304: The Mental Health Awareness Month Episode (Top 10 Mental Health Clips)

Host: Hey, everyone. Welcome back. Or welcome to an all new episode of the 20% podcast. This is the show that brings you tips and tricks from industry professionals across all industries that you can implement in your current job. Today, I'm your host, Tyler Mekis, and we're in the middle of May, which is Mental Health awareness month. So for this week's episode, I wanted to bring some of my favorite moments of guests talking about how they've overcome their own, um, mental health issues as well. So it's talking about overcoming anxiety and ADHD and getting stronger through pains and problems in their own lives as well. So this week we're going to be kicking off with my 10 top favorite moments from guest. So number one is Travis Tyler talking about how therapy changed his life with

Travis Tyler: obsessive compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder. I'm currently on medication to help with that. Helps me sleep better and helps me not hyper fixate on things as well. And it's changed my life. It saved my relationships, my marriage, my friendships. Um, and I've been in and out of therapy, like I said, for pretty much 10 years. And when you find a really good therapist, it's awesome. It really is just like a best friend that is paid, um, to actually not give you advice and just listen and help guide you on your therapeutic journey, unlike your dumb friends who give you advice when they don't really know shit.

Host: So,

Travis Tyler: um, it's been integral into progressing my career as well and being able to articulate, um, how I'm doing in different roles and what brings me fulfillment and what brings me joy. Um, because at the end of the day, I've realized that that's, that's what I'm, you know, if I can try to think. The little parent, the little, I think it's called Iggy Kai, where if you can get paid and have fun and bring meaning into the world and all three of those things overlap, then you're hitting Iggy Kai, I think, as it's called. It's like a Japanese structure.

Host: Next, number two, we have Anthony Natoli talking about how he got to the other side of tough times. Again, I have to ask you the question. Could you have ever imagined when you were in that spiral of gambling and being overweight and debt and all that stuff that you'd gone through, could you have ever imagined that those things, going through those things would have set you up to where you are today and the success that you've achieved? Because some of the most successful people that I know have gone through something crazy like that, but it switched your mindset into what you were doing. Like, you would not be the person you are today if you didn't go

Anthony Natoli: through that 100%, man. Obviously, at the time, I didn't realize it. I was scared, I was nervous. But my dad said to me a couple things. He's going to. He said, you're going to be so thankful you went through this now, and you won't realize it, right? Whether it was my breakup or going through my. My gambling or my weight loss. He was like, you're not going to realize it, but one day you're going to wake up and you're going to be like, wow, I'm glad I went through that. The second thing is, he said, you're going to be glad that you decided to make a change today, because if you didn't, who knows how bad it could have gotten, right? When I think about me, specifically with my gambling, you said, thank God that you found. You found the courage to change at 26. And it wasn't when you were 46 and you had a family and a house and a mortgage and kids, right? So it's about, um, really understanding that if you can make a change, you know that on the other side, it's going to be growth and a different person. And it's uncomfortable, right? Growth is an uncomfortable endeavor. It requires discipline. It requires days where you just feel like giving up, but you keep going, you'll come out the other side a different person. And that's kind of why I started posting on LinkedIn. I want to champion that. That idea that people can live and think in a different way if they choose to.

Speaker D: Right?

Anthony Natoli: All starts with the choice, right? And, um, no, I never imagined in a million years I would be where I'm at today. Um, but man, it. I'm glad I am. And now that I'm in the position that I am, I have so much gratitude. When people ask me how I'm doing, I say, yeah, I've got problems, but they're way better than they used to be. So what do I have to complain about, right? Makes my life very peaceful, knowing the things that I've been through. And, uh, I'm not saying to anyone out there to go mess up your life on purpose, but if you are struggling with something, just know once you get through that, you have an insane amount of perspective, insane amount of gratitude, and then you can give back and help others. It's. It's a beautiful thing.

Host: Up next is number three, Anna Morgan, and she talks about how ADHD is her superpower. So important to stand up for something that you'd like to do despite everybody else maybe not seeing it the same way.

Anna Morgan: Yeah. You know, it's taken me a long time, I would say, to like, find my. My voice or to be able to stand in my power in that way. Um, because I grew up, you know, not fitting in the traditional mold. Like, I was diagnosed with ADHD early on, where, you know, it's not as a. Wasn't a hot trend or a very normal thing as it is recognized. Right, right. I, um, was medicated early. Um, so I had to deal with the kind of side effects of that. Um, and I struggled in school. I, you know, we didn't have access to the different ways to learn as we do today as well. Uh, so, you know, I had to deal with facing, you know, not being successful in these terms. And, you know, that changed my career trajectory, you know, where I was going to go to college, what, what I had access to. Right. So I, you know, I always figured it out. I was always very much in that problem solving kind of mindset. And I failed a lot. You know, um, I failed out of the University of Georgia after the 1996 Olympics. And, you know, I had to pick myself back up and go back school full time when I was working full time and finished my degree in 2006. But I also feel like it's, you know, sometimes things happen at the time that they're supposed to, and for me, the way my brain works and the way I learn. I loved going back to school as an adult after I had had some real life experience. So, you know, I think if there was a way I could talk to little Anna today, I would encourage her to, you know, trust herself more, you know, trust her intuition. Because I now know that that is absolutely one of my superpowers. It makes me an incredible saleswoman, it makes me an incredible coach and recruiter. Um, and that is something that has consistently served me well throughout my career. So it's giving yourself grace, forgiving yourself, and not staying in that shame cycle, um, and trusting that you'll be able to see these brighter spots as long as you're willing to keep working on yourself and being willing to ask for help and, um, you know, just striving to be the best person that you can be, um, you know, while you're here on this earth for the short amount of time that we're here. Right.

Host: Fourth on today's list is Ian Cognac, and he's going to be Talking about getting stronger through the pain.

Ian Cognac: I mean, you need to develop your faith. You need to develop your blind faith. And all I can tell you is every time I've had the biggest triumphs in my life, I've had the hardest times right before those triumphs. So I'll just give you two more examples. When I became number one at Salesforce, I had missed my quota three years in a row prior. I was this close to leaving the company. I was this close to going to Microsoft, and I decided to stay the course, and I actually finished number one and made a million dollars. So if I hadn't stayed the course in, like, you know, stuck it out, like, I would not have gotten that okay. Before I got into recovery for. For addiction, I nearly lost my family, right? So, like, I was in the darkest place in my life. And so I've seen firsthand, like, when you are walking in the fire, right, if you just, like, escape and you leave, then you just bail out, like you're going to miss the reward that's on the other side that you can't see. So developing blind faith and knowing why, uh, you're in the fire in the first place, you got to go back to that, right? You got to go back to that. And it really is. It's the book behind you, and in my opinion, that lets people embrace the suck. And, and, you know, and again, if it's something that, like, you know, knowing when to stick it out versus when to leave, I mean, that's just. That's just your. Your gut, right? It's. It's like, this isn't. There's no future here. Uh, everyone's left. The top person's making 200k in my company, whereas, you know, other companies are making 500k or more. Like, you know, you got to be smart. Uh, about. My manager just left the company is. The stock is tanked. Like, okay, maybe, yeah, that's probably not a good environment for you to be in. But a lot of the times when we leave or when we bail out, it's because it's getting tough, and we just haven't developed the.

Joe Espinosa: The.

Ian Cognac: The armor to. To. To stick it out. So really examine why am I leaving and am, um, I going to get what I want on this other place? Because for me, when I left Salesforce, it wasn't because, you know, to. To go become a coach. It wasn't because, you know, of. Of. Of, uh, my. My money or it wasn't because of leadership or culture. I would never go to another company out of Salesforce because I could just transfer within or I could do something else and, and stay the course. It was because of a mission of wanting to serve people at a different level than what I could do when working for a company selling a software product. So that became a great reason to leave. Right when I left Rico, it was because I was maxed out there and SAS was the future and I saw Salesforce and what it could do. That was a great reason to leave. But leaving because you're not successful, the only time you're ever going to do that is if you've done everything you can and you've given it enough time and you've really, really, um, you know, don't fool yourself. Most people don't give it their all. Most people give it about 50% frankly. Right. The elite performers give it their all. They're in this all in state. So if you're not an all in state, get yourself to an all in state. Give it time to sustain it and if your results still don't improve right then, okay, at least you can say I did all I could. But if you haven't done all you could, like you're just running away from something that frankly you're going to find anywhere you go, which is yourself, right? To develop that work, work ethic and those habits and, and really treat it as a, as a gift because you're, you're getting stronger in those, in those moments of, of, of of pain.

Host: Okay, Number five on today's show is from Joe Espinosa and he's talking about a mindset 101 course that he would like to create.

Joe Espinosa: Set would probably go into it, right? I think that would be the core of it is uh, I think once again it just stretches across relationships, professional, personal, um, you know, and I think you're a great example of that. Of like, hey, how do you bring value? How do you build people up? Um, how do you surround yourself in a community, right, that empowers you to be a better dad, be a better husband, right. Provide more value, grow personally, professionally. Uh, and I think once again going back to the decision making stuff, right, I think that's something that isn't uh, probably talked about as often or as frequently. I think that would be a, ah, great aspect. These 18 year old cousins you're mentioning, I think everybody could get a ton of benefit just from having more of those, those conversations.

Host: Number six on today's episode is from Rachel Drunkenmiller and she's talking about normalizing frustration.

Rachel Drunkenmiller: And so just by Admitting and acknowledging that work is a more of a source of my identity than I want it to be. Other people that feel that way are like, oh, okay, now, I'm not weird for saying that or thinking that, right? Or recently there was a group I was working with a professional services firm, and we did a workshop on resetting mindset. And we had them go into a conversation in a breakout room. You know, small groups, three people, and share what's a way that they've adapted in the pasture that they're proud of. And before I sent them in, I walked them through. Elizabeth, um, Kubler Ross came up with these different five stages of grief. And so I put a chart on the screen and I walked them through, and I said, hey, what you may be deeming laziness or, uh, a lack of motivation or a lack of energy could actually be grief in disguise. And I think in the past year, because of how much loss we've experienced, and different people have experienced different kinds of loss, but we all lost something or someone to acknowledge that the grieving process includes frustration, anger, and sadness. And so just by normalizing the process, somebody came back from one of those rooms, shared how helpful it was to just be in conversation and realize she wasn't the only one dealing with these things, and then admitted to the whole group, hey, I'm at that green dot where the depression is. That's where I'm feeling in front of 70 of her peers.

Host: Wow.

Rachel Drunkenmiller: So because I normalized what they were going through and because I shared my own, I went through this too. You know, when I touch on, it went through, you know, a really bad accident in 2020. I was angry and I was frustrated. I was sad, and it's not linear. And just when you think you're good, something triggers you and you go right back to frustration. It's not a lin. It's a messy process to normalize. That for people was suddenly this, like. Almost like they could take a. Like they could take a breath, you know?

Host: Next on today's show is my friend Darren McKee, and he's talking about the importance of having a working parent coach. Let's see what Darren has to say.

Speaker D: I have a working parent coach. That's going to sound very weird to the people that don't understand what I mean by that, but I have a coach that's designated in family dynamics, and she helps me understand how to navigate this new normal. It is very foreign to me. Um, I am not one of those people that you read about in a Deloitte or an Accenture study that says, like, people are thriving at home. That's not me. Right. Like, I love my family to pieces, and I would do anything for them. I've never seen them this much in my life. Um, and so having the ability to be able to step away and go to a co. Working spot where. Or go to a coffee shop, um, or go to an actual office is really important for me. And so I think as long as they understand that, like, Daddy is here, he is working. But you. I am in your home. I am in their house. I can't control what they do. Um, and maybe this won't last forever. Who knows? But, um, it hasn't been 100% easy. And I think some people are thriving in it, and some people are trying to just figure it out. I'm one of those figure it out people.

Rachel Drunkenmiller: Okay.

Host: Coming in, number eight on today's show is Brian Seagray. And it is taking on tough times.

Speaker I: I think one of the coolest things that my dad did or that taught me, um, and this has stuck with me, like, forever. And I think it's probably why I post all those sunrise photos and those messages is almost every day I would remember, you know, we'd be out there working hard, and we would stop working as the sun was rising. My dad would take me and my brother and we'd sit, like, on the tailgate, or we'd sit on the fence and we'd watch the sun come up. And my dad would just explain to us, or he'd always have some kind of a lesson about how, you know, like, hard work, you know, is something that is necessary, but so is stopping and taking the time to take in that moment or, you know, take in, you know, that sunrise or, you know, just reflect on, you know, where your day's been and where it's going. So I think for me, um, it was just very early on being taught that, you know, even with hard work, you can intersperse some moments of break kind of, you know, in there. Um, and that it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Right. It can just be, you know, um, something simple like taking a look at nature or whatever. So I think for me, um, that that was something that always stuck with me, was that even with him working as hard as he did, he always found time, you know, for his kids.

Host: Yeah. I mean, and it's so often too. I mean, I think that this is a great reminder for everybody to just take a big step back. And I wish I wasn't in this Dark dungy basement right now just go, go look out into nature.

Speaker D: Right.

Host: I think and that, that comes through Brian, in all of the posts that you have. And it's, you're, you're all about nature and you're all about how that has helped you through some, some good times, helped you through a lot of the bad times. Um, but ultimately I think it's really interesting that your dad helped you so much with slowing down because I feel like, and especially in this world, especially where we're not just playing with, you know, sticks in the mud now, where it's, it's an always on kind of thing, we need to be moving and if we're not moving, we feel unproductive. At least. Number nine is Chris Bogue talking about overcoming tough times in his life.

Speaker J: Hey, a couple things. One, uh, talk to a therapist. Just do it. I, you know, I'm not a mental health expert. I don't pretend to be one. All I can do is say what it did for me. But I see a lot of people on LinkedIn giving mental health advice and it's like, hey, actually the best person to ask for mental health advice is a therapist. Because, um, especially like sometimes what I was going through, it was very frustrating that my friends didn't want to talk to me. And um, you know, men are not good at dealing with heavy, uh, emotional issues sometimes. But it's kind of like they're not equipped to handle that, you know. So it's like I recommend to people, I got a great piece of advice. Someone told me in my life, they said if you're going through life changes, like new job, lost a job, got married, got divorced, start a relationship, end a relationship, uh, whatever it is, if you're going through two or more of those things at the same time, go talk to a therapist even if you don't feel depressed. Like those are such life rearranging, pressure filled situations on their own. Just talk to somebody because they talk to people who help, you know, they help people through situations like that all the time. It helps, you know, so first and foremost, just talk to someone. I know it's hard, I know sometimes there's stigmas. I know this is a big one with me. Sometimes you've tried it before in the past and it wasn't great. Um, you know, you gotta try somebody else because sometimes you find somebody you're actually comfortable, you know, telling everything to. And uh, sometimes it's not the first or second or third person you've tried, you know, so that's, that's the big thing I'll say is like, no matter what, actually seeking out help from people who can help you. That's step one.

Host: And finally, number 10, we have Mr. John McCaskill, and he is going to be talking about how you should be taking yourself less seriously.

Speaker K: Yeah, I think, you know, to start, you just got to take yourself less seriously. Um, you know, society and so many things, um, that we see and kind of adhere to are these standards of, hey, you have to have this level of job, this level of income, drive this kind of car, live in this kind of house, whatever, in order to say, hey, I've succeeded. But is that true, a true measure of success? Maybe, Maybe playing with your kids, uh, on a regular basis and having them laugh and giggle, maybe that's, uh, another metric of success, um, and those types of things. So I think to start being playful, you got to take yourself less seriously. And I mean, sure, there's times we still have to be serious, right? We still have to be serious behind the, behind the wheel of a car. We still have to be serious when we're, uh, when we're being contracted to do X, Y or Z. Um, but you can still, even with that, have fun, uh, at times and take yourself less seriously. I think that's going to lay the foundation for having more fun and being more playful, specifically.

Host: All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed all of these incredible guests, uh, talking about mental health and really bringing more mental health awareness in May. Now, if you enjoyed just those little micro clips from these shows, these were all full conversations, so you could check them all out in the show notes below. Thank you so much and hope you have a great rest of your day and a great rest of your May. Thanks.