Two years ago, Chris Harrison couldn’t get out of bed. A talented graphic designer who once owned a successful design agency in London, Chris was rocked by the termination of a crucial contract. With no work, no drive and no hope, Chris fell into a mental and physical slump for six months.
“I had an identity crisis,” he explains. “I looked at myself and felt my purpose as a provider and a man was gone. I was lost. I’m pretty in tune with myself, and I could see the black cloud coming. It drove me to a real low point.”
This wasn’t the first time Chris had found himself at rock bottom. A decade before this episode, in 2014, Chris was suffering with depression, debt, weight gain, hypertension and a failing marriage. He sought professional help in the form of group therapy and turned his life around. Then, sensing a repeat in 2023, Chris delved into that valuable past experience and deployed the same tactics to pull himself out of a dark place and seek a brighter future. “I started coaching myself,” he says today in Dubai aged 52. “Self-motivation is my superpower, so I knew I had to get up and move. I healed myself.”
Now happily re-married and living a joyful life in Dubai, Chris retrained as a life coach and helps male clients both here in the UAE and around the world to live with purpose. He does this in both individual sessions and group therapy through Useful Men, a free community that meets on Friday mornings on the Palm.
“We sit on the beach and share stories, listen and then have a swim or do some breath work,” explains Chris. “These guys talk from the heart, and they want connection. There’s a lot of listening and a lot of laughter. Listening can be just as helpful and powerful as speaking because it reminds us that we’re not a failure and we’re not the only one feeling this.” Common feedback on the Useful Men WhatsApp group after these Friday morning sessions is, ‘I needed that.’
COVID had huge repercussions for our mental health and as a result, people sought out therapy. Often stereotyped as reticent to open up, Chris believes men have become far more comfortable with talking about their feelings. “I see a lot of guys who’ve already done therapy and that means they have examined quite a lot of stuff already,” he says. “All the talking’s been done, now men want to know how they can get out of this – that’s the difference between life coaching and therapy. One guy told me, ‘I can’t talk anymore about how I feel, I need to move forward.’ He wanted action and movement. Guys need to go out, throw things around, run and move. You can’t fix an issue with the mind by trying to fix the mind. You have to fix it in the body first. Activity opens everything up.”
Chris, tagged The Healthier Life Coach, is an excellent advocate for the methods he teaches. Up at 5am every day, he sees his children onto the school bus and then runs 6km. After a morning of working with clients, he lifts weights in the gym for an hour before conquering another 6km in the afternoon. “I’m in the best shape of my life and also the best headspace I’ve ever been in,” he smiles. “I have a new energy because I love what I’m doing and I’m excited for the day to start. Men are driven by a need for a purpose and this is my purpose.”
Dubai’s entrepreneurial spirit and fast pace provide exciting opportunities but Chris thinks this lifestyle can be detrimental to our mental health. Many of Chris’ Useful Men members and his individual clients work from home and get swept up in the pursuit of career goals.
“I talk to guys who are really invested in their families and work flat-out every day… but it’s like they’re sleepwalking. They get up early, go to work, come home, be with their kids, sit in front of the television for too long, have a rubbish night’s sleep and then start all over again. They’ve given up on themselves and have no energy. There’s a lot of disconnection and a lack of joy. That impacts your relationship with your children and your partner. They’re stuck in a cycle. I come in and help them to break that cycle.”
A good reader of people, Chris meets a client and identifies areas where they can enhance their lives. “People come to me with their problems and I can quickly see what they need to do, it feels really instinctive,” he says. “Men are stubborn; they retreat and give up. A man needs to feel he knows where he’s going and enjoy getting there. Men need purpose. When that purpose disappears, the whole thing starts to crumble.”
Alongside his roster of one-on-one clients, Chris aims to build Useful Men by collaborating with the wellbeing community in Dubai and running free sessions around the city, not only on the beach. “I want to give something back to the community,” says Chris. “It sounds really cheesy, but helping people is incredibly rewarding. I saw myself as a lone wolf for years, but I’ve learned we’re not meant to be solo creatures. I function better in a village than on an island. When we connect, we feel better.”
