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Advocating for Mental Health – Clive Johnson shares his mental wellness journey
October 10, 2022
October 10, 2022, is World Mental Health Day. In recognition of this day and the importance of speaking openly and honestly about mental health, we sat down with Clive Johnson, President and Chief Executive of B2Gold, and discussed his experiences with mental health – how he maintains his own mental well-being and how he has become a strong advocate for mental health after mental illness, drug use and addiction touched his life in tragic ways.
Q: Clive, why do you feel mental health important and why should we take it seriously?
Clive: I think paying attention to our mental health is critical. Our wellbeing is very important, both in terms of our mental health and physical health. In the world today there seems to be a lot more anxiety, in part perhaps due to COVID and the experience that a lot of people went through in the pandemic. I’d like to see the trend that’s been growing over a number of years to continue, where it’s okay to talk about mental health issues rather than there being a stigma around them.
When we have something wrong physically, we’ll go and see a doctor and maybe get referred to a specialist if appropriate. But with mental health, sadly there’s always been a bit of a reluctance to seek help, because of the stigma of admitting that someone’s not doing well emotionally. So mental health is clearly, by definition, a health issue. I think it’s very important that we’ve, to some extent, pulled back the curtain on that by talking more openly about issues.
For our employees – and all of our stakeholders – I think it’s important to promote the idea that it’s okay to not feel okay. It’s okay to be honest about what’s happening and get help. As a company, we’re proud of our wellness initiatives to provide access to that kind of support if our employees or their family members need it.
Q: Your role as leader of B2Gold can at times be demanding, pressurized and stressful. What do you do to manage your own mental wellbeing?
Clive: It definitely has been a long journey for me, between Bema Gold and B2Gold, coming up on 40 years – as hard as that is to believe sometimes! While we’ve enjoyed great success, I’ve had lots of very stressful situations, and anxiety goes with all of that.
For me, meditation has become an important thing over time. I’ve also learned certain techniques, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). At B2Gold we talk a lot about fairness, respect, transparency and accountability, and then part of that, of being accountable, is being accountable to yourself. I’ve been really intrigued to learn over the last number of years about one of the ideas behind CBT, which is that you do have a certain choice. Thoughts are thoughts, but how you react to feelings is a choice. It doesn’t mean you bury feelings – that’s a mistake as they can come back to haunt you later. But there’s a decision process that I wasn’t fully aware of in my earlier life. When you’re feeling a certain way, maybe sad, angry or hurt, and you feel justified in being in a bad mood, and you then may take that out on people around you – family, colleagues, etc., that’s an area where you can discipline yourself, you can let things go. I think that’s the concept of CBT: examining the thoughts that you’re having and then deciding how you’re going to go respond, or how you’re going to deal with that in terms of feelings.
I’m also a great believer in sharing and at certain times in my life I’ve definitely benefitted from some good counseling and help from family and friends, in terms of understanding how to deal with some issues to reduce anxiety, reduce stress. I find it exciting to realize that personal accountability, and your accountability to others, is being responsible for how you’re dealing with your feelings. I’m definitely a work in progress in all this.
Q: Mental health issues are discussed more openly and honestly these days. What changes have you been aware of in yourself and in others when discussing mental health?
Clive: Well, I think I’m more open than lots of people. There are still people who struggle with openness and honesty about mental health. Maybe it’s because of their upbringing etc., maybe it wasn’t really talked about. Younger generations don’t have that stigma as much – and I think that’s a good thing. But as a CEO I’ve thought a lot about this because, how far do you go as a CEO and how far can you discuss the personal side of things? Apparently, stakeholders and employees now may want to know more about their company leaders, and I’m all for that. But there’s definitely been a big stigma – as a leader you’re traditionally supposed to be strong, pretty much all the time, and you’re not really supposed to talk about things like mental health issues, political views, or personal issues. So, I welcome this openness because I’ve lived a pretty interesting life, and faced many challenges with successes, setbacks, joy and pain, and I think it’s important to share those experiences with people.
Q: Have there been times when you have been affected by mental health that you feel able to share?
Clive: I have a personal history – my father had some mental health issues, including depression, and then a little over a year ago, we lost Teja, our 30-year-old son, to an accidental Fentanyl drug overdose. He bravely battled addiction for some years, and we thought he had turned a corner, but at the root of it was depression and anxiety. And that’s one of the reasons why we need to be able to deal with mental health and get all the help we can for people suffering from mental health difficulties, because it can sometimes lead to a deadly escape through drugs or alcohol.
There’s a real personal motivation for me – I’m committed, in my son’s memory, to just try and help other families so they don’t have to go through what we went through. I believe he would want me to do this. I’m very interested in investigating what ways I can, perhaps from my profile, bring more attention to the situation. We need to deal with the opioid epidemic for what it is. Far too many young people have died after accidental overdoses. We have to find a way. I personally believe in the decriminalization of all drugs. Portugal has had some success with doing that. It’s not legalizing, it’s decriminalizing – there’s a difference. Treat it like the mental health problem it is and get people in treatment.
Thousands of young people took accidental fatal overdoses last year. My son was one of them. The deaths in Canada are approximately four times the amount of people that died related to COVID. If you look at the way we handled COVID, which I think our government for the most part did well, then let’s have a similar urgent response to opioid addiction and opioid fatalities.
There is a lot that needs to be done and I’m willing to get involved personally and financially to try to change it. At B2Gold we have over 5,000 employees around the world, and we’re proud of our culture and the way we treat people. So, let’s try and take that to an even larger scale and see how many lives we can help change by stopping this incredible waste of life, through awareness of mental health and mental illness which can sometimes lead to drug use and addiction.
Q: Attention is mostly focussed on individuals dealing with mental health issues. It’s clear from your own experiences that mental health and mental illness also hugely impacts family members and friends providing support. Is that an issue that is discussed enough?
Clive: My son was very open and was really willing to talk about his issues. He was very brave in the way he dealt with it. And we did everything as family – I believe we did everything we could. But yes, the worry and anxiety that goes with that, when you are always wondering if you’re going to get that phone call. That’s incredibly stressful to have that level of fear and worry. More support systems for people helping family members or friends with mental health difficulties should absolutely be encouraged, in the same way they are for things like alcohol addiction.
Q: From your perspective, what advice would you give to someone to help them maintain their mental well-being, or to help someone they know?
Clive: Transparency is really important. Transparency with your family, transparency within the family. If someone is struggling, there’s no shame in not feeling right mentally and it’s absolutely not a weakness. Sometimes it might be anxiety or feeling depressed, but I think just reaching out and dealing with it as early as possible and encouraging someone’s family to do the same thing. And there should be no judgement – if there’s any shame, that’s on the person who’s judging, not on the person who’s brave enough to reach out for help.
And to my earlier point about accountability, if people feel that they’re a little too proud to acknowledge they’re struggling, then they should think about their family and their friends as well, because they are on the journey with them. And they’ll be surprised at the support they get, if they can just open up about it. But that’s part of accountability – to be accountable with your family and friends.
Getting a balance in life is also crucial. I’ve always said that passion is good, obsession is not. Because obsession is where you can start to lose sight of some of the other things that are important in your life. I crossed the line there a few times over some of the more difficult years of struggling to build both Bema and B2Gold, so I think there’s a balance there to always keep in mind.
The most important thing is to take those first steps to open up and speak to someone.
