Brad Siroski - Mental Health & Addictions Advocator & Educator

Two days ago on Men's Mental Health Day. I was not only able to present my Mental Wellness in the Workplace Keynote to men, but also to women all over North America.

Thank you to TC Energy in Calgary and to my good friend Tammy Tomlenovich Summerfeldt for bringing me in to share my message with your employees face-to-face, but also with your corporations in the U.S. and into Mexico.

I can safely say this is the first time that I ever heard, that there would be a translator for my presentation.

I sometimes struggle with my self-worth and feeling like I don't belong. But with work I am starting to believe in myself and believe that I am right where I need to be!

Country music award winner Jelly Roll said that " I want to tell you that the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason. What's in front of you is so much more important than what's behind you." I am so excited to continue my mental health journey and to see what's to come.

But I wanna add to his message and encourage everyone especially us men to remember this.
"Don't forget to look behind you every once in a while to remember just how far you've come." - Brad Siroski.

Thanks again to TC Energy and all the amazing staff I met.

A kind or heartfelt act
Can change your day, change your week and can even change your life.

I, like many people I know, had been going through a bit of a hard week. I am not going to dive into details. It's just been rough.

On Tuesday night, I went to get the mail. When I opened the mailbox, I found the letter pictured below.

Our neighbours and friends daughter, who I will call Pippi Longstalkings for her anonymity and because that is now her nickname, chose me out of a whole city of people to write a letter to for a school project.

I went out to see if I had received a cheque that I am expecting. It wasn't there, but this letter was. I can say from the bottom of my heart that this letter was far better than receiving that cheque.

This letter made me smile, it made me laugh, it made me feel connected, it showed me someone else cared and it changed my life for the better instantly.

A 9 year olds words, humour, and stories brought me back to life. The fact that she chose me out of a whole city made me feel special and like I mattered on a day when I didn't feel like I did.

So thank you to the teacher who spearheaded this project and thank you, Pippi Longstocking's for choo-choo-choosing me ( Simpsons reference).

What a great world it would be if we all just picked up a paper and pencil and write someone else a kind letter. Pippi did and I immediately sat down and wrote one back and dropped it in her mailbox that night.

Thank you Pippi,
From the Tattooed fellow

I always say it's better to be proactive and reactive with our mental health.

That is why they Kindergarten to grade five presentations that I give it schools are so important. They are also so enjoyable.

Two takeaways from the youngsters yesterday were. "Hugs are the best for mental health" and "if we aren't nice to ourselves we will be sad" ... kids get it and make it simple.

Thanks to Archerwill and Rose Valley K-12 students for an amazing day.

Rose Valley Roadrunners also have the coolest team logo I've ever seen.

Last Thursday I spent the day at Ministikwan.
It was such an amazing day. I got to make some new friends, reconnect with old friends Liv Grace, and do art therapy.

Thanks to my gracious host Melissa Marshall I got a tour of the whole community including Ministikwan Lake where the kids were canoeing as a part of this amazing event made possible by my good friend Elaina Guilmette and Rbc Foundation Group

What an amazing end to a great week.
Four communities in four days and put on over 2000 kms. Thank you to St. Brieux, Annaheim, Ministikwan and Cold Lake for having me out to your communities.

The amazing students in the community of Annaheim raised a lot of money to put on a mental health day yesterday.
I am honoured that they chose me to be one of the speakers. I'm on the other amazing speakers were Author/Speaker Laura Lawrence and Roughrider/Speaker Dan Clark.
One of my take away from yesterday is when Dan said "I asked my daughter if she wanted me to talk or to listen."
What a great narrative, instead of telling her kids went to do, listening to what they need.
I also got to do to breakout sessions with grades K-6. What a day 😊

Thank you St. Brieux for allowing me to visit your school, share my story and have a couple breakout sessions a great group of youth. As well helping me keep myself holistically well.
Physically, I was able to play volleyball with the kids over lunch
Mentally I was able to have some great conversations with teachers and students as well as learn a few coping techniques for stress from some of the students.
Emotionally, I felt many emotions from happy, joy, and excitement to a bit of sadness when I had to leave.
And spiritually my soul was full, the pictures below will prove that.
I Love my work !!!!

Lafarge supports numerous charities, they also support ongoing education and financial aid to their employees who want to continue education and they proved last weekend that they continue to support their employees with their Mental Health as well.

The great folks at this great company had me out to deliver a 90 minute keynote to over 100 of their employees on Friday and another room full on Saturday morning.

Thank you to this company for continuing the conversation around mental health in the workplace.

A young lady made a statement last Wednesday after I delivered a presentation at her school that almost brought me to tears, and forced me to look inside myself.

She said "why is it, that I can talk to you about this stuff, but I don't feel like I can talk to my parents about this stuff."

I told her "that I didn't have the answer for that, but I was honoured that she chose me."

On the way home that day I came to a realization. There are things that my daughters are not going to feel comfortable talking to me about, and I now know, and realize, that's OK. Just as long as they feel like they have someone they can talk to.

So from here on in I will put ego aside, and not only ask them if they want to talk to me about things.
But if the answer is no, I will also ask them if there is someone they would rather talk to.

Thank you to Maymont school for having me, and to this brave young lady for teaching me. I take something new home from each one of these presentations, and I am grateful for that.

Here's an interesting statistics for you all.
I spoke to a friend of mine who works registration and admitting at RUH.
I asked her out of all the people who come to the door, how many would you say struggle with mental health and addictions compared to physical health issues.
She said easily one out of three people are there related to Mental Health or Addictions.

In our workplace we have WCB and other supports for people struggling with physical injuries. However, it seems like there's very little for people struggling with mental health when we have statistics like the one above.

Flaman Group of Companies has recognized this and today we head out on the road again for three days to support their employees with mental health related workshops, led by yours truly.

With stats like 1 of 3 coming through the hospital doors and 2 in 5 in the workplace struggling with mental health, Flaman are being proactive rather than reactive by bringing mental health workshops to their employees to talk about things, like recognition, awareness and support.

Is your company doing this?

If you are not, and you want to follow Flaman 's lead reach out to me through my webpage provided below.

www.bradsiroski.com

Brad Siroski Brad Siroski; public speaker; Saskatoon Saskatchewan; mental health; addictions; recovery; keynote speaker; counsellor; group facilitator; workshop designer; groups and workshops; speaking events.

I want to thank my good friend and fellow classmate Tiffany for bringing me to the beautiful Community of Birch Narrows to share my keynote presentation and provide the high school students there with a workshop on substance use awareness.

They asked me when they booked this, if I was OK with members of the community joining as well and I certainly was. Addictions don't discriminate and they certainly don't only affect the person who is struggling.

It was great to see members of the community there and I was able to have a lot of great conversations.
They say it takes a village to raise a child and seeing adults and children join together to work towards substance awareness and a healthy community filled my heart.

Marsi cho, to Birch Narrows for having me.

Last Thursday I was able to do something I have never done before. I travelled to two different schools to share my story and deliver workshops on the same day.

On Monday morning, I received this amazing email and with permission from the principal Jen at Stobart school I am going to share what she wrote.
It was titled "Many Thanks From Stobart." It was sent me and to Flaman who helped make the event possible.

The Email Read:

"Dear Dave Weightman and Flaman Group of Companies
On behalf of Stobart Community School staff and students we wish to thank you for your generous support in bringing the guest speaker, Brad Siroski to our school on March 21. His story of mental health and addiction battles was riveting. He shared some very tough life battles in a way that our students could handle.
He ensured that he offered encouragement and hope, when he said "their beautiful culture changed my life" I know that our students would have felt touched by that.
I also loved the following statements: "never look down on someone unless you're offering your hand to help them up, there is nothing you can't do, learn how to forgive, and keeping all of it inside you can KILL you". Our kids need to be told these things, we need to be told these things, over and over until we believe them.
I appreciated Brad's messages of the reality of running from problems and using drugs and alcohol to solve them, his message of resilience, hope and love were beautiful and well received. A staff member noted that not one student was on their phone. That is a huge indication of engagement.
Thank you Dave and Flaman, so much for your donation to help bring Brad to us. I'm sure that his talk will make a difference in the lives of our students."

When you get a message like this on Monday morning and you also see an eagle on your travels that afternoon. It reminds that you're going in the right direction.

Thanks again to all the staff at Stobart and to Flaman for enabling me to follow my path, while encouraging others to do the same.

Stay tuned for news on the exciting partnership between me and Flaman
That will help bring mental health and addiction awareness to this province Youth !!!

Yesterday started the second leg of my Mental Health tour with Flaman Group of Companies

The fantastic HR team at Flaman approached me last year and spoke to me about helping them promote mental health and provide mental health support for their employees.

When we spoke about providing support, they realized that having a one and done attitude towards these presentations and support was not going to work.

In November myself and the HR team went out and spoke to the group at Flaman about recognizing mental health struggles and what that may look like. This was the first leg of the tour providing 14 mental health presentations in 3 weeks.

On the second leg of this tour, after learning how to recognize our mental health struggles. We are now talking about how to promote positive mental health and practice it in our every day lives and in the workplace.

Flaman is truly stepping up to support their employees when it comes to mental health and they are not done there...Pay attention to my page for more exciting news from myself and Flaman.

Thank you to Dave Weightman, Pamela McRae, and my travelling partner yesterday Lexxa Potratz for providing great company, great conversations and great meals.

What seems small to some can be huge to others.

Before you judge people, understand that just because it is something that comes naturally or easy to you, does not mean that it comes easy to them.

I love public speaking and helping others. I absolutely love it and I don't struggle with the idea of being in front of large groups of people, I actually embrace it and enjoy it.

However, public speaking, depending on which statistics you look at, is often rated the number one cause of stress and anxiety amongst people.

So what seems to come somewhat naturally to me, clearly, does not come naturally to a lot of others.

I struggle with technology, I had a virtual event on Monday that caused me a lot of stress leading up to it. Lots of people find this a walk in the park, but not me for me it can be terrifying.

I've now made it through a handful of virtual events and I'm starting to feel much better. But it didn't start out like that.

So thank you to all the Teachers in the Sunwest School Division and a little added thanks to Terry and my wife for the tech support. I was glad we were able to spend some time together promoting Mental Health in the workplace on Monday afternoon.

And thank you for everyone reading this.
For going easy on yourself and going easy on others.

Let's be nice to each other!!!
We all struggle with different things. Instead of adding to someone's struggle by insulting or poking fun, offer some support. It will change your life and there's.

I have been to the community of Kindersley twice in the last 7 days.
The first event was with the program that gave me my start in public speaking Talking To Youth Live. At TTYL we spend a whole day doing fun and educational breakout sessions around substance use. At the end of the day I share my story with the kids in a 45 minute Keynote.
Yesterday I was back in Kindersley to speak to the grade 9 to 12 students almost 300 in total. We discussed mental health and how often people use substances to cope with their mental health issues.
I was able to spend the whole morning with them, providing one keynote and two breakout sessions.
Kindersley is clearly a community that is being proactive rather than reactive around Mental Health and Addictions. I tip my hat to this community and everyone who has been so gracious with me while I was there.
Keep Talking Kindersley.

On Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning I had the honour of meeting and presenting to 30+ members of Sask Potash Council

These are the Labour Relations and Humah Resource guys and In my opinion they're the guys they keep the mines running.

They have open doors and open hearts and listen to the struggles of their employees on a physical, mental and emotional level.

Their motto is "one voice for all of the Potash workers." And these guys are great representatives to share the concerns.

I shared with them some ideas to bring forward to their employees to promote positive mental health.
I also reminded them that in order to take care of others, they had to remember to take care of themselves.

Thanks again to the Sask Potash Council for bringing me out to carry on the conversation around Mental Health with both themselves and their employees.
Also, thanks for the amazing conversation, the amazing food and the amazing gift.

I had a young man with ADHD ask me what he should do to stop moving around all the time and to stop making strange noises when he's thinking.

I told him he should keep moving around and making strange noises and be unapologetically himself.

It was just a quick answer off the top of my head, and one that I supported.

Afterwords that young man thanked me and one of the EA's approached me and told me that that response filled her heart.

It made me realize that we all need to keep talking and keep supporting one another. Because something that we say that may
not register to us may mean the world to someone else.

Thank you to Esterhazy school and all 300 kids and attended my Keynote and workshop yesterday.

Thank you to all the staff and students and Krista McKee Dutka and Craig Dutka

Day 1 of a week filled with mental health presentations and keynotes

Thank you to Preeceville and Sturgis schools.
The teachers were welcoming and supportive and the students were engaged and enthusiastic.

Can't wait for Esterhazy tomorrow!!!

✨If you are going to read one of my posts start to finish this week READ THIS ONE ✨

It's been five Days since I was in Davidson for the last night of my two-part workshop and I am still almost at a loss for words.

There are three words that come to mind, though, powerful, vulnerable, and healing.

We started off the workshop, talking about 10 tips for positive mental wellness, and finished with a sharing circle.

The sharing circle was so powerful.

I asked everyone to, if they were comfortable, share one struggle and two successes they have had recently.

Over 45 people chose to be vulnerable and share. The feedback from the sharing circle afterwards was amazing.

We laughed together we cried together and we healed together. Revealing is healing my friends and there was some of both last Thursday.

I challenged the community at the start of the meeting to be the change they wanted to see. That I could come back every year, but unless they chose to put some of these tips in the play, nothing would change.

I am happy to announce that there has been a group started and in early March there will be another sharing circle facilitated in the town of Davidson put some of the fantastic people who attended Thursday nights session.

This is how community healing begins !!!
Thank you again, Davidson for allowing me to share a space with you and to continue to our healing journey together.

Thanks again to all the sponsors Davidson, Kinsmen, Panther industries, Frier Agencies, Shaw Agencies, McConnell farms, and Home Hardware as well as Born Resilient Clothing and Allan Kehler for the Hoodies and Books.

I was very fortunate to be able to share my Men's Mental Health Keynote yesterday to families and staff from the Central Saskatchewan Military Family Resource Centre at Wanuskewin.

There are certain places that put my soul at ease and Wanuskewin is one of them. As soon as I drove onto the land my mind and heart both settled. Such a powerful feeling!

It was a beautiful day and I once again spoke to many kind souls.

Thank you to Nadine Ingram and everyone at CSMFRC for bringing me on board for such a powerful day of healing

A great big thanks to Laura Lawrence for the amazing Keynote and great message. I will be focusing on "doing more of what lights me up".
And I can't wait to share a stage again someday.

I am going to be focusing on doing some healing myself as I am a bit under the weather, I hope you all Stay Well.

We are just over 24 hours out from part two of my community mental health workshops in Davidson.

Two weeks ago we packed the senior centre. Let's do it again tomorrow night at 6:30pm

I have read all the evaluation sheets and the feedback was amazing. I promise you that I've done the best to incorporate just about every single thing you guys hope to see you into this workshop tomorrow.

If you are interested in signing up the link to do so is below please. If you have any problems, just come, we will make room for you.

Also, if you know of anyone who would benefit from this, who may not see this post. Please tag them below, or reach out to them and invite them.

See you soon and until then Stay well
Brad !!!



https://forms.gle/QCC29dP7ica31HAz9

It's been an up and down weekend as it often is in the field of Mental Health and Addictions.

The news of a friend passing on Friday shock me.
I then had the opportunity to share the stage with some amazing presenters on Saturday.
And then got more news of another friend passing this evening.

We are hosting events, encouraging people to come forward and get help for their mental health and addiction issues.

Please do not suffer in silence, if you are struggling find supports and resources they are out there.

Below are a few picture from this weekend from the Love My Mind event

There are more events happening like this all the time, there are resources available.
My heart goes out to the families.
Please if you need help reach out !
**kaddiction

Thank you to Corrinne and Shayelle
For bringing to SaskPower today to share my Story and my Mental Wellness in the Workplace Keynote.
I was lucky enough to share in front of a group in Saskatoon as well as people connected from all over the province.
Another great experience with another great group of people. Onward and upward.
Please Keep Talking!!

Wow
All I can say is wow !!!

Last night we packed the senior centre in Davidson to discuss Mental Health.

It was cold as hell and we still managed to fill that room wall to wall. Thanks to all who drove in from out of town. Some people drove in from as far as Regina.

We talked about some of our mental health struggles and finished with how to turn those struggles into successes.

Last night I asked a question. Do you feel like you have support in this town? If yes, raise your hands.

It shocked me that not a single hand went up.
By the end of the workshop, I would say that we all agreed there could be more support in the community.
However, we also learned how to support ourselves and one another and that's a damn good start.

If your community is struggling, I challenge you to reach out to me to set up one of these events.

Thanks again to Davidson Kinsman, Panther Industries, Frier Agencies, McConnell Farms, Shaw Agencies and the Davidson Home Hardware for making this event possible.

And thank you to Cindy Jaremicki and Painted Prairies for providing the snacks.

Today my heart is truly full, because I truly believe last night made a difference. See you in 2 weeks Davidson.

Just over 24 hours out from this amazing event.
There's been a few people have reached out, asking times. Both the session tomorrow night and the session on the 25th start at 6:30 sharp.

There are approximately 40 people registered for tomorrow night, if you have had problems registering please just come. We will add an extra couple tables and chairs if needed.
We don't want to turn anyone away.

See you all tomorrow night 😊

To everyone in Davidson and surrounding area:
In 8 days we will be welcoming in the new year with the first of 2 mental health workshops.
Amazing News
Both of these workshops are different and brand new.
They are also completely FREE.
You heard it right FREE !!!
To register and guarantee a spot, just click on the link provided below. If you can think of anyone who may benefit from these presentations, please tag them in the comments below.
Also to help promote this event please share this on all of your social pages.
Last year we filled the Senior Center four weeks in a row, let's fill it for both events this year.
I will be bringing a couple very special friends to help set the tone for each night.
Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Event RSVP - Promoting Positive Mental Health Event Address: Davidson Seniors Centre, 114 Garfield Street, Davidson, SK Contact us at [email protected]

When you provide a space for conversation by showing or providing support it is amazing what can happen.

I have had the pleasure of travelling to 4 of Flynn construction locations over the last seven days. Winnipeg and Brandon last week, Regina Tuesday and finishing off in Saskatoon yesterday.

I have felt blessed to provided presentations and put a voice to my struggles with both Mental Health and Addictions, which then led to a lot of amazing people having in-depth conversations with me about what they're going through regarding Mental Health and Addictions.

I tip my hat to companies like Flynn for opening doors and supporting their employees so they feel safe to share their struggles and their successes.
Thank you to in no particular order Brandon Bonk, Dave Sterling, Sean Thompson, Dylan Short, Drew Halliday and Jordy Ryhorchuk. For some great meals and great conversation. Plus all the amazing staff at Flynn.

What can I say, I love what I do !!!

A whirlwind trip to Manitoba to speak to over 100 of Flynn construction employees in
Winnipeg at 7am this morning and about 30 more in Brandon at lunch.
If I can take one word out of this trip, it's connection.

I am often not able to connect with the people that book me to do these events
However, last night I was able to meet with Dave Sterling from Flynn in Winnipeg.

What can I say he was beyond hospitable. He treated me to a fantastic supper, and we had an amazing conversation. The whole first experience left me feeling very welcome and excited to connect with the team.

Today I met with Dave again and was introduced to some of the safety and HR group. They treated me so great and it was amazing to see how they connected with, and supported, all their employees.

It fills my heart and proves to me that we are taking the proper steps towards promoting positive mental health, when companies like Flynn bring me out to talk to and connect with a room filled with over 100 men and women.

My hats off to the Manitoba chapter of Flynn and I can't wait to meet the Saskatchewan group next week.