Hi there and a very warm welcome to Season 5 Episode 19 of People Soup – it’s Ross McIntosh here. 

What a privilege it was to speak to Professor Ross White. Ross is the Research Director of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme at Queen's University Belfast. He's an expert on Global Mental Health and as active research collaborations with the World Health Organisation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He's also an author, and his books include, Acceptance and Commitment Approaches for Athletes' Wellbeing and Performance - The Flexible Mind.

His consultancy is called - Strive 2 Thrive - which has a specialist interest in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of adults working in high-performance environments including elite level athletes. And incidentally - I'd highly recommend that you sign up for Ross' monthly newsletter - 5 to Thrive - you'll find the link in the shownotes.

In this episode - you'll get to know Ross - and a bit about his career history -including how he came across ACT, insights into his research in different contexts, psychological factors in sport and the fine line between dedication and obsession. You'll also hear his song choice which relates to his passion for supporting adults to be the best version of themselves - and how he once rescued the BBC Radio Two DJ - Sara Cox from a firework hazard.

People Soup is an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioural science, in a way that’s practical, accessible and fun. We're all about sharing the ingredients for a better work life from behavioural science and beyond.

There is a transcript for each episode. There is a caveat - this transcript is largely generated by Artificial Intelligence, I have corrected many errors but I won't have captured them all! You can also find the shownotes by clicking on notes then keep scrolling for all the useful links.

• The Flexible Mind - FREE Session Guides.pdf - Google Drive
• The Flexible Mind website to accompany the book!
• Strive 2 Thrive Consultancy - led by Ross White
• Strive 2 Thrive on Facebook
• June Issue of the '5 to Thrive' Newsletter
• Ross at Queen's University Belfast
• Commit and ACT - Sierra Leone
• Connect with Ross on Instagram
• Follow Ross on twitter

Read about our Chisi Awards from #365daysofcompassion for Best Podcast

Leave a review as a WhatsApp voicenote on +0034696636487

Ross' new website

Our Podcast Website on CAPTIVATE

Ross on Twitter

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life

People Soup Page on Facebook

And you can connect with Ross on LinkedIn

PART 1

[00:00:07] Ross White: And my work, I'm very passionate about, um, supporting people to be the best version of themselves. if I have a purpose, it's about helping people to discover and develop their sense of purpose. I love that. I love seeing the lights come on behind a person's eyes as they really connect with what it is that's important to them.

[00:01:12] Ross Mc: I'd like to introduce you to Professor Ross White. Ross is the research Director of the Doctorate and Clinical Psychology Program at Queens University Belfast.

[00:01:39] Ross Mc: The Flexible Mind Above all, Ross aims to support humans in facing human challenges and live in alignment with their purpose. His consultancy is called Strive to Thrive,

[00:01:59] Ross Mc: and [00:02:00] incidentally, I'd highly recommend that you sign up for Ross's monthly newsletter called Five to Thrive. You can enter your email address at Strive to thrive.co.uk to receive it once a month. It's digestible for, provoking, and useful. the simple concept of the newsletter is to provide five minutes of reading and five tips to help you thrive.

[00:02:30] Ross Mc: Intrigued you should be. and remember, you can sign up via the link in the show notes or@strivetothrive.co uk. In this episode, you'll get to know Ross and a bit about his career history, including how he came across Act insights into his research and different contexts.

[00:02:52] Ross Mc: You'll also hear his song choice, which relates to his passion for supporting adults to be the best version of themselves, And how he once rescued The BBC Radio two DJ Sarah Cox from a Firework Hazard.

[00:03:21] Ross Mc: You may well ask, where have I been? Well, a short answer is a bit overwhelmed by work, business administration, business travel, a terrible cold, and finding I had little time to devote to podcasting or my own self-care.

[00:03:50] Ross Mc: Let's just scoot over to the news desk Because reviews are in for our last episode, which was a mashup. It was me appearing as the guest on the shit Shower [00:04:00] and Self-Care podcast hosted by the brilliant Steve Jones. Joan Mayer on Facebook said, that's why you are so amazing.

[00:04:27] Ross Mc: There was no malice, but the ignorance is unknown and still there. And Claire Stafford also on Facebook said, love this one. Loved your vulnerability. For me, it kept bringing up the Brene Brown quote. I'm here to get it right, not to be right. Big love. And finally, Ray Owen on Twitter said, I highly recommend this as a listen. It really meets the brief of the podcast as men talking about stuff they normally wouldn't get round to talking about. well, thank you so much to Joan, Claire, Ray, and everyone who listened, rated, shared it with a friend, reviewed it, talked about it to anyone. your support is really very much appreciated. It helps us reach more people with stuff that could be useful,

[00:05:25] Ross White: great to be with you. Thanks for the invite.

[00:05:50] Ross White: All right.

[00:06:10] Ross Mc: This research is exploring the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for reducing distress experienced by refugees, particularly in the context and or aftermath of humanitarian crises. How's that for a start? Is that

[00:06:26] Ross Mc: excellent? Good. Good to know. You know, like when you get on a Ryan Air flight and they say This is a flight going to Seve. If you are not going to Seve, please let us know. So it's good to know I've got the right fella. Some other research. You are the principal investigator on the community-based socio therapy, adapted for Refugees project, evaluating a psychosocial intervention for Congolese refugees living in Uganda and r.

[00:07:01] Ross White: That's right.

[00:07:27] Ross Mc: Now that's particularly interesting to me cuz me and my mate, Paul Flexon, contractually known as Flexi Babes, we are working on a project with. Roscoe and Kamii in Uganda, early stages, but looking to how we can translate the, the kind of manual we designed for a Ugandan audience in the workplace.

[00:08:20] Ross Mc: Crikey. Well drop the mic, man, because I, I've, I've hit peak me. I think that's interesting cuz some of my friends, particularly those from uni, when I went first time in Dundee, they call me Roscoe.

[00:08:35] Ross Mc: Who knew? Right? There's more, there's more from my research department. In 2020, you were recognized as one of the 10 people in the UK who are changing the face of Healthly.

[00:08:46] Ross White: Yeah.

[00:09:12] Ross Mc: You are an association of Contextual Behavior Science peer Review, trainer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and also a fellow of the A C B S. Now, that book I mentioned, I just wanted to give a shout out to the fellow authors who are, if I've got this right, Andrew Bethel, Lewis Chanoch, Stephen Lety and Victoria Pen Price,

[00:09:38] Ross Mc: and The authors and the publishers are super generous because alongside the book there are seven free session guides to support the introduction of the flexible mind approach to athletes. But we'll come back to that a bit more in kind of the second part of our chat.

[00:09:54] Ross White: Okay.

[00:10:16] Ross Mc: And that's Strive to thrive.co uk and the two is the figure two. And there's also a brilliant, super useful newsletter called, Five to Thrive, which is five minutes of reading, five resources to help you thrive. And it's all focused on mental health and wellbeing support. And they've supported a range of organizations including Everton Football Club Academy, rugby Players Island and Athletics, Northern Ireland.

[00:10:49] Ross Mc: And we'll come back to Strive to Thrive as well in our chat because people Superstar podcast aimed at adults in organizations and elite sports people work in organizations.

[00:11:19] Ross Mc: I think for particular demographics in the non-sports workplace, that can be a real convincer and engage people's curiosity,

[00:11:42] Ross Mc: and I think people, people love to hear that. I mean, when I talk about, say, in a private sector or public sector, talk about my work with professional ballad dancers.

[00:11:52] Ross Mc: them to be elite sports people.

[00:12:04] Ross White: I think it's been great to see people recognize that that fear of high performance is broadening. I think, historically there was, if you like, too much focus perhaps on elite sport and initiatives like the High Performance Podcast that, um, Jay Comfrey and Dian Hughes present. They're really strong in emphasizing that people broadly live high performance lifestyles now, and it's fantastic to see, for example, the range of guests that you have on this podcast they have on their podcast, helping people to appreciate that there is learning that's gonna be transferrable across different contexts that is going to help benefit people here who are committed and passionate about the work that they do.

[00:13:00] Ross White: Oh, lurking in the long

[00:13:21] Ross White: That is true. Your department had done very good work here. Yes. I was approached one day walking through Belfast, um, by a police officer, and of course you worry when that happens. And uh, I worried a bit more whenever you said to me, do you want to earn some quick money? Um, I didn't respond to that when a policeman asks yet.

[00:13:57] Ross Mc: Hmm. Well, I think it's, it's the face and [00:14:00] the voice. Cause I'm curious, Did you ever have to read out a line such as, and don't worry, Ross, I'm gonna bleep this out, but, um, hand me the keys. You fucking cocksucker. Did you ever have to read any lines out like that?

[00:14:28] Ross Mc: ah, opportunity missed. And there's one more thing which involves a heroic action on your part. You were, well, let's say you saved radio two DJ Sarah Cox from a pyrotechnic incident one New Year's Eve. You are working at a nightclub in Belfast, and this is when her then husband John Carter was DJing. She was basically stood right over a pyrotech.

[00:15:10] Ross White: Yes, that is true. The countdown was halfway through. We were at 5, 4 3 and Sarah Cox was stood right over this firework. So I had to run over, pull her back from the firework, and as I did so the firework went off and sended my left eyebrow, which did fortunately go back. so Sarah, if you're listening, you owe me.

[00:15:50] Ross Mc: you heard it here, Coxy. Now no. Get on it. And I think a coffee and possibly a dedication of a song choice, but we'll, we'll come onto that a bit later.[00:16:00]

[00:16:01] Ross Mc: Yeah, I think that would be the least you could do and maybe some, I don't think you need any sort of, I dunno what it's called, threading. I was getting my hair cut the other day, and I'm at that age now when they suddenly start

[00:16:13] Ross Mc: the scissors around your eyebrows.

[00:16:19] Ross White: I haven't paid for a haircut in about 27 years. I calculated how much money I've, I've probably saved as a consequence of that, and it runs into the thousands. And so those are folly challenged out there. It's not all bad news.

[00:16:41] Ross White: Nice. Good. Like that.

[00:17:00] Ross White: grit. But happy to. So I grew up in Northern Ireland, which is a beautiful place, but um, there were some darker moments growing up. people might be aware of the troubles that happened here and growing up in what was a divided society where you had two communities, the unionist community and the nationalist community who were to all intents and purposes, fairly segregated, particularly around things like education, educated in different schools.

[00:18:00] Ross White: For 15 years and to come back and live here again and work here again. And I'm very proud of our We Country and the Island of Ireland more broadly. And it's great to come back and give something back to society here. I was educated, at Queens University Belfast. I did my psychology undergraduate degree there. And, uh, a PhD in psychology, uh, working to understand some of the challenges that people with complex mental health problems experience. There's, uh, an umbrella term psychosis that's used to capture, quite, um, difficult challenges, signs and symptoms that people experience, including quite distressing experiences like hearing voices that other people might not hear, and having, um, strongly held beliefs that, uh, really start to impact on people's wellbeing. So it was really interesting during my PhD to learn more about what factors influence those experiences, but I was really conscious that I wasn't given anything back to the participants I was working with. And at that point in time, I committed to training to be a clinical psychologist and that would afford me an opportunity to give back and to help support the mental health needs of, people.

[00:20:06] A wonderful journey[00:20:06] Marker

[00:20:34] Ross White: And in 2009, I had the opportunity to go to Enschede in Holland to the World Conference of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science. To learn more about acceptance and commitment therapy, because that's what my project was gonna focus on, developing and evaluating an ACT intervention for people with psychosis.

[00:22:03] Ross White: We talk about postcode, lotteries and countries like the uk where if you live in an urban setting, services might be more available than they would be in a rural setting. So there are these discrepancies in service provision, well that also multiplies up whenever you look at the world.

[00:22:22] Ross White: So across the globe you have, countries where the economy isn't strong and the prioritization of mental health difficulties.

[00:22:56] Ross White: So global mental health was this meeting space between culture and health and mental health and trying to find ways of developing accessible, scalable, but meaningful forms of support, forms of support that people were going to, to access. And the challenge with that is trying to ensure that we develop and deliver those forms of support using frames of reference that are meaningful and relevant to the populations that they serve.

[00:23:53] Ross White: And we were able to evaluate a self-help based form of act called Self-Help [00:24:00] Plus for use with refugees, both in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also in the eu. And in 2016 then I was able to move down to the University of Liverpool cuz there were opportunities to progress that global mental health work in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Liverpool.

[00:24:20] Ross White: And I worked there for five years and it was in Liverpool that I had that opportunity to progress that other area of passion for me, my interest in sport and high performance working, for example, with the Everton Football Club Academy and providing mental health support, wellbeing support to some of the young footballers that they were working with there.

[00:25:10] Ross White: And I think for a number of years I had realized that my heart remained back in Northern Ireland. And, um, it was great to have the opportunity to go to Queens University Belfast as a part of the alumni to return, uh, a poacher turned gamekeeper from being the student to being a staff member. so it feels like things have come a little full circle with that regard.

[00:25:53] Ross Mc: Thank you so much, Ross. It just, it's helped slot everything into place and the, the movement between those [00:26:00] different institutions and. If I may, could I just take you back to the beginning? Why psychology?

[00:26:42] Ross White: What mattered, what direction I wanted to, to move forward in. And I realized that medicine wasn't necessarily the option that I wanted to pursue. and I looked around for other options at that stage and we had a fantastic biology teacher, Mrs. Johnson, and she had done psychology at university as part of her degree program, and she talked to us about psychology and it just fascinated me to gain an insight into how people think, how they behave, and to work at that level to try to help support people who may be struggling with their thoughts, with their emotions, with their behaviors.

[00:27:36] Ross Mc: Hmm hmm. Thank you. And I see you're really. Strong value shining through from you, making a difference and a value, perhaps. I'm just, my hypotheses is, is making a difference, equality and, and equity around the, the global mental health work. And I also see a value of just tenacity cuz we cannot underestimate that tenacity required to [00:28:00] get things moving in those areas.

[00:28:05] Ross White: Yeah, I've, I've always been tenacious in that way. Um, something might say stubborn but when I, I set my mind to something, I'm, I'm really committed to seeing it through. that's an integrity piece, you know, about, you know, standing by your word and if you're saying that you're gonna do something, do it.

[00:28:46] Ross White: But with that comes a recognition that Teamworking is so, so important, and I look back at some of those initiatives that we've, we've touched on. and I recognize that that work has really relied on so many individuals putting their shoulders to the wheel and sharing some of the responsibility. and I'm very fortunate to have collaborated with many really, really committed and brilliant people.

[00:29:49] Ross White: set up, commit an act, and, they enrolled, other people and called for support and help. And I went over, initially in, in 2011 [00:30:00] to help with those training initiatives. And I look at the arc, the journey of that work, and if you ask anybody involved in committing act, Hannah Biatta and myself, colleagues like Ian May, Karina Stewart.

[00:30:36] Ross White: And I'm able to see that actually there was learning in that and being able to see that through, to work through those differences with the bigger em in mind. being value guided in how we operated with each other, but staying true to those commitments and those goals that we set for the organization.

[00:31:15] Ross Mc: and yeah, I am. Uh, it's, it's commit and act.

[00:31:20]

[00:31:45] Ross White: In Sierra Leone, unfortunately levels are particularly high, and the support isn't necessarily available. So commit an actor doing very important work on that front.

[00:32:08] Ross Mc: I'll match it to a maximum total value of 100 Euros. Now back to the chat.

[00:32:14] Ross Mc: And I'm, I'm fascinated to hear you talk about, your work in, in sports.

[00:32:31] Ross White: Yeah. Thanks for that question. Uh, when I was younger, I was very committed to sport. I played a variety at different sports, football, rugby when I went to Queens University, rowing, and also, uh, jiu-jitsu. So interested in martial arts as well. And I would get in my way an awful lot. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't necessarily blessed with, uh, huge amounts of talent. but that tenacious side of me would see me work at stuff up until a point. Um, my psychology at that stage wasn't great. I wanted to be excellent that something before I was giving my myself a chance to be good at it. Um, there's still a a seven iron golf club of my mother's in a row of fur trees on the fourth three of Lukin Golf Club.

[00:33:56] Ross White: So yeah, I could get very frustrated. I [00:34:00] could see that my confidence would be impacted, too easily, perhaps, that sense of, of not being good enough. So I recognize that psychology had a huge role to play in sport and, um, it's been an interest of mine for a long, long time.

[00:34:19] Ross White: That intersection between the interest I have in sport, but also my professional work around, the psychology and clinical psychology and it's work that I've been developing really since 2015.

[00:34:54] Ross White: so people are often curious about this interest that I have in mental health support and humanitarian contexts and then in high performance environments. And, um, there are clear differences. let me be very, explicit about that. I recognize that those are, very different contexts, but they are humans doing human things, experiencing human challenges.

[00:35:50] Ross Mc: Yeah, I, I, I absolutely get those, what people might consider to be radically different areas. They are still humans in different contexts, and it helps us in each context [00:36:00] by exposing ourselves to those different contexts. I, I get quite giddy working with professional ballet dancers and ballet companies in the uk cuz that's a totally.

[00:36:36] Ross Mc: We, we need to get you that injury fixed so we can get you back on stage. Not so much on the, the mental health support and the mental wellbeing, which is why I think in that work with ballet dancers, there's such a thirst for how can you give me skills and perhaps tools or perspectives that can support me.

[00:37:08] Proportion of performance on psychological factors

[00:37:21] Ross White: Yeah. Uh, a good proportion, right? It could range from anything. And this is anecdotal, uh, arbitrary numbers, shall we say, but I think it serves the point of illustrating it. They might say something between 25% of my performances attributed to my psychology, and it could be as high as 75%. Right? So substantial proportions people might, uh, recognize, could be attributed to their psychology.

[00:38:12] Ross White: You know, I think about those multiple tweaks across a range of different factors and how they can add up to quite a substantial change in performance. yeah, people can recognize that, it's important, but whether or not they have no high necessarily to know what they would do to prepare. Or whether or not there's clarity in terms of, who they can seek support from and the advice that they can access.

[00:39:02] Ross White: And I think psychological flexibility as a concept in, in sport is, is important for the reasons that you've outlined. If you think about physical flex,

[00:39:17] Ross White: So people absolutely recognize as important to give you that, supple ability to be malleable and to protect against injury, to have greater range of movement for your sport.

[00:39:55] Ross White: For me, I think it's been great to see sports psychology [00:40:00] recognized. So increasingly there's recognition that sports psychologists have an important role to play in high performance and there's maybe not enough funding still to support the paid involvement of practitioners. So that's something that teams and organizations need to look to prioritize.

[00:40:19] Ross White: But now we're starting to see growing recognition of mental health experts in high performance environments. And yeah, I'm very passionate about, people don't need to sacrifice their wellbeing in order to excel with their performance, cuz we could all work incredibly hard and be very dedicated and focused on improving our performance.

[00:41:09] Ross Mc: I just couldn't agree more. I, I think just reflecting, uh, one of my colleagues I work with, with the, ballet work, she's a psychology, an organizational psychologist now, Jamie Tapper, but she's a former principal in the Royal Ballet, and she gives me so many insights and revelations really, and talks about her mind.

[00:41:53] Ross White: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:57] Ross White: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:09] Ross White: Yeah. I think those are great insights and people will be able to relate to those as well.

[00:42:17] Ross White: And my work, I'm very passionate about, um, supporting people to be the best version of themselves. if I have a purpose, it's about helping people to discover and develop their sense of purpose. I love that. I love seeing the lights come on behind a person's eyes as they really connect with what it is that's important to them.

[00:43:23] Ross White: so that we don't have situations where people place so much emphasis on excelling, that they end up threatening their wellbeing, that people don't put so much effort on standing out from the crowd that they end up losing themselves and a sense of what truly matters to them. I don't think it needs to be that way, and I think psychological flexibility creates a great platform for helping people to find that optimal balance so that they can carry themselves gently as they are committed [00:44:00] to realizing the ambitions that they have.

[00:44:23] Ross Mc: is there some sort of magical system you use to, to get shit done? Or is it something that's evolved for you?

[00:45:41] Ross White: in these very kind of obvious and clear ways that I was being productive, that I was producing the goods. I was quite, outcome focused in that way and through my understanding of psychological flexibility and being able to learn [00:46:00] more about myself, I'm benefiting from therapy that I've received and I'm very open and honest about the difference that has made to me in my life.

[00:46:27] Ross Mc: Mm.

[00:46:48] Ross White: So, yeah, I'm, and I'm much better place around that and I've got some good people around me as well that help support me with that. so sometimes it, it's not the case that, more and more, more sometimes less is more. And I think that's been a really rich learning point for me and much more focused on my processes.

[00:47:10] Ross White: And, uh, trying to be efficient and effective, but taking time to reset as well. So looking after myself, exercise, but also rest, spending time with, with folk that, um, I, I like and, um, yeah, benefiting from the love and support of my wife Susie as well, which is, is great.

[00:47:42] Ross White: yeah, I, I think I've benefited from seeing the learning from the courage and vulnerability of others in, in their sharing. and that sense of shared humanity that comes whenever, uh, you hear people sharing so openly. And I think [00:48:00] that's been a bit of a sea change in, in sport as well. Right.

[00:48:28] Ross Mc: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:48:31] Ross Mc: - Now, Ross, I want to ask you a question that I ask all my guests, which is, for a song choice that would announce your arrival in a room, whether it's a real room or a virtual room, or your lounge or your local supermarket. Now what, what would your, what would your choice be?

[00:49:23] Ross White: I'm at one end of it and he's at the other, I don't know him personally. Some of my mates were actually, at Dundee University at the same time that he was and had some, uh, contact with them. And they speak very highly of him. And from what I've seen of him and his band mates, they seem, um, very grinded and, and good guys.

[00:51:02] Ross White: And I'm really committed to helping members of the public understand some of these psychological concepts that can make a real difference in their own lives. That are relevant to performance settings, but also relevant to wellbeing so that they can learn about them and have important take home messages.

[00:51:27] Ross Mc: Nice. Wow. That's it, part one in the bag. Thanks so much to Ross for being so open and for all his research and drive supporting adults to be the best version of themselves in a whole variety of contexts. Also, I'm very grateful to Ross for his patience and waiting for me to publish this episode.

[00:52:07] Ross Mc: One is to subscribe to Ross's monthly newsletter. Five to Thrive. It's digestible, thought-provoking, and super useful.

[00:52:41] We'd love to get your reviews. So please let us know what you think on the socials or drop me an email or a voice note on WhatsApp.

[00:53:07] Ross: And number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This will all help us reach more people with stuff that could be. I'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at people soup dot pod gmail.com. On Twitter, we are at People Soup Pod on Instagram at People dot Soup.

[00:53:37] Ross Mc: people often say that they, they appreciate my voice. They find it quite relaxing, but hell man. Are you, are you after my crown? I think my crown has just fallen off.

[00:53:56] Ross Mc: Well, man, back at you. I think maybe between us we could [00:54:00] get some voice over work and conquer the world, but, um, there's a little side hustle, but I think we've