Latest / Authentic Living / Removing the Stigma of Mental Illness in the Workplace with Jason Finucan
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious cover about
- 0:09things that really matter in our lives.
- 0:12And now here's your host, Roxanne Turhage.
- 0:38Hi, everyone.
- 0:39It's, Roxanne Durgesh.
- 0:40Welcome to Authentic Living And World with Roxanne.
- 0:42This week, I have a colleague, Jason Fanucan, that, is based in Montreal that will speak to
- 0:48us today.
- 0:49Jason, thanks so much for joining us today.
- 0:52My pleasure.
- 0:54So Jason, is, he speaks on, mental health, and I'm gonna just read a little bit of his bio bio
- 1:00on some of the things that he's done upcoming really, really soon.
- 1:04He's releasing his first book, which is, Jason 1 stigma 0 by Battle with Mental Health mental
- 1:12illness at work and in at home and at workplace.
- 1:15He's a mental health advocate, stigma fighter, He's a professional speaker and has been doing
- 1:20that for quite a while.
- 1:21I believe since 2006, I I remember reading, and founder of stigma 0 and the instructor of the
- 1:29programs found in the stigma.
- 1:31There's a stigma 0 online training program.
- 1:35Jason's worked face both physical and mental illness and shares his personal experiences and
- 1:40the impactful storytelling techniques blended with, research, to mobilize knowledge and
- 1:48perspective His goal is to bring everyone to understand the importance of the topic so
- 1:53they're they're empowered to make a change and ultimately join his vision for future without
- 1:59stigma.
- 2:00That would be so nice as as, someone that's we have worked in the field, Jason.
- 2:04And, I think we think we're coming along, but there's a lot more work to be done.
- 2:10Yeah.
- 2:10I would agree with that.
- 2:11So Well, so thanks for taking the time today.
- 2:15And, I'm gonna just jump right into it and, ask you, obviously, we know I'm gonna see him.
- 2:23We know how you got into speaking, about mental health, but tell me a little bit about about
- 2:28your life.
- 2:29You did you grow up in Montreal?
- 2:31No.
- 2:31I am an Ontario boy, actually.
- 2:33I I am.
- 2:34I was born in Newmarket, and I lived for I was born in 75 in the 1st 26 years of my life.
- 2:42I lived within a hundred kilometers of Toronto.
- 2:45I was, yeah, I was in Newmarket and then in Toronto briefly.
- 2:48And then I, went to high school in a Rilia, Ontario, an hour a half north of Toronto.
- 2:54And I went to University of Waterloo.
- 2:56And so the the seeds of me being a public speaker, as a profession, we're we're honestly
- 3:04set early.
- 3:05It was one of the skills that I just, at an early age, I remember giving a, I think I read
- 3:12a poem at a, I don't know, a Christmas special or something at my school.
- 3:16I was in grade 4.
- 3:19My dad, my dad was blown away that his son who because my dad hates public speaking, and here
- 3:24his son was up on the stage in front of hundreds of people, comfortable.
- 3:28And it was just one of those things I I never was uncomfortable in front of a crowd.
- 3:33And then when I said I went to University of Waterloo, I actually took a degree in theater
- 3:38and speech communication.
- 3:39So I spent 4 years doing nothing but performing and learning how to perform and learning how
- 3:44performance is interpreted.
- 3:47And that helped me immensely.
- 3:48I I didn't know at the time I was going to be a a speaker, but I knew I liked it.
- 3:52And it definitely helped me to hone those skills.
- 3:56But I moved to Montreal in 2000 and, 1, actually.
- 4:00It's it's easy to remember for a sad reason.
- 4:03I moved just days before 9 11.
- 4:06That weekend, that Labor Day weekend.
- 4:07And, and I've been here ever since, absolutely love it here.
- 4:12Well, it's amazing.
- 4:13Your your your undergrad, like, was kind of prepping you for something that you, you know,
- 4:18and now you've been speaking for such a long time.
- 4:21So So tell me about the the kind of the the path, like, when you start to struggle.
- 4:27Did you did you kinda know when you were younger that there was some issues.
- 4:32I mean, I, you know, I was just actually talking to my son, and I was telling him that,
- 4:36I I was about to interview you.
- 4:37And I we talked a little bit.
- 4:38He says, well, what I said, well, what does he struggle with?
- 4:41So I told him what from what I read on your site that it it's bipolar that was the
- 4:46struggle.
- 4:46And he goes, well, what is that mom?
- 4:48And I said, well, the only way I could explain to him and in, you know, a teenage, terms is
- 4:52that there's a lot of high highs and low lows.
- 4:56And the space in between is quite rapid.
- 4:58And he goes, oh, interesting.
- 5:00He says, oh, that seems, you know, don't we all go through highs and lows?
- 5:05I said yes, but sometimes not at at such a a progressive, level.
- 5:11So I don't know if I, you know, explain that as well as you might be able to do it, you know,
- 5:16day to day.
- 5:16I'm sure you speak to a lot of different people about it.
- 5:20You you're, definitely part of the way to to describe it is the the severity of the change,
- 5:26but it's also the severity of the actual high and the a low.
- 5:31So an individual who goes through a healthy high or a healthy low, the way I describe that
- 5:37as, I mean, as humans, you're absolutely right.
- 5:40We're not just going to exist on 1, you know, one plane.
- 5:43We're always going to go above and below what what I would describe as our baseline, our, you
- 5:48know, whatever is our normal, you know, for energy levels, amount of sleep, etcetera.
- 5:53But the thing with bipolar disorder is that when the highs come, they come very forcefully.
- 5:59You have no control over it.
- 6:00And for in my case, they lasted for weeks months at a time.
- 6:04So I would be in this elevated state for a very long time with no ability to stop it.
- 6:10And then when I was in a depressed state, Whether it was mild, moderate, or severe, that
- 6:15depressed state would descend on me, and I would have no control over it.
- 6:18And it would remain, again, for sometimes months at a time.
- 6:22That's not something that you would describe as a normal or healthy experience of highs and
- 6:28lows.
- 6:28And, for me, but when it started, I I actually was very late onset of of bipolar disorder.
- 6:35It's very common for it to begin in the late teens, early twenties, that would be the more,
- 6:41standard time frame.
- 6:42But for me, it I I had absolutely no symptoms until my mid twenties and no significant
- 6:48symptoms till I was 26.
- 6:50So that was very odd.
- 6:52That it that it took that long.
- 6:55To to begin.
- 6:56So when it began, it began with a mild depression, and I had never experienced any
- 7:03form of clinical depression in my life up to that point.
- 7:06Not for one minute.
- 7:07I mean, every time I'd ever felt down or sad or or or low energy, there was a really good clear
- 7:13reason for it.
- 7:14But now I, you know, here I was in Montreal.
- 7:18My career was going well.
- 7:19My personal life was great.
- 7:20I had a wonderful girlfriend who I was planning to, you know, propose to.
- 7:24And I had a job I loved working for McGill University.
- 7:27And suddenly, I felt awful, and and it lasted for 2 months.
- 7:32And that was in 2002.
- 7:35And that was a year after I I got to Montreal, and that began a cycle of I would go down into
- 7:42a depressive, episode for a couple months, and I would go right past my baseline overnight
- 7:45into a hypomanic which is like mild mania episode, and that would last for a few months.
- 7:52And I just went back and forth for two and a half years before I was finally diagnosed and
- 7:57treated.
- 7:59So at one point, you know, did you start to realize?
- 8:02I mean, I'm gonna assume at first you thought, god, this field internally, that's you're gonna
- 8:07you know, something's changing.
- 8:08Mhmm.
- 8:09At what point did you start to to write?
- 8:11Did you recognize it?
- 8:12Did your girlfriend recognize it?
- 8:14Did people at work start to react to you differently?
- 8:17What started to happen that, you know, made you realize some things some things arrive here?
- 8:23My girlfriend noticed it immediately, and she was the most, on top of it.
- 8:29And also, she was the least affected by stigma.
- 8:31She to her, it was just there's something wrong here.
- 8:34Like, I think you you might have a mental illness or you might have depression.
- 8:37She started doing research.
- 8:39I had an enormous amount of stigma towards mental illness without knowing it.
- 8:43And so when it happened to me, there was this long period of denial in my own mind of just I
- 8:51can't have a mental illness because I was associating mental illness with a character
- 8:55weakness or someone who wasn't trying hard enough or wasn't, you know, willing to do the
- 9:00work, and I knew I was willing to do the work.
- 9:03So I went through this, you know, self stigma is a real problem that I'm now currently trying
- 9:08to solve in others.
- 9:10And that problem based is when you take all this stigma about mental illness and you apply
- 9:15it directly towards yourself, and it causes a massive delay in in diagnosis and treatment.
- 9:21So as much as I knew something was wrong, I wasn't willing to even entertain the idea that
- 9:27what was wrong was a mental illness.
- 9:30So I actually there was a period there about a year into symptoms that I sought out talk
- 9:36therapy with a psychologist which can be a brilliant strategy for a lot of people in that
- 9:42situation, but for me, it wasn't a strategy.
- 9:44It was procrastination.
- 9:46I literally chose talk therapy to avoid the idea that I would be diagnosed and have to take
- 9:52medication.
- 9:54And I was fortunate that the therapist was brilliant and was very astute.
- 9:59And after several sessions listening to me you know, go over the things I'd gone through in my
- 10:05life to see maybe was this connected to some past trauma.
- 10:09And she was the one who said to me, look, you're you don't need me, which you have is
- 10:14almost certainly bipolar disorder.
- 10:15She said, I can't diagnose you because I'm a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, but my
- 10:20professional opinion is need to see a psychiatrist.
- 10:23You probably are going to be diagnosed as bipolar, and you almost certainly need to take
- 10:28treatment.
- 10:29And hearing her say that was the 1st domino of that fell for me of stigma.
- 10:35That was the first time I began to look at my illness as an illness, not as a business or a
- 10:41character flaw.
- 10:43And that was the beginning of me it would I still had a lot of difficult things to go
- 10:48through, but it was the beginning of me becoming, I guess, coming to terms with, I have
- 10:53an illness that I need to manage.
- 10:55And once I started thinking of it in those terms, I eventually was able to get treatment
- 11:00and and recover very well and and live with it very well.
- 11:04Well, I think you had a an astute, psychologist that would recognize some that's, you know,
- 11:09like myself as a psychotherapist with my training, Yeah.
- 11:13Obviously, you know, right, because talk therapy is not gonna will you out of this.
- 11:17And like you said, you know, it's not it's not like there was there wasn't any drugs happening
- 11:21at that point or anything in your life.
- 11:23So sometimes you kinda try to weed out all the things that potentially could be happening.
- 11:27Was there trauma before age five?
- 11:29You know, all those things as as a psychotherapist, you're looking for potentially
- 11:33that could kind of impact some of the symptoms that we see with, say, complex PTSD, but she
- 11:38recognized that there wasn't any of those things.
- 11:41And she kinda started to realize, oh, goodness.
- 11:43This talk therapy is not gonna talk you out of this.
- 11:45Yeah.
- 11:46You know, but somebody without the specialty would not recognize that and would have kept
- 11:50going.
- 11:52You know, and then obviously you'd you'd you'd go through those circles, right, like you go
- 11:55up, you'd go down, which would be even worse on you.
- 11:59So Obviously, when you're on the high and you can't stop and you're thinking, why can't I
- 12:02stop?
- 12:03And when you're at the low and you can get out of bed and you can't do any of it, that's tough
- 12:06on you too.
- 12:07Oh, it was it was it absolutely took my life and turned it upside down because I was
- 12:12suddenly trying to work through essentially you know, I went through almost 3 straight years
- 12:19where I wasn't at my baseline for one minute.
- 12:22I had started, you know, the first departure for my baseline was a depression, and then I
- 12:28went directly up and then back down and then up and then down.
- 12:30And it went like that for almost 3 straight years.
- 12:33That is an incredibly long time to never feel like yourself.
- 12:38And so that that, you know, in an affected work, for sure, both the highs and the lows
- 12:43affected work.
- 12:43You asked if people were noticing.
- 12:45When it was mild, it was less obvious because mild depression you can just seem a little
- 12:51distracted or tired or, you know, maybe you you you you write it off like, oh, maybe you've got
- 12:56a flu or something.
- 12:58If you if you are mildly hypomanic, that is extremely hard to notice if you're a colleague
- 13:05because the the symptoms really are so close to a type a personality with energy.
- 13:12It's it's really not that different, but where the difference lies is in your personal life
- 13:18because you suddenly need less sleep Mhmm.
- 13:20But your energy never goes away.
- 13:22It's 247, even when you're asleep, I I described my sleep during hypomanic and manic,
- 13:29phases as active.
- 13:30It was like your there was this sort of constant buzz of energy going through your
- 13:34body, and your colleagues might not notice a mild hypomanic phase, but your partner will.
- 13:39Because they'll notice that you're like, wait.
- 13:41Why are you suddenly only getting 6 hours a night when you used to get 7 or 8?
- 13:45You know?
- 13:46And and why do you wake up at 6 in the morning when you used to drag your butt at a bed to the
- 13:50shower, now you're jumping out of bed with all this energy.
- 13:53I mean, that's a big change.
- 13:54And so the key, that's why knowing your baseline so important.
- 13:58If you're going to try to determine what's happening to you in the realm of a mental
- 14:03illness, you need to know what is your healthy normal.
- 14:07Because, like, one of my friends, his healthy normal is 5 hours sleep a night.
- 14:12That's normal for him.
- 14:13That's good for him.
- 14:14Works for him.
- 14:15I did that every night.
- 14:16I'd be sick.
- 14:17Like, I mean, there's no way I could do that.
- 14:20So these are important things to understand.
- 14:24About yourself, and I I had figured that out.
- 14:26But when I look back at the way I went through all of this, in no way would the experience
- 14:32have been easy or simple, even if I did not have stigma towards mental illness, but it
- 14:37would have been far easier, far faster.
- 14:41I would have sought treatment much earlier, and I would it would have been far less painful for
- 14:47sure if there was no stigma from the outset.
- 14:51I mentioned at the beginning in my bio, there is a key experience that I went through that
- 14:55really helped me ultimately get to this realization.
- 14:59And that's why my book is called Jason 1, Sigma 0.
- 15:02It's because I finally beat Sigma.
- 15:04It's Figma owned me for a long time, and then I finally found a way to beat it.
- 15:09And the way I beat it was to look back on the experience I'd had when I was twelve years old,
- 15:15I'd had open heart surgery for a heart defect.
- 15:18And when you're a twelve year old boy, and you have a heart defect, you are understandably
- 15:24supported and rallied around as much as you can imagine.
- 15:28I was never judged or questioned or, nobody asked about my will or my character or how hard
- 15:36I was trying, nobody questioned the treatments I was given.
- 15:39Everyone recognized that this was something happening to me, and I needed empathy and
- 15:44support.
- 15:45And I never judged myself.
- 15:47I didn't feel guilty that my heart wasn't working.
- 15:50But when I was in my twenties and my brain wasn't working, I felt all those things.
- 15:54And it was only when I realized what would I have done in my twenties?
- 16:00You can instead of bipolar beginning, what if my heart problem had come back?
- 16:05It could have.
- 16:06It's a nerve defect in my heart.
- 16:07What if it grew back?
- 16:08Would I have felt ashamed or scared what I have not spoken about it at work, what I have
- 16:15stigmatized myself, not at all.
- 16:18Wouldn't have done any of those things.
- 16:20I would have talked about it openly because it's a failure in my body that's not my fault.
- 16:25And I would have received empathy and support.
- 16:28But because of the stigma around mental illness, none of those things happened.
- 16:31Part of it was my fault and part of it was because others had stigma towards my illness as
- 16:35well.
- 16:36And that was the light bulb moment that that I realized.
- 16:40Wait a minute.
- 16:41We're looking at these illnesses incorrectly.
- 16:44We're treating mental illness as different than illness.
- 16:48It's it's it's though we're treating it as a personality problem.
- 16:51And as long as we can sort that up and separate that out, that's how we can get rid of stigma.
- 16:57And that's how we can begin to respond properly.
- 17:01To the instances of mental illness in our lives, whether it's personal or profession.
- 17:05So did you did you continue to talk about it with professional, or did you kinda get support
- 17:10from your family, from your your partner, to be able to kinda the self realization, hey.
- 17:15I it's something there's there's an imbalance.
- 17:17Bottom line.
- 17:18Right?
- 17:18Like, I mean, because I often say to my clients, you know, I said, if I fell and broke
- 17:22my ankle right now, you would rush me down to the closest emerge here in Niagara.
- 17:27I said, but I've if I've all of a sudden, I have a nervous breakdown.
- 17:32Nobody would know or they they think twice about what they're gonna do because we're so
- 17:36afraid of that.
- 17:37But, really, what's the difference?
- 17:38Once physical, once once, mentally and emotional, but we're one system.
- 17:43We're one person.
- 17:44That's right.
- 17:45But we treat it completely differently.
- 17:47Right?
- 17:47We really do.
- 17:48And it's and there's no reason for it.
- 17:50And, the way that I'm I'm I'm very I can be very stubborn, and I was stubborn in in the
- 17:56wrong way for a while in that I had this stigma, and I had this resistance to a a
- 18:02diagnosis of mental illness.
- 18:04I was afraid of taking a a medication I I and I don't know why.
- 18:08I just was.
- 18:08I had a stigma towards it.
- 18:10But when that, when that psychologist said that to me, it was like when I say the first domino,
- 18:18I mean, it was literally like that.
- 18:19There was a wall in front of me.
- 18:21She knocked down the first domino, and then they just kept going.
- 18:24So from that moment on, the stigma just it evaporated, and I need a conscious decision to
- 18:30treat my bipolar disorder or whatever this illness was that I was facing in the same way I
- 18:36would treat my heart problem, which is it's an illness.
- 18:38I need to learn about it.
- 18:40I need to manage it.
- 18:41I need to be active in the relationship with my doctors to, you know, understand what I should
- 18:47be doing and not doing.
- 18:49And once I went on that path, as I said, I wasn't it wasn't smooth sailing.
- 18:53I still had a few very severe depressions.
- 18:56I had a manic episode.
- 18:58I ended up hospitalized as a result of the manic episode, but none of those things
- 19:02happened because of stigma.
- 19:03Those things happened because the illness just it just became extreme for a bit.
- 19:08And I I had to go through that.
- 19:10But in fact, the ability to get over the stigma just prior to that extreme period helped me to
- 19:16survive that extreme period because I recognized while I was going through it that my
- 19:21body was failing me, that it wasn't me.
- 19:25Right.
- 19:25Right.
- 19:26That gave me hope that all I had to do was find the the right treatment and I would be able to
- 19:31get back to me.
- 19:32And ultimately, that's what happened.
- 19:33I was I was diagnosed as bipolar in in February 2005 while in the hospital.
- 19:39And, after my manic episode, and I was given a new treatment that I'd never been on before,
- 19:44which was lithium.
- 19:45And, I I was told it would take months before it was therapeutic because it's a very tricky
- 19:51drug, you you you can't have too much of it in your blood or else it's toxic.
- 19:55So we we could do a stair step approach you know, it's kind of creeping up to the
- 19:59therapeutic level.
- 20:00And it was June of 2005 was the end of that 3 year run where I had not been at my baseline.
- 20:07I was taking 5 pills of lithium.
- 20:12So 1500 milligrams.
- 20:13Of lithium.
- 20:14And I saw my psychiatrist.
- 20:16I still was depressed.
- 20:17And he said, look.
- 20:19You're you're not quite at the therapeutic level.
- 20:20We're gonna increase it by one more tonight.
- 20:23Or now.
- 20:24And he said take 6 pills tonight and give it weeks to 3 weeks.
- 20:28And if you don't feel any better, come back, we will likely need to add a second medication.
- 20:33And that night, I took 6 little white pills instead of 5.
- 20:36I woke up the next morning, and the first words out of my mouth were I feel like me.
- 20:42I didn't feel the word isn't better.
- 20:46The word isn't good.
- 20:47The word is I feel I feel absent of symptoms of bipolar disorder.
- 20:51I don't feel down.
- 20:52I don't feel up.
- 20:53I just feel like me.
- 20:54And it was the first time in 3 years, and it was a very exciting moment because I gave me
- 21:00hope that, okay.
- 21:01This is a chemical imbalance, and I've found the treatment that is correcting that
- 21:05imbalance.
- 21:06And from that day on, I have taken the medication very, happily.
- 21:12I don't have any, compliance issues with the medication because I view the medication as a
- 21:17as a a matter of fortune and luck that I even have a treatment that works so well.
- 21:23There's many people with mental illness that don't find a treatment that works so well.
- 21:28So I take it happily, and I have never, since that day of in 2005, I've never experienced any
- 21:34of the upside of bipolar.
- 21:36No hypomania, no mania at all.
- 21:39I have had some depressive episodes and needed to treat those separately, but that's that's
- 21:44it.
- 21:44I've only had to manage that side.
- 21:46So you've kind of worked on kind of obviously working with your conditions and understanding
- 21:51when your bot when your body's getting run down, you're you're are you constantly having
- 21:54to still look at those things even though you're taking the medications?
- 21:58Cause I would think that there's a you know, I also say there's a psychosocial part to it to
- 22:02learn, you know, just to be able to recognize if you're working a bit too hard or, you know,
- 22:06if you're if there's conflict or whatever, like, all of us have to be able to recognize
- 22:11certain things and continue to to work on ourselves.
- 22:15Absolutely.
- 22:16Yes.
- 22:16Yes.
- 22:16So there's a term that I use, been using for years, and it it helps me to understand what I
- 22:22need to do to manage my illness.
- 22:24And and I, with others to try to get them to see it in this way, but I believe that the only
- 22:29way you can survive a chronic life long illness, like a mental illness.
- 22:35Like, I mean, bipolar is not something that's going to just go away.
- 22:37It's not it's not something that I recover completely from.
- 22:40I have it.
- 22:41So I view it as I need to own my illness.
- 22:44I need to accept it.
- 22:45Because if I don't fully accept it, then I will always resent the treatment.
- 22:50I will be sloppy about managing it.
- 22:52I will, you know, maybe get lazy.
- 22:55So I view it as, yeah, I don't like that I have bipolar.
- 22:58Of course, I'd rather not have it, but I do have it.
- 23:01And so I need to manage this illness and that management doesn't stop.
- 23:05You're absolutely right.
- 23:06I watch, and it's not as exhausting as it may sound when you first hear it, but I, I have
- 23:11systems.
- 23:12I have basically charts that I use to track my mood to say, have I gone above my baseline at
- 23:19any point in the last month?
- 23:21And eventually you start doing it by quarter if if things are going well.
- 23:25But I also ask myself very honestly, am I going below my baseline?
- 23:29And if I am, is it a few days?
- 23:31Is it more than a week?
- 23:32Is it 2 weeks?
- 23:33And so I know I can show you charts that I have, been keeping since well, I actually did
- 23:40them retroactively all the way to, 2000.
- 23:43And I've I have them to today.
- 23:45Their annual charts and they simply show if my mood above or below the baseline.
- 23:51That is so vital for me to, you know, understand trends, understand, for example, if
- 23:59a depressive episode happens, I always ask myself, okay, what happened the previous 3
- 24:03months?
- 24:04As you say, was I run down?
- 24:06Was I overworked?
- 24:06Was I doing too much?
- 24:08And I have become quite good at finding my, enter what I I considered as an energy output
- 24:15balance.
- 24:17I can only do so much in every day, so much in every week, so much in every month.
- 24:22If I go beyond that, I will pay a price.
- 24:25And usually that rice is a very short depressive episode of 1 to 5 days.
- 24:31I minimize how often those happen by managing my energy output.
- 24:36So that is active ongoing thing that I do.
- 24:39And, you know, and a a big way I do that is sleep.
- 24:43I'm someone, as I say earlier, you know, 5 hours a night would be awful for me.
- 24:47I like 7 to 8.
- 24:49If I get 6 hours of sleep on any given night, It's no big deal, but I make sure the next
- 24:54night I get 7 or 8.
- 24:55You catch up.
- 24:56Yeah.
- 24:56Don't allow 6, 6, 6, 6, because that will absolutely affect me, and I know that.
- 25:04If I have a huge workday, you know, I gotta put in a 15 hour workday where I'm really, really,
- 25:10you know, I or I'm in a crunch.
- 25:11I never let my crunch sort of schedule last longer than 3 to 5 days.
- 25:17Then I pull completely back, shut it off, and rest.
- 25:21And those are the ways that I've been able to manage, the illness.
- 25:25And what has resulted is in the last 5 years, I average 2 to 3 very short depressive episodes a
- 25:32year.
- 25:33And that's that seems to be all that I'm I'm having to deal with.
- 25:37And they're predictable.
- 25:39When they come, I know as soon as they hit me, I wake up and I feel It's like I get the flu.
- 25:44I feel awful.
- 25:45I feel exhausted.
- 25:47I feel my mental acuity is suddenly gone.
- 25:51And I I don't I don't experience depression like sadness.
- 25:55For me, it's more like, being shut off.
- 25:58It's like you're you're under fed.
- 26:01Your energy levels are super low.
- 26:03You don't have access to any kind of any kind of fire or energy.
- 26:07And I just simply shut it down and rest.
- 26:09I clear my calendar and I rest for a couple of days, and and I always so far knock on wood
- 26:16that, you know, they only last 3 to 5 days and I bounce back, and I feel great after that.
- 26:21So So the people around you, they must be, like, the you you must do you have a family,
- 26:25Jason?
- 26:26No.
- 26:26I I'm married, but, Okay.
- 26:28So but your your wife must know that, or I I know you have a business partner too.
- 26:33Yes.
- 26:33So they're they're kinda I'm sure you talk about this the things that you're experiencing
- 26:38if you're if you're you realize goodness of, you know, amount of crunch or whatever.
- 26:42So they are kinda aware of what kind of things are happening with you.
- 26:45Absolutely.
- 26:46And and one of the things about speaking openly about an illness, and and for a second, let's
- 26:51not think about it as a mental illness.
- 26:52Just think about it as an illness if if you were, in the midst of chemotherapy treatments
- 26:59because of cancer.
- 27:01If if you planned on doing this meeting and and and having this interview with me, but then
- 27:07something you had a averse reaction to your chemo treatment on Friday.
- 27:10You didn't recover fast enough.
- 27:12You would tell me.
- 27:13You would say, look.
- 27:14I'm going through treatments.
- 27:15What's happening?
- 27:16I can't have this meeting for that reason.
- 27:17And we would anyone in my position would feel nothing but empathy for you recognizing that
- 27:23you've got this challenge that you're you're struggling against, and we would say, okay.
- 27:26No worries.
- 27:27We'll reschedule.
- 27:28That's the attitude I bring to my mental illness.
- 27:30If it interferes with my life, I speak openly about it to anyone that I am, that I'm
- 27:37interacting with.
- 27:37So my wife knows, my family knows, my friends know and my business partner knows, and that is
- 27:43very important.
- 27:44You need caregivers in your life who can support you and who understand that what you're
- 27:51facing is an illness.
- 27:52And it's something that is beyond, you know, it's beyond your control.
- 27:56And it it deserves that empathy.
- 27:57Obviously, if I was having an issue, say with a chemotherapy treatment, you would be very
- 28:03understanding, you know, you would say, okay, Roxanne.
- 28:06No big deal.
- 28:07So it's really about sharing at the same level.
- 28:11Sharing at the same level, and and here's the thing about stigma that's that's fascinating is
- 28:16that if I have like I did, a stigma towards my own illness.
- 28:21If I'm uncomfortable speaking about bipolar, then I'm gonna talk in circles around it and
- 28:27that is gonna make you very uncomfortable about what you can say to me because you understand
- 28:32you'll actually you will sense my discomfort and you will want to respect my privacy and it
- 28:40will tie your hands.
- 28:42But if I speak openly about bipolar disorder, it frees you up to do the same thing.
- 28:49So it's an unfortunate reality, and I've said this to a lot of people that I've spoken to who
- 28:53have their own, they have a mental illness, and they're afraid of the stigma.
- 28:59I say to them it's counterintuitive, but the best way for you to fight stigma is for you to
- 29:04defeat it first and then just start speaking about this as frankly and as flatly as you
- 29:11would any other illness.
- 29:14Oh, I lost you again, didn't I?
- 29:20Mhmm.
- 29:21You're frozen.
- 29:36We keep a
- 29:38I've never had that happen before.
- 29:39Is it I
- 29:40don't know.
- 29:41It's it just says, does it say that you're Internet is unstable?
- 29:44No.
- 29:44My Internet's really strong.
- 29:46Okay.
- 29:46It's saying minus for some reason.
- 29:48So I apologize about that.
- 29:50Okay.
- 29:51Yeah, because I don't see any delay on my end.
- 29:54You just freeze from
- 29:55my Okay.
- 29:56Okay.
- 29:56Okay.
- 29:57So, you know, with with so your point is that the more comfortable you get with it as the
- 30:03person, people around you will get more comfortable, which I think is that is so so
- 30:08true.
- 30:09That said, let's talk a little bit about the workplace and kind of I know that's you you you
- 30:14know, you do a lot with, stigma 0 with workplaces and you're lucky, unfortunate to be
- 30:20in a space to be able to be around people that you work with and understand it.
- 30:25But to the average person and and work, what do you find that you're seeing out there when you
- 30:30go out to do trainings for stigma 0?
- 30:33I am I am seeing that there is a lot of truth in the way you said it at the beginning of
- 30:40this, this interview.
- 30:41We are headed in the right direction.
- 30:44But we have a long, long way to go.
- 30:46So people people are, less stubbornly stigma astigmatic towards mental illness.
- 30:53So in the past, people would actually defend their intellectual position as viewing,
- 31:01depression as a weakness, you're not gonna hear that as much anymore.
- 31:05I think people recognize that that's not, you know, that's not a strong place to stand.
- 31:09And they see that that we need to look at it in this way, but getting to the place where people
- 31:15feel comfortable telling their manager about the fact that they're struggling, with a
- 31:20diagnosis of or maybe pre diagnosis, but they suspect they might have anxiety disorder, for
- 31:25example, that is still, you know, very uncomfortable in a lot of workplaces, and it
- 31:30depends on the relationship with the managers, the HR, etcetera.
- 31:34And that's why we built the program that we built.
- 31:38This online program is it's called create your Sigma 0 workplace, and we're simply trying to
- 31:42train employees, managers, and HR and senior leaders.
- 31:47We have 3 different tracks, trying to train them in how to have these discussions And we're
- 31:54also challenging the companies to recognize that if you want your employees to feel
- 31:59comfortable speaking to their managers, about a mental illness, you need to establish a culture
- 32:05that is that won't allow stigma to exist.
- 32:09That's not going to happen overnight, but it can happen.
- 32:12And in fact, it can happen faster than you think if everybody gets on board and it's
- 32:16communicated properly because people want this stigma to end.
- 32:21They're just not sure how to make that happen.
- 32:23And they need to trust that it's happening on both sides.
- 32:26So some of the things are, we do we do say to employees, look, you have to protect yourself.
- 32:33You can't you can't talk about it if you feel that you will be discriminated against, but we
- 32:39also challenge them that if you see the company is heading in that direction and doesn't, you
- 32:44know, doesn't want to allow stigma, then it is partly your role to participate in this culture
- 32:49change.
- 32:50And it feel good with your manager and your HR person to talk about it and to to to recognize
- 32:56that you have a right for reasonable accommodation.
- 32:59And, you know, and that reasonable accommodation might be very simple and minor,
- 33:03like, slight schedule changes that allows for you to live and work in a healthy way.
- 33:08And, I'm I'm hearing a lot of static all of a sudden.
- 33:20Are you?
- 33:20Okay.
- 33:21It just it just came and went, though.
- 33:23I think it was.
- 33:24Anyway, so, the the other thing that we focus on a lot in the workplace is recognizing that
- 33:31managers actually have a very difficult role because HR are trained to deal with these
- 33:37sensitive top topics and conversations.
- 33:40Managers are just people who were good employees and who elevated on the level of
- 33:44manager in their area.
- 33:45That doesn't mean they necessarily know how to sit down and have a conversation with someone
- 33:49about depression.
- 33:50That is not easy to do in the workplace, and I believe that the managers have been under
- 33:55trained for a very long time in this area.
- 33:58How do you have that conversation in a way that respects the individual that respects you you
- 34:05as a as a person and respects the company.
- 34:08And how do you know when you should be bringing HR in?
- 34:12And you don't need to bring HR in.
- 34:14These are all delicate questions, and we spend a lot of time in our program covering that.
- 34:20How to respond as a manager?
- 34:21In very tangible ways.
- 34:23You know, here's a scenario.
- 34:25You have an, you have a, team member who has been an amazing you know, like a pillar of your
- 34:31team for 7 years.
- 34:32Great work, consistent.
- 34:34Everything's good.
- 34:35And suddenly, their work drops off.
- 34:37Their energy levels are low.
- 34:39They seem distant.
- 34:41Now at that moment, you have no idea whether the reason this has happened is because their
- 34:46parent is dying they're getting a divorce.
- 34:50They've recently started struggling with alcohol, or they have a mental illness.
- 34:55It could be anything like that.
- 34:57Mhmm.
- 34:57The question becomes, how do you have a conversation with that team member without
- 35:02invading invading their privacy, but showing them support and giving them their due, which
- 35:08is, look, you have been a great employee for a long, long time, but you haven't been yourself
- 35:13these last 3 weeks.
- 35:14I just want you to know if there's anything that I or the company can do to help you let us
- 35:19know.
- 35:20You don't you know, like, that kind of conversation can happen.
- 35:22And often, when it starts with that level of emotional intelligence and empathy, the
- 35:28employee will disclose because they will feel comfortable.
- 35:31That Right.
- 35:32And I mean and they have to accommodate them.
- 35:34Like, that's the thing.
- 35:35You know, of you know, and if if if it's the uncomfortability of the manager, for whatever
- 35:39reason, like you said, you're even yourself stigma, that person has to recognize you've got
- 35:44you're in this you're in this authority position because you get tactical things done,
- 35:49but you're dealing with people and to recognize what kind of things you do to make people
- 35:54comfortable to say, yeah, you know, actually, you know, I'm going through a separation or,
- 35:58you know, I'm I'm I've been not sleeping well or, you know, I've been maybe drinking a little
- 36:03bit more.
- 36:04And you know, of course, they could go off and see EAP services, whatever is to be able to
- 36:07know how to have that conversation in a kind caring way to say, I support you.
- 36:13I see you.
- 36:13I hear you.
- 36:14I recognize that you need something.
- 36:16Go get the assistance.
- 36:17We'll loop back.
- 36:18A lot of people are so afraid because it's like, well, I'm stepping into their personal
- 36:22life.
- 36:23Well, to some degree, just being kind and gentle is the best way to do that.
- 36:27Absolutely.
- 36:28And I also remind companies that Look, I've I lived it.
- 36:32I lived it as an employee.
- 36:33Right?
- 36:33I was the employee who was sick.
- 36:35And, yes, stigma caused a lot of challenges in, you know, but that that does not absolve me, I
- 36:42signed a contract with my employer to do a job, and now my health is getting in the way of
- 36:47doing that job.
- 36:49Employer is not at fault at all.
- 36:51It's it and I know I'm not at fault, but I am responsible for Finding a way to either work
- 36:59within the bounds of my new reality, which is this illness is limiting me in my job.
- 37:03So maybe I need to take a leave of absence.
- 37:05Or maybe I need a reasonable accommodation, but I can't just shut down and say nothing to my
- 37:11employer that completely ties their hands.
- 37:13Right.
- 37:14I'm doing a job in accepting payment for that job.
- 37:17Part of that responsibility is that communication.
- 37:19Now there is the other side of the coin, which is if you have a truly negative stigmatized
- 37:25manager who might discriminate against you, then, of course, you might be afraid to discuss
- 37:30it.
- 37:30And that's the the the global problem we're trying to change.
- 37:34But what I'm seeing in a lot of workplaces is that that is not as common anymore.
- 37:40It is there.
- 37:41But there are fewer and fewer truly mean spirited, discriminatory people when it comes
- 37:46to mental illness.
- 37:47It's mostly just that their and their emotional intelligence is a little low, and they need to
- 37:53understand the they're not seeing the mental illness as an illness.
- 37:59And they're they're caught in the trap I was in originally, which is that, ah, it's just he's
- 38:03he's just distracted and lazy.
- 38:05You know, they're they're writing it off as a personality thing.
- 38:08And I'm finding that once people are fully grasping the physicality of mental illness,
- 38:15they begin to treat it more like the cancer or the broken leg or the other analogies that
- 38:20we've been using.
- 38:21They recognize it as as I always say something that happened to that person.
- 38:26Not something that they did wrong.
- 38:28That's a very simple turn of phrase, but it's powerful because when when I see that you did
- 38:35something to yourself, I feel a little less empathy for you.
- 38:39But if I see that it happened to you, My instinct is going to always be to have a bit
- 38:44more empathy.
- 38:45And that's so important.
- 38:46So it's ready.
- 38:47I mean, if we can get raised people's empathy levels to just say, You're working with people
- 38:52regardless of what the issue is.
- 38:53If someone's struggling, just, you know, don't it's not always performance related issues.
- 38:58It may it may show out that way, but why is that if that person has been a stellar employee
- 39:03for 5 years and and all of a sudden, you know, you're recognizing something's progressively
- 39:08changed, or maybe it's changed a little bit over time.
- 39:11It's about having just a normal conversation, a 2 way conversation to say, Hey.
- 39:15I've noticed X Y Z, which is factual to get the the employee to be able to elicit some some
- 39:21kind of information.
- 39:22Yeah.
- 39:22You know, I know I've been late lady lately, but this is what's been going on, whatever.
- 39:27Okay.
- 39:27You kinda get them the right support.
- 39:28But if people are are afraid to think if I have depression and you're my employer, and you're
- 39:34gonna judge me, then I'm gonna shut down, and that's not gonna help anybody involved.
- 39:38Not at all.
- 39:39It just it just drags out the problem.
- 39:41And, and, you know, the studies have shown over and over and over again that it's actually not
- 39:47the absences that are costing the most when it comes to the lost productivity about mental
- 39:52illness, it's presenteeism.
- 39:53It's people trying to work through their illness and doing so at, let's say, 60%
- 39:59capacity.
- 40:00Mhmm.
- 40:00Move a workforce of 10,000 people and 2000 3000 of them are working through an illness because
- 40:08they're afraid of disclosing it and they're working at 60% capacity.
- 40:12That is so much worse than a few of them taking a leave of absence and then coming back when
- 40:16they recover.
- 40:18And so one of the things I have to to train my, clients about is that a successful
- 40:24implementation of a program like this will in the 1st 18 months to 2 years show an increase
- 40:31in medical absences due to mental illness.
- 40:34You can't avoid that.
- 40:35There are people who need them who will now get them And if you think of that as a bad outcome,
- 40:42you're missing the point.
- 40:44In fact, that has to happen But what will happen is many of those individuals will now
- 40:49find a way to recover, find treatments that work for them, and then they'll come back, and
- 40:53they will be productive employees.
- 40:55And the faster we can get that process going, the better.
- 40:59And another analogy that I use that that does work very well to get companies to understand
- 41:04why they need to address this actively or proactively is that imagine if you had a
- 41:10company of a thousand people of whom 600 were women between the ages of 2 131.
- 41:17And you just were thinking, I really hope none of them get pregnant.
- 41:22You would be a pretty foolish business.
- 41:23Right?
- 41:24If you didn't have policies and plans in place for Matt leave, you're just not doing your job.
- 41:30You're just you're just you've fan.
- 41:32But that's what's happening with mental illness.
- 41:34Companies are hoping to not have to deal with it rather than proactively dealing with it.
- 41:40And unlike a mat leave where you physically show and then you, you know, you've gotta
- 41:45disappear while you go and give birth, you can actually work with a mental illness for years
- 41:51at 50, 60 percent capacity and and and and could have go under the radar.
- 41:56That is not good for the company, and it's not good for that individual.
- 41:59So a lot of this
- 42:00not good for morale too because I'm gonna of course, by, you know, if I come forward and I'm
- 42:05not treated well, the how many people are not gonna come forward that are 60%.
- 42:10So if, you know, if you do it well with the person coming forward, then others are gonna
- 42:14say, you know, I recognize there's assistance for me.
- 42:17I can get the right kind of support And then you like you said, in that benchmark of the 18
- 42:21months or 2 years, then people kind of get the right things where that short term disability
- 42:26doesn't come and become a turn style.
- 42:28But it actually someone goes off.
- 42:30They get the appropriate treatment.
- 42:31They get, you know, the appropriate medication, and then they come back to work, and they learn
- 42:35to accommodate accordingly until they can kind of do that work hardening to get back to up
- 42:40back a 100% to their job.
- 42:42Extremely well said.
- 42:44That's exactly one of the main points that we make is that is that if you encourage people to
- 42:50come forward and then mishandle it, you will you are missing such an opportunity and you
- 42:57will shut a lot of people down for a long time because they're watching.
- 43:00And there's another thing that we do, and this is an important thing.
- 43:04We have had companies ask us, we like your program, what, what if we just wanted to do
- 43:09managers, or what if we just wanted to do HR?
- 43:12And we always say to them, look, you can do that, but it won't work.
- 43:16This cannot train a part of your organization on this project.
- 43:22This has to be done wall to wall.
- 43:25Every employee, all the way up to the go.
- 43:27And the reason is everyone else needs to trust the other.
- 43:31Has taken the same thing and is on the same page.
- 43:34Because if I'm in a manager, how am I supposed to help my employee if they haven't taken this
- 43:39training?
- 43:40And if I'm an employee, how do I trust my manager if they haven't taken this training?
- 43:44It doesn't work.
- 43:46Everyone needs to be like, we're trying to turn the Titanic here.
- 43:49You know, in in a sense of culture change is slow and difficult, but it's possible if
- 43:54everyone gets behind it, everyone communicates it, And and there's precedent for this.
- 43:59It's it's happened over and over again.
- 44:01I mean, it's still sadly happening in in a lot of places with sexism.
- 44:05But there is a way to go from in the fifties sixties over at sexism in the workplace was not
- 44:12only commonplace.
- 44:13It was totally accepted.
- 44:15And now overt sexism in the workplace is 100% not accepted.
- 44:19And that culture change is something that can happen.
- 44:24And that's something that we can do in this this this topic of mental illness and stigma.
- 44:29We can create a a a world where having a stigma towards mental illness is just not appropriate.
- 44:35It's not acceptable.
- 44:36It's not okay.
- 44:37And the more people get on board with that, the faster that it actually does change.
- 44:44And I I think you're so right.
- 44:45Right?
- 44:45You go from the kind of the macro to the micro.
- 44:48You have to you have to hit everybody to understand.
- 44:51Exactly what depression is or what is, you know, an anxiety disorder or a seasonal defect.
- 44:57Like, whatever the issues are, which will come, like, we know, and we know that it's on the
- 45:02increase, be it more situational, which is could be versus endogenous or biological, like,
- 45:09people should know that they, you know, even if they going through something.
- 45:12If you've gone through a death, for instance, yeah, you're gonna be upset.
- 45:16You're gonna be down, but, you know, when is it that it's, you know, the time period before you
- 45:20could kind of you know, get back and have dealt with it versus, oh, this is still continuing.
- 45:25That's right.
- 45:26You
- 45:26know, it's something a bit more.
- 45:27So I think it's so right because a and a lot of people go, it's mental, it's mental illness.
- 45:33I I don't know what to say, and they then they don't they don't manage their employees.
- 45:37Because they're just afraid to have normal conversations instead of saying, hey, Jason.
- 45:41How are you doing?
- 45:42They're thinking about how they're gonna say hi to Jason because they're afraid they're gonna
- 45:45trigger something.
- 45:46Which is completely ridiculous.
- 45:48Yes.
- 45:48Exactly.
- 45:49You don't no one with a mental illness wants to be treated just like no one with a physical
- 45:56illness, like a, like a cancer or anything like that wants to be treated that differently.
- 46:00We just don't want to be stigmatized and don't want to be discriminated against.
- 46:03It's It's not that complicated.
- 46:05And and when you realize it that way, it's that's a big part of what we teach in, in this
- 46:11program that it's demystifying.
- 46:14A lot of it is is that.
- 46:15It's just bringing clarity to the these terms and these you know, the types of language that
- 46:21is good and that isn't.
- 46:22And, there's one exercise that I do in my keynotes, and I do it in the program as well.
- 46:29And it's I find it so effective.
- 46:31It's to let people know, look, don't it's don't feel guilty that you have stigmatized thoughts
- 46:37towards mental illness.
- 46:39It is our society has set us up for it to it's like a trap that we fall into to be stigmatized
- 46:46or to have stigma towards mental illness.
- 46:48Because we have listened and heard unbelievable numbers of words that are stigmatized towards
- 46:54mental illness that we've not heard towards other things.
- 46:58So I I do this.
- 46:59I say I'd like you to save space.
- 47:01It's gonna be a bit weird, but I'd like you to come up with the worst, most stigmatized, most
- 47:07discriminatory words you can think of about mental illness, and I'll start.
- 47:10So I say psycho, crazy nuts, and then I get them to go.
- 47:15And they're always uncomfortable at first, but then they go.
- 47:17Then the words start coming.
- 47:19And then they keep coming, because there are a lot of them that we know.
- 47:24And so I actually create this chart that I show afterwards.
- 47:27It's got a 100 words in it.
- 47:29Are discriminatory words about mental illness.
- 47:32And then I afterwards, I showed them a chart, and I'm like, look, these are words that have
- 47:37been fed to us.
- 47:38Throughout our lives, from movies, television, and people around us, we have a vocabulary to
- 47:45draw upon QB stigmatize about mental illness.
- 47:49Mhmm.
- 47:49Now I say the same question.
- 47:51Think of discriminatory, stigmatized, negative judgmental words this time about breast cancer.
- 47:59Mhmm.
- 47:59Room goes silent.
- 48:01You can't think of one because you don't think of it as something that happened that the woman
- 48:06did wrong.
- 48:07It's something that happened to her.
- 48:08And so my point in doing that is to re to really get rid of stigma is a little bit like
- 48:16losing weight.
- 48:17It's actually a discipline.
- 48:19You have to watch a diet and you have to make choices and you have to work out you have to
- 48:25choose to lose weight.
- 48:27You won't just lose weight easily.
- 48:29It's it's a choice and it's a process.
- 48:32Sigma is one of those things.
- 48:33You can you can say I I intellectually agree that mental illness is not that person's fault,
- 48:40but you still have to choose not to think those negative thoughts.
- 48:43Because they're just there, not because you're a bad person, because the words would be
- 48:49Absolutely.
- 48:49And it's and it's ongoing.
- 48:51It's ongoing, and you have to you know, commend people that are making the changes even when
- 48:57nobody's looking Yeah.
- 48:58To, you know, I think that becomes very important.
- 49:01And obviously with me, you know, seeing it from, you know, I've worked trauma and
- 49:05frontline with the police all the way up to running different facilities with mental health
- 49:09and addictions and and incorporation So I've seen it at every end.
- 49:12Yeah.
- 49:13It's really about recognizing where people, and we all are gonna have something.
- 49:16We all have something that we do with an ongoing basis.
- 49:19And with it on the rise, we have to recognize that we need to support people so that they can
- 49:24live the best lives possible.
- 49:26And it's this training program sounds amazing.
- 49:29Jason.
- 49:29So why don't you tell people, anyone that's, if it's companies that could are interested in the
- 49:36training and for also for about your book where they can reach you to once, and I know the
- 49:41release is about to come soon.
- 49:43Yes.
- 49:43Thank you.
- 49:43So the program and the book are both available at, it's triplew.stigmazero.com, and it's, 0
- 49:52spelled out.
- 49:53So stigmazedero.com.
- 49:56And the website is, it very clearly explains what the Sigma Zero online training academy is.
- 50:03And how we offer, employers.
- 50:05This is definitely a B2B offering.
- 50:08That said, if there are any individuals out there who wish to take the program, we don't
- 50:13we're we're not closed to that.
- 50:14It's just that that's not our main model.
- 50:18We do encourage you to reach out to us if you're interested, for that.
- 50:21We don't wanna, you know, we're we're not trying to limit it.
- 50:25On the website, you can you can, try to get started right there and it sends us a note and
- 50:29we create, we create a meeting.
- 50:32This is not something that is is purchased online immediately.
- 50:35We always want to have a consultation, provide a demo of the course, so that each each company
- 50:41can really get a sense of what it is that we're trying to do.
- 50:44And then we offer a full onboarding guideline on how to get this thing going within a
- 50:48company.
- 50:50And as for my book, at the same website, there is a tab that says simply book.
- 50:54The book is called Jason 1 stigma 0, my battle with mental illness at home and in the
- 51:00workplace, and that will be released in print, ebook, and audio book formats in March.
- 51:07I actually don't have a date yet, but if you go to, the book page of our website, you'll see
- 51:13there is a spot for a pre order request If you pop your email in there, you'll get an email
- 51:18when the book is available.
- 51:20So, yeah, thanks for most.
- 51:22Can't wait to to read it.
- 51:24Sounds quite interesting for more conversation today.
- 51:26And, you know, when I listen to to Jason Agreed enforces so many things that I talk about.
- 51:32I talk about being authentic, but, you know, if we're gonna be connected to ourselves, really,
- 51:37internally, our map our map and whatever we're given, we're given, and we have to learn to
- 51:41deal with whatever's happening for us.
- 51:43And we all have different things going on in our lives all the time.
- 51:47And, just to stay connected to yourself as much as possible, whatever those needs are, if it's
- 51:52if it's anything from you know, I'm, you know, mentally ill to I've got something going on
- 51:58that situational that may be be making me feel uncomfortable to go forward.
- 52:03If you're at work, be able to approach the people that you know are sensitive and kind,
- 52:08but if you don't go forward, then nobody can assist you to get whatever you're needing,
- 52:11whether it's an accommodation or just you being able to sit, you know, take some time off to be
- 52:16able to address these concerns.
- 52:18So thanks again, Jason, for, coming on and, maybe we'll we'll have you on again at some
- 52:23point once the once the book's released.
- 52:26And, for anybody trying to, get more information on me, about, authenticity and
- 52:31leadership, you can reach me at Roxanne Derhodge.
- 52:34Dotcom.
- 52:35Take care, and, we'll chat with you next week.
- 52:39Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne.
- 52:43The space for positive, healthy change.
- 52:46Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
- 52:52roxannederhaj.com/blueprint.
- 52:56We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.