The Crucial Balance: Jason Davies on Work, Life and Mental Health

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Emotional man Weekly podcast. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Jason Davies. He is a husband and father. He has five kids ranging from the ages of 10 to two. He's an accomplished medical sales rep but most importantly, he's a powerful and cycle speaker on men's mental health. So welcome to the show, jason. Great to have you on.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Hey, I am. I am grateful to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Uh, jason's has been very kind to agreeing to do a mini series here on the show and the way we're going to split this series, octist, is. Jason's identified three stages that you know from his past experience and he can help men with, of navigating mental health, that is, recognizing the decline, reconstruction after you've hit rough bottom and then really getting real growth in your life, and so we're going to actually split up our series in these three stages and I'm really excited to share, for Jason to share his experience with you in each of these stages and what he has learned will help men depending on where they're at. So, jason, let's take it away first, share a little bit about your family and just what was this initial journey like.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Yeah, my goodness, the family has been everything. So five, like you said, five kids, 10 and under. You had caboose twins who turned two next week and all in between and you know, what led me to this was personal experience was going through, gosh, probably the hardest thing of my life to date with this situation and also as I have recently come to talk to more men about my own experience. It's been so interesting and eyeopening to me is how many men have almost similar experiences Not so much mine, exact, but enough that, oh my gosh, we were just connecting and talking and just this energy was like wow, this is something that I would really like to help other men bring awareness to and be there for.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Yeah, so that's actually good there In our previous conversations you talked about I don't know. I think whenever you're trying to provide for a family, there is this natural anxiety, this natural weight and pressure of managing the unknown. And what was that like for you, as you were yourselves medical rep, which in that's not like a physician where you can show up and clock in and clock out, so, to me.

Speaker 1: 2:54

I've never been a sales. I think that I've become a salesperson, not when I became a coach. I didn't see us become a salesperson, but in reality that's the case. But talk to me and to those who may not have been in sales what's it like a medical sales rep?

Speaker 2: 3:09

Yeah. So it's day to day. It's sales, brings a lot of pressure, it brings a lot of reward, it brings a lot of fulfillment. In the medical field, it's wonderful because you start to make a difference in someone's life, whether it's that patient or the healthcare provider. But, my goodness, it's a competitive space and it seems to be even more competitive now than it used to be. It's a day to day. Okay, what did I do yesterday? What do I have to do today? What does tomorrow look like? And so it's like many other jobs we have as men. It's just this constant cycle of yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week, next week, next month, a lot of planning, a lot of detail and a lot of focus, and so it takes up a lot of again, just like a lot of other jobs that we see a lot of time and attention and sometimes too much.

Speaker 1: 4:05

You talk about it taking too much time. I also want to bring on this aspect of competition. When you feel like you're competing in a game, there's often emotional consequences, whether you feel like you're winning or losing. What's it like dealing with that? I just imagine some of my previous jobs as an Air Force officer was constantly being compared with my peers, and I was in a as a nuclear launch officer. Most generally, in most military structures you have a few officers and a ton of enlisted.

Speaker 1: 4:44

It was like the exact opposite. We had tons of officers and very few enlisted, so it was, honestly, it was like high school If you're all competing with each other. You get those favorite spots, but what was it like in the sales world? What made it competitive and what kind of stressors did that bring to you and your family's life?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yeah, gosh sales. You have a plan, that compensation plan, and you have to hit certain goals and certain criteria that your company has set for you as a standard in order to make your paychecks. That's what you have to do, so you have this number that's always there, that's always in the back of your mind every day. Okay, what do I do today? Well, impact tomorrow will impact that ultimate sales number for the company and the competition, gosh it. It's funny because you get to know the other reps around and you get to know them and their styles and such and things such as that. But it's with competition, just like anything. You want to be first and it's a very high, focused, high energy position where, if you're not protecting what you have with your clients, with your sales, it can be taken from you, just like that. And so it's a constant. The competition's always there. If you're not there, maybe they're there the day that you're not, and so it's just this constant go.

Speaker 1: 6:04

You want your clients sharked up underneath you?

Speaker 2: 6:06

Yeah exactly no, that's exactly right, yeah, and so it's constantly on your mind. It's when you're sitting at the dinner table and you're having dinner and you're trying to enjoy the kids and your wife and your family, and that time that should be out of the office. But all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't do the business, I didn't send a CML, I need to do this tomorrow. And it just starts to layer upon itself to the point of just feeling like, oh my goodness, how do you break away from that? How do you stay where you are in that moment?

Speaker 1: 6:39

So talk to me, because obviously you've gone through these three stages. For men, what's the difference from feeling a normal level of anxiety, of worry? It may not be necessarily worry, it may just be feel pressure. Maybe you're not anxious, you just feel a lot of pressure to get out of the job done. You want to be able to provide. You don't want to lose clients.

Speaker 2: 7:03

You don't want to lose your job.

Speaker 1: 7:05

You want to have that status of being number one or top whatever. So how do men recognize a healthy dose of stress and pressure from say something that's a little more destructive?

Speaker 2: 7:20

Yeah, it's a great question and I think for me personally, in my experience in talking with other men around me, when it starts to take up more than it starts to take up your present, it starts to take up the example I just gave, where something's always on your mind from work, Whether you're about to go to sleep at night.

Speaker 2: 7:42

A lot of the time that happens to me, my mind just starts to race and all this stuff and I've been rolling around for an hour or two and I can't sleep because I'm thinking about everything that I have to do the next day or things I just did.

Speaker 2: 7:52

When it starts to take up time with your family, when it starts to take up all this time and attention to this one pillar, this work pillar, that your other pillars, your physical, your mental, your spiritual start to not get that attention and so that balance starts to become unbalanced, at least in my experience and some of the other experiences that I've talked to some of the other men with. And so I think a healthy dose of pressure and a healthy dose of anxiety, a healthy dose of those feelings of oh, I got to perform, some men thrive on that and love that, and it's to a point, like you said, but I think once you start to feel very unbalanced and your work starts to take over all the other priorities in your life that maybe it didn't use to, I think that's when you start to say okay, where is it becoming unbalanced?

Speaker 1: 8:44

And so, if you're a man, you're finding that you're having these intrusive thoughts and worries. You're with family when you're trying to exercise, or what was it like for you? What did you find that? The intrusive thoughts, the worries? What did it prevent you from doing? What did it motivate you to do so? Let's talk about that.

Speaker 2: 9:07

Yeah, that's a great point. It motivated me even more. But it also started to become too much. And as I sat there a perfect example as I sat there at the gym and I sat there working out, my mind wouldn't be on say, hey, this muscle group were working this, it wasn't in that present state, it was in the next hour, the next two hours, then whatever was going on that day. And so when it starts to really take a hold of your present, your now that's what it is where it really starts to hinder other parts of who you are, because your mind only has so much capacity in a day believe it or not, it really does. And so all of a sudden, this one bucket is just getting filled and filled where others are not where they used to be, and again it starts to become unbalanced.

Speaker 1: 10:00

I've noticed for myself. I often will have triggers when it comes to I'm doing good and all of a sudden there's some trigger in my environment and all of a sudden, the worries, just like I'm crashing in like a tsunami. What did you find that? What did you find were some of your triggers that would cause you that start this cascade for you?

Speaker 2: 10:23

Yeah, sure, a lot of it would have to do with worry for providing for a family. A lot of it had to do with if I got a call from my manager, if I got a call from a customer saying, hey, what's going on here? Hey, what's this, and it's just all started to pile up. That's when that anxiety really started to kick in and really started to overtake me. I would all of a sudden kind of just zone out and my wife would be like hey, you okay, you okay over there, and my mind I'm just, I'm almost frozen but my mind is just churning and it's just that constant this and this. And then that's when I felt that anxiety, that tightness in my chest, that kind of faster heartbeat begin, and if I wasn't being mindful of it which I wasn't towards my experience of a breakdown, that it was becoming all-encompassing.

Speaker 1: 11:17

And so what would you recommend to men if they're starting to experience this? Yeah, they're starting to recognize like, oh way, hey, yeah, like I, I am having these intrusive thoughts when I'm family, I can't. I'm rolling your bed at night.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Yeah what can men do to start recognizing that they're in this state and what would you suggest to them? What? Because obviously your post is and so you still have this, you're still in this thing. Oh no, I don't know about you, but I've handle. I've had to work through my own set of addictions. Yeah, and I, I had to be really mindful of the triggers and my natural responses. And but what would you suggest If men are at this stage?

Speaker 2: 11:59

Yeah, it's. It's hard because Some of the jobs that we have in careers we've chosen, it's almost ingrained within us. At this point, I would say Take a step back, take a moment by yourself, evaluate how you're feeling. Look at when I was in therapy. What this one of the things I learned in therapy early on was are my pillars, what was making me and there's a few of these pillars physical, spiritual, mental and work, or social aspect which pillars are starting to weaken because the balance being shifted to one and what ones are not being attended to and built back up, aka spending time doing that, doing those things and evaluating if, who you've been, what has made you who you are today in terms of how things are going versus maybe last month, six months ago, a year ago. The past is such a great Thing to learn from, and that's what I did.

Speaker 2: 13:01

I thought that I was becoming very unbalanced. Each of those pillars physical, spiritual, mental and work, emotional, social had become very unbalanced, and so I had to learn to build those back up. But I would say, um, a Big thing for me as well was also recognizing Pay attention to your sleep patterns. I think for me, sleep was one of the biggest things. That was off Because of what had shifted in my life. Change brings a lot of momentum in our life, whether we recognize it or not. If you've had a Momentous change, or if you had slight change, a few small changes, that's built upon. It's interrupted your day-to-day day. Be mindful of that as well, because there are things that can switch out pretty quick.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Were you. How did you see that? Your life with you? Because you talked about balanced. So game for you. Just paint a picture of a day, just so it meant this the men and women who are listening. They're trying to see am I there or not, ryer, to the crash, prior to the rock bottom. Paint a picture of a day where you're on downward slope.

Speaker 2: 14:19

Yeah, you, but you wake up and I used to wake up to an alarm. I would wake up to chaos. Now there were multiple, just little kids running around everywhere. I would try to get up before them, but I was up the night before with two new babies, so you'd wake up to a different environment immediately as soon as you wake up. It was interesting to see what it is now versus then, what my mind started to do when you wake up in the morning. Be mindful. Now I sit up and I'm very attentive. Today's going to be a good day. Today is a great day Today. Just pick something that your mind can immediately latch onto. That's positive.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Have positive affirmation to yourself when you wake up and I wasn't doing that on that downward slide, I was waking up and I was already in a mood where I didn't sleep well or not at all, and there were just chaos around me. I'd get up and I wasn't working out. I wasn't having that physical get up and go for myself. That's just how I'm built that way. And then I'd get ready Again, still in that groggy phase. It was almost like I never really started off on the right foot. I never really got out of bed, ready for the day, ready to take it on, and some days are still like that, but it's very different because I'm very aware Again, when I wake up hey, positive affirmation tell yourself, even if you want to tell yourself, amen, you are love, hey, you have an amazing family, or just something that shows that positive affirmation to yourself, that mental side of it's going to be a good day. And so, as the daily routine would continue if you don't start it off, I wasn't starting it off right. I was tired, groggy and agitated, easily quick to be agitated and grumpy, and so things just started to. If you don't start it off well, it feels hard to come out of that as the day continues, it feels hard to spin on a dime and say now I'm happy, now it's a great day. You could, you absolutely can, but during that time I wasn't able to, and so it was like throughout the day doing work, I would feel stressed, even more stressed.

Speaker 2: 16:42

I learned I mentioned sleep. Sleep is you? Look at the science behind sleep and why we need it, the amount of hours that we need and all this science and data behind it. It's incredible.

Speaker 2: 16:54

And so, without that, I was feeling just exhausted at work and just I was almost going through emotion and just just being there and still getting work done, but it wasn't at a level that I was used to. It wasn't at a level that was seen for me as top level, where I wanted to be in perform. But again, you ask how do you recognize these things? And it's almost like sometimes someone will say something to you. It'll be something that happens that you're just like, oh yeah, some self evaluation needs to happen and I can do better. Or, in my case, it was my own mental detriment that just I stayed in that almost negative space within my mind that I just I never I would wake up, go throughout, go to bed and almost have this anxiety and worry about tomorrow because it was almost the same thing I just did today. And here we go again, feeling, and so that's how it felt and that's what it was some people might argue You're in the middle, of you have twin newborns.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Yes.

Speaker 1: 18:07

You are not. It's not like you are choosing not to sleep for the most part you have to sure you can tell your wife hey, nope, sorry, you get both babies.

Speaker 1: 18:15

But yeah the consequences of that is you have a wife who's already suffering postpartum depression and she spirals further. So as a Responsible husband, beautiful father, you're getting up helping, and so there's. That's the circumstance right. Your body will not have that amount of sleep during that phase in your life. So the question could be like if you're not getting enough sleep and your body is physically tired, Is it. How can you possibly get up and tell yourself it's gonna be a good day?

Speaker 1: 18:44

Mm-hmm and believe it such that your body responds to the thought. So what would be, what would your response to that be like if, whether it's you, have a physiological Condition that prevents you from sleeping well, you just the circumstance where it's Necessitates you not sleeping as much as you would normally for a certain frame of time, how do you possibly, when your body is so physically fatigued, mm-hmm, get up and tell yourself it's gonna be a great day and believe it?

Speaker 2: 19:17

Yeah, yeah, that's a powerful question and I think it all goes back to our minds are strong. Our minds are so strong and Even if you get up and you are in that mode and I've been there Be able to maybe just pick something, one thing in that day that you're looking forward to, it's not gonna be a great day. Hey, I'm looking forward to this. If you don't have anything, look forward to find something that's going to start your mind in a positive way. It doesn't have to be hate, it's gonna be a great day. Hey, I'm looking forward to this. Hey, it's just something to your mind.

Speaker 2: 19:55

There's science behind your mind telling your body. Now there's chronological things and things like that and chronic things that some suffer from, which is so unfortunate, but at the same time, the mind is very powerful and how it can affect your physical beat and Whether it's just a quick hey, you're loved, something positive when you wake up, just something to help you arise and say, okay, today's a new day and what does today look like? And then something, something along those lines.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Yeah, no. My reason why I asked is my wife suffers from chronic illness, and is this something that she suffers with? And one of the things I love about what you said the mind is powerful and and sometimes it's just a voluntary Bearing up the burden. Let's tell yourself it's gonna be a rough day, but I'm strong enough for this.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Oh yeah, absolutely it's ours.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Today's gonna be hard, and that's okay. Yeah, except it's just that, yeah, exceptance can be so powerful. It's this willingness to bear which is puts you in such a A more proactive, powerful position than just saying this day is gonna suck and I.

Speaker 2: 21:15

Oh, absolutely, because I've been, I feel for your wife, because I've been there. Mine wasn't the chronic, but it was. You'd wake up, just back, man, I don't want to get out of bed and some days I didn't, I just know Right back in and that's so much more detrimental than just, like you said, getting up and accepting today it could be a bad day, taste, gonna be a bad day, but you know what positive affirmation that, that positive. There you go love it.

Speaker 1: 21:42

Thanks, jason, for discussing this first stage, just recognizing when you're getting to that imbalance, the downward slope. Yeah in our next session we're gonna be discussing. Maybe you've missed the warning signs, Maybe you thought you could power through. You've hit rock bottom and and we're looking forward to hearing Jason story of what it was like to hit rock bottom and so full disclosure.

Speaker 1: 22:08

Yes, yes, it will be yeah so we will catch you all next week. You're looking forward it. You know, if you hit rock bottom, this is where you really want to come in, listen and hear Jason story and just know that you're not alone. So we'll look forward to picking back up With everyone next week.