Latest / Voices for Voices® / How Decision-Making Shapes Our Lives and Mental Wellbeing | Episode 228

Transcript

How Decision-Making Shapes Our Lives and Mental Wellbeing | Episode 228 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 0:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: I'm your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes.
• 0:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us on this episode.
• 0:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: We are, as you can tell, over 220 episodes in our episode catalog, on our way to 300 at least by the the end of 2025, and we couldn't do this without you, can't do this without your love and support.
• 0:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you.
• 0:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: If you could do us a big favor, you know, give us a big thumbs up like follow, share all those good things Don't cost anything and help us share our message and our content with the hopes and our goal of helping 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 0:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you for that.
• 1:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for tuning in and we've had a lot of activity around Voices for Voices here this.
• 1:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, I say that I wanted to say the first part of 2025, but we're already.
• 1:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're already in May, so that's the year is just flying by.
• 1:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're doing the best we can to again bring the best, brightest content.
• 1:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're bringing a lot of topics that some other organizations, other shows don't want to touch organizations other shows don't want to touch, but we feel that helping people comes in all shapes and sizes.
• 2:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: Particular topics come to us for shows, and so sometimes it may seem where we're focusing on one topic or a couple of topics heavily for a period of time, and what that really means is is there, there is time, sensitive content and information that we want to share, and so that's why you're seeing a lot of condensed uh, or a of episodes you know talking about, you know human trafficking.
• 2:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: We all know, you know P Diddy, epstein, we get all that.
• 2:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: We've, you know, talked with David Solomon, who's a human trafficking survivor, and there are so many things that we're learning and so much information, so many different people, and when we find out about that, we want to share that.
• 3:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: When we find out about that, we want to share that because, again, we want to help people, we don't want to hurt people, and so if we have information that can help people, can help families, help children, help anybody, we want to share that, we don't want to hold back.
• 3:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that's where we're at.
• 3:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: On topic-wise, voices for Voices.
• 3:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: You saw, we had the great privilege and honor to play with the Kutztown University Orchestra, with Hearts for Music.
• 4:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: It's a great special needs orchestra, able to integrate with an orchestra and that was such a great moment and just to be a little piece in in that puzzle, uh, it just felt so good to bring individuals who may not have been able to perform on a stage and have people in the seats to watch and listen to them, and so the fact that that was able to occur, that was just amazing and definitely one of the highlights of the organization.
• 5:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: And just being a small part in that and we were able to actually talk the following day with the Kutztown University Orchestra Director, dr Isaacson, and so you can look through and find those two episodes that we filmed.
• 5:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: It was fascinating, a great person and it was just a joy to be able to have the opportunity to speak with him about his journey, about his orchestra, about how his thoughts and feelings and he has, I believe, a son that has autism, and so he understands a little bit more than somebody who doesn't have an individual with autism in their family, and so that was just really really neat to get his perspective.
• 6:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I've talked about it a little bit prior, where I get asked all the time how certain events, certain experiences, how they happen, how I make a decision or we make a decision as an organization to go forward with a thought, with a potential experience.
• 6:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: With a thought with a potential experience, and my thoughts are very similar to Dr Isaacson at Kutztown University, because I had asked him, you know, how did this opportunity of a special needs orchestra being embedded with his university orchestra, how did that even come about?
• 7:09
  Justin Alan Hayes: And in a condensed version and you've got to check out the interviews it was just awesome to be able to talk to him.
• 7:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: But what he mentioned was my head, my brain, my thoughts are already in that head space, meaning he was already thinking about that.
• 7:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: Like I said, he has a child with special needs challenges.
• 7:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: I have special needs and challenges myself, so I don't, I don't say those, I don't say it lately, um and and so for him to talk about.
• 7:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: When the opportunity presented itself through one of his orchestra members, who was, uh, or who was connected with Hearts for Music, which is a special needs orchestra, she came and mentioned something to Dr Isaacson and his mind was already in that space where he wanted to do something like that.
• 8:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: But the opportunity up until that point just never really presented itself to be able to like that.
• 8:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: But the opportunity up until that point just never, never really presented itself to to be able to do that.
• 8:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so when that opportunity did present itself to him, he was ready to act and and start implementing.
• 8:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: And, uh, you know there's a couple practice sessions that the groups did together prior to the performance in front of close to 300 attendees, which is phenomenal.
• 8:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so, like I said, his mind was already in that space that when this opportunity came about, it was easy for him to say, yeah, I would love to do that.
• 9:09
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so it was easy for him to just get the plans and get the planning in motion.
• 9:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's how I answer questions around different experiences.
• 9:23
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, the trip to Ukraine, a trip to Romania, some of these mission trips we've done and other ones locally and nationally that we have have have done and that's that's where I'm at is as an organization we want to, like we talk about so much, we want to help three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 9:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: We want the organization to continue on as and when I'm no longer here.
• 9:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: So when you know, different opportunities like that opportunity for Dr Isaacson came about when they present themselves to me, meaning that if I'm able to, I'll probably try it out, see what happens.
• 10:23
  Justin Alan Hayes: And that's exactly what happened with the trip to Ukraine.
• 10:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: Had one of our guests Ukrainian descent and he teaches at a university, and we interviewed him.
• 10:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: I think we did one or two episodes, I can't remember.
• 10:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: You have to check for that on our catalog.
• 10:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: And after the show we were talking it was still on camera, but it was off camera because it wasn't recording.
• 11:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so he invited me.
• 11:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: He said, yeah, bring your show over to Ukraine.
• 11:08
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I already had a trip that was planned to Western Europe, that was planned to Western Europe and I had an invitation and, of course, the all the safety concerns with, with what's happening, uh made the decision, uh, to, to, to go over and and to do that and to do that.
• 11:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so that topic wouldn't have meant anything to me if I wasn't already planning to travel into that region, but since I was and I had the offer, I was thinking, wow, that that would be fascinating.
• 12:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, obviously, all the safety concerns to have that opportunity to, to just be at the people, uh, experience what they're experiencing, uh, with the, with what that's what's occurring over there in, uh, in ukraine and in the region, and so that was already in my mind of well, like if that opportunity comes up, maybe, maybe I'll try it, and so that's how that went forward.
• 12:32
  Justin Alan Hayes: Very, very similar to you know, dr isaacson, as far as that thought process, and so that's how I answered questions about other events.
• 12:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: How did you decide that you wanted to travel to New York City and present Tyrus with his award in person after the Gutfeld show taping?
• 12:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: After the Gutfeld show taping?
• 13:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Because I was already in my mind and in my thoughts that if it was possible, I wanted to, I wanted to do it, and so that's that's where those things kind of come from.
• 13:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so why am I going through this whole whole process?
• 13:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: And it's, you know, very, it seems very dry.
• 13:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: Up until this point Just saw a lot of mechanics about, like mine and thinking.
• 13:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then the mental health obviously plays a role as well, because, you know, a trip to Ukraine, with the war efforts that are going on there, there are a lot of times I was scared, I was fearful, I was afraid, and I know it took a toll on my mental health, because literally you have to be on guard 24-7, which isn't really anything much different than a regular day, no matter where I'm at, but to have, you know, missiles being shot over into an area where you're at, that can be and was, as I said, fearful, afraid, what's going to happen?
• 14:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: What did I get myself into?
• 14:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: Why did I do this?
• 14:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, those thoughts do creep in, and so that the mental health side definitely played a huge role in that, that trip and everything, because there is with just about everything that we do as humans, there's a thought process of I'm going to go take a shower, I'm going to go brush my teeth, I'm hungry, it's lunchtime, I want to get some food to eat for lunch, I have a trip coming and I don't have any gas in my car, so I need to get gas from the gas station.
• 15:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Or, if you have an electric vehicle or natural gas, you do those, and so we make those decisions, and so some of them are.
• 15:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: Obviously, whether I'm going to brush my teeth or not is a little bit different than am I going to go to Ukraine or not, but in the same sense, it's still a thought that's going on in our head, and some we think about more than others, you know.
• 15:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: For, in the market for a new car, versus, hey, let's order a pizza for dinner.
• 15:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: Right, there's still a thought process that goes through, except ordering a pizza is a little, a little less intense than if we're looking for a new vehicle, or if we're gonna maybe go on vacation and we're gonna rent a vehicle or whatever.
• 16:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, all these are hypotheticals, but the these thoughts do come into our mind.
• 16:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: Some are easier, some are are a little bit more difficult.
• 16:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, purchasing a house, moving into a condo, an apartment, dorm if we're talking about school or these things are all thoughts to go through our mind.
• 16:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: Again, some easier to process, meaning much quicker decision than others.
• 16:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: Others could take a little bit longer, which, as well as they should.
• 16:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: You're talking about the time it's going to take to look at and purchase a house, versus where we're going to order pizza from for dinner, your lunch or maybe even breakfast.
• 17:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: A lot of shops aren't open for breakfast, but I've been known to say that I could eat pizza every day of the week.
• 17:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: It would just be a you know different, uh, you know from from a different, uh pizza shop and uh, you know different uh toppings on them, and so all these are thoughts that go through our, our mind, and and so we we don't want to lose sight of.
• 17:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know making decisions and, uh, you know we're talking about all this.
• 17:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: This is all mental health.
• 17:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, this is all.
• 17:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know things are talking about all this, this, all mental health.
• 17:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: This is all.
• 17:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: And things are going on in our mind.
• 17:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: And when we have kind of that overload, where we have A lot of different thoughts going through our head or the intensity of them, you know where we're just like, oh my gosh, I'm tired.
• 17:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: I'm not tired physically, like I'm tired, like my mind's tired.
• 17:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: Mental health is still health.
• 18:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: We talk about it all the time.
• 18:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Mental health is still health, just like physical health is health, just like physical health, is his health.
• 18:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: Much easier to see.
• 18:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know a sprained wrist or ankle and see that progression of healing versus.
• 18:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know the real men, mentality, the mental side of things and in our minds that if we don't talk about them, nobody really knows about them.
• 18:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: Usually they may just think, oh, he's quiet, she's quiet.
• 18:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: I wonder why they're not doing this or doing that.
• 18:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so I do have a quite public life, obviously with the organization and the shows and different things, different opportunities and interactions.
• 19:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: But if you were to see me off camera, like my therapist, psychiatrist, says that not be an introvert, to be I don't want to say more outgoing, but being able to talk to a camera, a microphone and just talk through particular topics, and so those are things that we just really don't know as individuals.
• 20:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes I thought I was an extrovert and my psychiatrist said, no, you aren't.
• 20:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I was like what do you mean?
• 20:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: I teach, we do these shows and we do a lot of public-facing things.
• 20:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then he brought up you know what do you do when you're not on camera and you're not doing these public events?
• 20:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then it made a whole lot of sense.
• 20:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: I said, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, I I'm not as outgoing as I thought I was, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 20:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so when I was able to learn that, it felt good to understand myself a little bit more than what I had known about myself, and so that could seem scary.
• 20:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, oh my gosh, they're talking about me, they're judging me and all that Part of that's their job.
• 21:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: Their job's to help.
• 21:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: So I don't look at my psychiatrist judging me, I look at her helping me, and so, whatever that may be a conversation, a thought, a topic, a trip, medication, non medication, whatever comes up, it's all to help help me, and so by me helping myself as much as I am really can, then I'm nobody's perfect and I'm nowhere near close to even trying to be say that I'm perfect.
• 21:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: So I don't know everything and you don't know everything, and so when we talk to a specialist, that that's their job is to to help, and so my psychiatrist and therapist is helping me, so I'm able to help you and others, which is probably why we're over 50.
• 22:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: Our show is in over 50 countries 620, sharing, screenshotting, just helping people, and we don't quite know all those things that are happening, how we are helping people are helping people.
• 22:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: It's very it's more on the rare side where we find out a specific thing, a specific topic, a specific show, help the specific person go through a specific thing.
• 23:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: We do get those, but there's a lot that's happening that we don't get and and so then we look at the analytics and that's where we go.
• 23:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: Oh my gosh, we did not realize this at all.
• 23:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're the United States based organization and the United States is only one country.
• 23:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: So again, there's over 50, 49 other countries that are tuning in and I'm just blown away.
• 23:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: All of us at Voices for Voices are blown away because of that, and it's that love and support of you tuning in, no matter where you're at on the globe watching, listening, sharing that we're able to do this, and I'm able to the best I can share topics, and not every topic, like we don't like every specific.
• 24:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: We don't like everything about a specific person maybe.
• 24:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: So I like to look at it as a band like, okay, my favorite band is third eye blind, and because they're my favorite band doesn't mean I like every single song that they've written and play, but they're still my favorite band.
• 24:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: We can think the same thing about an actor or an actress.
• 24:38
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, they're my favorite actor, actress or favorite celebrity because of this, but I might not agree with political beliefs or whatever that may be, and so we know that not all our shows are going to resonate with every single person across the world.
• 24:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: We know that.
• 24:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: We invite you, however, to scroll through, and we have so many episodes and again, it just blows my mind that we were able to do this.
• 25:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: It was a thought in my mind several years back and here we are.
• 25:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: It's incredible and we can't do it again without you.
• 25:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if you can give us a big thumbs up like share comment.
• 25:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: That would be awesome and very helpful.
• 25:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: That's something that is free to do and we are also a 501c3 nonprofit, which a lot of people don't know or doesn't really resonate with them because they're seeing this flurry of social media content and shows.
• 25:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: We are, we're a 501c3 organization.
• 25:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: We do accept donations.
• 25:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: You go to voices for voices org and right there you'll be able to, in the middle of the screen, let's say yes, if you're able to support our organization, voices for voices, and the show that we're doing, there are costs that are being eaten by myself and other members of our board and organization.
• 26:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if you're able to donate $1, $10, we would greatly, greatly appreciate that.
• 26:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: That allows us to continue on this, on this journey.
• 26:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: Or you can go over to venmo and look at voices for voices and you can donate that way as well.
• 26:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: All proceeds, all donations, are 100 percent tax deductible because we are a 501c nonprofit charity organization and we can't do this.
• 26:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: A stress, because if you weren't watching, if you weren't listening, we'd have no reason to do this show.
• 26:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: We would have, we would yeah, we'd have no reason to to do that because nobody'd be watching, nobody'd be listening.
• 27:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
• 27:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: Everybody at Voices for Voices to have you watch, listen wherever that may be, whatever platform that may be If you want to watch it or listen to it on iHeart or Spotify, amazon Music, odyssey, the Odyssey app If you want to watch it on YouTube or Rumble.
• 27:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're very blessed to be able to be in so many different platforms that serve certain demographics and we thank you for being with us, watching, listening and until next time, I hope that you enjoy this episode.
• 28:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: Check out the rest of our catalog of episodes at your convenience.
• 28:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: Download them all and then look through what, uh, what, the ones you want to.
• 28:13
  Justin Alan Hayes: You want to save and watch or listen at a at a future date.
• 28:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: So we'll see you next time.
• 28:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: Until then, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.