Session Details: PI LIVE 2022

'I couldn't breathe. My chest was bursting with pain. My mind closed down. I knew I was dying.' Tim wasn't dying. At the age of 23 following a series of unfortunate events Tim Arthur had a full breakdown. 'Put simply, I lost it. For three months I rolled from one anxiety attack to another. Never sleeping. Unable to grip onto reality. Life had overwhelmed. I would spend hours in the bath crying or lying in my bed unable to answer the phone or hold the most simple of conversations. To say I wasn't coping would have been an understatement.' Help came in the shape of tranquillisers, anti-depressants and most importantly from the incredibly named psychotherapist Albert Hall. 'The problem is Tim, you've been an oak tree. Standing strong holding up your world and everyone in it. They're noble trees but when a big enough wind comes along oaks get blown over. That's what's happened to you. We're going to rebuild you to be like a willow. Whatever life throws at you you'll flex and bend and nothing will ever blow you over again.' Tim Arthur former Global CEO of Time Out and Creative Director of Virgin Money talks about the toolkit of advice he received to overcome his breakdown and how this created the resilience needed for him to scale the heights of corporate life in the worlds of the media and banking. In a world where stress, depression and anxiety are increasingly crippling individuals and taking a huge toll on companies Tim offers a massage of hope of how we can all become willows.

Breakdown in my 20s, Global CEO in my 30s