Paul Holiday and Michael Henderson have set up The Human Excellence Project and the Global Swim Rise movement world-wide, to help people improve their mental wellbeing
The Global Swim Rise encourages people to get together and run into the sea at dawn. Over 1,000 people from 25 different countries around the world signed up to the first ever Global Swim Rise.
After moving to Western Australia, Holliday met friend and business partner Henderson, who emigrated from Teesside, at a workshop for men’s mental wellbeing.
Henderson helped form the Human Excellence Project and together they founded the Human Excellence Academy. The pair now take the philosophy of the project to the corporate world through workshops and talks.
Henderson explained: “There is an epidemic amongst men who are taking their own lives because they don’t know where to turn or what to do.
“People who are depressed and suicidal can’t see a way, they are lost.
“I have been in the construction business and there is a real problem with depression and suicide. People can’t see a good future because they have a bad now. We are working to change that, one run into the sea at a time.”
Holliday and Henderson meet each morning to swim in the sea and have been joined by a growing number of people, immediately seeing the health and wellbeing benefits of the Swim Rise.
Holliday added: “We have had people from all walks of life. Multi-millionaire CEOs who want to find themselves again and people without a job who feel lost. Once we get in that water we are all the same, we share a great bond.
“Once we have been in the sea we get out, grab a coffee and a chat, warm up and some amazing conversations happen. I believe this will change the world.”
“There is a lot of disconnect at the moment. A lot of this is down to things like mobile phones. People are looking for instant gratification. We are not teaching our kids delayed gratification, that if they make the right choices and do the right things on a daily basis, there will be a much bigger reward in the long run, such as their good health.”
To date over 6,000 people have jumped into the sea at sunrise as part of the project.
The risk of suicide amongst workers in construction roles is three times higher than the male national average. More than 1,400 construction workers took their own lives between 2011 and 2015 in England, according to the Office of National Statistics.
