From Personal Life Struggles To Mental Health Influencer And Advocate On Social Media With Brendon Kelly

1 00:00:00,633 --> 00:00:05,238 A lot of you who are listening to this, you're going to really resonate with 2 00:00:05,472 --> 00:00:10,110 because a lot of you have been going through a lot of personal life struggles. 3 00:00:10,844 --> 00:00:14,748 And so often it's multiple struggles. 4 00:00:15,281 --> 00:00:19,252 Maybe it's when you were growing up or maybe it's going on right now. 5 00:00:19,719 --> 00:00:22,822 And I call that complex struggles. 6 00:00:22,856 --> 00:00:25,558 It's layers and layers and layers of struggle. 7 00:00:25,825 --> 00:00:29,295 Well, I'm going to be talking about talking with 8 00:00:29,662 --> 00:00:34,100 somebody who has kind of rose from personal life struggles. 9 00:00:34,501 --> 00:00:39,472 And then he became a mental health influencer and advocate on social media. 10 00:00:39,472 --> 00:00:42,675 And I want I really want you to pay attention to this 11 00:00:42,675 --> 00:00:46,079 because he's not a mental health professional himself. 12 00:00:46,079 --> 00:00:49,883 He's not a clinician, but he works in the mental health space. 13 00:00:49,883 --> 00:00:52,952 And I want you to hear kind of his why? 14 00:00:53,253 --> 00:00:55,388 Why is he doing what he's doing? 15 00:00:55,655 --> 00:01:00,560 And then we'll listen in on how he became a social media influencer. 16 00:01:00,593 --> 00:01:01,461 Really cool. 17 00:01:01,461 --> 00:01:06,032 So the title of this episode is Rising from Personal Life struggles 18 00:01:06,366 --> 00:01:10,770 to becoming a mental health influencer and advocate on social media 19 00:01:11,071 --> 00:01:13,306 with Brendan Kelly coming up. 20 00:01:13,873 --> 00:01:19,512 Oh. Don't worry about today or things we cannot change. 21 00:01:19,779 --> 00:01:22,749 It's over the past weekend here. 22 00:01:23,116 --> 00:01:24,751 Welcome to the Mental Health Today's show. 23 00:01:24,751 --> 00:01:27,854 My name is John Cordray and I'm a licensed therapist 24 00:01:27,854 --> 00:01:30,290 and I'm also the host of the Mental Health Today Show. 25 00:01:30,290 --> 00:01:32,525 And I'm so happy that you are here. 26 00:01:32,525 --> 00:01:33,593 Very, very happy. 27 00:01:33,593 --> 00:01:36,763 And I cannot wait to introduce you to Brendan. 28 00:01:37,130 --> 00:01:39,065 You know, like I mentioned at the very beginning, 29 00:01:39,065 --> 00:01:42,001 he is not a clinician, but he has lived mental health. 30 00:01:42,202 --> 00:01:43,536 He's lived through it. 31 00:01:43,536 --> 00:01:47,907 He knows from a personal perspective what it's like. 32 00:01:47,907 --> 00:01:50,910 And now he works within that mental health space. 33 00:01:51,211 --> 00:01:56,416 And Brendan grew up with serious mental illness and substance abuse in his family, 34 00:01:56,916 --> 00:02:01,254 and he became a mental health advocate because he saw what happens 35 00:02:01,354 --> 00:02:06,259 when you don't have access and support and resources or even awareness 36 00:02:06,426 --> 00:02:07,393 for mental health. 37 00:02:07,393 --> 00:02:08,995 Brendan has been fortunate 38 00:02:08,995 --> 00:02:12,365 to work in entertainment as well as the digital health startups 39 00:02:12,765 --> 00:02:16,836 in a myriad of roles, and I can't wait to hear about those. 40 00:02:17,170 --> 00:02:19,606 Brendan Welcome so much to the to the show. 41 00:02:20,039 --> 00:02:22,175 Thanks, John. I'm happy to be here. 42 00:02:22,175 --> 00:02:24,244 I'm happy that you are here and I know 43 00:02:24,444 --> 00:02:27,780 you have a really interesting story and really interesting background. 44 00:02:28,081 --> 00:02:31,050 I would love just to kind of jump right into it, if you don't mind. 45 00:02:31,050 --> 00:02:35,522 And let's talk about some of your your personal life struggles and what those were. 46 00:02:36,623 --> 00:02:38,057 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting 47 00:02:38,057 --> 00:02:41,895 because when you're a kid, you don't really think of it as struggles. 48 00:02:41,895 --> 00:02:46,199 You know, you look you you look it at other kids in your neighborhood and you're 49 00:02:46,199 --> 00:02:49,035 like, well, they've got a really bad but it's not so bad over here. 50 00:02:49,536 --> 00:02:53,173 And so I grew up in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, 51 00:02:53,473 --> 00:02:56,476 and in a very Irish, Italian, Portuguese neighborhood. 52 00:02:56,476 --> 00:02:59,245 And I think par for the course was alcoholism. 53 00:02:59,245 --> 00:02:59,479 Right. 54 00:02:59,479 --> 00:03:03,816 Like all of these immigrants come over and, you know, my my dad included and 55 00:03:04,284 --> 00:03:08,988 and they they learn to deal with things the way that has been passed down 56 00:03:08,988 --> 00:03:10,323 from generation to generation. 57 00:03:10,323 --> 00:03:12,392 And that's men are old school. 58 00:03:12,392 --> 00:03:13,593 They don't talk about things. 59 00:03:13,593 --> 00:03:17,430 They you know, they go take action and, you know, 60 00:03:17,430 --> 00:03:21,434 whether that's positive or negative, they take action. 61 00:03:21,434 --> 00:03:21,901 And they 62 00:03:21,901 --> 00:03:26,439 and if they get into a spot of trouble, they they end up drinking quite a bit. 63 00:03:26,673 --> 00:03:29,542 And so that can go a number of different ways. 64 00:03:29,542 --> 00:03:33,079 But in my neighborhood, that was super common. 65 00:03:33,646 --> 00:03:37,083 And it was just the way that we we all grew up. 66 00:03:37,083 --> 00:03:39,118 And so I didn't know any different. 67 00:03:39,118 --> 00:03:41,221 I thought that was absolutely normal. 68 00:03:42,121 --> 00:03:45,959 You know, my my dad was a functional alcoholic, 69 00:03:45,959 --> 00:03:49,729 so he went to work every day and he provided for his family, you know, 70 00:03:49,862 --> 00:03:54,334 and he didn't come home and, you know, throw us down the stairs or anything. 71 00:03:54,334 --> 00:03:58,671 And so I didn't compare tively it didn't feel like I had it that bad. 72 00:03:59,072 --> 00:04:01,507 When I looked at some of my friends that I grew up with. 73 00:04:02,108 --> 00:04:05,311 But, you know, later on you start to realize that you don't really 74 00:04:05,311 --> 00:04:07,447 have a relationship with your with your father. 75 00:04:07,447 --> 00:04:08,881 And there's there's abuse. 76 00:04:08,881 --> 00:04:11,351 And and it was it was tough. 77 00:04:11,718 --> 00:04:13,653 But there's a part of me that always thinks like, 78 00:04:13,653 --> 00:04:16,289 I wasn't as bad as as my neighbors, 79 00:04:17,257 --> 00:04:19,158 the folks across the street. 80 00:04:19,158 --> 00:04:22,328 And I think that's I think that's pretty common as well. 81 00:04:22,362 --> 00:04:26,933 And then as a as a young adolescent, you know, 82 00:04:26,966 --> 00:04:31,437 I started to drink alcohol and, you know, there's a there's a bit of escapism. 83 00:04:31,437 --> 00:04:33,072 There's, you know, modeling 84 00:04:33,072 --> 00:04:36,743 that you've gotten from an early age where you think this is just what you do. 85 00:04:37,243 --> 00:04:42,515 And so I found that I had, you know, an addictive personality from the get go. 86 00:04:42,515 --> 00:04:48,187 And in any kind of struggles I had as a kid or as a young man, I, 87 00:04:48,421 --> 00:04:52,392 I found that the primary solution was to self-medicate. 88 00:04:52,625 --> 00:04:56,963 And so it wasn't long before I found myself in trouble and 89 00:04:57,096 --> 00:04:58,865 and needing to get help. 90 00:04:58,865 --> 00:05:01,601 And I would say, oh, 91 00:05:02,035 --> 00:05:05,371 gosh, probably when I got to college, I was I was always 92 00:05:05,371 --> 00:05:09,575 I knew that the only way out of of Boston for me was to go to college. 93 00:05:10,310 --> 00:05:14,314 And it wasn't a given where I came from, a very blue collar community. 94 00:05:14,314 --> 00:05:18,785 And so you, you either became the Tao Townees or the kids that we would 95 00:05:19,752 --> 00:05:22,622 call Townees sitting on their lawn. 96 00:05:22,622 --> 00:05:25,391 They're drinking beers, you know, they just they never leave. 97 00:05:25,391 --> 00:05:26,626 They're like, What's up, kid? 98 00:05:26,626 --> 00:05:28,861 They're for the rest of their life. 99 00:05:28,861 --> 00:05:30,963 They never leave where we grew up. 100 00:05:30,963 --> 00:05:33,032 And I didn't want to be a townee. 101 00:05:33,299 --> 00:05:36,969 I didn't want to join the armed forces, which is what my my dad had done to leave 102 00:05:37,003 --> 00:05:39,472 Boston and then ricochet right back. 103 00:05:40,406 --> 00:05:42,108 And I wanted to go to college. 104 00:05:42,108 --> 00:05:43,543 And so I needed to get 105 00:05:43,543 --> 00:05:47,146 some scholarship money and and try to get as far away as I could. 106 00:05:47,146 --> 00:05:49,882 So I went to the University of Colorado, Boulder. 107 00:05:49,882 --> 00:05:53,953 And, you know, you don't learn this until later on, but yeah, 108 00:05:54,187 --> 00:05:55,621 everything I was trying to escape, 109 00:05:55,621 --> 00:05:58,791 lo and behold, followed me there because the problem was me. 110 00:05:59,125 --> 00:06:01,327 It was wasn't where I was from. 111 00:06:01,994 --> 00:06:06,899 And so you know, I pulled a geographic and moved across the country 112 00:06:06,899 --> 00:06:10,703 and found that, lo and behold, I it didn't solve anything. 113 00:06:10,703 --> 00:06:13,506 Eventually, I had the same sort of problems that I had back home. 114 00:06:13,506 --> 00:06:17,210 And and then I started trying to get sober, you know, early on. 115 00:06:17,210 --> 00:06:19,979 So before I was even legally able to drink, 116 00:06:20,313 --> 00:06:25,551 I had started to dabble with sobriety and try to figure out how I might help myself 117 00:06:25,885 --> 00:06:29,622 because I experienced panic attacks and, you know, had bouts of depression, 118 00:06:30,289 --> 00:06:31,224 all sorts of stuff. 119 00:06:31,224 --> 00:06:34,961 And it wasn't until later on when I graduated C.U. 120 00:06:34,961 --> 00:06:36,662 and moved to Los Angeles to be an actor. 121 00:06:36,662 --> 00:06:39,499 And then I hit absolute rock bottom in L.A.. 122 00:06:40,133 --> 00:06:42,735 So in L.A., what was that like? 123 00:06:43,970 --> 00:06:44,871 Yeah, it's it 124 00:06:44,871 --> 00:06:48,708 was interesting because on the outside, everything looked awesome, right? 125 00:06:48,708 --> 00:06:52,578 Like, I had the right the right look. 126 00:06:52,578 --> 00:06:56,883 I was going to these acting classes of going on auditions, and I hang out 127 00:06:56,916 --> 00:07:03,356 with all the cool kids and, you know, I was able to pay my rent and had a job. 128 00:07:03,356 --> 00:07:07,293 And on the inside, it was just struggling. 129 00:07:07,860 --> 00:07:09,395 Every day was a struggle. 130 00:07:09,395 --> 00:07:12,265 And I was able to hold it together for a while. 131 00:07:12,965 --> 00:07:16,169 And then at a certain point, I hit absolute rock bottom. 132 00:07:16,169 --> 00:07:18,538 And, you know, I had a depressive episode. 133 00:07:18,538 --> 00:07:20,072 I couldn't get out of bed. 134 00:07:20,072 --> 00:07:23,476 And I got to the point where where I had suicidal 135 00:07:23,476 --> 00:07:26,612 ideation, didn't really know what I was experiencing. 136 00:07:27,046 --> 00:07:31,951 But, you know, I was always funny because it was like depression 137 00:07:32,151 --> 00:07:36,722 on top of anxiety, which of course, now I know what I know. 138 00:07:36,722 --> 00:07:40,092 And you know, the co-morbidities between those two are pretty high. 139 00:07:40,092 --> 00:07:43,095 But at the time I was it's just it seemed like 140 00:07:43,463 --> 00:07:46,199 extremes, you know, having a panic attack. 141 00:07:46,199 --> 00:07:49,635 And then and then, you know, in the midst of being, you know, clinically depressed. 142 00:07:49,902 --> 00:07:53,940 And I got to the point where I, I didn't know what else to do. 143 00:07:53,940 --> 00:07:58,044 I was curled up in a ball in my apartment in North Hollywood. 144 00:07:58,044 --> 00:08:02,582 And I called the suicide hotline and talked to a complete stranger 145 00:08:03,182 --> 00:08:05,251 for it must have been an hour. 146 00:08:05,585 --> 00:08:09,021 And, you know, they ended up getting me into to see 147 00:08:09,021 --> 00:08:11,824 a therapist who referred me to a psychiatrist. 148 00:08:12,158 --> 00:08:16,262 And I unfortunately went on the merry 149 00:08:16,262 --> 00:08:19,432 go round of medication and for months. 150 00:08:19,432 --> 00:08:21,601 And it just made things worse, 151 00:08:21,601 --> 00:08:26,072 which is probably very common for a lot of the folks I talk to as well. 152 00:08:26,706 --> 00:08:32,011 But it was it felt like, oh, Prozac, you know, I'm all amped up and I can't sleep. 153 00:08:32,011 --> 00:08:34,280 All right, well, then try Paxil now. I can't get out of bed. 154 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:37,083 Okay. Well, it was so it was like this Celexa, Wellbutrin. 155 00:08:37,083 --> 00:08:40,553 It was trying all these different SSRI to try to get the right one to fit. 156 00:08:40,553 --> 00:08:42,622 In a certain point, I was like, you know what? 157 00:08:42,622 --> 00:08:45,591 Oh, and then, of course, throwing benzodiazepines on top of that 158 00:08:45,591 --> 00:08:49,262 for the panic disorder and it was like, I am an addict. 159 00:08:49,662 --> 00:08:52,465 Maybe I should have led with that because, you know, once 160 00:08:52,465 --> 00:08:55,568 I get my hands on Xanax and things like that, I'm off to the races. 161 00:08:55,568 --> 00:08:58,337 And it was a terrible mix for me. 162 00:08:58,604 --> 00:09:02,275 But at the same time, as much as that sucked 163 00:09:02,275 --> 00:09:06,779 when it was happening, in retrospect, that was the truth. 164 00:09:06,779 --> 00:09:09,682 It was the trap door in my rock bottom, 165 00:09:10,082 --> 00:09:12,952 which dropped me into a 12 step program. 166 00:09:13,352 --> 00:09:16,722 And I had been familiar with 12 step programs because where I grew 167 00:09:16,722 --> 00:09:22,094 up, my dad, interestingly, had gotten sober a couple of years before. 168 00:09:22,461 --> 00:09:25,364 I didn't trust it because I didn't 169 00:09:25,364 --> 00:09:29,101 trust his sobriety at the time, but I was willing to try anything. 170 00:09:29,101 --> 00:09:30,570 And that's and that's what I think happens. 171 00:09:30,570 --> 00:09:33,539 You get to a point where you're like, I will do anything 172 00:09:33,539 --> 00:09:37,310 because this is absolutely terrible and so anything is better than this. 173 00:09:37,743 --> 00:09:42,481 So I started going to these Hollywood AA meetings and meetings and 174 00:09:42,715 --> 00:09:46,352 oh man, it was a scene and I couldn't stay sober 175 00:09:46,352 --> 00:09:49,622 because I spent all my time trying to be super cool. 176 00:09:50,189 --> 00:09:55,361 So he took sitting in in a meeting where people would try to save their own lives. 177 00:09:55,561 --> 00:09:58,431 And I'm trying to like, do the James Dean thing where I'm like, 178 00:09:58,431 --> 00:10:02,201 Oh, I'm suffering and oh, I'm so deep and dark 179 00:10:02,201 --> 00:10:05,237 and brooding because I'm trying to impress the girls in the room. 180 00:10:05,671 --> 00:10:08,841 And of course I kept going out and relapsing 181 00:10:09,141 --> 00:10:12,411 and I talked to another guy who was an actor who I respected 182 00:10:12,712 --> 00:10:16,582 and he was like, Buddy, you can't save your face and your ass at the same time. 183 00:10:17,083 --> 00:10:18,050 Yeah, he 184 00:10:19,051 --> 00:10:20,620 got to pick one or the other. 185 00:10:20,620 --> 00:10:23,089 So why don't you come to this meeting? 186 00:10:23,089 --> 00:10:25,725 It's it's at 7 a.m. It's in a bar. 187 00:10:26,492 --> 00:10:28,861 And I was like, That sounds awful. 188 00:10:28,861 --> 00:10:31,464 And and he was like, And it's a men's meeting. 189 00:10:31,464 --> 00:10:33,032 There are no there are no girls in this meeting. 190 00:10:33,032 --> 00:10:35,101 And I was like, Well, that's not for me. 191 00:10:35,701 --> 00:10:37,870 And he was like, You should probably call him. 192 00:10:37,870 --> 00:10:38,938 I think this would be good for you. 193 00:10:38,938 --> 00:10:40,706 And I thought, All right, all right, I'll I'll check it out. 194 00:10:40,706 --> 00:10:44,043 And so I go to this meeting, and it was an absolute pirate ship. 195 00:10:44,043 --> 00:10:47,246 It was just these thoroughly old dudes 196 00:10:47,246 --> 00:10:50,116 who had like 30, 40 years of sobriety. 197 00:10:51,117 --> 00:10:54,520 And I walk in and I'm like, Captain, Cool. 198 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:59,492 Like, I've got my motorcycle boots on and my leather jacket, and I'm like, 199 00:10:59,492 --> 00:11:04,597 this young hip actor, you know, do my best Marlon Brando impression. 200 00:11:05,097 --> 00:11:08,701 And these guys tell me, I'm like, Hey, what's up? 201 00:11:08,701 --> 00:11:09,769 And Brendan like, 202 00:11:09,769 --> 00:11:13,506 Oh, I don't drink coffee because, you know, I'm too cool for coffee. 203 00:11:13,506 --> 00:11:16,742 So they were like, Great, Brendan, we're glad you're here. 204 00:11:16,876 --> 00:11:21,647 Why don't you sit down, shut the f up and don't talk for a year. 205 00:11:21,881 --> 00:11:23,582 And I was like, What? You 206 00:11:26,686 --> 00:11:28,354 know, I've got things to say. 207 00:11:28,354 --> 00:11:28,821 And they were like, 208 00:11:28,821 --> 00:11:31,891 You don't have things to say though, because your best thinking got you here. 209 00:11:32,024 --> 00:11:36,862 And so what could you possibly have to add of any value to anybody in this room? 210 00:11:37,196 --> 00:11:40,533 And I thought, Oh man, these guys are total jerks. 211 00:11:41,133 --> 00:11:43,469 I do not want to stay here. 212 00:11:43,469 --> 00:11:45,571 They were like, Tell you what, if you if you can sit down 213 00:11:45,571 --> 00:11:47,940 and learn something for a year, we'll let you talk it a year. 214 00:11:47,940 --> 00:11:50,443 And I was like, Oh man, these guys are the worst. 215 00:11:50,443 --> 00:11:51,277 And they just tough. 216 00:11:51,277 --> 00:11:52,812 Loved me and I out of 217 00:11:52,812 --> 00:11:56,382 I stayed sober out of spite for a year just so I could talk. And 218 00:11:57,717 --> 00:12:00,653 granted, I didn't have I did I didn't know how to make relationships 219 00:12:00,653 --> 00:12:03,222 with men like that was really foreign to me. 220 00:12:03,556 --> 00:12:05,825 I didn't have a relationship with my dad. 221 00:12:05,825 --> 00:12:08,427 I didn't know how to make a relationship like that work. 222 00:12:08,427 --> 00:12:10,496 And I didn't have like guy friends. 223 00:12:10,496 --> 00:12:12,732 And my mom was a hairdresser. She had a salon. 224 00:12:12,732 --> 00:12:17,403 And so I grew up around mostly women that were those people that I was around. 225 00:12:17,403 --> 00:12:20,206 And I didn't feel comfortable. Men made me very uncomfortable. 226 00:12:20,206 --> 00:12:24,443 And so so this was the best and the worst thing for me 227 00:12:24,443 --> 00:12:26,912 At the time, I thought it was the worse turn out to be the best, 228 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:30,416 because I stopped trying to be cool. 229 00:12:30,416 --> 00:12:34,053 I actually got I got a hold of how the program worked. 230 00:12:34,053 --> 00:12:38,190 I was able to stay sober and now I'll it'll be 22 years in February. 231 00:12:38,691 --> 00:12:41,227 I've been sober. So congratulations. 232 00:12:41,227 --> 00:12:42,828 Thank you. Thank you. 233 00:12:42,828 --> 00:12:44,663 That's fantastic. Wow. 234 00:12:44,663 --> 00:12:48,434 So I'm just envisioning you walking into that room 235 00:12:48,434 --> 00:12:51,070 with all those men, those those burly men. 236 00:12:51,070 --> 00:12:52,738 And they're just like that. This guy. 237 00:12:52,738 --> 00:12:54,640 Who is this guy? I think he is. 238 00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:55,741 Oh, yeah, Yeah. 239 00:12:55,741 --> 00:12:58,310 And honestly, there's because it's it's L.A., right? 240 00:12:58,310 --> 00:13:02,381 And so, like, there are legit rock stars in that room 241 00:13:02,815 --> 00:13:06,152 who I recognize and looked up to, you know, 242 00:13:06,152 --> 00:13:10,623 they were on the soundtrack of my middle school dances and I'm like, Holy shit. 243 00:13:10,623 --> 00:13:12,691 Like, this is this is incredible. 244 00:13:12,691 --> 00:13:15,494 But at the same time, I'm too cool to be starstruck by anybody 245 00:13:15,661 --> 00:13:18,297 because I don't care who you are. I'm the coolest guy in 246 00:13:20,399 --> 00:13:21,033 Oh, man. 247 00:13:21,033 --> 00:13:21,834 The brooding. 248 00:13:21,834 --> 00:13:24,069 The brooding was a full time job at the time. 249 00:13:24,069 --> 00:13:26,839 I had no humor at all in me, which is funny. 250 00:13:26,839 --> 00:13:30,676 I learned to laugh again in sobriety because it was just dark. 251 00:13:31,110 --> 00:13:31,744 So dark. 252 00:13:31,744 --> 00:13:35,447 I thought, if I'm going to be an actor and a writer, I have to suffer. 253 00:13:35,447 --> 00:13:39,852 And you know, all that nonsense that that you pick up as a as a 254 00:13:39,952 --> 00:13:42,955 I was going to say, young man, but I know a lot of young ladies 255 00:13:42,955 --> 00:13:45,324 who've done the exact same thing, which is like, 256 00:13:45,324 --> 00:13:48,894 if I'm going to be an artist, I've got to just be miserable. 257 00:13:48,894 --> 00:13:52,765 And I met a lot of successful actors and musicians 258 00:13:52,765 --> 00:13:56,669 and writers and and they were like, That's that's absolute nonsense. 259 00:13:56,669 --> 00:13:59,338 Men like, you know, nowhere in the rulebook 260 00:13:59,338 --> 00:14:01,373 does it say you have to be miserable human being. 261 00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:03,142 That's that's not true. 262 00:14:03,142 --> 00:14:05,511 If you want to be Van Gogh, go ahead. Cut your ear off. 263 00:14:05,511 --> 00:14:10,216 But we'll be sitting over here and having a few laughs and enjoying our lives. 264 00:14:10,216 --> 00:14:14,153 And the men in that room taught me really taught me how to be a man, 265 00:14:14,153 --> 00:14:17,790 because I was I was a boy at 22. 266 00:14:17,790 --> 00:14:20,893 I mean, I thought I was a grown a grown man, but 267 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:24,330 I didn't know the first thing about being an adult. Wow. 268 00:14:24,330 --> 00:14:27,700 So what you did know is what you grew up observing in. 269 00:14:28,033 --> 00:14:28,334 Right? 270 00:14:28,334 --> 00:14:31,370 And we learn as kids, we learn the best 271 00:14:31,370 --> 00:14:34,373 from the behaviors of those around us. 272 00:14:34,740 --> 00:14:38,410 And you were around with your dad and he showed you 273 00:14:38,410 --> 00:14:42,648 he modeled to you how to handle your emotions. 274 00:14:43,349 --> 00:14:44,950 Right. And that you followed suit 275 00:14:45,918 --> 00:14:46,652 and now 276 00:14:46,652 --> 00:14:49,455 you're in this this meeting with these men 277 00:14:49,455 --> 00:14:52,691 and some that you recognize, some who are famous. 278 00:14:53,492 --> 00:14:56,462 But that kind of goes to show that it doesn't matter 279 00:14:56,462 --> 00:14:58,731 how famous or how popular you are. 280 00:14:59,465 --> 00:15:02,601 Mental illness and mental health is going to affect you. 281 00:15:02,601 --> 00:15:04,036 It affects us all. 282 00:15:04,036 --> 00:15:05,070 It's an equalizer. 283 00:15:05,070 --> 00:15:07,740 It really is. You're exactly right. 284 00:15:07,740 --> 00:15:12,211 And it's also a very powerful, mean, a very powerful tool 285 00:15:12,578 --> 00:15:16,081 because you mentioned it several times, hitting a rock bottom. 286 00:15:16,081 --> 00:15:19,852 And I talked to a lot of clients every every week, every day. 287 00:15:20,352 --> 00:15:24,890 And a lot of them will talk about what the rock bottom is. 288 00:15:24,890 --> 00:15:27,860 It's different for everybody. A rock bottom is different for everybody. 289 00:15:27,860 --> 00:15:31,764 And in that really what that means is absolutely there's 290 00:15:31,764 --> 00:15:35,834 no other way you can go unless you die. 291 00:15:35,834 --> 00:15:42,474 And so you hit that bottom and then you you could have gone kept going, right? 292 00:15:42,574 --> 00:15:45,044 There was a time that there had been a time 293 00:15:45,511 --> 00:15:50,182 where it switched in your mind that if I keep going 294 00:15:50,182 --> 00:15:53,085 and living this lifestyle, I am going to die. 295 00:15:53,485 --> 00:15:55,254 So I've got to do something about it. 296 00:15:55,254 --> 00:15:59,925 So that first moment that you stepped in, walked in and open the door and sat down 297 00:15:59,925 --> 00:16:02,361 and you saw those men and they said that to you, 298 00:16:02,528 --> 00:16:05,364 that was your first step to to really grow. 299 00:16:05,364 --> 00:16:09,268 And that was your way of following a path that you didn't know where it was going, 300 00:16:09,601 --> 00:16:12,838 but you knew you couldn't keep going where you were going. 301 00:16:13,305 --> 00:16:15,441 And so as a wake up call 302 00:16:15,441 --> 00:16:20,779 and you listened to those men and finally, at 22 years old, 303 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:26,752 you have finally found some men who I'm sure you would never befriend 304 00:16:26,752 --> 00:16:29,555 and become friends with outside like on the street. 305 00:16:29,822 --> 00:16:33,759 But here they are willing to take you in under their wing, so to speak. 306 00:16:34,126 --> 00:16:37,763 And then you start learning what it means to be sober 307 00:16:37,963 --> 00:16:41,533 and at the same time what it means to live like a man. 308 00:16:42,134 --> 00:16:43,502 And then from there, what? 309 00:16:43,502 --> 00:16:44,903 Tell us what happened from there. 310 00:16:45,871 --> 00:16:47,072 I mean, honestly, it was a few 311 00:16:47,072 --> 00:16:50,909 it was a couple of years before I felt comfortable in my own skin. 312 00:16:51,143 --> 00:16:54,980 I, I continue to struggle with with things 313 00:16:54,980 --> 00:16:57,483 because I think what happens to most of us, 314 00:16:58,550 --> 00:17:01,687 you know, substance use disorder is a really interesting one 315 00:17:01,854 --> 00:17:04,790 because you strip away 316 00:17:05,324 --> 00:17:08,927 you strip away the the alcohol, the drugs, whatever it is, 317 00:17:09,561 --> 00:17:11,964 and then you get to the underlying issue. 318 00:17:12,431 --> 00:17:15,901 And so what I found for for me 319 00:17:16,435 --> 00:17:20,072 within, I don't know, three within 3 to 5 years or 320 00:17:20,072 --> 00:17:25,444 so is that I had all of these other things that had gone unaddressed. 321 00:17:25,444 --> 00:17:28,614 And I needed to, as I worked through, you know, this 12 322 00:17:28,614 --> 00:17:32,184 step program, there's it's very structured in terms of how you work through it. And 323 00:17:33,285 --> 00:17:34,720 as you work through this exercise. 324 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:37,256 I did all the 12 steps in the first year and then 325 00:17:38,490 --> 00:17:42,061 you just kind of check the box, I think for a lot of for a lot of us. 326 00:17:42,461 --> 00:17:47,166 And then as you keep working through it and you have a sponsor and it's like a 327 00:17:47,766 --> 00:17:50,669 you know, it's a mentor, our peer that you look up to 328 00:17:51,570 --> 00:17:55,674 who's been there, done that, and you kind of help guide you, hopefully 329 00:17:56,008 --> 00:18:00,312 when it's done well, it's not exactly a licensing or anything that goes into it. 330 00:18:00,312 --> 00:18:04,583 So you're you're you're, you're hoping you get the best you can find. 331 00:18:05,050 --> 00:18:08,253 But, you know, you listen to a lot of different delivering different guys 332 00:18:08,253 --> 00:18:12,391 talk in meetings and you you find somebody who think might be a good fit for you 333 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:15,227 and for me 334 00:18:15,227 --> 00:18:19,031 once once I get to the point where I stayed sober for a little while 335 00:18:19,264 --> 00:18:22,434 and I could start to work with other guys, 336 00:18:22,434 --> 00:18:24,870 it wasn't working with young men 337 00:18:26,071 --> 00:18:30,542 that I really started to get it and understand that I was just 338 00:18:30,542 --> 00:18:36,081 scratching the surface and because of who I am, I needed to to kind of go further. 339 00:18:36,081 --> 00:18:37,249 And so it wasn't enough. 340 00:18:37,249 --> 00:18:42,554 I mean, my my dad, you know, God bless him, He he passed away in June. 341 00:18:42,554 --> 00:18:44,123 He was sober 20. 342 00:18:44,123 --> 00:18:45,090 He got sober 50. 343 00:18:45,090 --> 00:18:47,459 He died at 75. So over 25 years. 344 00:18:47,459 --> 00:18:51,864 And it was it was within those 25 years that he and I built a relationship. 345 00:18:51,864 --> 00:18:55,400 But I'm so grateful to have had that time with him. 346 00:18:56,034 --> 00:19:00,472 But he was super old school in the sense of he got sober and that was enough. 347 00:19:00,472 --> 00:19:02,374 It was enough for him. For me. 348 00:19:02,374 --> 00:19:04,543 I think maybe it was part of who I am. 349 00:19:04,543 --> 00:19:07,279 Or maybe it was the fact that I got sober young. 350 00:19:07,279 --> 00:19:08,147 It didn't have as much 351 00:19:09,314 --> 00:19:12,618 baggage or things that I had it, because honestly, 352 00:19:12,618 --> 00:19:15,621 getting sober at 50 is a lot different than getting sober at 22. 353 00:19:16,355 --> 00:19:20,626 You've you've got a lot you got a lot less damage 354 00:19:20,826 --> 00:19:23,262 that you have to work through. 355 00:19:23,862 --> 00:19:26,865 And I was also in a group that was so harsh. 356 00:19:26,865 --> 00:19:29,635 They were so harsh and they were like to 357 00:19:30,035 --> 00:19:32,771 you got to smash your ego like all of this stuff. 358 00:19:32,771 --> 00:19:35,641 And I was like, Yeesh, it felt like boot camp. 359 00:19:36,008 --> 00:19:38,310 They're going to tear you down and build you up. 360 00:19:38,310 --> 00:19:40,946 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 361 00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:43,949 But the beauty of it was and that's what I thought at the time. 362 00:19:43,949 --> 00:19:46,385 Oh, they're going to they're going to tear me down. 363 00:19:46,385 --> 00:19:49,755 They're going to build me into some like, you know, AA bot 364 00:19:50,556 --> 00:19:53,525 is going to walk around saying slogans one day at a time. 365 00:19:53,525 --> 00:19:54,526 I like all this stuff. 366 00:19:54,526 --> 00:19:57,629 And I just thought, that is so not for me. 367 00:19:57,963 --> 00:19:58,830 This is a cult. 368 00:19:58,830 --> 00:20:02,134 I'm not feeling this at all. 369 00:20:02,134 --> 00:20:03,602 But the truth is, 370 00:20:03,602 --> 00:20:06,572 and maybe I just found a great group of guys, but 371 00:20:07,206 --> 00:20:11,944 they, they help to tear me down or they allowed me to smash my own ego, 372 00:20:11,944 --> 00:20:14,279 but then they allowed me to build myself back up. 373 00:20:14,279 --> 00:20:17,082 Nobody told me what I was supposed to be. 374 00:20:17,516 --> 00:20:19,051 I got to figure it out on my own. 375 00:20:19,051 --> 00:20:23,589 And and not only that, but it was I had to figure that out on my own. 376 00:20:23,589 --> 00:20:28,760 I had to figure out who I was without all this stuff that I'd used to cope. 377 00:20:29,228 --> 00:20:33,198 And so then I went back and tried therapy again. 378 00:20:34,566 --> 00:20:36,868 And I worked through some of these things and I saw 379 00:20:36,935 --> 00:20:40,772 then I got to see the value in it because I wasn't trying 380 00:20:40,772 --> 00:20:44,509 to, you know, look cool and suffer anymore. 381 00:20:44,509 --> 00:20:47,112 I was actually wanting to work on 382 00:20:47,579 --> 00:20:49,982 specific things in my life to get better, 383 00:20:50,215 --> 00:20:54,086 and I got to sponsor a bunch of young guys and in sponsoring young guys 384 00:20:54,086 --> 00:20:56,455 and I mean, you know this because you do this professionally. 385 00:20:57,055 --> 00:20:58,290 I got to work with young people 386 00:20:58,290 --> 00:21:00,926 and in doing so, I learned so much more about myself 387 00:21:01,460 --> 00:21:05,197 and to see them flourish and thrive and turn their lives around, 388 00:21:05,731 --> 00:21:10,469 it's holds a mirror back up to you and you're like, Wow, this is amazing. 389 00:21:10,469 --> 00:21:13,672 And there was a part of me that thought, I get it 390 00:21:14,039 --> 00:21:16,675 because AA was started in the thirties 391 00:21:17,542 --> 00:21:20,345 and they do talk about stigma. 392 00:21:20,345 --> 00:21:23,582 I mean, gosh, in the thirties it's 393 00:21:24,549 --> 00:21:24,916 you're 394 00:21:24,916 --> 00:21:27,819 you, you're a deadbeat, you know, you're never going to get a job again. 395 00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:31,323 So you had to be anonymous. 396 00:21:31,857 --> 00:21:35,327 I kept looking around and thinking like, I feel like we're holding all of this 397 00:21:35,327 --> 00:21:40,999 really good stuff, ransom over here, and people would benefit from this. 398 00:21:40,999 --> 00:21:44,403 I used to say all the time, I would talk to friends as an actor, 399 00:21:44,403 --> 00:21:49,308 you know, you would always joke that we're not the most stable group of people. 400 00:21:49,308 --> 00:21:52,377 People stand up in front of other people and pretend to be somebody else 401 00:21:52,611 --> 00:21:54,212 and make leave for a living. 402 00:21:54,212 --> 00:21:57,416 So you meet all kinds of people who have all sorts of issues. 403 00:21:58,016 --> 00:22:01,653 And I used to think, gosh, they would everybody would benefit 404 00:22:02,054 --> 00:22:03,588 from this stuff that I got to go through. 405 00:22:03,588 --> 00:22:05,824 But they don't have there. 406 00:22:05,857 --> 00:22:09,361 There is no in a for panic disorder. 407 00:22:09,795 --> 00:22:12,431 There's no name for depression. 408 00:22:12,431 --> 00:22:15,534 There's no I mean, maybe there are support groups, but it's not 409 00:22:15,534 --> 00:22:18,003 it's not easy just to walk in off the street and be like, 410 00:22:18,570 --> 00:22:22,441 gosh, I, I have panic attacks when I'm in the grocery store and like, 411 00:22:22,708 --> 00:22:23,508 there's no support. 412 00:22:23,508 --> 00:22:26,845 I'm sure there is a support group, but it's it's not as easy as like 413 00:22:26,845 --> 00:22:29,915 looking it up online and finding a meeting down the street. 414 00:22:29,948 --> 00:22:32,250 It's like some run down church that you can go to. 415 00:22:33,151 --> 00:22:37,322 So it's it's harder like there's a there's a much higher barrier 416 00:22:37,322 --> 00:22:39,991 to entry for a lot of people to to overcome. 417 00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:45,364 And so in working in all the you know in as an actor in entertainment 418 00:22:45,364 --> 00:22:48,834 and meeting all sorts of folks and I realized that people could benefit. 419 00:22:48,834 --> 00:22:52,371 And I thought, I can't just bring people into because it's 420 00:22:52,371 --> 00:22:58,510 a pretty closed group, not just a group I was in, but it's it's a culture, right? 421 00:22:58,510 --> 00:23:02,347 Like you can't you it's in there are open meetings and you can be 422 00:23:02,347 --> 00:23:03,882 anybody can walk in and go but 423 00:23:04,983 --> 00:23:07,085 but it is a bit of a closed door and I 424 00:23:07,285 --> 00:23:10,155 and you know you have to qualify you have to say like 425 00:23:10,155 --> 00:23:13,158 oh, I'm you know, I'm an alcoholic, I'm a drug addict or whatever. 426 00:23:13,158 --> 00:23:18,263 And like, that's a that's a hard a hard bar for some people to get over. 427 00:23:18,263 --> 00:23:20,432 Or maybe that's not even their thing. 428 00:23:20,432 --> 00:23:22,434 So they're not going to get in. 429 00:23:22,434 --> 00:23:24,669 And so I thought if I could I could tell these stories, 430 00:23:25,404 --> 00:23:28,440 not other people's stories, because obviously that would be a terrible 431 00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:32,744 thing to do if I could tell my own stories and share my experience, 432 00:23:33,278 --> 00:23:35,881 then maybe somebody else would put their hand up and get help 433 00:23:35,881 --> 00:23:39,084 somewhere because they hear a story and they think, gosh, this 434 00:23:39,084 --> 00:23:43,054 this guy has his life together and like he's doing okay. 435 00:23:43,422 --> 00:23:44,556 He seems 436 00:23:44,589 --> 00:23:48,193 he seems happy and he's telling me that he went through all this stuff 437 00:23:48,894 --> 00:23:53,365 and that's those were the stories that that kept me coming back 438 00:23:53,365 --> 00:23:56,301 because I would see somebody who was nothing like me. 439 00:23:56,301 --> 00:23:57,636 They didn't look like me. 440 00:23:57,636 --> 00:24:01,540 One time I walked into a meeting, There's a guy who's a retired general 441 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:02,874 from Saudi Arabia. 442 00:24:02,874 --> 00:24:07,479 I mean, I couldn't be more different than this guy, like on the surface, 443 00:24:08,180 --> 00:24:11,283 but he told his story and he told my story, 444 00:24:11,850 --> 00:24:16,421 you know, about his dad and growing up and the pressure of him to do this and that. 445 00:24:16,421 --> 00:24:20,125 And I thought, man, I went up to him after the meeting and like, you know, 446 00:24:20,592 --> 00:24:23,361 we couldn't be more different, but like, we couldn't be more the same. 447 00:24:23,562 --> 00:24:26,965 And I think the power of storytelling was so 448 00:24:28,133 --> 00:24:31,203 incredible to me that I wanted to I tried to channel it 449 00:24:31,203 --> 00:24:32,737 into everything I wrote. 450 00:24:32,737 --> 00:24:34,940 I tried to and it made me a better writer. 451 00:24:34,940 --> 00:24:39,311 But in my life, I thought I'd love to do something with this someday. 452 00:24:39,311 --> 00:24:42,848 But I was so, so busy trying to get ahead 453 00:24:42,881 --> 00:24:46,017 in the entertainment world that it didn't come up too much. 454 00:24:46,017 --> 00:24:50,922 Later on, when this this you know, a bunch of different pieces came together, 455 00:24:50,956 --> 00:24:52,257 end up going back to grad school. 456 00:24:52,257 --> 00:24:55,060 My wife and I, she was an actor as well. 457 00:24:55,660 --> 00:24:58,430 We met doing Streetcar Named Desire. 458 00:24:58,430 --> 00:24:59,064 I was Stanley. 459 00:24:59,064 --> 00:25:01,833 She was Stella, you know, very, very typical L.A. 460 00:25:02,968 --> 00:25:04,769 Voice. 461 00:25:04,769 --> 00:25:09,307 And so we I always say clawed my way to the middle and got stuck. 462 00:25:09,875 --> 00:25:11,142 I was a development executive. 463 00:25:11,142 --> 00:25:13,912 I got an MFA, and I was doing screenwriter. 464 00:25:13,912 --> 00:25:16,982 And then I went into development, but I couldn't get to that next level. 465 00:25:16,982 --> 00:25:18,950 And I looked around and thought, 466 00:25:18,950 --> 00:25:22,988 you know, all of the all the friends I have here who grew up in L.A. 467 00:25:22,988 --> 00:25:25,457 and they grew up in the in the Hollywood system. 468 00:25:25,457 --> 00:25:30,262 And, you know, some of them were famous and some of them had famous parents 469 00:25:30,795 --> 00:25:35,333 and they were all so messed up because Hollywood will do a number on your head. 470 00:25:35,834 --> 00:25:39,804 It almost the more successful you are, the more of an absolute 471 00:25:40,238 --> 00:25:44,342 mind scramble it is for, especially for young, impressionable kids. 472 00:25:44,709 --> 00:25:47,612 And my wife and I decided we didn't want to raise kids in L.A. 473 00:25:47,612 --> 00:25:50,115 And so she's from San Francisco. 474 00:25:50,115 --> 00:25:53,685 We decided we would go to the Bay and start our family there. 475 00:25:53,685 --> 00:25:56,421 And I thought, I got to I'm going to have to pivot. 476 00:25:56,421 --> 00:26:00,692 And so I went I went back to school again because I'm a glutton for student debt. 477 00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:06,298 And I got an MBA from Babson, which is where I'm from in Boston. 478 00:26:06,298 --> 00:26:08,233 And they're really good at entrepreneurship. 479 00:26:08,233 --> 00:26:10,135 I figure, oh, I'll just I'll start a company. 480 00:26:10,135 --> 00:26:12,804 That's what I'll do. And I did that and it failed 481 00:26:13,905 --> 00:26:16,374 within a few months out of grad school. 482 00:26:16,374 --> 00:26:18,009 And then I found myself. 483 00:26:18,009 --> 00:26:21,780 I work at a company that was in the executive 484 00:26:21,780 --> 00:26:25,951 mentorship space, and then I got kind of recruited over 485 00:26:26,017 --> 00:26:28,587 to lead the commercial function at a company called Better Up. 486 00:26:29,154 --> 00:26:33,625 And so started started to to branch into mental health, which I was like, Oh, 487 00:26:33,658 --> 00:26:36,528 this is something I really am interested in and I care about. 488 00:26:36,795 --> 00:26:40,098 And then from better off I went to big health and have a FI 489 00:26:40,398 --> 00:26:45,670 and then to wheel in along the way, I kind of kept going deeper, deeper 490 00:26:45,670 --> 00:26:51,776 into this space, but I was still living this sort of dual life where there was 491 00:26:52,544 --> 00:26:55,947 the me on that, you know, my personal life. 492 00:26:55,947 --> 00:26:58,683 This guy who had been an actor and 493 00:26:59,017 --> 00:27:02,320 my wife and I used to joke that it's like the Jekyll and Hyde thing of like, Oh, 494 00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:06,391 I'm like this, you know, Neurodivergent, ADHD, 495 00:27:06,591 --> 00:27:10,228 you know, depressed guy who's struggles with this or that and, 496 00:27:10,829 --> 00:27:13,598 you know, highly creative, all of these things. 497 00:27:13,598 --> 00:27:17,435 And then on the other side, I'm like, no, I'm actually a you know, I'm an MBA 498 00:27:17,435 --> 00:27:21,706 and I, I wear nice clothes and I put on a suit and I go to the office 499 00:27:21,706 --> 00:27:26,011 and they and I run commercial teams and build sales functions at startups. 500 00:27:26,011 --> 00:27:28,346 And, and I work in mental health. 501 00:27:28,613 --> 00:27:32,417 But I didn't allow those two things to, to coalesce. 502 00:27:32,417 --> 00:27:35,053 Like they didn't come together at all. 503 00:27:35,053 --> 00:27:36,454 I kept them separate. 504 00:27:36,454 --> 00:27:39,691 And I was in a meeting because I met with clients all the time. 505 00:27:39,691 --> 00:27:40,759 I would I would build 506 00:27:40,759 --> 00:27:44,663 like I said, I'd build sales functions, I'd do sales teams or customer success. 507 00:27:44,663 --> 00:27:47,666 And so I was I was always talking to clients and companies and, 508 00:27:48,099 --> 00:27:50,435 you know, these huge global organizations 509 00:27:51,236 --> 00:27:54,773 and I was talking to an executive on the h.r. Side 510 00:27:55,473 --> 00:27:58,643 and she was asking me about clinical efficacy and 511 00:27:59,010 --> 00:28:01,813 and all the stuff, the digital therapeutics that we that we had. 512 00:28:01,813 --> 00:28:03,815 And I was we're talking about studies and stuff and 513 00:28:04,182 --> 00:28:06,685 and then she was asking me like, well, this is all great. 514 00:28:06,685 --> 00:28:08,653 You know, it sounds, it sounds like, you know, 515 00:28:08,653 --> 00:28:12,157 what you're, what you're selling and what you guys are doing really works. 516 00:28:12,157 --> 00:28:14,359 But talk to me about engagement. 517 00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,761 Like what kind of engagement do you see? 518 00:28:16,761 --> 00:28:19,664 And I talked a little bit about engagement because, of course, 519 00:28:19,664 --> 00:28:23,401 she wanted to see higher numbers and what she saw with EAP. 520 00:28:24,703 --> 00:28:26,404 And I got the same questions all the time. 521 00:28:26,404 --> 00:28:28,506 So I had like, you know, standard answers. 522 00:28:29,007 --> 00:28:32,610 But then for whatever reason in that conversation, she asked me 523 00:28:32,610 --> 00:28:36,481 about culture, like, how do we create a culture of mental health here? 524 00:28:36,848 --> 00:28:38,116 That's what we want to create. 525 00:28:38,116 --> 00:28:40,985 We have all these solutions in there, point solutions, and everybody has 526 00:28:41,553 --> 00:28:42,921 this solution or that solution. 527 00:28:42,921 --> 00:28:47,358 And, you know, we talked about step care model when we you know, when we like 528 00:28:47,358 --> 00:28:51,262 how it ties in, this is how we send people to a higher levels of care here 529 00:28:51,262 --> 00:28:56,534 or we meet people at this point, you know, is all all great 530 00:28:56,534 --> 00:29:00,004 in terms of how it worked but there was no creating a culture. 531 00:29:00,004 --> 00:29:05,643 And and I took off my sales guy hat and put on my creative 532 00:29:05,643 --> 00:29:09,180 guy hat for a minute and I said, We can't change your culture. 533 00:29:09,180 --> 00:29:10,882 That's all we do. 534 00:29:10,915 --> 00:29:14,152 Like, if you want to change your culture, tell me why this is important to you. 535 00:29:14,152 --> 00:29:15,186 And she's like, What's important to me? 536 00:29:15,186 --> 00:29:17,122 Because, you know, I've got 537 00:29:17,122 --> 00:29:19,991 I've struggled with anxiety disorder and I know what it feels like 538 00:29:20,492 --> 00:29:24,863 to be to be an executive and to, you know, give presentations and 539 00:29:24,996 --> 00:29:28,666 and to feel like you need to say, excuse me for a minute, go to the bathroom 540 00:29:28,967 --> 00:29:32,570 and splash some water on your face or or do some breathing exercises 541 00:29:32,570 --> 00:29:36,341 to get it under control so you don't have an absolute panic attack. 542 00:29:36,674 --> 00:29:39,944 And I thought now we're just two people being real. 543 00:29:39,944 --> 00:29:43,615 And I was like, That's that story that you just told me. 544 00:29:44,249 --> 00:29:46,151 That's how you change your culture. 545 00:29:46,151 --> 00:29:46,651 That's it. 546 00:29:46,651 --> 00:29:48,052 Tell that story. 547 00:29:48,052 --> 00:29:50,588 Tell that story and tell executives to tell that story. 548 00:29:51,156 --> 00:29:52,090 And that's how you do it. 549 00:29:52,090 --> 00:29:53,925 And I went home and I told my wife 550 00:29:53,925 --> 00:29:56,227 and she was like, wow, that was that was really powerful. 551 00:29:56,494 --> 00:29:57,395 What a cool moment. 552 00:29:57,395 --> 00:30:01,800 And I thought, Yeah, but I'm kind of full of shit, right? 553 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,837 Because I had this moment where I could have told her all about my own experience. 554 00:30:05,837 --> 00:30:08,506 And I didn't because I was afraid. I was afraid 555 00:30:08,506 --> 00:30:10,141 it was going to stigmatize me. 556 00:30:10,141 --> 00:30:12,410 I was afraid and people would find out. 557 00:30:12,811 --> 00:30:14,445 Nobody would hire me. 558 00:30:14,445 --> 00:30:17,916 I had told them for so long, and if they found out, you know, 559 00:30:17,916 --> 00:30:22,120 that I'm just some punk actor from Boston, you know, 560 00:30:23,488 --> 00:30:24,155 who is going to 561 00:30:24,155 --> 00:30:28,059 give me a job, You know, I've got them all bamboozled. 562 00:30:28,059 --> 00:30:31,196 And she was like, you know, you've got your sobriety birthday coming up 563 00:30:31,196 --> 00:30:33,932 and you've been sober, you know, over a decade now. 564 00:30:34,232 --> 00:30:36,301 What do you think about, you know, you shared on Facebook, 565 00:30:36,501 --> 00:30:39,103 you tell people if they need help, you'll help them. 566 00:30:39,103 --> 00:30:41,272 And I'm like capitals of my friends. It's a closed loop. 567 00:30:41,272 --> 00:30:43,441 And she was like, you just put yourself out there. 568 00:30:43,441 --> 00:30:45,076 Like, you might be surprised. 569 00:30:45,076 --> 00:30:48,379 And I mean, my wife has always been smarter than I am. 570 00:30:48,379 --> 00:30:51,482 She's I married up to say the least. 571 00:30:51,950 --> 00:30:56,688 And so I wrote this post on LinkedIn and it was about being sober 572 00:30:56,688 --> 00:30:59,457 for a number of years and what I'd gone through and 573 00:31:00,024 --> 00:31:02,460 I put a picture on there, like my family and I and, 574 00:31:02,894 --> 00:31:05,496 and I remember looking at my wife and I was like, Audrey, this is 575 00:31:06,331 --> 00:31:08,833 I was about to hit the, you know, the button to post. 576 00:31:08,833 --> 00:31:11,936 And I was like, this is either going to make my career 577 00:31:11,936 --> 00:31:16,774 or completely destroy it Never worked again. 578 00:31:16,774 --> 00:31:17,942 And I hit send. 579 00:31:17,942 --> 00:31:19,811 And then it was like, you know, crickets. 580 00:31:19,811 --> 00:31:21,012 Nobody cared. 581 00:31:21,012 --> 00:31:23,214 And then all of a sudden it was like, you know, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. 582 00:31:23,214 --> 00:31:26,251 And it felt like that, like the views and the comments 583 00:31:26,251 --> 00:31:30,455 and the things and people responded and they responded in a way 584 00:31:30,455 --> 00:31:34,325 that I, I had, you know, obviously hoped people would be supportive. 585 00:31:34,325 --> 00:31:38,363 And but then, of course, the reason I did it was more than anything 586 00:31:38,363 --> 00:31:42,867 I wanted people to hear that somebody could succeed. 587 00:31:42,867 --> 00:31:44,102 That was just like them. 588 00:31:44,102 --> 00:31:49,073 I pictured me, you know, sitting in my in my house in Boston and like, 589 00:31:49,407 --> 00:31:52,977 you know, in this blue collar world where I'm never getting out of here 590 00:31:52,977 --> 00:31:57,382 and feeling lost and not knowing where to go, not having anyone to talk to. 591 00:31:57,382 --> 00:32:02,921 If I could have heard someone like me say, Kid, if you need help, go here. 592 00:32:02,921 --> 00:32:04,322 If you know you're not alone. 593 00:32:04,322 --> 00:32:05,590 I've been where you're at right 594 00:32:05,590 --> 00:32:08,660 now exactly where you're at, because I'm just like you. 595 00:32:08,660 --> 00:32:12,297 And if I had heard somebody like that, it could have changed my life. 596 00:32:12,297 --> 00:32:16,534 And thankfully, I was really fortunate to, you know, 597 00:32:17,001 --> 00:32:20,338 get sober young and, you know, find the group of guys I did. 598 00:32:20,338 --> 00:32:22,373 And but, I mean, what am I? 599 00:32:22,373 --> 00:32:25,877 1% of the people who actually need help who get help, like that's 600 00:32:26,311 --> 00:32:27,745 that's not good enough. And, 601 00:32:28,746 --> 00:32:30,782 you know, now we live in a world where somebody like 602 00:32:31,049 --> 00:32:35,420 The Rock can talk about, you know, their own struggles in life. 603 00:32:35,486 --> 00:32:38,423 That is I love him for that because he's 604 00:32:38,423 --> 00:32:42,794 this big, strong dude and he's like a dad. 605 00:32:42,794 --> 00:32:46,331 And he talks about depression in and what he's gone through. 606 00:32:46,331 --> 00:32:49,767 And it shows young men out there because, 607 00:32:50,568 --> 00:32:54,138 I mean, I, I can get my wife on here and she can talk about her own experience. 608 00:32:54,138 --> 00:32:58,276 I tend to talk about men because that's that's my frame of reference 609 00:32:58,276 --> 00:32:59,577 in my viewpoint. 610 00:32:59,577 --> 00:33:04,882 But for me, it felt really hard as a young man to talk about these things. 611 00:33:04,882 --> 00:33:09,721 And so I guess it became a mission in some ways or this 612 00:33:10,455 --> 00:33:13,157 this underlying need for me to tell my story, 613 00:33:13,157 --> 00:33:18,930 not not for likes or for kudos or attaboys or pats on the head. 614 00:33:18,930 --> 00:33:22,633 But so somebody because it happens every time, John, 615 00:33:22,633 --> 00:33:27,572 every time I post something that I'm like, he's like, it still feels uncomfortable, 616 00:33:28,339 --> 00:33:33,177 but someone will dm me and say, Thanks, man, I need to hear this. 617 00:33:33,177 --> 00:33:35,279 Or like, how long have you been sober or what? 618 00:33:35,646 --> 00:33:37,949 How did you start? Like, they'll ask me questions. 619 00:33:37,949 --> 00:33:40,651 It's never the people that comment, you know, on the thread. 620 00:33:40,651 --> 00:33:45,523 It's always 1 to 1 or it'll be somebody who 621 00:33:46,391 --> 00:33:50,461 who's actually in my little circle here in Fort Collins and they'll say, 622 00:33:51,162 --> 00:33:52,964 at a barbecue or something, it'll be another 623 00:33:52,964 --> 00:33:56,300 dad walks up to me and he'll go, Hey, man, I saw this thing you post on LinkedIn. 624 00:33:56,801 --> 00:33:59,470 You know, start talking to me about like, what's going on with him. 625 00:33:59,704 --> 00:34:02,473 You know, ask me about therapy and how do you how do you even do that? 626 00:34:02,473 --> 00:34:03,341 And what does that look like? 627 00:34:03,341 --> 00:34:06,577 And it's incredible to me that's an extension of what 628 00:34:06,577 --> 00:34:09,814 those guys gave to me in that bar at 7 a.m.. 629 00:34:10,481 --> 00:34:12,717 And I love I love that program. 630 00:34:12,717 --> 00:34:16,220 For me, it was super helpful, but I think it's like it's too good 631 00:34:16,220 --> 00:34:19,390 not to share what I learned outside of that group. 632 00:34:19,390 --> 00:34:21,325 I don't have to be anonymous. 633 00:34:21,325 --> 00:34:25,029 I don't feel like it benefits anybody for me to keep it to myself. 634 00:34:25,730 --> 00:34:28,633 I do believe that, you know, if you got to give it away to keep it 635 00:34:28,633 --> 00:34:34,238 and so see if I can share my story at all and somebody else can get help 636 00:34:34,238 --> 00:34:38,109 and or I can inspire somebody who doesn't look like me, 637 00:34:38,643 --> 00:34:41,979 who doesn't have the exact same experiences to share their story. 638 00:34:41,979 --> 00:34:44,582 And that story resonates for somebody else. 639 00:34:45,016 --> 00:34:47,785 Like that, to me is incredibly powerful, right? 640 00:34:47,785 --> 00:34:49,954 Like, I see people all the time. 641 00:34:49,954 --> 00:34:53,658 There's this guy I follow on LinkedIn who's a young guy. 642 00:34:53,658 --> 00:34:54,392 I forgot his name, 643 00:34:55,359 --> 00:34:56,761 mental health advocate, 644 00:34:56,761 --> 00:34:59,497 and he's he's doing incredible things for like 645 00:34:59,497 --> 00:35:03,000 LGBTQ teens who, as you know, 646 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,970 have a completely different set of struggles that they have to deal with. 647 00:35:06,571 --> 00:35:09,307 But to see somebody like him incredible, 648 00:35:09,807 --> 00:35:13,111 like what a gift him to be able to give that back to other, 649 00:35:13,111 --> 00:35:16,981 you know, young kids out there who are who are struggling and looking for people 650 00:35:16,981 --> 00:35:19,217 like, oh, wow, this guy looks just like me. 651 00:35:19,217 --> 00:35:21,085 He's telling my story. 652 00:35:21,085 --> 00:35:23,521 And I love that about LinkedIn. 653 00:35:23,521 --> 00:35:24,722 And that's exactly right. 654 00:35:24,722 --> 00:35:27,859 And I love how you are combining 655 00:35:27,859 --> 00:35:31,262 your love for entertainment and media 656 00:35:31,929 --> 00:35:36,400 and your discovery of your own mental health in You're using that for good. 657 00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,171 And I love I love how you were you were nervous 658 00:35:40,171 --> 00:35:43,107 about posting your first post on LinkedIn. 659 00:35:43,107 --> 00:35:43,741 Oh, no. 660 00:35:43,741 --> 00:35:45,510 Anybody going to read this? 661 00:35:45,510 --> 00:35:47,311 Is this going to make an impact? 662 00:35:47,311 --> 00:35:51,649 And now now you have found a voice on LinkedIn 663 00:35:52,283 --> 00:35:54,952 and you have a massive following. 664 00:35:54,952 --> 00:35:58,222 And tell me we only have just a couple of minutes left, 665 00:35:58,222 --> 00:36:01,792 but can you tell us a little bit about your journey on LinkedIn, 666 00:36:01,792 --> 00:36:05,163 where you're on LinkedIn and how people can follow you on LinkedIn? 667 00:36:05,863 --> 00:36:08,733 Yeah, I think my journey on LinkedIn 668 00:36:09,267 --> 00:36:13,304 really for me it is funny because I, I talk to people all the time 669 00:36:13,304 --> 00:36:15,473 and they'll say like LinkedIn is and Facebook. 670 00:36:15,473 --> 00:36:17,575 Like you get those, those people. 671 00:36:17,575 --> 00:36:20,611 And and I always say, I tie everything 672 00:36:20,611 --> 00:36:23,748 I do back to work because I get like Simon Sinek, right? 673 00:36:23,814 --> 00:36:26,784 Like you're your why is so important. 674 00:36:26,784 --> 00:36:30,021 And for me, my why is my family it's it's this 675 00:36:30,188 --> 00:36:33,057 this life that I'm trying to live and being a better human being. 676 00:36:33,791 --> 00:36:35,993 It's helping as many people as I can. 677 00:36:35,993 --> 00:36:40,031 That ties directly into my my life and my work and showing up 678 00:36:40,364 --> 00:36:43,434 in a way that's authentic to me is important. 679 00:36:43,434 --> 00:36:47,438 And like, that's how you get the my work has gotten so much better. 680 00:36:47,972 --> 00:36:52,343 Once I became a fully integrated being and it's like facepalm, right? 681 00:36:52,510 --> 00:36:55,012 Of course, of course it did. 682 00:36:55,012 --> 00:36:56,614 But that's hard. 683 00:36:56,614 --> 00:36:57,615 It was hard for me to do. 684 00:36:57,615 --> 00:36:59,917 I know it's hard for a lot of people because, well, 685 00:36:59,984 --> 00:37:02,420 how are they going to think it's like being in junior high again? 686 00:37:03,221 --> 00:37:06,257 So I've continued to post things that don't, 687 00:37:06,390 --> 00:37:09,860 and I've some people have talked to me about this like, you're not selling 688 00:37:09,860 --> 00:37:14,198 anything, you're not promoting any program or you know what I mean? 689 00:37:14,198 --> 00:37:17,435 So it's not like, like what's, what's the end goal for you here? 690 00:37:18,035 --> 00:37:21,772 And my uncle is pretty simple, which is like, if I could reach one 691 00:37:21,772 --> 00:37:27,278 person, one person who decides to get help or one person who tells their story, 692 00:37:27,278 --> 00:37:30,381 and that has a massive impact, I don't have to be the guy 693 00:37:30,381 --> 00:37:33,050 because I don't think I'm important in that sense. 694 00:37:33,618 --> 00:37:34,852 It's not my voice. 695 00:37:34,852 --> 00:37:39,090 It's encouraging other people to share their voice and their stories. 696 00:37:39,457 --> 00:37:42,860 And this comes back to that story about the conversation 697 00:37:42,860 --> 00:37:44,595 I have with that executive. 698 00:37:44,595 --> 00:37:46,230 That's how we change culture, 699 00:37:46,230 --> 00:37:48,466 whether it's at a company or whether it's in the world. 700 00:37:48,466 --> 00:37:52,637 Like a small group of people can literally change the world. 701 00:37:53,104 --> 00:37:55,873 If I'm butchering this quote, of course, but 702 00:37:57,108 --> 00:37:57,875 but if we all 703 00:37:57,875 --> 00:38:01,779 band together and do it, then absolutely we can. 704 00:38:01,779 --> 00:38:03,748 And I think if we can encourage 705 00:38:03,748 --> 00:38:06,417 people like you and I can encourage people to share their stories, then 706 00:38:06,751 --> 00:38:08,085 then it makes it okay. 707 00:38:08,085 --> 00:38:10,288 And if it makes it okay, then more people will get help. 708 00:38:10,655 --> 00:38:13,391 We'll see less people struggling or getting to the point 709 00:38:13,391 --> 00:38:15,960 where they hit a crisis. And that's the only way they get help. 710 00:38:16,193 --> 00:38:17,528 Yeah, yeah. 711 00:38:17,528 --> 00:38:18,963 No, I think that's exactly right. 712 00:38:18,963 --> 00:38:22,033 And people can resonate with that and they can resonate 713 00:38:22,033 --> 00:38:25,603 with your story and it's coming out on LinkedIn. 714 00:38:25,603 --> 00:38:29,640 And if you're listening to this, if you've been listening to Brendan 715 00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:32,977 and you were relating, so, Oh my gosh, that's me or 716 00:38:32,977 --> 00:38:36,947 Oh my gosh, just my son or Oh my gosh, just my daughter. 717 00:38:36,947 --> 00:38:38,716 And you're struggling in 718 00:38:38,716 --> 00:38:42,253 and maybe you don't know where to turn or you need some encouragement. 719 00:38:42,653 --> 00:38:45,256 Follow Brendan on on LinkedIn and find him. 720 00:38:45,256 --> 00:38:47,692 Brendan Kelly I'm sure he's not that hard to find 721 00:38:48,059 --> 00:38:51,195 and make sure you follow him because he is an advocate 722 00:38:51,195 --> 00:38:53,130 and the mental health influencer. 723 00:38:53,130 --> 00:38:56,400 You heard his story and he wants share 724 00:38:56,434 --> 00:38:59,270 and he wants to encourage you to share your story. 725 00:38:59,437 --> 00:39:01,472 And that is how we change culture. 726 00:39:01,672 --> 00:39:04,408 That is how we destigmatize mental health 727 00:39:04,775 --> 00:39:07,478 is to be okay with talking about our own struggles. 728 00:39:08,045 --> 00:39:10,381 And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing. 729 00:39:10,681 --> 00:39:15,886 Well, Brendan, before I let you go, I have one last question, and it's 730 00:39:15,886 --> 00:39:20,624 a question that I ask all of my guest, and that has to do with self-care. 731 00:39:21,125 --> 00:39:23,761 And I do talk a lot about self-care. 732 00:39:23,761 --> 00:39:25,162 I'm an advocate of self-care 733 00:39:25,162 --> 00:39:28,833 because we got to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. 734 00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,069 What are some things that you would say are some of your 735 00:39:32,069 --> 00:39:34,605 go to for self-care? 736 00:39:35,206 --> 00:39:36,707 Yeah, that's a great question. 737 00:39:36,707 --> 00:39:38,809 I will talk to a therapist. 738 00:39:38,809 --> 00:39:41,479 So I think that's that's an important thing that I try to keep up 739 00:39:41,479 --> 00:39:45,716 with, you know, in the middle between my corporate jobs now, because I 740 00:39:46,217 --> 00:39:48,753 left one company, now I'm consulting. 741 00:39:48,753 --> 00:39:51,689 So I've got to figure that out with health care. 742 00:39:52,022 --> 00:39:57,962 They don't make it easy, but I'm a huge believer in in talking to people. 743 00:39:58,362 --> 00:40:01,098 I like therapists for the 744 00:40:01,098 --> 00:40:04,802 the reason that there's evidence based modalities that they can use. 745 00:40:04,802 --> 00:40:06,737 And I'm aware of that, 746 00:40:06,737 --> 00:40:09,240 that we can work through it, because I usually come in at this point 747 00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:12,243 to work on very specific things like processing the grief 748 00:40:12,910 --> 00:40:15,212 of my father passing away. 749 00:40:15,212 --> 00:40:17,715 So I'm working through things, 750 00:40:17,715 --> 00:40:21,585 whether it's CBT or DVT or they're things that I've been helping me. 751 00:40:21,886 --> 00:40:23,220 So that's one piece of it. 752 00:40:23,220 --> 00:40:27,892 But the other piece for me, I need to do physical things. 753 00:40:28,092 --> 00:40:30,194 So I have a treadmill in the garage. 754 00:40:30,194 --> 00:40:34,632 And then I also I live in Colorado and I can run out my door and be on a 755 00:40:35,666 --> 00:40:39,136 path that winds into the mountains and like 5 minutes. 756 00:40:39,336 --> 00:40:40,571 And that's a big thing. 757 00:40:40,571 --> 00:40:43,073 I grew up running. I was a hands. 758 00:40:43,707 --> 00:40:46,143 I'm sure we could unpack that. 759 00:40:46,143 --> 00:40:49,246 But I grew up as a runner and ran track. 760 00:40:50,481 --> 00:40:54,752 And for me, moving and running, it changes my outlook on everything. 761 00:40:54,752 --> 00:40:57,955 I mean, there's obviously a physiological effect, the endorphins and whatnot. 762 00:40:57,955 --> 00:41:00,558 But I also do a lot of thinking 763 00:41:01,125 --> 00:41:04,361 when I write and it changes the way I look at the world. 764 00:41:05,062 --> 00:41:08,866 And so being physical for me is a huge part of it 765 00:41:09,467 --> 00:41:11,836 because I I'm, you know, 766 00:41:11,936 --> 00:41:14,271 I'm an Irishman, I'm prone to depression. 767 00:41:15,039 --> 00:41:19,777 But what I find when I move, it's such a natural way for me to keep it 768 00:41:20,611 --> 00:41:22,913 The darkness at bay, so to speak. 769 00:41:23,581 --> 00:41:28,419 So that and I think the other thing is going to five year old, a seven year old. 770 00:41:28,619 --> 00:41:32,690 And I have I have a little girl on the way and. 771 00:41:32,690 --> 00:41:37,161 I'm spending time with my kids is the best thing in the world. 772 00:41:37,394 --> 00:41:38,629 There is nothing to me. 773 00:41:38,629 --> 00:41:42,132 There's nothing better to change my mood 774 00:41:42,366 --> 00:41:46,670 instantly if I just get out of my own way, like get out of my head, 775 00:41:46,670 --> 00:41:50,307 get out of my way and just be in the moment with them 776 00:41:50,908 --> 00:41:54,144 because they're I mean, little kids, they're so in the moment. 777 00:41:54,144 --> 00:41:57,147 They just they live moment to moment. 778 00:41:57,581 --> 00:42:01,385 And it's so fun and it's the best. 779 00:42:01,385 --> 00:42:05,422 I mean, to me, that's probably the biggest factor. 780 00:42:05,723 --> 00:42:09,093 And then, of course, spending time with them, it brings me back to my why, right. 781 00:42:09,093 --> 00:42:12,396 Like everything I do is his food this in? 782 00:42:12,396 --> 00:42:16,467 If I can enjoy these moments, then what am I doing it for in the first place? 783 00:42:16,634 --> 00:42:18,536 Yeah, I love that. 784 00:42:18,536 --> 00:42:19,503 Well, very, very cool. 785 00:42:19,503 --> 00:42:21,138 Thank you for your encouragement. 786 00:42:21,138 --> 00:42:24,241 Thank you for your voice and for being 787 00:42:24,241 --> 00:42:27,144 willing to talk about your story is a fantastic. 788 00:42:27,711 --> 00:42:31,715 And I just I appreciate you just how open you are and have been. 789 00:42:31,715 --> 00:42:34,018 And thank you so much for coming on the show. 790 00:42:34,685 --> 00:42:35,719 Yeah, my pleasure. 791 00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:39,623 John, I've been following you as well on LinkedIn for a while and so I'm psyched 792 00:42:39,623 --> 00:42:41,825 that we actually finally get a chance to sit down and chat. 793 00:42:42,059 --> 00:42:44,194 Yeah, same here. It's been a pleasure. 794 00:42:44,194 --> 00:42:45,563 And I know we're going to continue 795 00:42:45,563 --> 00:42:49,033 this relationship on LinkedIn and maybe off LinkedIn someday. 796 00:42:49,033 --> 00:42:51,335 You never. Know. Absolutely. 797 00:42:51,335 --> 00:42:52,202 That's awesome. 798 00:42:52,202 --> 00:42:55,439 And I want to thank all of you for listening and I appreciate you all. 799 00:42:55,739 --> 00:42:59,610 And I just want to encourage you to continue to work on your mental health, 800 00:42:59,610 --> 00:43:04,181 whatever your story is, your story may not be exactly the same as Brendan's, 801 00:43:04,181 --> 00:43:08,485 but you have a story and live it and don't be ashamed to talk about it 802 00:43:08,485 --> 00:43:13,257 and get the help that you need and work on your mental health a little each day. 803 00:43:13,791 --> 00:43:15,793 And I'm going to let you go with this. 804 00:43:15,793 --> 00:43:19,029 Just know that the Mental Health Today Show has been championing 805 00:43:19,063 --> 00:43:22,433 your mental health since 2015. 806 00:43:23,167 --> 00:43:25,202 Take care, my friends. Until next time. 807 00:43:25,636 --> 00:43:39,717 Bye bye.