EAST SUFFOLK, UK. June 4th, 2026 – George Downey MBE is on a mission to tackle Britain’s workplace mental health crisis – in just 90 days.
George, a 20-year RAF veteran turned qualified psychotherapist, has devised a five-step plan to help business leaders resolve the conflict between their personal and professional lives.
Delivered through his business Integra Wellbeing and Performance, Lead From Your C.O.R.E.S aims to aid managers to go ‘from burn-out to thriving’.
“Work/life balance is imperative. As a society, we don’t put enough emphasis on that,” said George.
“I worked with leaders for 14 years and what I saw was this incongruence between self at home and self at work.
“A lot of people work in a job but don’t have their authentic self aligned to that job – who you are as a person may not be who you are in your professional life. The more closely overlapped you can get those two things, the better it is at work and home.”
C.O.R.E.S is an acronym, which stands for Clarity, Observation, Rules, Exchange and Stride.
“Clarity is about identifying your strengths, your values, , your vision, your mission and your purpose, while Observation is about developing better awareness of yourself, of others, of your environment and the situations you are in,” explained George.
“Rules covers your boundaries and standards, both personally and professionally. The idea is to really delve into whether those boundaries and standards are working, identify where they are not and where they do – and do not – align.
“Exchange is all about relationships and communication, at work and in your personal life, looking to your relationships, finding out which ones are working for you and which ones aren’t and how you are communicating. If your communication with someone, either personally or professionally, isn’t working, then you renegotiate the contract.
“And Stride is examining and assessing your goals and action and reflecting on them. You set out achievable goals, take the actions you need and then reflect on your success to understand how to replicate it in future.”
Mental health is a crucially important issue for George, whose life has been touched directly in the cruellest way: “I have lost four family members to suicide over 40 years,” he said.
“It was my maternal grandad, my maternal uncle, my dad and brother.”
It was this final bereavement that made George realise what he wanted to do as he looked towards the end of his time in the forces: “My brother Pat passed away in 2020,” said George.
“He was was only 25 and on the back of that, I started training as a therapist. During the last five years of my RAF career, I studied at night-school to become a qualified psychotherapist.
“My wife Cindy and I did a 350-mile walk from Glasgow to St Neot’s in Cambridgeshire in 2022, to raise awareness of the issue, covering 25 miles a day for 14 days.
“I have been in private practice for two years now and specialise in people affected directly by suicide, people who have tried to take their own life and have ended up in A+E. If they get referred by a suicide charity, they come to me.”
George’s work in the field has seen him twice honoured – he received a commendation from Her Majesty the Queen in 2022 and was made an MBE for services to personal and professional development and mental health two years later.
To find out more about George’s work and the Lead From Your Cores programme, visit integra-wellbeing-and-performance.co.uk.
