prince harry has made its first public appearance in 2022, attending a virtual summit for mental health startups better up.
In an interview from his California home, the prince teamed up with the tennis star. Serena Williams and BetterUp CEO Alexi Robichaux to discuss all things mental health, from burnout to fostering “mental fitness.”
The panel was organized for the new company Inside Work event, being the “inner work” “a conscious and attentive effort to organize the interior of you: your thoughts and reactions, your feelings and instincts”.
Check out a clip from the panel above.
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BetterUp offers personal coaches for individuals, teams, and businesses to improve mental health, connections, and overall performance. Harry was named BetterUp’s director of impact in March of last year.
In the panel discussion, the prince revealed that he had suffered from exhaustion.
“I experienced exhaustion and I came to the end of everything I had. Whatever fuel I had in the engine, I was like, boom,” he reveals.
“That’s when you’re forced to look within yourself. When everything else around you is seemingly working against you. The only way you can build resilience in your entire environment is through internal work.”
In the conversation, Prince Harry said that the hardest part for most people was finding time to do this “inner work” and take time for oneself.
“Everyone has such busy days, if you have 15 minutes of blank space… I allocate half an hour or 45 minutes in the morning when one child has gone to school and the other is napping, there is a break in our program,” he says.
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The prince assured viewers that while it can be difficult to commit to constant self-care, viewers should remember that the goal is “mental fitness,” which can offer invaluable resilience.
“Mental fitness is the pinnacle, it’s what you’re looking for. The road to that can be very bumpy… it’s called inner ‘work’ for a reason. Outer work [becomes] much easier when the internal work fits,” he says.
As they chatted, Williams, a close friend of Harry and Meghan Markle, revealed that Harry was one of his favorite people to turn to when he needed advice.
“I know I joke around a lot, but actually Harry is one of my ‘coaches’. Every time I see him, he’s always solving all the problems in my life,” the tennis star revealed.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, I need to get some more issues worked out. When can I go?'” Williams joked. “Because you just, you always figure it out for me.”
Giving advice of her own, Williams said she learned the importance of keeping boundaries over the years.
“It’s very important to have limits, particularly for a professional athlete who is trying to reach goals and win, because if you don’t have those limits, you’re not going to achieve what you want to do,” he advised.
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