If you want to change someones life there are 2 things that will do it. Find a mentor and be a mentor. Do both together and you are up and running! Choose a leader who epitomises where you want to be and find the courage to ask for their support!

Mike Hutcheson featured in this NZ Series "Business at the Speed of Coffee" was my mentor when I founded Joyology. Back then he was MD of Saatchi and Saatchi Auckland. He said to me many times "You're a hard woman to say no to Pat Armitstead! Remind me and I will tell you why one day!! A man of great geniality and a love of english and art !!

"Across the globe, many people lack joy, harmony, trust and are prone to doubt. They have become despondent and depressed, fail to be their word, sit in overwhelm, others are resigned and intolerant. Others show cynicism and act confused , and many lack confidence all of which results in emotional flatlining, lack of engagement , poor productivity and more recently, unresolved grief, poor mental health and suicides." Pat Armitstead
I believe "You cant lift your bottom line if people are down"
1:5 people are medicated for depression, costing us up to 200 billion per year, and in Australia alone there are 3000 suicides per year . 
That's 8 people every day !  
Johan Hari and I agree on a couple of principles. For almost the past 100 years, mental health professionals have told us that that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. However, there's a much more realistic theory that depression happens due to an imbalance happening outside of your cranium. Johann Hari, author of "Lost Connections", believes that depression these days stem from societal issues. Johann offers some staggering statistics showing that antidepressants seem to be doing much more harm than good — among them, that one out of every four middle-aged women in the United States is taking a chemical antidepressant in any given year.
If we want to get rid of modern-day depression, he says, we have to change society.
We can begin to do that by using :-

• a strengths based approach
• principles from elite performance and positive psychology
• emotional and conversational intelligence

These tools and principles can help build resilience and shift thinking, and I am joined by many other notable business leaders in this belief
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For me the notion began back in the year 2000.  Around about the 11th of June.  I had become Junior VP of The National Speakers Association of NZ, ( joyous moment ) !and the current President commended me on a piece of written communication I had done.  Like she wrote a whole page!  And so I kept it and then on the 26th June I received another from a speaking colleague Michelle Comeau.  I kept that too!  Then Genevieve Westcott
( International Newsreader and TV Journalist ) sent me one after she had interviewed me!

​Then speakers bureaus started writing to me!  It was at this point I started noticing the feel good factor about all this and put it in a folder.  I began to have some compassion for where I had been and experience some joy for what was coming in.  12 months later I had over 1000 including mail from international professional speakers of great note from all over the world!  

Without even knowing you in this moment I am going to say "Yes" to the above question! 
I have the temerity to do that because I have had occasion now to reflect on my own stories and thousands of "others stories" and see the impact stories make on the listener !


Being able to relate in story form the significant events in our lives and their relationship to furthering our own path or the path of others gives people such a sense of connection. It is not that you have all had the same experiences but the patterns may be the same and they essentially "nod" thinking "that kind of thing happened to me !"
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"When you tell a story to a friend, you can transfer experiences directly to their brain. They feel what you feel. They empathize. What's more, when communicating most effectively, you can get a group of people's brains to synchronize their activity. As you relate someone's desires through a story, they become the desires of the audience. When trouble develops, they gasp in unison, and when desires are fulfilled they smile together. 

For as long as you've got your audience's attention, they are in your mind. When you hear a good story, you develop empathy with the teller because you experience the events for yourself. This makes sense. Stories should be powerful." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-illuminated/201106/why-sharing-stories-brings-people-together
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If you are interested to develop and refine these skills please be in touch and book a FREE 30 minute discovery session