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Behind The Title

16 Apr 2026 · 42m · 14 chapters

Episode artwork

One Truth About Anxiety No One Wants to Admit

In short

Matt Longley, CEO of Mobster, discusses anxiety, panic attacks, and self-injurious behavior as coping mechanisms, emphasizing that people don’t have to wait until things are “that bad” to seek help. He also connects workplace culture, stigma, and leadership empathy to mental health.

Guest backgrounds

Matt Longley is CEO at Mobster. Career includes customs officer at Heathrow (training to “read people” and stop suspected illegal goods), then customs marketing, civil service, WPP, Dentsu, and later Mobster (client director to CEO). He describes anxiety beginning in his career and self-injury starting in 2021–22.

Key claims

Anxiety and self-injury can be driven by societal pressure and the need for emotional release, not necessarily suicidality. Openly discussing mental health can reduce team stigma and improve wellbeing. Therapy over time (e.g., weekly for years) can help people understand “masks” and triggers.

Notable examples

Brexit-era government team pressure and toxic meetings; a shopping-center panic attack about being judged as a parent; self-injury urges after lockdown when returning to public life; writing/stand-up course and grounding techniques reducing urges.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:32

Matt's Journey with Anxiety

Matt shares his experiences with anxiety, self-injury, and the importance of conversation.

“It's so great to have you on Behind the Title.”
3:10

From Customs Officer to CEO

Matt discusses his career path from customs officer to CEO and the skills developed.

“against advice internally from colleagues about speaking about it openly.”
5:38

Navigating Marketing and Relationships

Matt describes his approach to honesty in marketing and relationship building.

“I mean, we went to a hotel for a few months and weren't really allowed out.”
8:16

Mental Health Challenges in the Workplace

Matt recounts a pivotal moment of mental health struggle at work and its impact.

“I wouldn't say that it's always been brilliant.”
14:01

The Breakdown at Work

Learn about the speaker's experience with workplace breakdown and anxiety.

“This is not, I just can't go to the next meeting.”
16:02

Responsibility and Reflection

Explore the speaker's thoughts on personal responsibility and team dynamics.

“sort of drilled into me that that's my response.”
18:01

The Shift in Workplace Culture

Discuss how generational changes impact workplace dynamics and empathy.

22:23

The Struggle with Anxiety and Self-Injury

Hear about the speaker's experience with panic attacks and self-injury.

“And there was a lot of pressure to feel that way and to feel like they are everything to you.”
26:55

Therapy and Coping Mechanisms

Understand the importance of therapy and alternative coping strategies.

“doctor and had a little bit of time off work, not a huge amount of time, but just a bit of time off work.”
28:03

Struggles with Self-Injury and Finding Release

Learn about the speaker's journey through self-injury and the therapeutic practices that helped.

Show all 14 chapters
29:51

Navigating Societal Pressures and Lockdown Reflections

Explore the pressures of societal expectations and reflections on the peacefulness of lockdown.

“I think it's enough to kind of push anyone over.”
32:44

The Road to Acceptance and Open Conversations

Understand how acceptance of struggles can lead to open conversations about mental health.

“And I think it's really important to highlight that the self-injury wasn't a suicidal thing.”
35:39

The Importance of Therapy and Investing in Yourself

Discover why therapy is valuable and how it helps uncover one's true self.

“I've been quite open about anxiety and stress in the past with people.”
42:00

Closing Thoughts on Anxiety

The guest expresses gratitude and hopes the episode will help others with anxiety.

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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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0:46I'm Danny White-Skorn, and this is Behind the Title, where leaders show up differently. Matt Longley, CEO of Mobster, is incredibly brave. He joins us to talk about his lived experience with self-injurious behaviour. This is an incredibly raw topic, so presents a trigger warning. I've suffered from anxiety and stress most of my life that's led to one thing or another. In particular, a few years ago, led me to self-harm for the first time. The only way I got out of that was talking to somebody and getting help. You don't have to wait until it's that bad. You can just go and talk to somebody. Matt talks about behaviors that he turned to as a way of coping with emotional distress which only started in his late 30s.

1:31Matt, welcome. It's so great to have you on Behind the Title. For those that don't know you, as I didn't, we got introduced by one of your brilliant reps. If you can just kind of make an introduction to yourself, a bit about your background and your role now and why it was important to come on to the podcast today. Yeah, hi Danny. Yeah, my name is Matt Longley. I'm CEO at Mobster. My background is very varied. I started life as a customs officer searching for drugs and illegal things coming into the country. Managed to escape the airport after a few years and joined the customs marketing team which is where this career path took me.

2:15Worked in a civil service for a while before joining WPP to work on the government account there. Moved around to a few agencies including Dentsu and then six years ago joined Mobster as a client director and I've slowly worked my way up to help them develop into a more professional and higher growth company. And why was it important for you to come on to the podcast today? I think when I first admitted I had sort of anxiety problems when I was working on the government team, it was a really big moment and no one then was talking about it. This was 2015, 2016, and internally it was a big taboo at the agency.

2:59No one really knew what to do about it. And when I came back after a bit of time out, I spoke to the whole team. There were 80 people there and I spoke to the whole team about it and was very honest. against advice internally from colleagues about speaking about it openly. And a handful of people came to me afterwards and just said, that was really important to hear that. And I've been having troubles as well. I've always had troubles or I'm starting to feel it recently. And some more people took some time off over the next year, which could be seen as a bad thing, that I just instigated a lot of sick leave in essence, but actually improved the general well-being of the team because people knew they could talk about it and could be open about it.

3:44And I think if I can be here talking about this today, talking about some really difficult topics that I've experienced over the last few years, then even if one person hears this and feels more comfortable talking about it and doesn't feel alone, then it's all been worthwhile. while definitely um i'm i'm i'm going to start slightly left field because i didn't know you were a customs officer yeah um help help me understand that that job like what you must have come across all walks of life and weird and wonderful like yeah give me a snapshot i'm just i'm more fascinated after university doing an archaeology degree with no desire to be an archaeologist and applied for a job at heathrow and you go on a lot of training for a few months to learn how to read people and tell if someone's lying and then you get stuck in the airport channels and you have to stop people who you suspect are carrying illegal goods.

4:40We used to find lots of people importing drugs and cigarettes and cash, animal products, all sorts of weird and wonderful things from around the world, some more weird and some more disgusting and others but it was a good job for a few years it gave me lots of confidence it helped particularly in this industry I think there's a lot of um you know it can be a lot of smoke and mirrors in media and understanding people's angles and and their motivations has been it all came down to that to that job really trying to be able to read people yeah that's that's I mean as a ceo uh Obviously, you can get trained as you get more senior.

5:27They put you into different courses. But I would imagine the training you had in customs, invaluable. Yeah, it was invaluable. I mean, we went to a hotel for a few months and weren't really allowed out. And it was just non-stop sort of closed off training, I guess, to try and brainwash you in a way to teach you how to read people. and you have to make a really quick snap decision. The time you've got to decide whether someone's worth stopping or not is two or three seconds as they walk past you. And you've got to take in loads of different data points in that moment from what they're wearing, how they're walking, what sort of bags they've got.

6:08There's all sorts of bits of information you can take very, very quickly from somebody. And I couldn't ever pinpoint why I stopped somebody. You were told to write in your report a reason for stopping someone. you had to have a reason but it just came down to a whole host of different things like the things I just mentioned and yeah you have to learn to recognize really really quickly a view on somebody and whether or not you think they're being truthful or not or looking a bit dodgy that's bad so yeah it was it was fun for a while when I was in my 20s but after four years uh the shift work of getting up getting up at five in the morning and um finishing work at one in the morning it was fine as a 21 year old but I didn't want to do it forever can you share an example of maybe how you've been able to apply that um in either making a good or possibly a bad judgment call um yeah it helped definitely in marketing moving from from customs as the marketing team I then went to the electoral commission and we all know that creative agencies and media agencies sometimes have an agenda and are trying to do the best for their clients, but also have to do what's right for their business as well to survive.

7:27And I think having that experience in meetings with people from agencies made me able to relate to them in a sort of no bullshit way. Whereas if someone was to say something I didn't quite believe, I'd be like, look, just cut the bullshit, Just tell me the truth and let's find a way for us both to work through how we can both do well out of this. And I think that has stuck with me throughout my career, this honesty and transparency. I've always found the more honest and transparent you are and upfront about things, the more you get back. And I try and build that relationships with clients and with media partners, data suppliers, for example, where you can just try and be really honest with people and get the best out of a situation for you and them.

8:15And that leads to just better relationships and more success. I wouldn't say that it's always been brilliant. I think when I first joined the marketing team at Customs, I was a bit too gung-ho about it. And I'd ask really pointed questions in meetings and sometimes I get a bit too attached on a detail. Okay. and and really go for them about it um so that probably is that is the one area i'd say i struggle with is if i if i know a fact is wrong and someone's giving it to me i get pretty pretty annoyed and and sort of go for it a little bit so i'd say yeah that that doesn't always lead to the best relationships and can make you a bit get bit spiky fascinating stuff so um ceo of mobster um uh i guess you know there's probably high stakes uh it's a tough market um for every business out there as you said before you know agencies will have agendas i think every business has an agenda right ultimately you know everyone is survive and grow and everyone is looking to to unlock the opportunities and i guess progress both themselves and and the people that they work with but that probably comes at a cost I would say one of the reasons that I invited you on the podcast you know was it sounds like you've had a bit of a journey in terms of yes you've always had some sort of mental health challenge whether that's anxiety maybe not feeling as good as you could or should should feel was there a moment over the course of the last you know 10 years of your career in which on the outside everything is a-okay you know matt longley whatever role you're in let's take you know ceo button down together knows his numbers you know pretty easy to work with motivates his team but behind you know that title behind the curtain if you pull it back there was something very different.

10:26I think when I go back to 2016, running the government team at Cara, there were 80 people on my team. They were an amazing team. We did all the media buying for government. It was a really big spend, but the stakes were really high. We had the Brexit referendum coming up. And the pressure on us as a team there was immense. The pressure from government to get the right outcome for them was immense. And as public sector marketers, what I learned in the civil service was that the government's agenda should always be never funded publicly. So you shouldn't be using public funds to fund the government's argument over something.

11:19You use the public funds to make cases for behavior change for policies and for things that benefit people. This was the first time that the government really got behind one side, which was to stay in the EU. and while I agreed personally with that I was really uncomfortable about the fact that they were sort of breaking an unwritten rule about how to use public funds I think at one point I was told I used to go for weekly meetings at number 10 and the person who I don't need to name I sort of voiced this to this concern and he said shut the fuck up and just do your job and that would that became that point on a really toxic relationship every time i walked into the room they would between the two of them they would um belittle me and basically call me names and and shout at the meetings when it room with three people in they would shout across the table and it got to the point where they were calling or their team were calling me at 3am on a Tuesday morning and if I didn't answer my phone they would just keep ringing keep ringing and maybe after sort of eight or nine rings and my wife wondering what was going on they would say that someone's commented on a Facebook post and we need to get it taken down and I was like well there's no one in the office to do that um we don't have a team working 24 7 on this I'd then get hauled in the next morning to explain why we didn't have someone at 3am on a Tuesday morning that went on for months and unfortunately I didn't have any support at the agency from anyone more senior than me the answer then was you're running the team this is your relationship which I was fine with um I felt like I was doing a good job but the pressure just got way too much and I got to a point one morning I was going for a meeting and I was still at the train station and watched the train coming in and for a split second just thought gosh it would be easier if I just stepped in front of that train and it really shook me because my dad died when I was seven from from suicide and as soon as I thought that I thought about my kids and how him not being there affected me and my brother and sister and I was so upset with myself even for two or three seconds for thinking this would be a way out.

13:52So I went to the office and spoke to my manager and called in HR and broke down and said, I can't do this anymore. This is not, I just can't go to the next meeting. And I had two weeks off and went cycling and did some interesting stuff with my time and played with my young kids at the time and came back. I remember a meeting I had just before I came back with my boss and he said um you know we were just waiting for this to happen but at least it's happened now and I said what what's happened he said you know the breakdown we could see it was coming but um at least it's out the way now and we can all move on and I was like this isn't right like that that's not an okay response and that's when I spoke to the team and said look this is what's happened this is where I was away for two weeks because everyone had been asking how my holiday was wondering why I'd taken a holiday at such a critical time and I said I haven't taken a holiday I know that was a story everyone was told here but I was off for you know sick leave because I wasn't capable of working and if I'm honest going back after two weeks wasn't great for me at all they had put some changes in in the time that I'd been off and they brought some people in to help my role but that whole situation was broken for me at that point I couldn't really carry on so I spoke internally about moving within Densio onto a different team I went to Visium and worked on Camelot and TSB and Weetabix which was very very different to government much more the team I had a planning team of 10 people there and I really enjoyed the two years there it wasn't easy at all some clients are really really difficult none quite as hard as as government but um just a different set of challenges but i do think that period in 2016 broke me as a human in terms of my ability to have um meetings with clients without being without panicking and without having massive anxiety attacks and that's still last to this day i still get panicked whenever i'm meeting you know an end client um it's just sort of drilled into me that that's my response.

16:10When we spoke before, I didn't know that. That's quite a, thank you for sharing. Do you think, and I guess there's two parts to this question, but it's one of the same. Do you think that you had a responsibility to play in how you felt and some of the actions. And then I guess on the flip side to that, was there, do you regret, was there something you wish you'd said at that time? Weird, I don't have any regrets because I think all the challenges I've had and all their difficult times have in one way or another led me to be who I am now. I certainly couldn't be doing this job now without having experienced that.

17:01I do think the responsibility was partly on me. the situation itself was was rubbish but I I think I've held responsibility towards the team rather than myself and I didn't want them to experience what I was experiencing and I wasn't taking anyone to meetings with me um I was telling my you know seniors at the company about it but that was kind of falling on deaf ears at the time and um I just wanted to protect the team I think in hindsight if I brought some of them into those meetings with me it might not have been so bad for me but at the same time it would have been really bad for them and I didn't really want to put anyone through that so um yeah that's just been a common thread through my career that any team I work with I I want to protect you know religiously almost and that's what I'm trying to do it at mobster now but in a far more open and honest yeah way i have in the past i think a lot of the people that have come on you know we were speaking to a guest two guests this morning actually and it's a consistent theme you know brilliant leaders uh or leaders that are showing up differently want to put their team first they're constantly thinking about how they can support their team um yes of course that work needs to be delivered but where are their opportunities they can help elevate them how can they demonstrate empathy um be able to show vulnerability and support them when they're going through tough times and and and i guess maybe we're in a slightly different maybe we're in a slightly different place now in the world where we're more receptive towards this stuff and that's partly why i've launched this podcast because generationally i i think the people in the industry know themselves better than we did when we were younger and that's not a um an elitist arc the young ones versus the old ones i think it's fundamentally changed yeah i think they're more comfortable in voicing their opinions i think they're more uh they're more sure of where they want to be and where they want to go their values and they're not really willing to compromise on that so you know i think i think the world has changed but leaders brilliant leaders hasn't i think the same thing applies as it did then as it does now yeah i think you have to stick up for people i've had bad managers in the past and they've been just as important as the good ones because it makes you realize what you don't want to be and the way you feel around bad managers about yourself and about the job isn't nice and I can't work out why any human would want to make anyone else feel like that um I'm a really strong believer in if you're just kind to people that that will come back to you unfortunately there are just some people who for whatever reason don't appear to be kind and and and don't get along now that that could be because of their own stresses and um one thing i've worked on a lot over the last few years with with my therapist has been um not judging people for behaving a certain way because they might have all sorts of other things going on their lives that that mean they're that way and you know people i know but also just you know drivers not saying thank you and i've let them out i get really angry about it and and actually they've got a whole host of things going on in their heads that that mean they're not saying thank you i think uh it's one of one of the big things in recovery that i've learned is you know i can very quickly get into self very quickly get into a head full of resentment fear um my ego can play uh into this stuff and and if i flip it the other way if someone has a disagreement with me i have to look at my part in it yeah number one but also i have to show compassion and love and empathy because that person might have other stuff going on and and i've been through stuff in in in the workplace you know all through my career um where something's happened and certainly in the last 10 years i'm i'm course correcting in the day in the moment as much as i can um because why let it drag on why you know it doesn't it doesn't help but i do think that's because i do have a tolerance and understanding that it's not all about me yeah it's not all about me danny you know um i i think as as well there are there are lots of triggers that we face in the workplace and people are triggered in different ways and understanding a bit about the triggers that you know set you off either to feel or think or act in a certain way would be really good to understand yeah the big change for me over the last few years um i self-injured for the first time 2021 22 period so after covid um having never done it before um i don't know where the desire came from it just happened I'd always assumed and always attributed any anxiety and stress to work throughout my life and going to mobster was a really weird moment because I genuinely loved the job I loved the company I loved the people I worked with and after covid going back to work it was busy but successful it was going well but I was feeling like I was starting to have panic attacks and I couldn't really put my finger on why when I was really enjoying work and then I started realizing that actually it was about my kids which is really hard to admit because I love my kids I've got three children who are absolutely everything to me I know everyone says that they genuinely are everything to me and everything I do ultimately is for them.

23:25And there was a lot of pressure to feel that way and to feel like they are everything to you. And despite feeling that way, I had enormous social anxiety when being out with him. So if we were out shopping and this is not now, this is, this is how old are they at this point? At the moment they're 13, 10 and eight. Okay. So, so four or five years ago, you know, nine, six and, and five. yeah um when we'd be out i can think of one specific example we were in the shopping center cheering to go into a restaurant i don't know why we chose the restaurant with a queue but we did and they all started acting up and and arguing and bickering and sort of hitting each other and i couldn't deal with it i couldn't deal with the idea that other people were looking at me thinking god he's a bad parent and it was all down to this social anxiety of people think i'm doing the wrong thing and i don't think i am but i don't know how to prove that i'm doing the right thing here and that particular occasion i had a panic attack and my wife said just just go go away like have some time we'll come and find you in a minute and when you say a panic attack how did that manifest um the sort of walls closing in starting to sweat um looked like the lights were dimming feeling a bit dizzy couldn't really breathe and I went and sat down and that lasted for maybe 10 minutes and I was in the middle of the shopping center I mean it was quite clear that I was not in a great way but no one came to help and that was fine because I kind of wanted to ignore the world but the rest of the world sort of shut off around me and I just just kind of shut down and I just chalked it off as a that's weird you know I don't usually have those and went back to work the next day and and thought work was great and then the next weekend we were out and it happened again when we were in some shops again around people and that panic about what people thought to me as a parent really really kicked in and we had some friends over on the sunday and i think after they left i broke a glass in the sink by accident and i looked at the glass and just thought i wonder what would happen if i cut myself on that and that was all it took i couldn't get that thought out of my head and the next few weeks was um a series of incidents of me trying to cut myself um I tried everything in the house and it's really really hard to do that's what I found out um and after a few weeks of it um I showed my wife because I realized I couldn't cover it up anymore I was really careful to do it in places that she wouldn't see so quite high up on my legs or behind my arms um and as soon as she saw she was like that's not good like she kind of knew that I was trying, I think, and didn't know what to do about it.

26:46But when she saw that, she was like, this isn't good. You need to sort this out and work out why you're doing it. And I spoke to the doctor and had a little bit of time off work, not a huge amount of time, but just a bit of time off work. And again, I was really honest with work and just said, it's not work that's doing this. It's a whole host of other things. And it's about the pressure of being in society. And if I think about it like now it's pretty obvious that that's after lockdown and going back into to things and behaving a certain way um and I reached out to a local therapist and emailed her and said this is a situation and the first time I spoke to her I spent 45 minutes in tears not really knowing what to do she was really really good and she said look first things first I'm not gonna be able to stop you doing it just today because the urges are there and there's nothing I can say to you today that will stop you doing it so what I want you to do is make sure that you you are safe and making sure you don't really really hurt yourself end up going to hospital over the next few weeks with her we talked it through about why I was doing it and it was the need for a release and I couldn't get away from a situation like being out with the kids in and feeling that societal pressure if i couldn't get away from the situation that's when the thought came into my head and as soon as that thought entered my head there was nothing i could do to stop and i knew it was wrong and or you know it's not a particularly nice thing to do to yourself and um over time the thing that helped me most was just my therapist to supporting me through it and trying to understand why I was doing it and look for other ways to get that release and there are a whole host of other ways I've sort of managed that release through writing I did a comedy course last year a stand-up course and I had to do a few performances at the end of it and the writing there became really therapeutic and I haven't really written anything vaguely creative since since school and suddenly having to sort of force yourself an hour a night to to write it I went through a period of six months doing that course without any thoughts of of self-injury at all um I've been working with my therapist on grounding techniques and you know breathing exercises and kind of feeling the seat beneath you and focusing on five things around you um so it's been a few months since i have i'd say probably i still do it once or twice a year not to the same degree that i used to in the past i mean at one point my left arm was completely covered in in cuts and and scabs it was really not very nice um and that's why i have tattoos now i've covered my arms in tattoos and and um there was a really really nice moment with the with the tattoo artist where about six hours in because it's quite a long session i said i don't know if you've noticed the the scars that she went i know and i was like oh and that's all she said i know and it it was just such a supportive nice message and i get the impression she's seen it a lot actually that's incredibly brave of you to share um i kind of just i i was trying to uh i was trying to put myself in your shoes and i at the beginning when you talked about the shopping center um actually we talked about it before on a previous episode um i love silence really happy in silence and sometimes i struggle when there's too much noise around me at home but i remember my stepson when he was younger and there were moments when you do you know you do think that i think that's perfect i actually think that's that's a fairly common thought yeah i'm not going to generalize the whole population but I think there's a common thought of what does everyone think of me, whether that's in the work or outside, let alone to have a multiple of three in a busy environment where it's already stressful anyway.

31:25I think it's enough to kind of push anyone over. And it's only when you got to the end and you, and you mentioned that period where we were locked away, I think we were slightly cocooned from everything. Yeah. And all of a sudden you had to integrate the two worlds together again. And we'd only known peace and quiet and circles of six and back gardens. And it was a very safe place. It was lovely. If I'm honest, that was probably the best time of my life. I don't think I've ever enjoyed my family life more. I loved that year. But that's what I mean. no pressure from a from a societal point of view it was just at home and you could work and the weather was nice it was just you know i'm very privileged to be able to say that i realized that you know having a house with a garden meant we were in a good position and i could enjoy it and make the most of it um and plenty of people had a horrible time um but yeah going from that to suddenly having to switch the two together and feeling the pressure to to go back out and start seeing clients again in person and um yeah it was tough time and that that's probably where work did trigger it a little bit but not because of work but because of the situation that everyone had placed themselves in what was the point where you thought i either don't want this or i need to change yeah i think um after about six months of the self-injury i had one accident i had to call my wife up and she was like again she was a bit so shocked not shocked but just that you have to stop doing this like that's enough now and i think that chat was just me going okay i've taken this too far and I'm going to end up in hospital and, or doing something worse.

33:17And I think it's really important to highlight that the self-injury wasn't a suicidal thing. And I think a lot of the time when you're talking to doctors or, you know, healthcare specialists, there can be an assumption that self-harm or self-injury leads to suicidal thoughts. and they weren't linked anyway I didn't want to end it all or stop being there it was quite the opposite I did it to feel more alive and to almost have proof that I was there and and feeling something um so I wasn't ever worried in that sense and talking through it with my therapist so there was no concerns in that area and my wife was never worried about me doing anything silly like final but that one occasion she was like this you just got to stop it and it wasn't in a nasty way it was a really supportive but almost like a parent that's enough now and that moment stopped it for a good year or so um and like i say since then it's once or twice a year where the feeling comes back and it and it's nowhere near what it used to be

34:37and it's been yeah been a few months since I did it and I think it'll just be something that's always vaguely there that I can never get away from properly I'm thankful in a weird way that it came so late in life because I think when you read about self-injury a lot of it is unfortunately with teenagers and younger people and that was another reason I was sort of embarrassed about it was because if you look at anything online about it it's all teenagers young people and I was like well I just feel like slightly ridiculous like I'm a grown man and I'm running a company and I've got three children and a family and a house and I shouldn't be acting like this um but I did and I think all of it has led me to be who I am I wouldn't change anything but I think it would have been good to talk to someone a bit earlier particularly before that moment where enough was enough and you have to stop do you think it makes you any worse at your job do you think you're any less qualified to hold the role that you have um or do you think actually by sharing honestly that helps empower the people around you to know that it's okay not to be okay i think it's okay not to be okay and i think that's it's kind of why i was saying i don't regret any of it i don't think it invalidates my job or my position i think it's all made me who i am and being empathetic and wanting to share things like this is part of wanting to again going back to wanting to protect people and if I can use that experience in order to protect one person then it's it's for me it's been a worthwhile experience but I am in a position now where more than I think ever in my life I sit back and appreciate what I've got and we recently moved house into a slightly bigger house in the same area where we've always been in and more than ever I look around me and go gosh I'm lucky like this is an amazing life and I wouldn't change anything in the past but I feel really really lucky to have the family I have in the house I have in the town with the friends we have um and the friends we've got locally are incredible people and everyone's really supportive and i um wouldn't change anything now do friends know or um i don't think they know about the self-injury no and how would you feel if they saw this episode um i'd talk to them about it um again i i want to be open about it but I haven't really know how to talk about this in particular.

37:36I've been quite open about anxiety and stress in the past with people. But self-injury is a different thing. And yeah, I'd be happy to talk to anyone about it if they want to. But I'm also really aware that it's quite triggering and not a particularly nice topic to talk about. and if if i may ask why this why this podcast what what what do you think about this environment or forum or platform i think everything happens for a reason i think you said that just before this this started and the situation came up with this this colleague at work um you know offering to introduce us to and i just thought well now's a good time as any and i just think opportunities has come your way and you can either let them past or not.

38:30And it just felt like a good time to do it. I probably feel like I'm far enough away from the bad period now to talk about it confidently for the first time.

38:44And yeah, maybe people hearing this that don't know me will feel a little bit more comfortable about talking about their own issues if they hear it and know that someone else can openly talk about it. It's probably a good time to kind of draw to a close then.

39:02We talk about the permission slip, you know, and if you were to be able to give a physical slip to someone or just give them permission to think, feel, do, say, what would that be for you? I think there's still a stigma about talking to professionals. someone once said to me, I think I said to them, our therapy's never really done anything for me. And they said, well, how much have we done? And I said, probably like two or three occasions I've done a six week, you know, block of therapy sessions. And they were like, mate, you've got to do two years, like just weekly for two years. And that was so alien to me.

39:47I was like, I'm not like, I'm not the sort of person that needs a weekly therapist. And I committed to it. and that changed everything that there's there doesn't have to be a single point or a single thing that you think is wrong with you in order to talk to a therapist i think spending the time over a number of weeks months and then years investing in yourself you are absolutely investing in yourself it's not just that you're paying a therapist um helps you understand who you are and three years ago I remember the first session with the therapist I'm in now the very first session she asked me about the self-injury but also just what do you want to get out of this and I said I just want to work out who I am because I don't know who I am I feel like I've got a mask for this sort of meeting a mask for being at home a mask for um when I'm out with my friends a mask for when I do school drop-off I don't know who's behind any of those masks and what we've worked out over the years is all those masks are part of me I don't have to be one single thing behind it all um but we've unpicked what they all mean over the last um two or three years and we couldn't have got that deep into understanding why I think the way I do and how to deal with some of those things without really committing to it and that was yeah weekly for two years so I think permission slip it would be it's okay to talk to somebody without there being a single defining moment that forces you to go and do it you don't have to wait until it's that bad you can just go and talk to somebody and if you've got healthcare at work use it but also if you can afford to it's a really worthwhile investment paying for it on a weekly basis well um matt thank you so much for coming on um that's a tough topic to discuss personally um obviously there's a trigger warning on this episode to anyone and there's a wealth of resources out there across the nhs and other organizations um but i'd like to think that you will protect and you will help one other person who hears this and so for that you know i'm thankful um really appreciate you coming on thanks and it's been good to be here and look forward to people hearing this episode thank you thanks a lot man

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From the publisher

⚠️ Trigger warning take care when listening.


In this episode of Behind the Title, I speak with Matt Longley, CEO of Mobsta, about anxiety, leadership and a lived experience rarely discussed openly at senior level.


Matt shares what anxiety really looked like behind his title, from toxic pressure and burnout to late‑onset self‑injury, therapy, and learning that you don’t need to hit rock bottom to ask for help.


This is a raw, honest conversation about leadership, identity, and why struggling doesn’t make you weaker, it makes you human.

In any industry, job titles carry power, perception, and pressure. But behind every title CEO, CMO, CFO is a person navigating private challenges, mental health struggles, and silent turning points that shape who they are and how they lead.


Behind the Title is a candid podcast that pulls back the curtain on these personal stories.


Through honest, structured conversations with leaders at all levels, we explore the inner lives that fuel (and sometimes unravel) outer success.


Think of it as Alcoholics Anonymous for the media industry, but instead of substance, we talk about silence, stress, self-worth, and the systems that shape us.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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