In this deeply honest and moving episode, Ashley sits down with Sam Thomas, a Brighton-based entrepreneur, podcast host, mental health advocate and founder of the Y'Alright Mate? campaign.

Sam shares, with remarkable openness, the moments that brought him to his knees, from nearly losing his daughter at birth, to the self-worth challenges that led him to thoughts of suicide in his late 30s.

What unfolds is not just a story of survival, but a powerful reflection on why asking for help is so hard, and why it can be life-saving.  And transformative from shame and feeling “I’m not enough” to believing “I am enough”, we discuss how how asking for help transforms self-worth, dissolves inadequacy and opens the door to genuine support

Together, Ashley and Sam explore:

• How early childhood narratives shape our relationship with vulnerability
• Why men are often taught to “get on with it”, and the cost of that silence
• From shame and feeling “I’m not enough” to believing “I am enough” - how asking for help transforms self-worth, dissolves inadequacy and opens the door to genuine support
• How outdated definitions of success quietly damage mental health
• Why and how two emotions can coexist: strength and fear, optimism and grief
• How asking for help can become a life-changing gift, not a burden

This episode is a raw, human conversation about shame, identity, masculinity and the courage it takes to let others in - especially when you’ve spent your life being the strong one.  

Key Themes & Moments

• Growing up working-class and learning to survive without asking for help
• Becoming a father, and navigating three weeks of terrifying uncertainty
• Toxic positivity and emotional suppression
• Hitting rock bottom and questioning whether life was worth continuing
• Redefining success as love, relationships and alignment
• Learning to say: “I need help”  and letting others respond
• Why reframing help as a gift changes everything
• The power of a simple question: “You Alright, mate?”

About Sam Thomas

Sam is a social entrepreneur and mental health advocate based in Brighton. He is the founder of the You Alright Mate? campaign, encouraging men to check in on each other and normalise honest conversations around mental health and suicide prevention.

A Simple Ask

Sam’s invitation is beautifully simple:
Check in on someone this week and ask "You Alright mate?"
One message. One question. One moment of connection.

Because sometimes, that question really can save a life.

Links & Resources

• You Alright Mate? Campaign - https://www.different-hats.co.uk/you-alright-mate
• The Gift of Help mission and services - www.thegiftofhelp.org

If this conversation resonated with you, please consider sharing it with someone who might need it, and remember: asking for help is not weakness, it’s courage.

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

This episode is with Nicolette Lazarus, a self-described midlife woman, solo female founder  with  a 100% record of getting through bad days.  

Her life has been quite a  journey - growing up in an immigrant family in the early 70s, having her attitude to help inadvertently imprinted by an incident with her younger smarter brother, battling to have a successful career in advertising, a post-divorce transformational solo  adventure through Australia’s outback,  through to a deeply challenging time during her 40’s navigating perimenopause.  

All of this has led her to follow her purpose and start Womanship, a game-changing help each other community for women and wellness providers.   

Some themes we cover:

The influence on her attitude to help of a seemingly innocuous encounters in ur childhood

Eldest child syndrome and expectation to help other people 

Needing to prove we can do things and as good as other people prevent us from us asking for help

How self-acceptance is vital to getting comfortable to have the self-worth to ask for help.

Holding space for people to talk is a priceless form of offering help 

Difficulty to talk about the very private experience of miscarriage 

The importance of asking for help you become the person that you know you have the potential to become.

The historical negative cognation of therapy and help can hold people back from seeking support

The easier approach to ask for help on behalf of your passion project versus asking explicitly for yourself.

Being specific with your ask is a great way to  increase your success at getting a successful outcome to your request.

Telling yourself what’s the worst that can happen will help get over your fears of asking.

Want to get  early access  to Nicolette's Womanship platform?   You can sign up at www.womanship.co and/or follow  @_Womanship on Instagram for inspirational content and exclusive updates.  #sharemoreworryless

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

This episode is with Greg Allon, father of 3, Chief Operating Officer at a TV Production company, enthusiastic runner, blog writer and aspirational author

15 years ago he was diagnosed with malignant melanoma whilst his youngest of three kids was 9 months old.  And then a couple of years later, he started a spinning studios business with his sister and brother-in-law.

We discuss his insights on help from these life-changing experiences and how they have fundamentally changed his outlook on life. How they’ve acted as a reminder of how priceless the help from his wife, family and friends was during those tough times, and even now as he takes on new challenges including writing a novel.  

Some of themes we cover are:

• Children naturally ask for help, as we become adults we overthink it.
• Hierarchy of help - the multiple ways it can be offered, publicly or anonymously help, accepted and asked for
• The challenge help offerers experience in asking for help themselves
• The resistance to asking for help, and the reliance on your partner to be one’s ‘help crutch’
• The importance of asking for help for emotional and mental support as much as for practical, logistical support 
• The closer you are to your family and friends the easier to ask for help 
• Illness is more straight forward to ask for help, but it’s other less obvious situations that are nearly as valuable to ask for help, but it’s harder because it’s less obvious you need it.  
• The partner needs as much if not more help and support than the person who’s sick.  
• When starting a business how important it is consider what happens if it just goes, ok and to keep going only if you maintain your current job commitment.  Not just consider if it’s a failure or a great success. 
• Starting and running a business has inevitable waves of crisis and low points, where you’re verging on being desperate and forced to ask for help
• How one particular friend went way beyond expectations to help and find ways to keep Greg’s  business going
• Asking people for favours, help, advice and intros historically didn’t come naturally, but the harsh start up experience has now made that much more natural.  
• The more times you now practise asking for help and make it become a habit, the more proficient and comfortable you become
• The Benjamin Franklin effect - by asking a favour and advice can reframe an adversarial relationship to a trusting and valued one. 
• How giving help is part of self-fulfilment and as such can be considered the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs  

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

Recently I had the remarkable experience of meeting Simon Sinek, the renowned author,  inspirational speaker and podcast host.  It represented a  wonderful reminder of you how when we dare to ask for help amazing things can happen. 

In this episode I share how the experience has underlined and highlighted so many life enhancing themes I'm increasingly now living my life by, ones that will hopefully help and inspire you on your journey to live the life you want.

1. Manifesting: Things don’t just happen by chance, we can make them happen.  Being clear as to what you want in life - both the feeling and the and that you feel it and deserve it, it will happen. 
2. Meeting the universe half way:  Be receptive to and recognise opportunities when they present themselves and why it happens in that moment and and in that way. 
3. Journey not the destination:  Liberating to let go of expecting or being driven by certain outcomes.  To embrace each moment, encounter and opportunity that can then let the surprising magic happen. 
4. Authenticity: being authentic enables game-changing things to happen.  It creates stronger connections, a sense of trust that can only enrich your life
5. Gratitude: simple but important reminder that it boosts your own mindset and mood.  For help when it’s offered, for opportunities the universe gives you, and for the people that in your life. And to be grateful for yourself, who you are, how you show up and what you give the world.   
6. Purpose: Benefit of being able to capture your purpose, and then tap into and live and breathe it. With this Gift of Help project I feel like I’m doing so. 

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

This episode tells the inspiring personal story of the life-changing benefits of practising what I’m preaching.  To be aware of and have the motivation to overcome your blockers and asking for help.   And for this to massively serve me when I recently met Simon Sinek, and how this has led to a massive step forward on my journey to increase the impact of my Gift of Help project.

I hope this inspires you as much as it has me.

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

Here’s a few nuggets and insights from the clip of my conversation with Matt Black a colon cancer survivor and now charismatic campaigner.

Accepting help with unconditional gratitude, can trigger not only an unexpected mood and energy boost for yourself, but also for the help giver and the wonderful ripple effect onto those around them.   And how this in general breeds a sense of love and gratitude, support and friendship.

Plus also we talk about the power of a thinking of you reach out and offer to help out to not only the person who’s going through a health or life challenge  but to those close to them.

You can listen to the full episode and Matt's story and his inspiring attitude here: https://www.thegiftofhelp.org/2075728/12711782  

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

This clip is from conversation with Osher Günsberg.

In the spirit of the joy of being asked for help, we talk about it being not the survival of the fittest, but more survival of the friendliest.  And that as a species we have succeeded because we are cooperative and our brains are hardwired to reward us when we help others.

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

This conversation tells the story of how a Paralympian gold medallist’s grit and self-reliance  gave way to vulnerability, self-awareness, accepting and offering help and a greater sense of purpose.

David was a promising national level student athlete, but in 2010 he was diagnosed with a rare tumour in his spinal cord. He then went on to represent Great Britain at rowing and win gold at the London Olympics in 2012.  However in 2106, one of the multiple spinal surgeries he had to endure that year left him paralaysed from the neck down on one side.

We  discuss how dealing with depression and overcoming suicidal thoughts has given him a greater sense of purpose, and brought out his altruistic personality, passion to learn, help others and make a difference in the world.

Some other themes we cover are:

• It's hard in today's world when we're bombarded with so much noise, to get to the core of who we are, what we value the most, what are our non-negotiables, and live in alignment with that. 
• The benefit of nature, animals and a change of environment to help yourself. 
• Mental health challenges of performance athletes who experience post Olympics depression, yet it seems it less impacts the coaches and support team 
• How Victor Frankl’s stimulus-space-response framework can guide our perhaps unwanted immediate  reactions to situations.  if we can work on that stimulus, space response and smile more often, we change the vibration of our life and everyone around us.
• The difference between UK and Jamaican culture around greetings and expressing of love and blessings.  

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/

I chat with Matt Black, a chartered surveyor from London, father of two and colon cancer survivor.  

Matt now campaigns to encourage everyone, especially head-in-the-sand middle-aged men, to regularly check themselves and be aware of the early warning signs.   

We talk about the frightening and lonely experience of being diagnosed and urgently operated at 2am during the early days of Covid.   And then in the days after his life saving surgery, having mixed emotions about being grateful for dodging a bullet, but also the unenviable challenge of having no in person contact with his wife, and those close to him.  And the toll it took on them as well as him.

It’s a revealing and raw story of how Matt, and his family experienced help during those unprecedented lockdown times.   And how it’s the partners and close family of patients that also need help during these critical times, and how they too can often be resistant to accepting and asking for help. 

Other themes we discuss include:

• Talking openly about your challenges and emotions massively helps not only yourself but also can make it easier for others to do the same.  And others to help you.
• If your partner tells you there's something wrong with you, listen, accept what they're saying and go and deal with it.
• It's self-preservation to reach out and look for and accept help.
• Even if you’re uncomfortable or don’t know what to say to someone who’s sick or grieving, a reach out to say thinking of you makes a huge difference. 
• Most people want want to help and do so with the best intention. And it's 2-way - you benefit from it,, and  the person offering help benefits from it as well. 

You can contact me on:
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Ashley Usiskin
Instagram: @gift_of_accepting_help_podcast
Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyusiskin/