The True Competitive Edge: Mental Health | Jason Law, Erik Averill | Athlete CEO #53
Enjoy the Athlete CEO podcast? Leave us a 5-star rating & review to help others like you discover the show!
Episode Summary
We love being a part of a community that is driven to win. A community where each of us are in pursuit of being the best in the world. To be masters of our craft.
Many begin the journey, but few arrive. It can be lonely, exhausting and filled with dangerous pitfalls that threaten your success.
The biggest threat, your mental health.
Thankfully, this is not a path you have to travel alone. From Michael Phelps, to Kevin Love and Hayden Hurst we have professional athletes bringing the awareness and resources to the forefront to help us redefine what high performance truly means.
Listen in to this Athlete CEO Episode with special guest, Jason Law as we dive into bringing you the knowledge, tools and experts surrounding mental health.
+ Read the Transcript
Erik Averill:
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Athlete CEO podcast. I'm your host, Erik Averill. I am the co-founder of AWM Capital, where we partner with our clients to unlock the full potential of their wealth. And one of the things that we believe to the core at AWM is that the greatest driver of your net worth is actually your human capital. And so this podcast, the Athlete CEO podcast is all about bringing you the knowledge, the skills and access to world-class experts on how to unlock your full human capital.
And for those that are just listening in for the first time, when we talk about human capital, this is what makes up you in a holistic manner. And so we're going to talk about your physical capital, we're going to talk about your intellectual capital, your social capital. Yes, your financial capital. But what we want to concentrate on today is your mental capital. Here in the month of May is mental health awareness.
And so today I get to dive into a conversation with a dear friend of mine, someone I respect on so many levels, first and foremost, as a friend, as a husband, as a father, absolutely as an entrepreneur and just a fellow human on a journey to live a complete life. And so, Jason, welcome to the podcast.
Jason Law:
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Erik Averill: Jason, for the audience, we'll take a quick little trek down memory lane of the resume that we read off. And so originally a firefighter here locally, something just moves in your heart from a compassion standpoint for some of those people in our world that have experienced poverty. So you leave being a firefighter, you start a nonprofit, you guys have, I think, built over 900 homes across three different countries. And one of the cool things of your model at 1Mission is that families are actually earning homes. I think it was over 180,000 hours of community development from the families. Just an incredible thing. In the midst of that you've launched some businesses. And I think from a resume piece of paper, people are going to sit here and say, "Oh my goodness, look at all of this. Has life must just be going perfectly." And I laugh because here we are sitting is, what I really want to dive into what your big passion is now is mental awareness, mental health projects. Can you give us a little background of what's brought you to this point on that journey?
Jason Law:
Yeah, I'll try to. As you mentioned, I mean, the last 15 years of my professional life, I actually didn't set out to be an entrepreneur, I just set out to be a firefighter and then ended up starting things and enjoying it and doing those. I like starting things and solving problems or attempting to solve problems. So for the last 15 years, very driven, very passionate about work, I think like many entrepreneurs, it's probably the most needed ingredient for success, is the grit, right?
Well, I think in that grit, certainly in the last four years, probably about four years ago, things started to break down and I think that's probably a term we all use when we're like, "I don't know, things just don't want to feel right." And things didn't start to feel right and then things started to feel a little bit worse, a little bit worse. And I can go into those details but generally speaking, a few years ago, I started to get what I would say some mental health help, some answers and that led me down a journey that I had no idea I would ever go down. And I got some answers that frankly were a little disturbing. And in terms of learning some things about myself and having a journey through some trauma and different things.
But with that it's landed me, I think, in a little healthier place. But my perspective now and my passion now is certainly around mental health and providing better experiences and better resources for people surrounding mental health, which includes everything from advocacy and awareness, all the way to actually providing good modalities and good mental health treatments, which that's the biggest project I'm working on now, is in the space of mental health centers.
Erik Averill:
And one of the things I've always appreciated about you, especially in this journey last couple of years has been your vulnerability or just transparency around it. Because it's not shocking to anybody in the audience to hear that people are struggling with mental health symptoms or issues, but it's one thing for people to recognize in generality like, oh yeah, that exists out there. But when it's the vulnerability from a person to not be feeling shamed to bring it to the forefront.
And I think specifically for our audience that are professional athletes that are founders, what you said is there's part of us that we have to put on this superman cape every day and you try to enter in of like, "Is this weakness? Do I want to admit it?" I saw this crazy stat that it's something over 30% of college students deal with some symptom of mental health, but in the athlete space, in the collegiate ranks, only 10% would actually reach out for help.
And so I'd just love to hear you talk a little bit about what you're seeing working with other leaders or professional athletes of why do you think we have such a difficulty in even asking for help before we get into all the brokenness of what the help isn't, how that's not robust enough? But I'd just love to start the conversation there.
Jason Law: From my perspective and my experience, I think some of the answers I started to get in the last couple of years in uncovering some of my... I would even go back to my childhood trauma would be a lot of the things that were driving me, if not everything that was driving my grit and my hard work for the last 15 years, a lot of that had to do with fears and anxieties and this, I go back to how I felt maybe when I graduated high school and the word was go. It was not, "Let's go learn a little bit more for life." I had a lot of anxiety to just get out and get after it and go, and I only knew one direction and one speed. And the world benefits that, mean you will benefit from that speed. Go no matter what. So anytime there was a pain, one of the sayings I got taught growing up was a leader's capacity is only as much as their pain threshold. And there's a lot of different ways to say that, but it's essentially saying, you'll only go as far as a leader as you're able to withstand pain. Well, you tell certain people that at certain ages, especially if they've been through certain things at certain ages, and it doesn't matter what the specifics are. It's a lot of people have been through a lot of crap. And when you go through crap and you're told, "If you can withstand that and bury that and keep going, then you'll keep winning." And that, it works up to a certain point until your body and, I think, your soul starts to break down. And I think that's what starts to happen with athletes or even high driven leaders later on. I don't know if it's in mid... People call it midlife crisis. I think it's just, in my experience, my body just started to break down like, "Jay..." Dude, I've been going after this, getting after it, burying this crap for a long time and I just can't do it anymore. I can't sleep under this pressure, I can't work under this pressure, I can't grind this hard. And some people have amazing... I mean, I look at The Rock and his daily schedule, I'm like, "Gosh, some days I can barely get out of bed." It's not a matter of how much grit you have necessarily, it's how much you're allowing your body to rest and your body to be integrated with the reality of what happened and what certainly is happening. And when you take something that if you buried a bunch of things that happened, and then you also have a lot of things that are happening, that's a recipe for water overflowing the dam, they call it. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I think with athletes what's driving their amazing abilities, especially being a professional level sometimes can be completely out of health. Awesome. But in my experience, a lot of it was driven out of non-healthy things. Things like fears and fears that are deep beyond the consciousness. And those are things that professionals work out and go, "Hey, one of the reasons you might be running so hard to put seven figures in the bank is because you watch mom and dad go through this and you're like, "Oh, dang, I actually don't need that." And then these light bulbs go off and you're like, "I don't have to be running this hard. I'm not going to die." It feels like it though.
Erik Averill:
And so much of what you're sharing just resonates. So we get the privilege to work with so many of these individuals who literally are the best in the world at what they do. But when you start to peel back the layers, and what you understand is they're still human beings. And to your point, the world rewards the external success. So it's like, if you're going to drive harder, you're going to do something elite, we'll keep pouring money on you and giving you some fame, but if we take a step back and go, "Those things aren't bad but they're just byproducts of being good." And especially money that we believe here is just a tool to achieve life priorities.
And so if we go back to that more robust definition of wealth, which is wellbeing and wellness, as a human it's like you can have a huge bank account, but if you're unwell, you can't show up in the relationships that matter the most, you actually can't show up as the best version of yourself and you're just completely miserable. And I think there's also a real fear in, and I'd love for you to speak into this, there is that scare though, like " What if I actually start to focus on becoming well, will it impact my success and is there a cost of that?"
I feel like that is the things that you've talked a lot about. Thankfully, we've had some professional athletes in the recent years come and talk about their struggles. Michael Phelps, most famously, just talking about here's a guy after the 12 Olympics, I think he'd won four gold medals and he talked about wanting to kill himself down there. From Kevin Love in the NBA to Hayden Hearst through the NFL and his stories. But I'd just love for you to speak into that and maybe someone who's sitting there going, "There's something I know that's unwell. Where do I even start in the fear of, is this going to cost me what's going on?"
Jason Law:
I think there's a couple ways to look at the question, is how it's already impacting what's going on? So it's one, they go, "How will this impact my career?" Well, how was it already impacting? Those were questions that I hadn't stopped and slowed down enough. My therapist gave me the analogy of climbing Mount Everest. You can climb Mount Everest and never stop and probably never get to the top, but you have to stop and take breaks and monitor things and whatever. And it sounds cliche and stupid, but if you don't stop to evaluate the present, both integrating how are you feeling, "Well, I feel like crap. I'm not enjoying my life. Well, it doesn't matter how much money I ever have. I feel like crap." Those were places I was getting.
And some cases I feel like I'm going to die. I'm having a full-blown anxiety attack. Maybe nobody gets to those levels to trigger these extreme responses. But my body was starting to fail me, which was triggering, "Hey, it doesn't matter where you think this is going to do to your career, you have to do this now. We have to get some help now." I guess from my perspective, my advice would be, if you're experiencing some of that, then you just go, "How is this already impacting me now?" Well, I think that's a hard question because you might not be able to put hands and fingers on, "Well, this is how it's impacting my marriage or me being a dad," or whatever.
But as you start, I think the journey in the direction, they always say the first step is going to be the hardest in any recovery or whatever. But with mental health human beings don't want to go places they're unfamiliar with, ever from the top. And that's in our DNA. It protects us. So my four-year-old doesn't want to go in the classroom if he doesn't know anyone, I don't want to go in a room if I don't... I certainly don't want to go to a therapist to talk about things that I have even subconsciously put away that I didn't even think were a big deal.
I'll give you an example of things in the past that that triggered the present. Generally speaking, I will say everybody's present, every behavior you see in the present in a human is a manifestation of their past. And the future is yet to come and the past has already happened.
The only thing that we're observing in consciousness right now is this exact second in time. The couple of us in the room here, that's the only thing that really is existing. But everything in my past is informing how I feel about the present. Meaning, if I, at one point was in a room and somebody busted through the door and tried to shoot me, then I might be super weirded out by being in this room because it's triggering something, where you could be in the same room and nothing happens, right?
Erik Averill:
Right.
Jason Law:
Two different experiences but we have two different reactions type of thing. My point is some of those things, if not a lot of those things, psychologically speaking, would be, if you're not aware of what's happening in the present, certainly by even observing things in the past that may have happened, you are going to have a very difficult time having agency over your behavior in the present. So we call it observing the past, observing the present to then have hopefully agency over your behavior.
Now, not always will you have agency over your behavior. You could have a brain condition that doesn't allow that, or that's preventing that. But if you feel like, "I'm just losing the ability to have agency over my anger, over my..." Where I used to be able to only have two drinks and now it's not enough. I don't have agencies over myself like I used to. And for me, I didn't have my wits about me. I started crying at the airport one time and I didn't know why. I'm like, "Why am I crying?" These things that I didn't have agencies over were triggers of, "Hey, what is going on here?" I had no idea to look in my past. I had no idea. I said I would give you an example. Is this what you want to talk about?
Erik Averill: Yeah. No, this is great. I think what I love also hearing too is I know for myself, once again, going to that protective shield that you talked about, our croc brain is fight or flight. Humanity has spent the entire history of trying to protect itself. So doing the one thing of going, "I think I'm going to put myself in a position of vulnerability," is insanely difficult. I think one of the knee jerk reactions also is to compare and go, "You know what, I'm dealing with a little OCD," or "I'm a little stressed out," or "I'm down in the dumps, but comparatively, I don't have mental health issues because there's a negative stigma still around it."
And then also I think there's just this degrees. And I looked at this list when I was reading through some of your documentation that you're putting out there of the type of holistic care that needs to happen. But we're talking symptoms, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, obsessive thoughts, self-harm, impulsive behavior, suicidal thoughts. I think a lot of times it's like, "Well, if I'm not suicidal, I can manage this over here." I would just love to hear just your thoughts on really talking to someone about not minimizing what they're going through just because it's not as drastic as what they see in somebody else.
Jason Law:
Totally. I think this is part of caring for yourself, that whole idea of like, "Well, I can still love myself even though my trauma isn't as bad as a veteran that fought in a war." And that's a whole thing. You're like, "Well, who am I to even want help for my anxiety or something?" So I think there's first an acceptance of, "I'm not perfect, I don't need to be perfect and I deserve some peace." It's okay to seek that peace. And I think God wants us to be at peace with ourselves. And if you're not feeling like there's something still feel at peace or this isn't who I want to be type of thing, then I think it's giving yourself permission to walk in that direction. And that's a vulnerability thing but a trust thing of, "I can trust walking in this direction."
My advice too, if I'm feeling something, it's not that those things are going to grow and oh, you better nip it in the bud now because that anxiety could grow or anything. To me it's just as simple as, it's like a father to a child. My 13-year-old daughter, she's spun up about everything, she's a teenager. Just me simply putting my hands on her shoulder, looking her in the eyes and saying, "What's going on?" "Well, Jenny did this and... And this is going..." And then me holding her tighter and saying, "No, no, no. What are you feeling right now? What is your body feeling?" "I feel light. I feel dizzy."
"Okay, just take a breath. Your body doesn't need to feel like it's going to die. Jenny just isn't going to be your friend right now." But to her, her body is reacting as if she's going to die. This is the fight or flight. And all that's happening physiologically is dopamine, cortisol, chemicals are being released by your organs. Well, different people have different thresholds for these releases. The doctors, I think the science that's coming out now is younger people or younger generations have lower thresholds for these releases. This is why kids are struggling with a lot of anxiety, and depression, and things.
There's a lot of reasons I'm not a doctor to describe all that. But what I'm saying is sometimes it's just like looking at yourself as if you would look at a child. "What's going on? I got work, I got to pay bills. My wife..." Okay, well, you're acting like you're going to die here. Take a deep breath. No one's going to kill you, there's just a couple of us in here. The present reality is really safe, but in our consciousness it's a disaster.
And I think for me, there was so many different things happening between present and past pressures, like I said, that were building up that eventually I just didn't know left from right. That is another way of saying there's a lot of anxiety. I'm just like, but really it took grounding myself, doing a lot of this groundwork, getting out of my consciousness and grounding into the present, which then you realize all that really is, is a lot of thinking that creates a lot of not peace in my body. So all of that to answer the question of, I think all of us are seeking peace, not the peace that we find in a God, [00:20:00] or a creator or something, but the piece of the now. How do I get my body to not feel like I'm panicked?
Erik Averill:
Everybody deserves to live peace peacefully within themselves. Just even that simplicity of you talking about it. Giving your permission where you don't always have to be charged up or so negative and guilty. And I think just that permission is so important, even in a culture where you can see it on the Instagram and these things is most people still don't give themselves permission.
One of the things that I would love to hear you talk about, unfortunately, is especially coming out of COVID, the amount of stress that people have gone through isolation, these types of things is there's such a demand and a need for help and for care yet our resources are limited, they're completely fragmented. I had read in some of the research stuff you put together, the amount of medication we're on that's actually being prescribed from non-specialists.
And even when people are on these medications, they haven't seen a mental health professional in over a year. I mean, we're seeing, really, we're throwing a band-aid on a flesh wound type situation. What should be the path forward? I know this is a passion of what you're trying to bring. Just explaining to someone, how do you, in a holistic way, integrated way care for yourself from a mental health standpoint?
Jason Law:
Well, I think I'll talk to it from two perspectives. One, mental health in general, where mental health has been, where it's at and where we hope it's going. Mental health in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, all the way up until the '90s, people who had mental health incidences or episodes were put in an insane asylum and 65% give or take of those people in the insane asylum actually were legitimately harm to self, harm to others, they can't be out in public. But there was a large percentage of people that were like you and me that were in acute distress, maybe going through some overwhelming experience, our water's overflowing the dam, we don't have agency over behavior. But we're not psychotic, we maybe need to be medicated for a short season.
But what happened for 50 years is those people got stuck in the system and then that wasn't working. The people that needed help or that. So the states and the government got away with those and put all those people basically back on, on the streets. Homelessness went up, now we've got all of those things. Well, then mental health swings to this, well, you're psycho if you're in mental health. Because that's where the stigma was created. It created this bifurcation of medical versusmental.
Now mental health is coming in to the stigma has been dropped for, I think anyone below boomers. And there is no stigma, but there's a huge fragmentation, like you're saying, in terms of the services or where people know where to start. So I use the example of maybe 30, 40 years ago, when you had cancer, you went to your primary physician and you're like, "Hey, I have cancer." And the primary physician maybe knows a little bit about a lot, but he's not like a specialist in cancer. And there wasn't really a place you could go to get a comprehensive evaluation, et cetera, et cetera.
I think that's the idea of what we're trying to do with our mental health clinic. Mental health center is going to be a lot more, where is one place you can go the first place and the last place you ever have to go for mental health. I can go there and get an assessment by a doctor, I can be plugged into a treatment plan, I can take that treatment plan somewhere else if I need one. I'm getting some initial answers in terms of doing a bunch of different screeners and world-class things to assess the patient.
So to answer your question, I think, from where mental health is now, I think what people need the most, and myself was included is I got lucky with getting a good assessment early on in my, what I would call acute distress. I got in front of a good trauma counselor, added some good friends that knew some good people and I had financial resources to be able to get the help. That's not the case for everyone.
You mentioned, for example, half of people in the United States right now on medications for mental health haven't seen a mental health provider, they're getting from their primary physician or someone else. So the mental health sector isn't even the one leading the way with the medication. I think there has to be some redefinition as to who should be the ones prescribing those things that's happening, but it's going to happen by institutions or the private sector building this up, saying, "These are the doctors that are going to do mental health, et cetera."
Where mental health needs to go to solve some of these problems, I think is clearer resources, clearer starting points for people, more comprehensive resources and not, I have to go to 50 different places or trust 50 different types of people to navigate my own mental health journey. I can go to either one place or it's clearly defined where I need to go from here. I don't know if that helps.
Erik Averill:
Yeah. No, it's super helpful. I think one of the things I love reading in your comprehensive approach and integrated plan is instead of it being just breathing techniques or just what we would sometimes incorrectly deem as like, well, this is holistic or Eastern versus the medical. It's like, no, it's both. So, I mean, we're reading about cold baths in your deal, we're reading about meditation rooms. But in addition to the counseling and the medical professionals, I just think that taking that integrated approach is so important.
One of the last things I want to make sure we hit on is a lot of times too, what we see in the professional athlete spaces, the NBA stepped up. This could be because of Kevin Love, bringing stuff to the forefront and just these conversations, they now are required to have a full-time at least one mental health professional within the organization. Yet a lot of times whether it's colleges, professional athletes, or even probably some of these Fortune 500 companies that have these resources is most people A, don't take a proactive approach to it. And then a lot of times it is just the medication.
So if you're talking to someone who's listening here, what is that first step like? And you may not have an answer to a specific person to reach out to, but if someone was sitting here and it was just the two of you talking and they opened up and "I am struggling," what's the first step that they should take?
Jason Law: That's a very important question. And I have shared this with... Like you're saying, if you were a friend sitting across from me, I would say to start with a professional who has gained your trust somehow either through referral or you've done a couple of meetings with them, I think it's not maybe the first person you meet with, but meet with a couple of professional mental health people that could be a licensed professional counselor, all the way to doctor of psychology. If you have access to them, there's lots of different ways to find them locally, et cetera.
My advice would be that I don't think anyone should be on a psychotropic medicine that includes basically any medication prescribed to you for mental health, all the way from ADHD to anxiety, et cetera, without it being in conjunction with a therapist of some sort. A lot of people are on medications and myself included and they're very beneficial and helpful only to the extent that it's helping maybe you get through something or whatever and settle things.
But if you're not careful, you're not really solving the root of what is maybe driving the non-peace in your soul or your body. Meaning, not to call it a band-aid, but the doctors would say they should be temporary, which tells me you shouldn't want to be on a medication your entire life. I think you may be, but all that to say it should be in conjunction with some therapy because the people prescribing the medications, like I said, 50% of them aren't trained mental health professionals.
So in conjunction with medication, be it a mental health professional, I think instant things people can do or grounding techniques, I think for me, early on, and I'm by no means an expert on mental health, but I still come back to, I meditate every day and I have to ground myself every day, or I get spun up in my head and I end up feeling too anxious. So almost before every meeting, I do a breathing exercise. I drive a 30-minute commute. I usually breathe half of the time. And those are disciplines I had to create to allow my brain to slow down enough till it wasn't very painful.
The first couple of minutes of meditating may be some of those painful moments of your life. So I still do guided meditation because my brain for 37 years only liked going at one speed, thinking about one thing, next, next, go, when, crush, advance, whatever those words are. And that's a really great way to get places but it's a horrible way to treat your body.
So simple breathing techniques are just a way you can honor your body, which sounds so stupid, but it will bring you some peace. I mean, breathing slowly is a great place to start. And then almost convincing it's like your body then tells your brain, "What are you so worked up about? See, I have nothing, nothing to worry about. No one's killing us." It's like your body can inform your brain.
And I think we could do a whole podcast on it, but that's the integration. That's why cold plunges, physiologically what's happening is it's like shattering your consciousness to go, "Hello, wake up to this. Yikes. I got all this crap going on." It's good for your brain to reset itself. That's what's happening. And if you're not careful, you'll get stuck in that consciousness of just like rinse and repeat, go, go, go, go. Your body can inform and calm you down. That's what I'm saying.
Erik Averill:
And I think that's so powerful. Going back to it's all integrated. We've had previous guests on here to talk about the peak performance side of it, but it's breathing routines. We just had a guy, Phil Wallin, who runs Diesel Fitness and Recovery talking about infrared sauna, red light therapy, cold plunging. And it's because it's all interconnected in this human capital conversation of going like once again it's wellbeing. And one of the first places to start is it's okay to actually be a human that's finite.
I think that that's one of the lies that we tell ourselves, is people in pursuit of the best in the world at what we do. Is it doesn't feel this way, but it's still in your best interest to sleep eight hours a day, to breathe, to have reflection, to allow yourself the peace and the humanity to say, "I can relax."
Jason Law: Totally.
Erik Averill:
It's okay. And the funny thing, it's this whole slow down to go fast. I actually think two things that everybody's going to say, of course, but we don't prioritize it this way is like,what if I'm the healthiest person in a holistic manner, mentally, physically, socially, relationally? I'm going to be far more successful at the things that matter. And I think that that's if we had to really challenge ourselves of going, "What is the definition of success? What is the good life?" It's not just the bank account, it's actually, "Do I have the energy and ability to show up for the people in my life that matter the most, and to do the projects that matter the most?"And that will provide the wellbeing.
And so I appreciate you. Thank you for your story. I mean, we could spend a lot more time. Just a small podcast doesn't provide the amount of resources and conversations we need to have. So we'll make sure in the show notes at theathleteceo.com that we're linking to what Jason is doing. He's a part of some other incredible organizations that we'll do a future podcast around specifically about some of the mental health stuff going on in the professional athlete ranks, born out of a tragic story into some of the good work that we're seeing done that Jason's really a driver behind. And so thank you so much for your time. Any last words that you would want to leave with anybody?
Jason Law:
Yeah. I'm glad you asked that because I was going to say nothing. But as you were just sharing the last... In my experience with the last few years, when I sat my wife down, for example, some of you were listening and you're like, "What does the next step look like? And where are some of these areas I might go with mental health that I don't..." When I started to sit down with my wife and say, "Hey, here's how I'm feeling and here here's what's happened. I'm crying privately," and all these things, my wife broke down in a way that was like, I have never seen this side. The vulnerability that then she was able to see in me brought us closer. I will say it could do amazing things for relationships whether you're married or not.
But friends, family, when you share these things, that is a great starting point to just say, "Hey, I'm not okay. I don't feel okay." And it's obviously everyone now knows it's okay to not be okay. I don't think that's the problem, the hurdle, but when you share that with other vulnerability breeds vulnerability. When I started to share this with my wife, she's like, "You're not a robot, you're not a machine. You do sense these things. I've been sensing these for years, but I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to stop."
Wives don't naturally know how to pump breaks on driven men. But when men can pump the brakes on themselves and stand across from somebody and say, "Hey, I think I need to pump the brakes. And I don't know what this is going to do to my checkbook." So I will say this, in the beginning it was the worst thing I could have done for my business, was to get mental health, but it was the best thing I could have done for myself and my marriage by far.
And now I'm starting to see either by God's design or just by being a little bit, I think, more healthy, that there's more opportunities now for me to do things financially than there was even before. And that's where I start to have gratitude to go, "I sure am glad I did walk through this journey." Not that I ever want to do it again. It's the hardest thing I've ever done and it is expensive in a lot of different ways. Good health costs money, and it takes time. And it took a lot of sacrifice. I had to step down from roles at work and have conversations with people. Not because I was this like, "I want that to be clear," not because I woke up one day and was like, "I'm going to do it. I'm taking a left." My body forced me, my body shut down.
A lot of people don't have to wait until that. But part of, I think, practically when it was like, "How do you put your marriage first?" Some of it is putting yourself first, especially for driven men. It's like take some time to go... I went camping by myself for 24 hours for the first time in my life. 24 hours of solitude felt like a week. One of the hardest things I've ever done. You'd be amazed at what you learn about yourself in that 24 hours, how slow time can go, how simple the world is and really what the priorities are.
Erik Averill:
I absolutely love it. And thank you for ending on that note. I think it's one of the things of that final encouragement that I heard come out of that, is give yourself permission to actually become the person that you were created to be. Not based off the expectations of what other people want from you, or want you to be and to do that hard work. And as Jason said, is if you're at that place where you need immediate help is reach out to that professional. But for so many other of those listening in is don't wait until it gets to the very end of the road. The good news is there are resources now, and you can start to implement these things into your life immediately. And so, once again, you can access everything over athleteceo.com. And until next time, own your wealth, make an impact and always be a pro.