help organisations respond earlier and more compassionately.
That does not mean leaders need to know all the answers. It means creating an environment where people can raise concerns, ask for support and feel that they will be treated as human beings rather than problems to be managed.
Investing in workplace mental health can support your organisation by helping to:
Reduce avoidable sickness absence
Improve employee retention
Strengthen trust between colleagues and managers
Encourage earlier conversations about stress and wellbeing
Support people through challenging periods
Reduce the risk of good employees leaving because they feel unsupported
Build a healthier, more inclusive workplace culture
For HR teams, people leaders and business owners, Two Sides of Mental Health offers a warm and accessible way to connect the human case with the organisational case.
It reminds audiences that sustainable performance is not about asking people to push harder indefinitely. It is about helping people feel supported enough to contribute, recover and continue developing.
Two Sides of Menopause: Another Conversation Worth Having
Mental health does not exist in isolation from other aspects of wellbeing. That is one reason Michelle is also offering Two Sides of Menopause.
With October bringing World Menopause Day and women’s health into focus, the session offers another opportunity to explore a personal subject through two perspectives. Michelle shares her experience of menopause, while Matt offers his perspective on living with a menopausal woman.
As Michelle puts it, she is particularly looking forward to hearing Matt’s view : because apparently one difficult conversation was not enough!
The humour is part of the appeal. It helps make a sensitive subject feel more approachable without taking the experience itself lightly.
For organisations developing a more inclusive approach to women’s health at work, the session can encourage people to discuss menopause with greater understanding and less embarrassment.
It is well suited to:
Workplace wellbeing programmes
Inclusion and employee resource group events
Leadership and management development
People and culture initiatives
Corporate awareness events
Organisations supporting sustainable performance across every career stage
Michelle is also available for work around women’s health and menopause, making her a strong fit for businesses seeking women’s health speakers with an engaging, practical and relatable style.
Alongside her work as a mental health and wellbeing speaker, Michelle offers a very different kind of corporate experience: Performance Reset™.
Imagine 250 people in a room becoming fully present, energised and engaged within just a few minutes.
That is the intention behind Performance Reset™. It is not simply a keynote for people to sit through while making notes. It is an immersive, high-energy experience designed to create a state change that audiences can feel.
Using breathwork, movement, music and participation, Michelle helps create a lively shift in the atmosphere. Her approach draws on her experience as an Oxygen Advantage® Breathwork Instructor and her wider work in health, performance and recovery.
The experience is particularly well suited to:
Corporate conferences
Sales team events
Leadership offsites
Peak-performance programmes
Client engagement events
Organisations looking for something beyond another PowerPoint presentation
Performance Reset™ can help set the tone for a day of learning, energise an audience after a long session or create a memorable opening for a conference.
It is also a strong option when you want your event to feel different. Rather than leaving audiences with pages of notes, Michelle aims to leave them with an experience : a reset in energy, attention and engagement that people will remember long after the event.
You can watch a guide to Michelle’s Performance Reset™ below to get a feel for the pace, atmosphere and immersive nature of the experience.
Michelle’s sessions can be tailored for a wide range of organisations and audiences, including:
Corporate conferences
Leadership teams
HR and people teams
Workplace wellbeing programmes
Employee resource groups
Sales teams
High-pressure corporate environments
Organisations developing mental health strategies
Businesses seeking honest conversations about menopause
Events focused on resilience, burnout prevention and sustainable performance
You can choose Two Sides of Mental Health for a candid conversation that opens up discussion from both sides of the experience, perfect for World Mental Health Awareness Day.
You can choose Two Sides of Menopause for a warm, candid and lightly humorous exploration of women’s health at work.
Or you can bring in Performance Reset™ to create an unforgettable state change and energise your audience within minutes.
As a boutique bureau, we know that the right speaker is about more than a strong profile. It is about finding the right fit for your people, your objectives and your event environment. Jane, Steve and the team at Great British Speakers can help you shape the brief and find the perfect match.
Book Michelle Flynn for Your Event
If you want to move beyond surface-level wellbeing messaging, Michelle Flynn can help you create a more honest, human and impactful event experience.
Her work is ideal for organisations that want to:
Encourage open conversations about mental health
Help employees feel less alone
Support managers and leaders with greater understanding
Strengthen retention and workplace culture
Address menopause as part of inclusive wellbeing
Prevent burnout and support sustainable performance
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