Remembering Bob: A Mentor and Friend.

This time last year, we lost a beautiful soul of a man.

Bob was my mentor and inspirational friend.

This post is a way for me to remember him, share my appreciation, and share some of the wonderful experiences and lessons he taught me.

Early Encounters and Lasting Impressions.

My friendship with Bob began with the start of my first business. In 2009, the King’s Trust (then the Prince’s Trust) assigned Bob as my business mentor for the photography business I was developing, Iris Aperture Photography. From the beginning, he was clearly unlike anyone else I had met.

The Importance of Boundaries and Self-Care.

Bob was a remarkable and exceptional man. Not only was he a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and a successful businessman, but he also possessed an authentic spirit that drove him to genuinely help, with no reward expected in return - just the joy of seeing people grow and benefit from his support. He taught me a great deal about people, business, my health, family, anxiety, healthy boundaries, work politics, and a balanced, self-sustaining approach to caring for myself and those around me.

I am eternally grateful for his guidance and mentorship over the years, during which he generously supported me, a support that went far beyond the original Enterprise Programme with the Prince’s Trust. I owe him so much; his care and love for people inspire me. Our work together directly motivates my business, which is how I pay it forward.

Lessons in Leadership and Emotional Intelligence.

He was a great example of how to support one another. His wisdom inspires me, and because of that, I have decided to pursue an understanding of the mind and how we can make the world a more nurturing place for struggling people. In addition to embracing emotional intelligence and how that can empower leaders and teams, I am exploring the creative health world and supporting individuals with their professional and personal well-being; I have chosen to pursue an MSc in Neuroscience and the Psychology of Mental Health.

Without Bob, I don’t think I would have had the knowledge or motivation to do so. I certainly didn’t understand how fundamental wellness is in living a confident, assured, thrivingly happy life.

What Bob gave me

Limitless time.
Unending support and love.
Limitless teas, coffees, lunches and dinners.
Generous spirit, valued relationships, and authentic encounters.
An honest, sometimes challenging but constructive opinion on difficult situations and a way through when I felt lost.
Confidence and knowing someone had my back and could teach me different perspectives were priceless.
The model of a great leader.

Special milestone moments

Princes Trust’s Young Person of the Year Award, where I was a runner-up.
Supported me when I opened my studio, Iris Ap Photography, and the Iris Ap Academy in Fargo in 2013.
Supported and delivered coaching sessions as part of the Tech Incubator Programme I ran for Coventry University.
In a fantastic full-circle moment, I supported Bob as his speaker coach when he participated in the last TEDx Coventry, held in 2020. His talk, “Anxiety: Why Men Don’t Get It,” is still one of the most successful videos from the TEDx Coventry event (see the video linked at the end of this article).

What I learnt from Bob

Wise point one: How to open and honest discussion without shame.

Honesty doesn’t have to be an attack. As confronting as an honest conversation can be, it can also be the vehicle to break you out of your chains, enable you to grow your faults, and resolve the errors of your ways.

Wise point two: Understand boundaries and how best to enforce them.

Bob was officially the first person to introduce me to boundaries about 15 years ago. Before then, I had never considered what I had to offer valuable and needed to be protected so that I could be more effective in helping and supporting those we love in healthier, more sustainable ways.

He always said, “You have to make sure you have your oxygen mask on before you can help everyone else.”

Wise point three - How anxiety manifests in the brain and body and how to manage that - The monkey mind

Understand that thoughts and emotions have physical implications for the body. This took me a while to understand, and it wasn't until I had my breakdown in 2019 that I fully grasped it. However, our brains respond to what we choose to allow ourselves to think about. And it’s that self-awareness and re-routing of thoughts that gives us the power to take control of our mental health.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a case of being positive for the sake of it. Toxic positivity has a lot to answer for. If things are weighing on our minds and have become untenable, we must take courageous action to resolve them where possible. Whatever is within our adult individual responsibility to own. I like to come back to the wisdom of the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Wise point four - Eating to live, not living to eat

Coming from modest means and a large family meant that our food consisted of frozen ready meals and, for the majority of my growing years, super noodles or beans on toast, as that was what we could afford and what I could make. So when something special came around, it meant food was a comfort, a secure thing, a safe zone, and I have always struggled with what a reward in life is other than a food treat.

Bob introduced me to the concept of eating to live, not living to eat. This concept made me second-guess my impulses and realise that my food choices were controlling me rather than the other way around. It took a while to take effect, but it’s opened the gates to a much more mindful and measured eating approach, which has helped me gain control in many areas of my life.

Don’t get me wrong—there’s always a time and a place for treats, but now they’re not every day, and they’re not the main reason for accomplishing things.

Wise point five - How to navigate my poor mental health

He was the primary person to introduce me to the concept of Narcissism as a severe and rife issue in personal lives as well as the workplace and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

He instructed me to conduct thorough research on how to address the issue to understand the difference between a narcissist and a person with narcissistic traits. And how the broader issue of narcissism and how society, especially workplaces and businesses, attract a high level of dark-triad personalities as these damaging behaviours are rewarded through traditional hierarchies and methods of working and reward.

I also needed to understand where I may have behaved in similar ways in the past and how that had impacted those around me so that I could operate more self-aware and responsible, learn to own my vulnerability and navigate a better mental life.

Wise point six - Sometimes, the right call is to walk away; that is not failing.

Removing yourself from a situation is sometimes the wisest move. You can’t fix and control everything, and it’s a freeing and reality-hitting realisation when you finally understand that there is no perfection in what you do. Perfection in life is a myth. All you can do is your best. And if that doesn’t work, there isn’t shame in walking away, especially if your mental health has taken a massive hit.

Wise point seven - Paying it forward is an act of kindness that can change the world.

Kindness is a kind of currency—a currency not of materialism but of the human spirit. His kindness inspired me to support many people and still drives me to help those who feel lost or afraid that this world is here to take them out. These acts of kindness are here to prove the opposite—that we need each other and that being able to help and accept help are beautiful things.

Wise point eight - Perfection and perspectives

TEDx Coventry in 2020 was the last time I saw him in person and shared a hug. His last pearl of wisdom was around perfectionism. I was running around thinking about all of the aspects of the event that weren’t spot on or as they should be. I had stated that I just needed it to be 75% perfect, not 100% perfect. He blew my mind when it said that my 75% perfect is someone else’s 99% perfect, and I needed to learn that perceptions are different and the event was, in fact, a great success!

Final Thoughts and Gratitude

Here are some lovely moments from the last time I saw you in person just before the lockdown of March 2020 (I’m sad I can’t find a picture of us two together).