The need for CEOs to understand the power they have to improve their company’s culture and their employees’ Will To Live.
CEOs are leaders, motivators and game changers. They are hired to lead massive organizations, manage performance and risk, while creating innovative strategies designed to move the needle. I wonder how many CEOs today are prepared for the “silent killer” that resides within their corporation, their teams, their families and the communities of their employees.
When my 15-year-old son, my oldest child and my pride and joy, took his life, I was not a CEO, but because of his death I became one. Will Trautwein was a handsome, popular, and successful high school freshman when an illness he didn’t know he had took his life. A disease that his loving parents didn’t know existed, devastated their happy loving home. We were all unaware and uneducated, and because of that, our lives would change forever.
It’s been 15 years now since my son lost his will to live. He came from a successful loving home, the son of a very happily married couple. He suffered from depression, a mental illness. I’ll say it again, an illness, not a character flaw or a choice, but a physical ailment in the brain that is treatable and beatable. Unfortunately, this illness has the word “mental” in front of it which carries a devastating stigma. It is often maskable, and is a subject not often talked about and therefore goes untreated. As a result, someone in America dies by suicide every 13 minutes, and every two hours, a teenager takes his or her life. I wonder just how many of us know this, I know I certainly didn’t.
Early that morning back in October of 2010, while holding the lifeless body of my boy, I thought that my life was over and I would never smile again. I was wrong. Within hours, hope found its way into my life. Friends surrounded me, becoming God’s hands, lifting me with a love and kindness that kept me standing.
As the day went on, friends and family from across the country arrived to support us. I was a 48 year old ex–major league baseball player who had spent a lifetime surrounded by teammates, and I understood their power. But what I witnessed in those first days went far beyond my own experience. My three younger children—Tommy (13), Michael (11), and even six-year-old Holyn—were immediately surrounded by love, hope, and understanding from their friends, their own teammates. Watching how these teammates lifted and restored our hope was deeply inspirational. They motivated us in ways we never could have imagined and strengthened our own will to live.
It quickly became clear what I needed to do. As I learned more about mental illness and the stigma surrounding it, I was determined to get people to do what my son and our family did not—talk about it. Thus, my wife and I decided to talk about it. We took the example set by our friends and teammates and turned it into action—creating The Will To Live Foundation to raise awareness in a positive, empowering way. We focused on a simple truth: people often connect most easily with those who understand their challenges, their teammates—we call them their Life Teammates®—and we teach them to recognize the power they have to improve their own lives, by delivering hope to each other. This message resonated with everyone. People got it.
I learned quickly – this Life Teammates Message was not just for the kids!
I started giving Life Teammates® speeches all over the country, raising awareness and increasing education around mental illness. I said it to teams, schools, coaches, teachers, administrators, and to CEOs and other business leaders.
The most impactful question I ask people in leadership positions is this, “Do you know that 1 in 5 of your employees are suffering from some form of diagnosable mental illness?” I then ask them if they are aware that this “illness” is unlike any other—it is maskable, it has a stigma, and your employees don’t want you to know they suffer from it. “They fear what you will do!”
Strategic, visionary, empathetic, motivational, communicative—these are some of the traits great CEOs rely on, and they matter deeply when confronting today’s mental health epidemic. What began as a Life Teammates® model for kids has proven to be an effective leadership model disguised as a youth program.
- Who better understands the pressure that a sales executive faces in today’s cutthroat business environment than another sales executive facing similar challenges?
- Leaders should encourage these teammates to always be talking to each other, learning, teaching, supporting and simply being there for one another. It’s the same for all the other departments.
- Colleagues are teammates and teammates get each other. When leaders foster that kind of culture, teamwork transforms into something greater—delivering hope in a world that desperately needs it.
You want to motivate your employees? Create a culture where you show them you understand. This is hard, life is hard, and sometimes you need a friend to help you through. Be that friend. Invest in a mental wellness program, give them the tools and resources that are widely available today to help fight stress and anxiety in the workplace. Create a company where mental illness is over-shadowed by mental wellness.
When you step away one day, what culture will remain in your company? Is it all about sales, growth, profit and scale? Or will it also be about people. People who know they matter because of the culture you helped create.
Written by John Trautwein.
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