Prince Harry has spoken
of the grief and trauma he went through as a young boy following the death of
his mother Princess Diana.
The Duke of Sussex, who
is the chief impact officer for professional coaching and mental health firm
BetterUp, shared his desire to drive further “advocacy and awareness for
mental fitness”, and called on everyone to focus on being
“proactive”.
He said: “Ninety-nine
point nine percent of people on planet Earth are suffering from some form of loss,
trauma or grief. It doesn’t matter what age you are, but the majority of us
have experienced a lot of that in our younger years, therefore we’ve forgotten
about it. Now, the body doesn’t forget, the body holds the score as we know.
And, therefore, just as much as there’s a mental health aspect to it, there’s
also the emotional aspect to it as well.”
Diana tragically passed
away after being injured in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997. Harry was
13 at the time.
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A young Harry with his mother Princess Diana
Speaking on The Masters of
Scale podcast, which interviews start-up entrepreneurs about the key to their
success, and is hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Harry continued:
“Rather than looking at going, ‘Yeah, exactly that, every single day I’m
trying to survive’ or, ‘Every single day I’m trying to cope’, I think we need
to completely change it.”
He continued: “And that’s
what I mean about the difference between mental health and mental fitness. The
mental fitness aspect is like, ‘I’m not going to wait for myself to be, either
collapse on the floor or wait to have a nervous breakdown or burnout and then
have to fall on my friends or then have to pay X amount of money or find the
money to be able to afford professional help’.
“Mental fitness, as far
as I understand it, is more a case of getting on the front foot. What can you
do to be proactive, to prevent the situation from happening?”
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Harry was 13 when she died
San Francisco-based BetterUp
is valued at more than a billion dollars and Harry’s role, which he took on in
March last year, includes product strategy, philanthropy, and public advocacy
related to mental health.
He is also involved in the
firm’s commitment to Pledge 1% – a movement that encourages companies to
donate 1% of equity, staff time, product, or profit to their communities.
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Harry is now married with two children
He said: “It has been
over the last two years more so than ever before. It is almost as though she’s
done her bit with my brother and now she’s very much like helping me. She got
him set up and now she’s helping me set up. That’s what it feels like. He’s got
his kids; I’ve got my kids.”
He added: “She’s watching
over us.”
