Latest / 🎙️ Rebuild & Fulfill Real conversations on burnout, rebuilding, and becoming stronger than before. / You're Not Broken... You're Overloaded | Episode 1
Transcript
- Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Welcome to our very first ever podcast rebuild and fulfill This is the podcast for people standing at a threshold, ready to rebuild what's cracking and fulfill who they were meant to be. Thank you so much for being here. We are super excited to be doing this podcast for you all. it's a very important time because mental health is at a crisis level in our country right now. And ⁓ so want bring in Marc, my co-host and co-founder of Suffer2Tougher. to ask you Marc, does this actually look like in everyday life, this mental health crisis that we're going through? Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): you It seems like a tidal wave that's building up and it looks like there's no end in sight. I mean, there's just a lot of things in our society right now that's leading us to this. I mean, obviously the financial stress, just everyday life. You know, some of the things that we do as a society. It's just amazing what's going on out there right now. It's actually kind of sad. I know that you have had a lot of conversations in regards to some people that you talk to and and you're in the community and people are coming up to you. Same thing with me. I mean, it's what I do during the day. So, I mean, I see the stuff all day, every day. And it just seems like it's getting worse and worse week by week, to be honest with you. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, no, absolutely. ⁓ do talk to people so much now that we are, ⁓ you doing presentations. We're out in the community ⁓ as, mental health advocates is ⁓ kind what I like to call us. so because not therapists, ⁓ we're advocates mental health. We support people who are going through mental health crisis and ⁓ in every that we possibly can. But with us, ⁓ the beauty lies in lived life experiences ⁓ that we've had ⁓ how we've seen some of the things that's helped us in our lives helping other people. we to make that clear to people that we are not therapists, not that we have anything against therapists, but simply, you know, we come from a lived life experience ⁓ into ⁓ space. So, big I think people are experiencing so many problems really either realize it or don't know that ⁓ what to do. about it is we kind call the middle. So we've ⁓ been that you're either fine or you're in crisis. You can a mental health day, okay? But you have to worry about the behind and the of well, if I'm ⁓ having a mental health issue, ⁓ that mean like I need therapy? people gonna say or think I'm crazy because I have a mental health issue? And so that's where we kind of and help to realize and people more aware of what mental actually is. So it's not a you're fine or you're in crisis. Most people are somewhere in the middle. So, you know, Marc, why don't you kind of explain what you think this idea? Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): Yeah. I and you know this Kelsey, you know, we, were suffered a tougher hoodies or our t-shirts depending on the time of the year, or like if I'm working out at the gym, I wear a lot of like recovery t-shirts that support the military and things like that. you know, we, were basically on our sleeve and you know, what's interesting is. There is that stigma out there. We've come a long way as a society. There's no doubt about it, but we have such a long way to go. And it's something that, don't know if it's shame or guilt, but people have a hard time talking about it. But when we wear our hoodies or our t-shirts wear a recovery t-shirt to the gym or to the grocery store, people will ask, people will stop, you know, what's the suffer, the tougher about, you or, you know, are you a military vet? No, I'm not a military vet. I support the military. I'm, know, I'm, I'm, I'm in recovery. myself and so forth it just stimulates a conversation and the weirdest places it happened at Costco a couple weeks ago, it happened at a work function, ⁓ know last weekend, happens at the gym ⁓ all the time. mean that I see and women that I see working out on a regular basis will comment on my t-shirt especially because I go to gyms depending on the area that I'm in ⁓ so it's not necessarily people know me it just strikes up a conversation. It's on people's mind but don't know how to talk to people but then when you're open, honest and transparent or you kind of wear it on your sleeve or wear it on your t-shirt people just comfortable talking about it because it really is just everyday stuff. mean it's the stresses of life, it's the pains of life. I mean a of people out there especially like I alluded to earlier with the financial stress they're just feeling burnt right now. You know they feel like they got you know a number of balls in the air and they're just trying to make sure that those balls don't hit the floor. know, they're dealing with some anxiety, some anxious feeling, maybe, maybe sleepless nights or what have you. as a result of that, sometimes you get emotionally numb, you know, you know, you have, sometimes you have some resentments, you know, like, you know, I'm 52 years old, I should be farther in life than this, or maybe some resentments towards certain individuals and so forth. You know, might've thrown a couple of curve balls at you, some past relationships and things like that. And then, you ⁓ the average person, including myself, know, tend to drift a little bit and we drift usually by picking up some bad habits, you know, whether it's, overeating or, know, eating some sugar, you know, desserts and things like that. Picking a habit like online shopping, gambling, whatever might be, you know, because, you know, it's really that's a form of self medication. They're trying to soothe this burning that's going on on the inside because they got this fine mask on right now. Like everything is okay when they know deep down inside there's something off. And then I think that's the biggest issue. They just don't know who to talk to, who to approach, where to get some guidance from. And I think that's the whole purpose of this podcast. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, it's funny when Marc talks about how come up to him and talk to him. we're certainly going to get into lots of stories through this process of delivering our podcast. But I get stories Marc on a daily basis. When he's out in the world and people just come up to him and talk to him, it might as well be like his shirt says, it's okay, you can talk me. as they absolutely do. I hear this stories all the time and it's awesome because people just have to know that you're like a safe place to land, a safe space for them to be able to talk to because they want to, they really want to. They just don't feel like they're gonna be... Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): Bye. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Profiled because they have this weakness as as a lot of people like to think of it I mean, I don't like to think of it, but they do think of it that way So, you know, but when we're out in the world and when we do our talks and stuff we we see you know ⁓ You wasn't that people didn't care You know, that they knew something needed to change But then they stalled there. They really didn't know what to do next so you know when saw this pattern that was developing, it kind started with that awareness. you know, just being aware that something is wrong with them because obviously nobody wants to kind of see the fractures as talk about it sometimes because, ⁓ know, it's like, ⁓ well, now I have something I might have to do something about, ⁓ you know, sometimes we're hiding from ourselves. We certainly hide it from other people. We don't want people around us to know that, you know, we've got these little fractures that we're, you know, having a, you know, that we try and write it off as a bad day or a bad week or I just need to get through this kind of phase something like that and then you go from that awareness to ⁓ like I think I really need to do something here. And you go from that knowing I need to do something, but again, you're kind of stuck in the mud because you don't know what to do. you finally make up mind that you want to take action. And then you're like, okay, like, all right, this is, you know, this is something I'm going to do. And so then you actually do something to take action and maybe you set bar too high. I've been a fitness coach for over 30 years and I see New Year's resolutions come and go and people try to do everything when they're doing a New Year's resolution. My exercise, my diet, my water, my everything has got to be completely on point because this is the year I'm gonna I'm gonna do something different and make you know a better you know a better person out of myself and it's too much. It's like, you know, one day at a time, and we also like to say progress over perfection, just pick one thing to start with, you know, and for some people, it's just, you know, getting up in the morning and convincing yourself that today's gonna be a good day and everything else, it fall in place, however it's going to, it could just be a simple mindset trick. All so, but take action. but then make that action something that's consistent enough that you can sustain it. And when you do that and you've got that sustained strength, okay, and that's the way we look at it, is that you're strong just to wake up in the morning. It's a tough world out there. It's really tough. there's so much going on and we're responsible for more things than ever. There's more pressure than ever. And the idea just to wake up and say, I'm gonna put my best foot forward. You're strong. You're strong. you have things that you could get stronger at that you could move through life better without so many hiccups if you were a little bit more mindful about your approach. And as go what we call the strength continuum, you go from being strength enough, ⁓ strong enough just survive the day to enough to be able to ⁓ stand and say, whatever throws at me, I can handle it. So, Marc, can you give like an example of maybe somebody who goes through their everyday life and maybe experiences something like this. Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): Yeah. mean, hundreds of examples, Kelsey, because of all the speaking I do and so forth. And if I could just elaborate a little bit, you in regards to the awareness part, I think people think that they're, they're a little off, you know, or they have a little something going on in the inside. But I think that as a society, We tend to look at the differences as opposed to the similarities. And I think that's important that the audience needs to understand. And I was no different. I know we're going to hear my story next week about, you know, the path that I went down and so forth, but that's exactly what I used to do. Okay. Well, I know I'm doing this, you know, but, you know, I still got a job. I'm still married. I still have kids and so forth. You know, I looked at the differences, but I look at the similarities of what was going on on the inside, that led to maybe some destructive behavior or some chaos in other people's lives, I could have been so much more aware. And I think that's where these conversations need to come into play, these open, honest and transparent conversations where people can do some soul searching and figure do I need to make a decision to make some change? And the thing about it is if you do make a decision, change is scary. mean, change is scary in everyday life. I mean, you go through a change at work in regards to some type of administrative change, everybody feels anxious, right? Or you change computer systems. Everybody feels anxious, right? Well, when you know you got to make changes in your everyday life, whether it's dietary, whether it's getting your body moving, it's brain set resets, maybe getting some support on the outside, okay. That is really daunting and scary. And I like what you said there about, you know, just focus on one thing, you know, you know, maybe go for a walk around the block. You know, if we're talking about a dietary change, just focus on one thing, maybe cut pop out of your diet or something like that, and then build on the momentum. You know, the progress over perfection is really important as a society. want everything and we want everything now. you know, but that's not realistic. You know, so let's figure out moving forward area that you can change and then you build on that. That's certainly what I did, you know, you know, since I made major changes in my life, almost, you know, five and a half, almost six years ago now. And, know, for the people that I've worked with in the community, ⁓ that's same approach that I've taken and it's worked very, very well. You know, but the biggest thing is, is like when I speak at the hospitals, you know, I volunteered at the crisis department to run support groups for NAMI, the National on some mental illness. You know, I'm a, I was in sales for 30 years. So I like to think I'm a pretty good listener. stories and there's so many similarities in the stories, whether it's somebody in their twenties, somebody in their fifties, doesn't a difference if it's male or female, doesn't make a difference in regards to ethnicity. be somebody Downers Grove at Good Samaritan Hospital. Could be Glendale Glen Oaks. ⁓ Could be at just walking in to NAMI at the DuPage County Health. department. not a genius, but you start connecting these dots, ⁓ Everybody has similarities and ⁓ because don't have that awareness, the similarities lead to some destructive habits. you know, and some chaos in your life because we don't know how to control the anxiety or the depressed thoughts or the panic or maybe process some past trauma or whatever it might be. And I think that's important to understand and that's really the reason why we're doing this obviously. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, so speaking of, since this is our first episode, I'm sure the listeners want to know if they haven't figured out already. So what is this podcast? What is it about? Who is it for? Why do I want to listen? What will I get out of it? So if can kind of expand on that a little bit for us, Marc. Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): Well, you made a comment earlier that it's not therapy and it's certainly not therapy. you know, really what it's about is about open, honest and transparent conversations. I think that's the biggest thing. And the key there is open, honest and transparency. No secrets. secrets are, I believe that secrets are like cancers inside your body growing. And that can lead to some mental health issues. You know, it's about being able to speak your feelings. And I know as a society, again, we've come a long way, but We tend to still think, okay, that expressing our emotions is a sign of weakness, right? We got a quote unquote man up. No, expressing your feelings, okay, is a sign of strength. And that's really what we want to drive home here when we have these conversations. We want to obviously talk about maybe some cultural reframing, which is kind of what I just alluded to, practical insight, lot of stories, know? I mean, what got me here today was hope and inspiration. by a gentleman that spoke when I was in a hospital. Okay, sometimes we just need some hope and some inspiration to drive us to make that change. We are aware, but we need that hope and inspiration. So we're looking to have a lot of stories, a lot of guests down here sharing their stories about how they were able to transform their life and live the life that they're living right now. And then obviously we want to talk about what it takes to... actually takes to fulfill your potential sustainability. And it's interesting and you I have had lot of conversations offline about these thresholds, these strength thresholds. Okay. Yeah. I was a strong person, okay? I was a strong person, but I hit a maximum capacity. I hit a threshold, okay? I mean, there was not more for me to do based off of my knowledge and based off what I was doing on a daily basis. if you would have talked to me six, seven years ago versus now, I would have thought it'd be impossible for me to be where I'm at today. but through structure, through support, through these conversations, through education, you learn, you apply, you drive through your threshold and you become stronger than you've ever become before. the key is to work on that and continue build. Because I'm a believer that... that you need to be proactive versus reactive and that complacency can be dangerous. You gotta always want to strive to be better on a daily basis. And that's really what we're gonna be talking about. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I mean, so some weeks it'll be conversational like this. And one thing that's kind of cool about that is even people that read our book, Suffer Tougher, tell us, ⁓ it was listening to a conversation ⁓ or was having a conversation with ⁓ the writer. people really dig that. ⁓ And that's the way that we meant for it to be. Not so informational as so much conversational. And so we want to do a lot of that, certainly on this podcast. do, as Marc was saying, we do want to bring guests on. mean, either guests who've gone through transformations themselves, guests are struggling that are like, hey, I don't know where to go. And we're like. hey, why don't you jump on and have a conversation with us and see what we can do to help you out. We actually have therapists on here. Like Marc and I said, we're not but we're also not anti-therapy. So we might some therapists on to and maybe give some of their insight. So lots of different things we planned for the future. Obviously we're gonna give you lots of tools to be able to use use in your daily life struggles and that sort of thing. Anything else I'm missing there, Marc? Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): No, I mean, I think we pretty much hit on it. You know, I think that the next, next week you guys, you all the audience are going to hear a little bit about my story. I didn't want to get too much into it today. it's an interesting That's for sure. We'll bring it at that. pretty destructive story. Lost a lot, but at the same time gained a lot. And that's what we're going to be discussing next week. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Excellent. All right, well, we didn't want to make this first podcast too long, too daunting for people to get through just to kind of, learn a little bit more about what we're going to be bringing here. So we really do want to thank you for listening to our first episode. We hope you've gotten a few nuggets to take with you today. And if you're listening and thinking, I'm not in crisis, but I'm not thriving either. This is the space for you. might not be broken. You might just be standing at a threshold. So, anything to add there, Marc? Marc Rogala (Co-Founder S2T): No, I mean, you pretty much hit it right on the nose, I mean, it's, the biggest thing is, you know, you might not even realize ⁓ standing at a threshold, but by watching these podcasts and hearing these stories and hearing some of the content that we're going to bring, you're going to realize it again. That's where the awareness component comes in. So I hope everybody continues to listen. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Awesome, and like we said, next week we're definitely gonna be taking the deep dive into story and I can tell you as a of many of his stories that it's not that you wanna miss. Some fascinating stuff and he's engaging when he out in public and I call him like the master the Like he starts talking, lean in. Alright, his stories are very captivating, so definitely tune in next week and thank you very much for listening and I think that's going to be all for now. Take care everyone.