The Launch Challenge that instigated ‘The Mental Health Moles’ Book
I’ve been a part of Shifties for approximately 18 months or so. They help to enable business owners to connect, learn, and grow with their businesses together.
The team, especially Alex Hughes, have been so supportive in both myself and ‘For Men To Talk’ and what we are trying to achieve throughout that period.
Over the last year, Alex, with the help of experts, have set out a number of tasks to improve us as entrepreneurs and small business owners. Tasks such as ‘Social Media Training’, ‘Meditation’ and ‘Expand Your Network’.
I always want to participate in these exercises. I want to learn and I want to improve, both as a person and as a director of a company. Apart from the ‘Early Riser’ task of waking up at 5am, that’s a bit too far for me!
The latest task was the ‘Launch Challenge’. Giving the members of Shifties a chance to launch a new business, service or product. At that time, I had already launched ‘For Men To Talk’ and I didn’t want to launch another business.
I needed a product. But what could I do? I needed something to support ‘For Men To Talk’.
Every since I was a child, I was fascinated by the Mr. Men books. I used to love my parents reading them to me, until I could read them myself and I love reading them now to my own children. The books are a series of brightly coloured, boldly drawn illustrations and introduces a different title character, with a different personality trait with a different a simple moral lesson in each book.
Six months previously to the start of the ‘Launch Challenge’, I used my love of the Mr. Men books and designed two cartoon moles, one with a bowler hat and one slightly smaller. I accompanied the moles and wrote a 4 page storyboard where the moles talked about different mental health illnesses and posted them on social media channels every Monday. All of a sudden I had around 20 different storyboards and I realised that this was my product!
Over the coming weeks, I researched, wrote and designed further stories, filled with topics, such as anxiety, depression, grief, social media, stress, sleep and many more, combining to make a total of 52 storyboards.
I have always asked questions, about anything. If I don’t know something, I am not afraid to find out the answer by asking, especially in business and in this scenario, a product launch. I had virtual meetings with a book publisher, printers and a proof reader to make sure that I had everything I need to make sure that my book would be at the best that it could be.
So right now I am very proud to announce that The Mental Health Moles book is OUT NOW. It is available:
- £4.99 on Amazon Kindle via https://bit.ly/MHMOLES
- £5.99 (+1.99p delivery) printed version via https://www.formentotalk.co.uk/mhmoles/
- £10 (free delivery) signed and personalised printed version via https://www.formentotalk.co.uk/mhmoles/
All money goes towards supporting For Men To Talk who give men suffering with anxiety, depression and grief a chance to talk with other fellow sufferers.