Angela Harrison is a Royal Australian Air Force Veteran and founded Mindspace Training in 2022 after her own lived experience of mental illness during service. Based in Newcastle NSW but travelling nationally, Mindspace Training provides accredited psychoeducation courses to individuals and workplaces to help increase mental health literacy and reduce stigma in society.
Mindspace Training’s secret weapon is a Resilience Building app (available worldwide) that tailors programs based on individual needs. A one-stop shop for all your mental wellness tools, whether you are a parent, small business owner, CEO or anything in-between, the Driven app is the first of its kind on the market.
For more details, visit their website here.
Here we sit down with Angela, to know a bit more about her journey as an entrepreneur.
Q. Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur – how did you get started? What inspired you?
Angela: I have always been interested in mental health. I graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychological Science in 2015. Somehow I took a fork in the road that landed me in the military. While I did enjoy my time in, I was medically discharged after significant medical mismanagement that left me with lifelong mental illness and chronic injuries.
After a long recovery journey, multiple hospitalisations and two suicide attempts, I came out the other side wanting to make a change. I became a qualified Mental Health Peer Worker and began to see the value in sharing my lived experience when mixed with education and science.
Despite having crippling social anxiety, I put myself through instructor courses for both Mental Health First Aid and Resilience First Aid. After receiving overwhelming feedback from the first course I ran, I realised this is exactly the path I need to follow to both be helping others and challenging myself.
Q. What’s one thing in your routine that you do consistently that has made a huge difference in your personal or business life?
Angela: As someone with a living experience of mental illness, meaning I am managing it every day, my routine is my sanity. I don’t mean routine in the sense of set timings, but more things that are prioritised every day. Quality sleep, moving my body not for aesthetic goals but for my brain health, and maintaining my program on the resilience app are all things that I can credit for where I am today.
Some days success is getting out of bed, others it is landing big contracts, but the basics in prioritising myself are what is most important every day.
Q. Who are your mentors and inspiration? and what knowledge or insight did they give to you that was valuable?
Angela: Likely an unpopular take, however, I have never really had inspiration or mentors outside of myself. I absolutely have strong female personalities I admire such as Clementine Ford or Abbie Chatfield, however, I have always been cautious to strive for someone else’s success.
I watch a lot of TED talks and seek out people with passion who are experts in their field – that is where I get the most inspiration as it sparks my own passion.
Q. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Angela: My most satisfying moment was definitely my first sale. I made the business mistake early on of waiting until everything was ‘perfect’ to launch, and I had left it so long that by the time I did launch, the fear of failure was massive. After all, I couldn’t fail if I hadn’t launched yet, right? So that first post-launch sale was everything to me. It was one ticket to a course I was running, but it symbolised so much more. It was my belief that I could do this, that people would value what I was offering, and that my faith in myself had not been misplaced.
I still get that feeling with every sale or contract now. I vowed to myself no matter how successful Mindspace becomes, I will remember this feeling and use it to keep me grounded in my roots and my ‘why’ of business.
Q. How do you market your business, and which tactics have been most successful?
Angela: I take a ‘build it and they will come mentality’. I am possibly a terrible business person for this however, I rely on my passion and expertise rather than specific marketing tactics. My main platform is Instagram, and I only push out things I am knowledgeable in and confident to talk about, and all the connections I make are genuine and not to further my own business (as an introvert, networking is just not for me).
I am very lucky that all the people I have contracted along the way to help me in areas I am not familiar with or don’t have time for (Website, SEO, Social Media) have been wonderful women who wholeheartedly believe in what I am doing. I would rather be unsuccessful and genuine than put up a façade to stay successful. So far that is resonating with people, and hopefully, it continues to!
Q. What have been your biggest failures or challenges?
Angela: I am not a failure or regretful person – I strongly believe things happen to take us down a path, even if we are not yet aware of why. As for challenges, where do I start? The biggest one for Mindspace has been re-education.
The word ‘resilience’ is quite loaded and I am trying to pave the way to redefine it in society. I find it is often used as a shaming and blaming word – ‘just be more resilient’, when in reality it is something that needs to be learned.
Resilience can be measured, and actively worked on, it does not have to be as out of reach as it often feels. Accessible, Achievable and Affordable are the 3 A’s I like to use with this. You can see progress in both formal assessment results, but also by reaping the rewards in everyday life.
Q. How did this failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
Angela: Mindspace Training is really at the forefront of resilience and preventative mental health approaches. Up until now, the focus in society and government funding has been largely on treatment and a small amount on early intervention.
As our treatment systems become overwhelmed post-pandemic, the tide is slowly changing to realise we actually can stop people from becoming unwell in the first place by equipping them with the skills they need. I feel very excited to be a small part of leading that charge in my corner of the world
Q. If someone was to create a TV show about you, what would it be about and what would it be called?
Angela: I would like to think it would be about my lived experience. When I think about it objectively, I have done some amazing things. I think most people in their life would be able to say that if they took the time to reflect.
I haven’t made any medical advancements in society and not many people know my name, however, I have changed lives for the better. The show would expose all the raw and real parts of living with mental illness – the not sleeping, the nastiness towards loved ones, the lack of basic hygiene and self-care and wholeheartedly believing your family would be better off without you.
However, it would also display the hope that comes with pushing through. That there can be hopes and dreams again 5 years in the future, there will be laughter and light, and one day there will be more good days than bad. If I had to name it, perhaps simply just The Hope from Darkness.
To keep up to date with Angela and her journey, connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.