Gemma Wardell’s journey towards launching Human Brilliance has been shaped by years of overcoming serious physical and mental health challenges. She talks to Sam Hawcroft
In her early 20s, Gemma Wardell was living a fast-paced, fun-filled life in the catering and events business, working hard and partying harder – until she was stopped her in her tracks by a life-changing illness.
She had picked up a virus, but far from being a common cold, it would end up leading to a 10-year road to recovery.
“My whole world was turned upside down. I was pretty much bedbound for the first couple of years,” Gemma says. “I was in an isolation unit in Castle Hill, I lost loads of weight, I had chronic pain, and was unable to do much. I remained ill for quite a long time, and I was left with ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome, that took years to get over. The virus had essentially gone, but my body didn’t recover in the way that it should have done.”
During her recovery, Gemma tried all sorts of remedies, from the routine to the more experimental in her quest to regain her health. She believes that working on her mental health had by far the most impact.
She began investigating the role of the mind in physical symptoms and studied mind/body psychology, and as the years went on she slowly recovered, to the point where she was able to train as a psychotherapist. She spent some time in London working at a clinic where she’d received treatment herself, helping to develop programmes for people suffering with ME, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue and pain conditions.
Gemma had always wanted to return to Hull, and she says she felt passionate about bringing the level of care she’d received in the capital back to her home city, where at the time the support available was very limited.
Gemma is now a registered and accredited psychotherapist in Hull and has been involved in setting up services locally for those with chronic conditions, as well as a variety of other mental health services.
After many years of working within private organisations, the NHS and within the voluntary sector, Gemma took the decision to set up her own company, Human Brilliance.
“I became interested in organisational psychology and began to train in the organisational field of transactional analysis, which is a model used in psychotherapy, training and organisational work – I have a passion for training, and alongside my work at Human Brilliance, I teach and train counsellors and psychotherapists from the beginning of their training journey to them gaining a level 7-accredited qualification. My career has moved on from working in clinical settings now to working with individuals and organisations, supporting and resourcing them to understand themselves, understand their strengths, understand their barriers and cultivate great mental wellbeing. I love helping people to become the best versions of themselves.”
Gemma stresses that the “work person” and the “home person” are not indistinct – people are “whole”, and their professional and personal issues are often complex and interlinked.
“What has always struck me,” she says, “is the innate brilliance within humans! People can, and do, overcome all kinds of challenges in their lives. Through my work I see that life events affect people professionally, and work events affect people personally.”
Human Brilliance, is, Gemma says, a combination of her life and work experiences – and her direct experience of illness gives her an added insight into the power of the mind and the link between thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
“As an employee, being ill wasn’t great. And it’s not because the employer was awful, it’s because they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to support me. So Human Brilliance is my own recognition of all the different parts of my journey so far. And how, in business, the mental wellbeing of individuals and teams makes the difference between whether or not a company is successful – how happy and well the people in a business are will directly impact on how effective they are. The research proves this time and again.”
Gemma hasn’t had to do much advertising to date, as there’s clearly a demand for the services she provides. Companies have approached her to work with individuals or teams, and her sessions can be tailored to their needs.
Human Brilliance offers training programmes, coaching sessions, and personal and professional development sessions, alongside its psychologically informed coaching service Brilliantly You! This is a mental wellbeing service available to organisations that are invested in supporting their people.
“We believe that employees have a responsibility to themselves to maintain great mental wellbeing,” says Gemma, “and we also believe that employers are instrumental in offering ways to support great mental health. Brilliantly You! provides just that – a service that employers can offer their employees when times are tough, whether that be a work-related matter or a ‘life’ matter.”
Organisations can buy a number of sessions per year (based on the size of the organisation) which its employees can access as and when they need to. They might have a difficult work situation they want to work through, a bereavement at home, or they might recognise they are struggling with anxiety, lacking in confidence, or perhaps feeling burnt out.
“Human Brilliance is about modernising an approach to mental wellbeing,” Gemma adds. “It is about moving away from long waiting lists and the need for loads of assessments before being able to access support. It’s about helping people now, and not when they have already reached crisis point. It’s a modern-day approach to supporting health and wellbeing within an organisation.”
The USP of Human Brilliance, Gemma says, is that the team are extensively experienced and fully qualified to work to support those with mental wellbeing challenges. “All the work we undertake is psychologically and ethically informed, and backed up theoretical understanding.”
Human Brilliance works with a range of companies and organisations, from voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) to the public and private sector. “We have delivered training programmes to chief executives, senior leadership teams, staff teams and individuals, supporting, resourcing and challenging them to grow and develop as human leaders. Leading from the Inside Out is one of the programmes that we offer – it focuses on knowing and leading yourself, really understanding what your strengths are, what your barriers are, what energises you, what holds you back, and what impact you can have, to be the best version of you. I’ve also worked with Amelia Caruso and her team, at Alessandro Caruso Architects.”
Gemma’s illness also informed her attitude to setting up her own business in the first place – being out of action for so long fostered a “seize the day” mentality. Having had such a limited life for so many years, she knows more than many that life is indeed too short to not just go for it.
“At one point the consultant said I would be unlikely to recover and would need a wheelchair to partake in day-to-day activities. Because I’ve worked so hard on my own recovery, I believe that you’ve got to take risks – you’ve got to show up and live your life. A lot of it is mindset. Even the risk of starting a business is mindset. It’s about self-belief and about being courageous.”
She’s just begun to embark on the “let go to grow” stage, which is new to her as she builds her team up. “It’s actually the one of the biggest struggles for me right now,” she admits. “I was wearing all of the hats – doing everything from the accounts to the social media, seeing the clients, pitching for the work, writing the proposal, everything. I’d like to scale the business – put myself and Human Brilliance out there and grow the company this year. But one of the most difficult things is letting go and being able to delegate. I’ve just finished interviewing for consultants and administrative support, which feels like a big step! It’s having the confidence to really push the company out there and believe in my own brilliance.”
Gemma is keenly aware that she needs to continue to look after her own wellbeing. “We’re trained as therapists to really make sure that we take care of ourselves so that we can show up fully for other people. I live my life in a different way now – I eat healthily, I prioritise sleep, I make time for me and fun stuff, and I know when it’s time for me to take a day off and go for a walk on a beach, or go into a rehearsal studio and belt out some tunes (I love singing). I’m not immune to feeling stressed and anxious. It’s tough being in business. It’s tough thinking about where the next contract is coming from. It’s tough thinking about whether you’ll get enough companies signing up to your services this year, and whether you can afford your office rent.
“I’ve learned the hard way to really account for myself and take care of myself. I suppose what I experienced was burnout on a massive scale, so for me it’s about knowing what led me down the path of burnout, what factors contributed to my experience and how to change my thoughts, feelings and behaviours to ensure that I never end up there again. The NHS tends to provide services once someone has already been struggling for a long time. Human Brilliance is more about the other end of that – giving people the education and tools, and empowering them to be able to take care of themselves.”
A project that Gemma was working on as this magazine went to press was Leading Ladies, about supporting women in leadership with her colleague, Felicity King. She makes an interesting point about the 40-something generation being expected to “have it all” – but also “do it all”.
“The generation before us couldn’t have it all. And then the generation after us, they can have it all, but they don’t have to do it all. The ‘have it all, do it all’ mentality means that we’re often really busy and we’re not taking care of ourselves, meaning that we are probably struggling with anxiety and/or burnout or other kind of mental health issues that we’re not fully aware of. And we just carry on! Because it’s expected – it’s the norm.”
Ain’t that the truth. Best shut the laptop and go for a walk…
