The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
A Raw Glimpse Into Conquering Personal Demons
Battling inner demons is an all too familiar narrative, but when David Shamszad peels back the layers of his struggle with bipolar disorder and addiction, it takes on a profound resonance. His raw and honest recount of hitting rock bottom and clawing his way back into the light offers not just a story but a lifeline. As we navigate the often misunderstood nuances of mental health with David, you'll be touched by his vulnerability and emboldened by his message of hope. This episode is a testament to the transformative power of recovery and the indomitable human spirit.
From the grips of a suffocating depression to the dizzying heights of manic success, David's journey underscores the importance of therapy and medication in managing mental health conditions. His intimate discussion about self-medication and societal stigmas reveals just how hard it can be to seek help—and how crucial it is. The candid conversation further delves into his personal battle with alcoholism, the escalation of substance abuse, and its profound effects on personal relationships. It's a stark reminder of the internal turmoil that fuels the cycle of addiction and the undeniable impact it has on both the individual and those they hold dear.
As David's narrative unfolds, his path from self-destruction to a fulfilling life of purpose emerges as an inspiring blueprint for change. His commitment to sobriety, coupled with the unwavering support of his partner, paves the way for professional success and personal growth as a father, partner, and entrepreneur. This is more than just an episode; it's an emotional expedition through pain, redemption, and the enduring belief in second chances. David's upcoming book, "Coming Up for Air," encapsulates this entire journey, promising to be a beacon for anyone seeking to navigate their own path to wellness.
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike. The interview series, the podcast, whatever Kevin wants to call it, it's Fuzzy Mike. Hello and welcome to the Fuzzy Mike. I owe you a sincere thank you for all of the new followers, subscribers and listeners that have been joining our family. I'm so grateful to have an audience for this show Now. My guest for this episode, david Shomsod, has a somewhat similar story to mine.
Speaker 2:He wakes up in a strange room white walls, white bedsheets, white everything except a blue chair, one small window, it's gray outside, a plastic bracelet on his wrist with blue letters butler psychiatric hospital. The last thing he remembers is the knife, watching it press down His skin. It's tougher than he'd expected, stretching and contorting, pressing harder than nothing but black. As a teenager he studied hard. He mentored at-risk kids, busted his ass at basketball and crew practice. But in his early 20s bipolar disorder ripped through his mind like wildfire, maddening pendulum swings between despair and euphoria that he kept secret and untreated. He'd sworn off alcohol after seeing addiction torment his father. But in distress, he turned to that familiar lifeline that he knew would ease the pain.
Speaker 2:Years wore by as alcohol and bipolar disorder led him through a certain hell. Nothing could free him from addiction not getting up by cops and cellmates, not spending weeks in a psychiatric hospital after a knife was pried away from his wrist and not losing his partner after she'd done everything she could to help him. He was on the verge of drowning and ready to surrender, tearing through the streets, screaming wild eyes, shut windows down, engine gunning 90 miles an hour, 100, 110, will it be over tonight? I'm ready to be swallowed whole, he thought. But he wakes up bloody and alone, alive, though His partner's love is that tough, leathery kind, the kind that holds on to someone dangling from a cliff, even if both might plunge.
Speaker 2:She feels his pain in full measure, every tear, in each drop of blood, her faith helped. From those that stood by his side and his own grit, he sets out to beat back massive waves of addiction and depression. Someone new emerges from the wreckage of a former life. A decade later, he's a father, a partner and an entrepreneur, and with true, raw vulnerability, he's got a hell of a story to tell about mental health and recovery.
Speaker 1:Hold on, man Damn brother. That is powerful. That's amazing. David Shamsdott is my guest. Thank you for sharing that. That is the start of your upcoming book, isn't it?
Speaker 2:That's right. That is right. This is your story, this is this is my story. And yeah, this is a story. It's got me here to this point. I'm 42 now, but my story starts off when I'm in high school and when I first started seeing signs of mental illness. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I found out later it was bipolar disorder setting in.
Speaker 1:So what were those first signs in high school for you? Because that's when I figured out I had something off too.
Speaker 2:So by the time, by the time I was, like you know, 18, so it was the very end of high school, you know, getting ready for college. I mean I was, I was a upbeat, you know I was. I was bound for for great things, man. And you know, I had gotten kind of a straight A resume in college or in high school and I did all the things and I did the yearbook and the photography and all the, all the stuff to get myself into an Ivy League school. And yeah, I, just when I look back at pictures from that time as recently I was putting together some pictures from this is like a couple of weeks ago and I just noticed pictures from high school and I'm just fucking smiling and all of them and I'm sure I wasn't ear to ear grinning every day, but but it but when I look back at that time, like that is kind of how I remember it.
Speaker 1:But is that real or are you masking something with that smile?
Speaker 2:No, no, it was 1617 and I really felt great. And then, when I was about 18 and then heading into college, that's when things started to change a lot and all of a sudden that I would have days where I felt great and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, those days just got swallowed up by sadness. That was that was crippling, that like literally could felt like gravity, keeping me in bed and keeping me from moving. It almost like it felt like a physical sensation, like that's how dejected and sad I could get, and I had no idea what was going on.
Speaker 2:I hadn't really felt it before, but like talking to people was really hard and I would need to spend a few days like just in my own head brushing my teeth, like showering these, like basic things that you don't really think about, like can become. They feel like monumental tasks and I know, you know what I'm talking about. But and then it would, it would be gone and all of a sudden I was back to like yeah, I was exuberant and like I think that's how that's how people thought of me was just always kind of like flying high and almost hyperactive and excitable and enthusiastic and people kind of fed off that. But and then, just like that pendulum swing I mentioned it in, you know, the beginning of the book like that would be gone and I'd be back to feeling hopeless, like I didn't even deserve to be there. I didn't deserve like the tiniest little space in the world I shouldn't even be there.
Speaker 1:It's not anything that happens exteriorly that sets you off, it is completely internal. This switch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just wake up like that one day.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And people can't understand that, when you know and, like you said, people thought you were outgoing and gregarious, but inside you're fighting this battle every single second of every single day.
Speaker 2:And you know. So, like this is 20, 25 years ago, when this is all starting, and like we've come a long way as far as like having conversations about mental health, particularly in the male community, like it's so much better than it was back then and you have, like you have athletes, you have celebrities, you have influential people who are being, who have been open about depression, bipolar places that people didn't really go before, and but this is 20 years ago and like I didn't have the vocabulary, I didn't have the lexicon to understand or think about these things, so I sure as hell wasn't like talking about how I was feeling, let alone understanding it and so and things just got. What I was functioning, you know, like what I learned to do is I was feeling great, like great. I had a, had a weird amount of energy and people fed off it and you know it served me well.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I was like I was on a team, I was on the crew team and I think I sort of like on my most euphoric, hyperactive days, yeah, I like probably, it was probably useful in a way to the people around me, you know, and what I learned to do on the other days when I was feeling like I literally couldn't have a conversation with somebody. I was so frozen I that lifeline. You know, I learned to drink when I was really young. I learned it growing up.
Speaker 1:How did you learn that? I read, I read in your synopsis that you started drinking at 13. Yes, I how did you learn that?
Speaker 2:Um, well, I mentioned my. You know my family and my my. There's a history of it in my family. Okay, serious and yeah, really serious history about closing in my family.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a gene. I think that's a gene that can get passed down. I also think depression is a gene that can get passed down. Yeah my dad. My dad was the fifth person on his side of the family to kill himself. Five, five yeah it's tragic.
Speaker 2:So sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1:Bro, it's it. You know what man I I. The only thing that bothers me about it, david is. I don't know his mindset when he was walking down the stairs to go hang himself. I don't know if he was sad, mad or just that hopeless, because I didn't really. I mean, I look at pictures of him now, david, and I don't recognize that guy. I don't know who he was. You know he was pretty secretive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's, you know, I I think there's just such a huge correlation, like if there's no vulnerability and there's no room to talk about this, then there's no room to get help and to get treatment, because you don't start taking the steps. And you know, and that's kind of I'll get into this later, but that that's kind of like what. That's. What's got me on this mission now is like hearing stories like like that which you shared and you know, and my own story and everybody's story, who who has you know, really a tragic ending, or almost a tragic ending, and I started just thinking about like the only the only way to get better is to get help, because there is help out there.
Speaker 2:A lot of help, like you're just not going to wake up one day cured of a mental health illness or disorder. Mental illness or disorder. This is. This is not how it works, and but if you're not talking about it, you'll never get that help, the helps there, and between medication and therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy there's so much that can be done, but if you never start doing it like that's, that's where those tragic endings can happen. So, going back to where was I?
Speaker 1:at your 13 and you started drinking.
Speaker 2:I'm not drinking. So, yeah, I mean, I got a big trouble with drinking when I was, yeah, like between eighth and ninth grade, that's what. Yeah, I mean I was familiar with drinking, and if you're around drinking all your life and you watch your parents do it, this is something interesting that, from my experience at least, you really don't understand and you have a really weird relationship with it. Like the amounts that I thought were normal to drink and the. I thought something all adults did was come home after work and pour a glass of whiskey not a shot or something on the rocks, I'm just a full glass of it, like it was fucking water. Yeah, that was just part of like the boxes you check during the day when you're an adult. I thought the adults to rank while driving. I thought that was normal. To have a glass of wine while driving around to dinner, I thought that was just like, oh cool, you know, when you're older you do that. So I just had this like really distorted perception of what was normal and, yeah, I started experimenting with it and like, dude, I remember I can still remember the feeling that I had when I, the first feeling I can remember having when alcohol first soaked into my bloodstream was like you know it's 12. And it was intoxicating, like to a to a degree that I know now looking back was was a major red flag, like it felt like it had been.
Speaker 2:I was 12 and it felt like the thing I'd been missing for 12 years. You know it was, and I was really excited to explore. That. I mean, I wanted to know is, when you're that young, you can't, it's hard to get that much. You're sneaking little little bits here and there from water bottles that people filled up with their parents bars and I just remember being so excited to explore that and when I first did, I didn't know how much to drink, like me and me and me and one guy this is the first time I remember getting blacked out me and one guy were like lanky, skinny, 13 year olds. We split a fifth of vodka because I'm like, well, I don't know, let's get a fit. And we drink the whole thing.
Speaker 2:You know we're two summer after eighth grade, so I mean that's an amount that like I don't know man, that's, that's I could probably kill kill some people Absolutely, and it's awful Big gap in that night that actually scared me so much, cost me a lot of friends in my community.
Speaker 1:I ended up changing schools and can you share what happened that night?
Speaker 2:Another time. Our next meeting we're going to go to that. Will we read that in the book? It is in the book, okay, it was 100% in the book and the you know the thing was just like that scared me enough to take a few years off off of drinking and I was like so I'm in ninth grade and 10th grade and I'm like I can't touch this stuff, like I don't know, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:And then, like, coincidentally, I started doing really well in school. It's like why I did grade in school, I think in high school, and got into a great college because I like was terrified of alcohol. I was terrified of it. So I like kind of took up homework as like a homework and extracurriculars, like that became what I was obsessed with. But so drinking like fell back into it big time in college and because I was starting to feel these periods of time, a few days at a time, where I was just so depressed and anxious and panic-ridden Over nothing at all, and drinking was the way out of that and it felt fine and it felt great and I got really used to it. And even when I was feeling high and manic, drinking was great too. It just makes those sensations feel even better. You're like, damn, I'm feeling on top of the world. I'm literally an invincible person. I could drink and drink and never drop, and so drinking was fun then too. So I just basically started drinking, no matter how I was feeling, and that's why I learned that behavior.
Speaker 2:And then so, like, fast forward a little few more years and now I'm out of college and I'm in like my early 20s, and that's when that's when the symptoms were like at their heaviest and on setting to the fullest capacity. And now, all of a sudden, these days of feeling despondent became weeks, and it wasn't any longer despondent. It was me questioning, it was me being so scared of how awful I was feeling and being in so much pain that I was questioning if I wanted to be alive. That's that's where I had gotten to. So now I'm like 22 and 23 and my worst moments, these episodes, they gripped me in a way that, like, I shudder to think about it now, 20 years later, because when you're in the middle of a depressive episode and this is why I think it's really hard to talk about this stuff is because it's really hard to explain, and if you tell somebody, like you know, you try to explain to someone how depressed you were and, on the other end of that, if someone's never experienced it, they can't see it, they can't touch it, they can't it doesn't come to fruition.
Speaker 2:The same way, and people are scared that when they explain that, people are going to hear weakness or hear fear or hear something defective and it's Whereas, like if I have a broken leg, it would be like oh, kevin, I broke my leg snowboarding and you'd be like Dave, you should go get crutches.
Speaker 1:Get that checked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your shit is wobbling Like go to the doctor and you don't question my toughness or my composure or my makeup. You're just like dude broke his leg. What a badass. He was hitting down a black diamond. But with mental health it's different, because if I'm scared that you're going to judge me for being fragile or weak or some fucked up notion of what's not masculine right, then I'm not going to tell you how I'm feeling and I'm going to pretend and I'm going to self-medicate and I'm going to go through life that way. And so I think that's where I was at and I think it's where a lot of young, particularly young people are at. Is there's not a not feeling, a safe space to talk about it and be vulnerable?
Speaker 1:Now. I spent 30 years on the radio 25 of those were on Morning Radio program with the same partner for 25 years and he never understood it until something happened to him late in our career together. And he's like dude, he goes. I never understood why you couldn't just wake up and be happy he goes. But since this thing happened to me, he goes. Now I get it and he goes. I'm sorry he goes. I never, never understood it and that's what you were getting ready to do. That's what you were saying was it's hard to articulate how we feel just at the drop of a hat.
Speaker 2:No, it's. It's. It proved nearly impossible and it proved nearly deadly to me, honestly. And so, yes, and so the thing about these episodes, when they hit and if you know to, to, to everyone listening, you know, if you've never felt this the really uncanny thing about a depressed episode is is like, no matter how many you have and no matter how much sort of intellectual, cognitive understanding that it's an episode, when you're actually in it you lose all sense of it being temporary. You lose all sense of like okay, I'm going through an episode. In three to eight days, this cycle will be over. I just, you know it's all good, this is normal, this is what's happening, it's characteristic of my condition, I will survive. That's all out the window.
Speaker 2:And it's like you forget everything you know and you truly believe in those moments that that is how you will feel for the rest of your life and it and that sounds hard to imagine, but you know it's imagine waking up, imagine groundhogs day and waking up every day and being the exact same day. You believe it's going to be like that. You just think, okay, I feel, I feel so bad. This is the worst day of my life. If every day felt like this. I wouldn't want to be alive, and every day will feel like this. Therefore, I don't know if I want to be alive. It's like it's that basic and elemental. So I started, I'll go ahead.
Speaker 1:It's the thing that keeps me alive, is that thought that how I feel right now, if I end my life right now, will I feel like that for eternity. That's what keeps me alive. You know it does, because I fear the afterlife If we die of natural causes. You know we had no hand in that. But what if it's punishment in the afterlife for and again on our own accord? You know, in that I've talked to many, many therapists about that and they're like hold on to that thought If it keeps you alive. Hold on to that thought. And you're right, it is a cycle and it does end. But what you're talking about, the three to eight days that you've got to you're underwater and you just have a Niagara Falls cascading on you. For those three to eight days you can't breathe, you can't move it, just it's absolutely debilitating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's absolutely debilitating and that's where I was getting to. These episodes were getting worse and worse and you know, I don't know if it's something I learned from my dad or from like doing fucking crew at five in the morning, but I just I had a pain, tolerance or sort of a. It was a little masochistic, it was a little bit of like a misconception of toughness, but I had an ability to like just stomach as much as I could, whether it was like just getting through the day and going to work and doing things. I did my best to just cover this thing up and like so I, but eventually it's just too much and what happened to me was like, all right, so my job at the time it's just ironic that this was my job, but my I was in social work.
Speaker 2:I worked with at-risk kids. So these were kids that were. They were in the foster care system and they were in the juvenile justice system. Okay, so this was a facility for kids that had come out of those programs. So all these kids, like many, the majority of these kids that had significant trauma in their life, this was a high stress, demanding environment to work in and it was. It was a residential treatment facility. So I literally lived there and it lives. It was a 24 hour, a day job. I mean, I went to bed, but if the kids woke up, no, you know, I'd go back down.
Speaker 2:You're on call man 100% and and in a way that the job helped me because I couldn't I was never really, I was by myself, so, so sparingly, and I was always called into action and I had a motor like I could, I could, I could function and jump in to working with these kids, and it would be breaking up a fight or it would be talking to some somebody who had, like, tried to run away. It was pretty much always crisis management in that it sort of helped me because I just always had something to fixate on. But you can't really run away from yourself like forever. My routine was like I got up at six and woke the kids up shortly there, as soon as I had my coffee and you know, usually it wasn't till one AM that I would even get back to my little cabin and my routine was like okay, I'm so wired, my mind is racing, I'm having thoughts in my head that are they're scary and they're so weird and I need to have a drink and then I'll sleep. And then I'd sleep for a few hours from like 2, 30 or or one to two, two, 30 until six, and that was it. And I did this like for weeks and months and months and then eventually I had I finally I had a couple of days off.
Speaker 2:I remember I had worked like a long stretch it was like two weeks and my co-counselor had just quit and I was kind of just playing a solo. But I was killing it. I was kicking ass and like the supervisors were like, wow, you've got your group like running and everybody's in line and they're the best group cleaning up their, their shit, like they're doing a good job, and it all looked good to them. But I was breaking on the inside. I was the thoughts I was having.
Speaker 2:If I was, I was standing next to somebody, standing next to another one of the kids or another staff member there I was. I would obsess about like I would think I was going to hurt them. I would think that I was going to do something violent or or insane I would think about every time a car drove by, I just thought that I was going to jump in front of it. Every time we were in you know, I was taking these kids we used to go like on canoe trips and I would just stare at the water thinking, oh, I'm literally terrified that I'm going to jump in and drown myself right now. I just couldn't.
Speaker 1:I was breaking on the inside 100%, and then finally, so I had these couple of days, probably because you were drinking and you weren't getting any sleep. Yeah, absolutely, dude, without, without your thoughts. That could have killed you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in really bad shape. I had a lot. I mean, I was probably. I probably lost like 25 pounds because I didn't really eat that much and I was. I was sort of always so anxious I never really had an appetite and I was just running, dude, I was just running and running and running away from myself.
Speaker 1:And I was talking to somebody the other day about bipolar disorder, which is depression and mania. Okay, and it's just what cycle are you in? And I think and I said this to that person I said I think sometimes manic episodes are worse than depressive episodes, because you do some stupid shit when you're on mat, when you're manic mode.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, there's, there's, there's no doubt about it, I mean, and some of the, some of the more typical ones that you kind of you know, that you read about, and these are the ones that people can kind of understand, like you spend all your money, like that's a real thing.
Speaker 1:That is a real thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I barely made any. And I had gotten, I had maxed out credit cards that I wouldn't have been able to pay them off in years. Like I don't know what I was doing. I would just maxed out every credit card. I spent every dollar I could on shits, like I spent a lot of it on alcohol, but it was like I bought all these clothes, I bought all this crap like stuff I'd never would touch, gifts for people that, like they didn't want. It was just. It's really strange. It sounds like it sounds illogical but it is illogical. It is illogical, but when you're in the moment, it just seems like the thing that you have to do, exactly. So, okay, so here was the inflection point, like here's where, like, my whole life changed.
Speaker 1:That's what I wanted to find out. When did you decide enough is enough?
Speaker 2:Oh no, I'm not even like not for a while, not for a while, oh geez, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this is just when things started to really really go south. So I had worked this stretch and I had a couple days off but like, instead of being tired like I should have been, I was like I'm still running. I have all this energy, my mind is racing. Maybe I should. This was my idea. I was like maybe I should go, I should ride 50 miles on my bike and then I should go for like a long 13 mile run and that'll put me to sleep finally. And so my first day off, and I'm exhausted and I'm now nourished and I haven't slept and I have this idea that I should go to. And that wasn't like that wasn't really shit. I did Like I was in good shape and I like I ran and I did stop, but I wasn't like doing triathlons and spending the entire day on my bike. I just was an idea that I had and I saw I did it and I felt like, oh man, I'm a god. Right now I'm running through the hills and like the wind in my face and I'm inhaling the road in front of me and breathing it out behind me. I just thought that I was like just this, I don't know, like on top of the world, and I remember at the end I finally got back into the run. So I've been like out running and biking for the entirety of the day and I remember the end of the run I was like, oh cool, I think I finally not like in pain, but like I'm numb, like I think I finally ran out of energy. This is great. I'll be able to sleep like a baby tonight.
Speaker 2:And I didn't drink that night. I didn't need anything to drink that night. I just fell into like the darkest, longest, like the kind of sleep where you don't have any dreams because your mind is just like it is on E and it's like that. I woke up next morning. The sun comes through the windows and I knew within seconds, like I knew within a moment, that this was I was about to begin and I had just begun the worst episode I'd ever had in my life.
Speaker 2:I knew in that moment this was the worst I had ever felt. I knew that this would be unlike anything I'd ever gone through and immediately was obsessed with the idea that I needed to end my life. That was the only way out of this pain. So it's like seven in the morning and I have like feel my mind is racing. Every second that passes feels long, like the day will never end, because you're feeling like this and my first thought was like I need someone around me because I'm going to do something if I'm alone. So I went and, like you know, I lived at the. Even on my days off, I was still there, so I lived there at work. So I went and found my boss and he was the first person I thought of. But I went to his office because I needed someone to. Like I touch.
Speaker 1:You just got to lay it out on. You just got to get, we got to release this negative energy somewhere.
Speaker 2:It was more like I was just scared to be alone and it's the one to distract me in some way, to like put their arm around me or say something or engage with me in any way would would help me in that moment. And you know, I go in and he's like Dave, you know, and I couldn't even talk and I just start tears pouring down my face and I'm like choking and I can't talk and he immediately knew like he'd never seen anything like this from me and so he's just like, hang on, let me, I need to. I'm going to go get Mike. All right, and Mike is a psychologist that works there, he works with the kids, but he's like I'm going to go get Mike, like that's the. I know that you need to talk to Mike, so he leaves, but like I couldn't sit in this office and so I had to start wandering around and I eventually find some space, you know, in the back of all the buildings, in the woods, in this kind of abandoned area that you know we would hang out in sometimes, and we always had a knife on us because this was like an outdoor, you know, it was like outdoor therapy, so we always had a utility knife on us, it's a clip to our belt and I was alone in the woods and the the only I had this thought and it felt all of a sudden, felt clear and made total sense the pain will leave. The pain will leave if I cut myself and I bleed it out. I thought the pain will leave in a stream of blood.
Speaker 2:That's the way out of this and I took the knife out, like I read it in the beginning, and I touched it up against my skin and I pressed down and I remember the last thought I had. Just the fucking weirdest thought was like skin's resilient, it's like it's a little more leathery than people think. You know it's, we're not that fragile. It has a toughness to it and it stretches and it contorts. And I had that thought and I pressed down a little harder and then Mike found me and he tackled me from behind and he brought me to the ground and the next thing I know I woke up in the hospital, wow, and he blacked out in his arms and he got me in his car and it was obviously a wake. I got into his vehicle and I walked through this facility, but I don't remember any of it. I was completely blacked out.
Speaker 1:You know, you just you just hit upon something that in our earlier part of this conversation we were talking about trying to describe our depression pain to somebody who doesn't understand it and doesn't have to deal with it. I think because I was a cutter in high school too. Okay, that was something that I, that was something I did to relieve the pain, what you were talking about. Let's let it bleed out. Imagine, if you are and I'm talking to the audience now imagine that you just wake up one day and you just start taking a razor blade to your arm. How comfortable would that be? It wouldn't be very comfortable. Well, imagine that. Imagine that 10 times harder. That's what we feel on our worst days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and imagine that you were actually drawn to it, that that seemed like the answer to a fairly hard question.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so I woke up in the hospital and I had, like I said, a tag on my wrist and I was in a psychiatric hospital and I'd been put there and voluntarily, and it was there for two weeks and like within a day or two of talking to the doctors there and they medicate you. Good, they medicate you very, very heavily right away and it's I mean, I was like a zombie, but they do that. I mean their very first step is safety, right. So they're like, okay, you're going to be on. They put you in my case it was anti-psychotics and it's basically to sedate you and you're a zombie and you're not going to hurt yourself. That's their first step and then from there it's figuring out what's going on with you.
Speaker 2:So, after some conversations with doctors, they're like what you've been suffering from is is, in all likelihood, bipolar disorder and it's alternating phases of mania and depression and what you're describing like fits that very, very clearly. And I'm like, on the one hand, I remember feeling kind of relieved, right, because, dude, I just thought I was going crazy this whole time when I'm having these thoughts and I'm running around and I'm swinging back and forth on this crazy emotional like roller coaster. I just thought I was losing my mind. I thought that the person that I had been when I was a kid, when I was a teenager and I was doing good in school and rowing crew, I just thought that he was long gone and that I was a crazy person, like I didn't know anything else. And I remember feeling a little relieved that like okay, it's got a name, like it's a thing, other people have it, there's a, it's in the DSM or whatever it's got.
Speaker 1:Well, it has a title now and now you know how to attack it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but on the other hand, so I'm sort of relieved that at least there's a language around this that people speak. But on the other hand, my immediate thought, and keep in mind, I just had the worst day of my life and I'm lucky to be alive and I'm in a psychiatric hospital, and one of the first thoughts I had was oh man, what do people find out about this? What if they think I'm weak? And like how in the fuck is that? The first thing I went to I don't blame myself for that, and what I put that on is just something that we're kind of programmed and brought up to believe, particularly as, like young men in this country and in a lot of demographics is just like you're talking no matter what, and like sadness is sort of something for the weak, or depression is something for the fragile, like some of this bullshit notions that we're kind of programmed with. And so my ear I am, and I'm like lucky to be alive, and my first thought is like, oh my God, what if someone finds out?
Speaker 2:And I had begun seeing somebody and more and more on her later. But like I had begun seeing someone and so I had a girlfriend who worked there too, and I had been trying so hard to keep myself buttoned up around her, like all I wanted to do is for her to not know that, like all this stuff was happening in my mind and I remember thinking like, oh God, like what if she hears? What if she finds out? Like she's going to think I'm nuts and yeah, so I'm in this place and like I spent two weeks there and I learned a little bit and you know I, every day we talked to doctors and there were some CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, there was group sessions or were there all this stuff and I participated. But I, you know, and one of the key things they tell you in which is 100% true, is that, like abusing drugs and alcohol will absolutely trigger these episodes and sure, we make them worse.
Speaker 1:They're depressants. They're depressants when I left.
Speaker 2:I had like an instruction manual. It's like, okay, you take this mood stabilizer, this anti-depressant and this anti-synchotic. I had been subscribed these three things and do this every day at this time, and then, no matter what like drugs and alcohol are, real.
Speaker 2:We really advise you stay away from them. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to take the pills for sure, but like other than that, like no, I just couldn't really wrap my head around the idea that I was sick or had something debilitating or had like. I just perceived it as a weakness and so I kind of just like pretended that none of this had ever happened. And I went back to work and I did take my pills and, like my girlfriend did know, how did she react?
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing about her dude. Like I mentioned in the beginning to my partner, that girl is my wife today.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:We have a family and we have a life together, and she went through hell with me, dude. She's an amazing person. If it weren't for her, I tell you for sure, I wouldn't be here right now. I don't mean not here interviewing and talking to you. I wouldn't be here period.
Speaker 1:My wife is the person that I feel the most sorry for on this planet, because she has to deal with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but look at you now and the person you are now and who she waited around for, and it's worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm sure she feels that way. I hope I believe she does. So I got out of the hospital and that was just the beginning. That was the beginning of about a decade of okay, I have an illness, but I'm not talking about it. I'll take my pills, but I'm just going to pretend that I can stomach this thing. We moved back to California after we finished working there and got an apartment and both found some jobs and I just started, and now I'm in the city and I'm not working 24 hours a day and now it is really easy to find alcohol and drugs whenever I'm feeling any kind of way. And I started drinking a lot more. And I was already drinking a lot. I started drinking a lot more.
Speaker 2:I started drinking a much higher volume when I was drinking and over the course of years, drinking wasn't just like taking the edge off or having like three glasses of wine or six. I came to understand drinking as consuming alcohol to the point of unconsciousness. That was, if I'm drinking tonight, that means just going and going and going until my body and mind shut off. That's what going out to drink was. It wasn't anything less than that. It was never like cool, let's have a few beers and then go dance. It was like no, we're going to keep drinking the entire night until we are stumbling and almost unconscious or blacked out. That was sort of the process, and I did this more and more and by this time like whether because of my condition or because of the medication and swirling all this shit together when I drank I was a bad customer.
Speaker 2:I got very aggressive. I always got angry. All the pain that I was feeling, it just spilled out, go figure. Right, yeah, right, exactly. And so I always got aggressive. I often got into fights. I ended up getting arrested and put in jail on three different occasions, and I'm lucky I went to jail, because who knows what would have happened the rest of those nights if I was out in the fucking world.
Speaker 1:Were they PI, public intoxication, arrest or were they for fighting?
Speaker 2:Both, wow, two more from fighting, and one of them was for public intoxication. And one of the fights that I got was with a cop. No kidding yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you win?
Speaker 2:No, Not at all. Man.
Speaker 1:I had to ask that.
Speaker 2:But I'm sure I thought that I was going to and I'm sure I felt absolutely just engrossed with the sensation that what I was doing was the right thing to do. And I'm sure the people on looking at me and watching me just on the street getting handcuffed were like, wow, dude, this is fucking sad and it sucks to think about, because when this stuff happened I was with my friends. I was with people that were still, that still knew the person they knew in college, who was like a sweet kid and oftentimes very exuberant and gregarious, to use the word you use and so they were sticking with me, but like people were kind of disappearing from my life, because one of the times I got arrested like the guy I was with got arrested too, just because he was with me. He didn't do anything at all, but it was like, well, we're arresting this guy that you're coming to. It was You'll buy association.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I got like one of my best friends, like he had to spend the night in jail because of me. I didn't do anything wrong other than go out with me. And things went like this for years and all of a sudden, like and work is going very badly and relationships are disappearing and my girlfriend the same one who's like, trying desperately to you know, to help me and cling on to the person she knows is inside me somewhere. She's like I can't do this anymore. I can't watch this from up close, like I can't not know if you're going to come home or if you're safe or if you're or if you're hurt. And she was you know she was. She had one foot out the door and I was deteriorating and at that point I was pretty ready for her to go, not like I wanted her to, but in a way.
Speaker 1:Kind of just to save herself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's like. Here's the thing about being addicted to something like that is always going to be your first love, like that is going to be the relationship and the partner that you're most loyal to. So like you could be married, you can have a girlfriend, but your, your. The love that you have is always sort of illusory. It's always going to be second place to what you're addicted to. You go out to dinner and I remember this so clearly. Like you go out to dinner and your wife or your boyfriend or whoever is talking to you and they're telling you about how they feel, about their day or whatever. The only thing on your mind is how can I get an under glass of wine here without interrupting her? Maybe I'll just go to the bathroom? And I used to take a flash with me when I went out with her so that I could go to the bathroom and drink without her knowing that I was like wow, and yeah and like. That's not a relationship. No, that's like, and so that's that's the position I had put her in and like absolutely loved her to death.
Speaker 2:I was not willing to give up alcohol because it was the thing that it was the lifeline that I, that it was certain and I knew that like I could count on it and it would make me feel a certain way every time and it wouldn't question me and it wouldn't abandon me and I could always.
Speaker 2:It was always there for me and I was kind of like the image I have of myself at this time was like I was hanging off a cliff with one finger just kind of waiting for something or someone to just pry it off, and then don't the.
Speaker 2:And so then, like here's the next inflection point in my life, and now I'll take a pause I had, I had, I went out one night and at this point, like a lot of people had kind of, you know, she was one foot out the door. A lot of my friends were pretty wary of being with me, particularly at night. And I, you know, I went out and I found some people to hang out with, people that I did that were out of town, from out of town, that didn't really know me anymore. They didn't know who I was, so they were just kind of excited to hang out. And when you're drinking that much, this is counterintuitive that people don't realize. But you actually start blacking out a lot earlier and you, you. You start experiencing blackouts after like a much less volume, and so you'll start.
Speaker 1:Is that because you still have a lot more in your system still?
Speaker 2:Is it? It's just part of the condition of being alcoholic, is you? Just your memory and your cognition just gets shitty, and so you'll function. But your memory is just starting to really go to shit and so you might. You might stop remembering things after five drinks where it used to be 10, or 10 drinks when it used to be 15. You're still walking around and you're still functional. You're just like your. Your, your memory is really starting to to take a beat and so.
Speaker 2:But so people talk about blacking out and like you always remember something when you, you know, when you say blacked out, it's kind of a euphemism for it's a euphemism for 95% unconscious. But you but you always remember like oh yeah, and then we got, then we got pizza at that place, oh yeah, and I took a cab to and I saw this fucking guy and you have four or five little things and then you start to like chain the night together and you kind of inventory a couple things and you have like, all right, I got the summary. I know, I know everything that happened was in these parameters, so like we're good to go. This was entirely different. This was, this was a night where the I I refer to it as like pages completely torn out of a book. And I remember going out and I remember drinking a ton and I remember thinking I'm going to drown myself in a sea of fucking alcohol tonight because I just was done and that was it. I remember dancing to a song, having a cigarette, and then nothing. And I woke up who knows 10 hours past and I woke up and I was on my couch and I couldn't remember a thing. And all of a sudden I start looking around and feeling my my body and I have all these bruises and cuts and I have this blood all over me and got cut on my head, on my hands, and I'm like I have no idea. You know, when you get hurt that much, you can usually remember like I got in a fight. I couldn't have the faintest clue what had happened to me. It looked like I could have gotten in a fight or falling down a set of stairs. I had no idea. I regret it Absolutely. Yeah Right. So then I'm like oh fuck, well, how did I get home? I have no idea how I got home, but I know that I was the last thing I remember.
Speaker 2:I was like on the other side of town and I was started to mean I hate to admit this, but it's true and I have to be honest with myself and with you. Like I used to drive from all the time, like just no doubt about it, and a lot of people do, and you drive buzz, you drive drunk, you know. Hopefully you don't drive in the kind of condition where you couldn't walk, but I definitely did. And I started thinking, man, did I drive home? And I'm looking around and I'm like I find my keys and I have no recollection of being in a bus and I don't have any like receipts for my cab. This was back in the day when you got paper receipts for everything. And I'm starting to think like maybe I drove home, oh my God.
Speaker 2:And I start running around my neighborhood. I'm like jogging, looking for my car, just hoping to God I don't find my car. Sure, and I go a few blocks and, sure enough, I see like the silver bumper that I'm afraid to see and it's my car. And I'm like my heart sinks and I'm just imagining all of the awful things that might have happened. And I get to my car and like there's blood on the door and there's blood inside the car and I'm just I'm like praying to fucking God that it's mine, right. I'm like I have no idea what happened and I just prayed that I'm the only person hurt right now and I run inside and I'm like going online and I'm like I was going to the SFPD website and I'm looking at was there any accidents or reported hit and runs? And I'm trying to find that's where I was at, like I thought maybe something awful like that had happened, awful involving somebody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I, you know, I didn't find anything and I come to the conclusion like, okay, I didn't hurt anybody, this is my blood, and like I got back into my car after whatever the fuck happened out there. But that was it. Because, as obvious as it is now, at the time I would not let myself believe that I was hurting other people. And not because I wasn't, it's because your mind is just, your mind is, is is the cleverest fucking thing and it will twist reality and you can convince yourself of all the bullshit in the world in order to get your fix, in order to not break the habit that that is causing harm. Your mind will protect itself and it will let you keep doing a bad thing. And I just I had never believed like I'm going to hurt somebody. I just couldn't accept that, that obvious reality.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden, that morning I just pictured everything. I saw myself. I saw my friends like devastated at, like, watching me get arrested. I saw myself driving around the city drunk or blacked out and putting, like everybody in my path and jeopardy. I saw and I saw my partner watching this up close, like she said, just wondering if I was going to make it home and I realized for the first time this isn't about me, like. This isn't about how far I'm going to go and if I'm going to fall off that cliff. This is about who I'm going to take fucking with me. And who am I to like destroy someone else's world? Who am I to like drive through the city drunk and maybe hurt somebody or kill somebody? Who am I to destroy that? That, that person's world?
Speaker 1:That's a heavy thought, man Wow.
Speaker 2:And like. Once I had that thought and I and I understood the gravity of the situation, I knew it crystallized that I needed to stop Like because I was okay with hurting myself.
Speaker 2:You know, I really was I was okay with giving up and I didn't have career going, I didn't like have a lot of things going. My girlfriend, I think was was essentially done. And that moment, though, I remember, within hours, I was driving. I was driving with a Bay Bridge and in San, from San Francisco to the East Bay, and I was clear, okay, something's changing now. And I talked to my partner and I'm like, look, don't leave, give me another fucking chance. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this for you, I'm going to do this for me, I'm going to do this for all the people who have, who have hurt, and just give me one more chance and help me see this through. And, like, I promise, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2:And she helped me get checked into a chemical dependency recovery program.
Speaker 2:This was in days of like that night, and I met this counselor there and this is like another she's another like angel that, I'm lucky, came through my life at some point and this counselor, she was a clinical psychologist and I met with her and I told her, you know, for like 20 minutes. I told her like the story that I've told you and all the shit that's happened and what I went through at, going all the way back to you know, the psychiatric hospital and, dude, she told me straight up, she's like you got to stop or you're going to fucking die. She told me straight up that I would not survive and she'd only know me for 20 minutes. There you go and she told me I was going to die. She's like it might be all of a sudden or it might be you just wither away, but like you, you are not going to survive at this rate. And I she barely knew me, but I believed her because of her experience, because of, I don't know, because I was ready to.
Speaker 2:Maybe because of the way she said it the way she said it, everything the moment that I was in. I was also ready to receive it, you know, and so I believed it. She's like you don't need to make this decision right now what the rest of your life is going to look like, but I, just I want you to give yourself 30 days. I want you to stop drinking for 30 days and take care of yourself. Take your pills every morning, don't drink. Just walk this line with with me for 30 days. And I was like, okay, like I can do that, I'm good. No, I'm going to do that. And I made that commitment and I told my partner and I did it. And all of a sudden, like things were really starting to come into focus and I and I knew, with that, I knew that I wanted to keep going. And so what I did? And this is the best thing I ever did. Everybody should do this, you know, you like the phrase, like accountability, partners, you know where. Like you set a goal but you got to share it with other people. So then, in case you let yourself down, other people, other people are there that you don't let down. So what I did?
Speaker 2:And I had this idea and I was impulsive, I didn't think that through and if I thought more about it I probably wouldn't have done it. But like I had this idea one morning, I'm like, okay, I'm going to email everybody, I know. Like I'm going to email Kevin, I'm going to email everybody who's like a name is in my Gmail saved you know contacts and I'm going to tell them what's going on. And I, because I want to, I want to scream this from the mountaintop and I want everyone to have to keep receipts. And I want because I knew I could let myself down.
Speaker 2:But like I'd always been a good friend and always been a good teammate and I knew that like if I was, if I was backed into a corner and I needed to help somebody out, I knew, I knew I wouldn't let them down. So I wrote the email and I wrote. I woke up with blood all over me the other day. I told them, you know quickly, what, what if it had brought me to this point? I know I'm going to hurt somebody, I know I'm going to hurt myself for all of you, and I know I need to stop and I need to not have a drop of alcohol in me for, for you know, six months a year, I don't know, maybe forever, and I wrote that very deliberately. I said maybe forever because I had the courage. I had the courage at that moment to put that commitment out there and cause I knew that I, I knew that I could not back down If I, if I, if I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you write it or say it, it's, it's in stone, you can't go back on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And so um, and I sent it and like sent, hitting send on that email is crazy, but I sent it. And um was that that night was the last. That was like 12 years ago. It's the last time I've ever had a drink of alcohol.
Speaker 1:What was the reaction from your friends? There are people who received that. What was the reaction?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, dude, people were so supportive. They were like, I mean, everybody wrote me back and was like you know, this is the most amazing thing I've seen. I've heard. I'm so proud of you. Like, let let me know what you need. Everybody said let me know what you need. Do you want to go to a movie? Do you want to go for a walk? Let's go to the gym. Like, whatever you need to help you do this, I'm game, let's go. Let's go see Fast and Furious three, because that's what was out. Then you know, let's go, do anything you want to help you do this.
Speaker 2:And, um, yeah, and my partner, like she, she kept 10 toes down for me and she stayed with me and she like took me to these appointments. I stayed. I kept going to the chemical dependency recovery program for six months Just to go talk to the therapy, to the same counselor, and to do their, uh, their group meetings, um, every day, like, like, very often, um, and I was taking my pills every morning and trying, um, and going to my psychiatry appointments and starting to really like, okay, I also got to think about the thing that's going to make this easier is if I'm doing a better job, caring for my bipolar disorder, which will, which will help me not want to drink as much in the first place. Um, and I just started climbing this mountain and I started doing like I, I I wasn't bad shape Like physically, I just was like I looked, felt and looked like shit, and I had used to be in great shape and you know, but I didn't care about going running anymore when I was living this life, you know, um, but now I'm like, okay, I started going to the gym at night, because I would start going to the gym during the times when I usually was drinking, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Okay, saturday, and there was a 24 hour gym, like 24 hour fitness, and some of them are actually open 24 hours. Um, and I go to this gym on Saturday. I went a lot, but I always made sure to go on Saturday night, um, and around midnight, because I'm like this is, this is when I'm at a bar, it's totally loaded and let me just like lift these weights, let me go, let me hit the treadmill, um, and eventually I started playing basketball with this. It was this crew of guys and I always wondered, like why they were there and we didn't like we just knew each other on the court and we always played it's like the same group every Saturday night and we always played basketball until like one in the morning and I we didn't talk about it, like we just played hoops, and but I always wondered. Looking back I'm like I wonder if they were there, for like I wonder if some of those dudes were there for the same reason, if they were kind of in shit.
Speaker 2:And you know if, if, if, they were there for a similar reason, and but it was this place where we just connected and it was this place that was there for me at this time when, uh, so I was relearning behaviors, I was relearning how to just to go through a day or a week or a month without drinking and understand that I had an illness that I needed to care for and that it could get easier to manage if I cared for it. Um, and that started a long journey. And, like, within a year, um, within a year, things are looking, starting to look amazing. And it was like with the relationship, it was like we met again for the we'd been together for 10 years. It was like we met, we met each other for the first time is is how I, like would express it. It was like the thing was almost dead and all of a sudden, like water and sunlight, it just blossomed again and we got a new place. Like we got out of the place that we had been living. Um, I started doing good at work and like career started to like go in a direction. Um, within like a year or two years, we were engaged and we got married and like that was one of the like three or so best days of my life and, um, you know, all my friends were there, all my family were there, like the same friends that had like seen me getting hold into a police car, you know, and but had stuck with me through all this shit and, like the hell, I probably, I probably, put them through. They were all there, you know, like my groomsmen, and it was amazing.
Speaker 2:And then, like a year after that, I, like, without even trying, just from being healthy and caring for myself and getting therapy and not using, not drinking and not using all of a sudden, like like, career is blossoming and that's taken off, and I had this idea, um, like maybe I could start my own company. And I had been, like I had a real estate license and I had been working, doing a shitty job and like barely putting together enough money, but I had been working as real estate company and, um, you know, so that that was, that was the work I was in, and I just had this idea, like maybe I can do my own company and I don't know, I was just like kind of riding high and I had all this momentum and I keep hitting these green lights and and so I did it and I like got a sublet and shared an office with this guy and I didn't really know what I was doing. Like I had two clients and you know a computer and a phone, like that was it. Um, but I just felt like this knew me, the one like that's not drinking and that's caring for himself, um, and beginning to understand that like I can be super happy and super successful With bipolar, that it's not a weakness, that it's not something I have to self-medicate. I was just like I'm going to kick ass, fuck it, and yeah, and then it was like two clients and four clients and eight clients.
Speaker 2:And then I got, you know, uh, hired someone and then hired another person and like that was in like 2012. And now we have a team of like 50 people and here at this company and I've got like an amazing uh group that I get to run this company with and share that with every day. And it's amazing, um, and like I just think, I just think, um, I just think how eat like poof and it could be gone if I hadn't, if I hadn't had the courage to make that change. Like this disappears, you know, my family disappears. And I have.
Speaker 2:I have an overwhelming, raw sense of gratitude for what I have right now, because I know how easy it it could all just disappear. And then I think, like the happiest day is, you know, a year and a half ago, and, um, my wife and I and had a baby, and the same person that saw me in a hospital, that picked me up from jail, that watched me just drag myself through the fucking mud, that didn't give up on me, um, we had a baby and he's he's amazing, and he's he is, he is absolutely magnificent in every single way. And um, you know, and that's the journey, and um, it all started that morning when, like, I finally had the ability to be vulnerable enough to say I have a massive problem and I need to receive help, and I need to be open about it, and I need to tell people what's going on, um, or or or, like I'm not going to survive, just like my counselor said.
Speaker 1:So four things I want to touch upon here. Sorry, um many addicts trade alcohol and substance abuse for another addiction. Did you say that work in your company is your addiction now?
Speaker 2:It was for sure. Like I well, dude, I became like very much a workaholic and, you know, very obsessive about it and yeah, I definitely my wife and a lot of people would definitely point out, like, dude, get off your phone, you know. Like it's like I'd be at like a football game, you know, emailing something literally like out of the 49ers game and I'm like trying to tackle some work stuff. But it, you know, and it's like there's phases of this shit, like the work, the work has been up and down, but like steadily gaining every year. And like I wasn't, I didn't know how to be a CEO when I started that just printed that on a business card, but I didn't know what that meant yet. I didn't know what a leader was. I grew into it through learning and failing a lot and went through the phase of like, yeah, being a workaholic and micromanaging myself. So it's been a process to get to this point where I'm at, but I know, I don't feel like I'm addicted to work anymore.
Speaker 1:So the process, the ebbs and flows, sometimes they're great and then, like you said, sometimes you feel like a failure. How does that not affect your bipolar disorder?
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's been the biggest change for me has been and I've had ongoing therapy for years Like I started. I started therapy you know the back at this point in time and I met with that counselor for six months and then I got another therapist and I've had the same therapist now for quite a few years and you know so a lot of work has been put into this. But the one thing I've learned that what he calls it and what I'll call it is just managing my emotional responses and understanding my condition and like stepping outside of it, watching what happens when events trigger certain thoughts and feelings and watching it from a distance and saying like, okay, here's an example for you. Like, let's say, I've been working on a deal, trying to get a client and put together some big, you know, client engagement. Let's say I want to work with this person and buy, help them buy some buildings and do some deals, and we want to, we want to manage their building, all that stuff. Let's say it falls through Right and they say you know what, dave, we're going with Kevin, we're going to go with Kevin and his company.
Speaker 2:The challenge in that moment, and the thing that that would absolutely wreck me when that happened was I would go from, I would. I would crash so hard in that moment. And it wasn't just like, ah shit, you know it was a shitty day, but like, whatever, let's like, let's tomorrow be fine, let me just get over it. It wasn't like that at all. It was like you are the worst business owner and you are the worst business and you're the worst CEO and you're the shittiest real estate professional that there is and like what are you even doing in this industry? That that's where I would go in those moments. And what I learned over time and it's really hard, like this wasn't just like oh, revelation, like this took this takes a ton of practice. But what I learned was like okay, step one understand that it's then I'm going to feel that way, that it is who I am. I'm going to have a super extreme reaction and let it flow through you. Don't try to like be someone you're not and don't try to fight it too hard. Just understand like some of those thoughts are going to hit. Okay, that's step one. Don't fight too hard when that happens.
Speaker 2:Step two after you, after I've let that run its course a little bit, step back and do a reality check. Okay, is there any evidence that any of those things are true? Yes, it was lost, but doesn't every company lose deals? Doesn't every CEO like not get every single whatever he wants to get he or she wants to get? Didn't you do 10 of these deals last year and this is just like the one that didn't come through? Isn't that a net like great year? And so I call that part the reality check, where you just like you look at this, this negative factor and this trigger event, but you look at it in the context of everything else and I'm like, oh, wait a second. Okay, yeah, that sucks. Would have been great to get that deal. You know, buck and Kevin got the client again. Sorry, I know, man, but yeah, I got these other 10 ones done. Oh shit, like it's pretty good.
Speaker 2:And then I do the reality check and then the last step is how is this an opportunity? Okay, what did Kevin do in his presentation or his pitch or whatever that like helped him get it and where? What can I learn from it? What can I adjust or tweak or better prepare myself with for that next opportunity? So you do so.
Speaker 2:There's one, two and three, and first let it flow through you and understand that, like, your reaction to events is going to be extreme and that's okay. Right, that's who you are and that is okay. Step two do the reality check. Put the whole event in the context of all of your successes, so right that you don't just see this one negative thing. And then step three cool, the negative thing happened. What do you learn from it? And like, how are you better the next day Because that happened? How can I be actually fortunate and this is the, this is fucking next level, which I'm not at yet but how can I be fortunate that that happened Because of how much better I'm going to be next time? So that's like what I've learned.
Speaker 1:That's an amazing ability to step outside yourself and be able to look at it like that, though.
Speaker 2:Oh, but it's super hard and it's not like, it's not like. Someone explained those, those steps to me and I was like, oh, cool it's. It's been like reps at the gym, like slow and steady repetitions and practice and getting in, like getting the mind in better shape, just like you would, you know, on the treadmill.
Speaker 1:So the story that you just said brings to mind the story that I had with my guest last week who is a professional musician, who's in the Rock Hall of Fame, and we were talking about critics and he said in you know, a lot of musicians or artists will jump off the stage and try and go after that one person who says you suck, and you've got 89,999 other people in there that want to be there, why do we always focus on that one negative?
Speaker 2:Why yeah, and I well, I think, like we're hardwired to I'm 100% sure of that Like I'm very hardwired to, I take it personal.
Speaker 1:I any criticism I take personally.
Speaker 2:I started. Yeah, so I've recently similar not at that level, but similarly, you know, I've started to try to publicize my book and I've started to build a platform over the past year of putting myself out there as, as you know, somebody that's that's maybe a thought leader on this stuff that can help others by, you know, telling my story and what I've learned from it. And I, you know, and it's like I knew this was going to happen before I did it and it's still hard to manage now, you know, you put something out there on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, and it's like a lot of people are like this is awesome, like thank you for posting this, like I can really connect with this. And then the 30th one is someone being like you don't know what you're talking about, like you don't really know about depression, like you're full of shit and and I knew that was going to happen and it even when it happened that first couple of times I was like I was really reactive to it, you know, and but I had, I had prepared myself for it because I knew that was coming, and I've done this work of like getting myself ready for situations like that, so it was a little bit easier to manage. So the way to practice like the emotional response to those really hard triggering things it's not practicing it when that stuff happens, it's practicing it like on way easier stuff, right, like he my therapist, would do role plays with him. He'd be like we're going to pretend a situation is happening, you're going to close your eyes and imagine it, and he would like pretend to be the client that rejected our business or some other scenario to trigger some of these events. So let me practice walking through it and I go through those steps Like I do it when I I mean this is seems small, but I do this all the time.
Speaker 2:Like I got like a workout schedule and I'm free. Like I try to keep it. It's part of my whole physical and mental health package. And when I don't keep it, yesterday I fucking miss the workout and I will immediately spend five minutes thinking I'm in terrible shape, I'm physically of a piece of shit and there's so many more disciplined, tougher people out there. How come I can't work out every morning like those people? Why am I like lying in bed belly aching? I shouldn't even bother with this.
Speaker 2:I let myself have that for five minutes, but then I remember, no wait, practice the emotional response. Okay, what's the reality check? You worked out the other six days of the week, dude, cool, that's six wins and like one omission. I wouldn't even call it a loss, that's one. Like that's one little slip, like it's all good. What's your plan? Okay, you don't like this feeling. Work out tomorrow morning and dig in and get after it Cool. And that's in like so and so when those come up, that's when you have to practice it. It's like in the small examples. So then when something bad happens bigger, I'm like I've got some repetitions where I've walked myself through that process and I can handle like a negative trigger not getting out of control. So that's advice for whoever wants it.
Speaker 1:How would you have reacted to this? Okay, because I didn't know how to react to it. I was speaking at a suicide prevention rally, Okay, and I was talking about my own trials and tribulations and I had somebody come out to me at the end and say so how do we know you're just not doing this for attention, Because most people who try to commit suicide and don't succeed it's just a call for attention. I'm like I was asked to be here and I was asked to share my story. You know you're always going to have cynical people like that. It's just crazy to me.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's no doubt and like it's funny that you it's uncanny that you said that, because that's like one of the role plays that I did with like therapies. He's like let's, let's, let's fast forward a year. You have your book out. It did really good. You had a bunch of people that loved it. You got invited to do a reading.
Speaker 2:Imagine you do the reading and people are happy and they're applausing and then someone raises their hand and say and he was literally that he's like what if they say, like no, this is all kind of bullshit.
Speaker 2:You know you're just doing this for, like you know, money or to get attention. So we actually like walk through that scenario and I was like that's a really good one to do because, like you literally walk through it and anytime you're put, anytime you're putting yourself out there and you want to have, you want, if you want to have a big impact, like you do and and and like I do, and you want to really help people, you are going to, you're going to run into that every 10th person who questions what you're doing, who's probably frustrated with their own experiences and like would prefer to drag you down into a similar feeling or maybe just thinks they know better and that you are off track, like that is 100% going to happen to everybody who wants to make a big impact in the world, whether it's helping them or entertaining them. Whatever it is, there are going to be some serious detractors and being ready for it. I think is is hugely important starting with, like that very first person you know and getting used to that feeling.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like we, what we said earlier. You know, we always harp on that one negative. I'm sure you've had this same experience. You might have one negative comment, but you might have 99 other positive comments most of the time, because I had a an audience, a weekly audience in Houston of 1.1 million listeners, and whenever I'd go out and talk about this, they'd be like you're the last person I thought would be struggling with something like this. Thank you for sharing this. Oh my gosh, I'm not alone, you know, and that's why we do it.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally.
Speaker 1:That's why we do it.
Speaker 2:And I got to a point. So I mean, this was not always my plan, like I didn't. I didn't intend to write a book and I didn't intend to hold myself up and try to be a mirror to people to see what they might be going through and see some pathways out of it that they didn't think were possible. I really was like I'm doing great, I'm so fortunate to be alive and have success, and I got my, my business and I have my, my relationship. I got my routine Awesome and, like some changed for me a few years ago where I got to, I just got to a point of like the thing that'll make me feel the best, yeah, I want to keep doing all that stuff and like I want to, I want to keep growing this company Like we're doing awesome and we have an amazing set of people and values and I want to see it flourish. But something that I need that will make me feel like really fulfilling the whole picture for me is helping people who are, who are going through or or who will go through, some of what, some of what happened to me, and because I want, like if I could help one person go from where I was at 23, 22 to where I'm at, at 42. Now, if I could just help one person do that and save them from like who knows what can happen, you know, if that, if they take the other fork in the road right the other direction, that would be an amazing accomplishment and something that I would feel incredibly happy with. Haven't had the chance to help that person, and if I help two, three, a hundred, great like, even better. But it became clear to me that that was something essential to me in like my career path and getting outside of my, my, just my business, but also using my success in in in business to hold, to hold up as an example to say hey, you might be an alcohol, you might be struggling with addiction, you might have no idea how to get out of the mental health challenges you have and you might never think that anything that you wanted to achieve might be possible. But let me tell you, like, let me literally prove to you as an example, that, like, there is a pathway to it and you can be I don't know the entrepreneur or the musician or the actor or the chef or whatever that goal was like. It is available. Super hard, no doubt, like hard, hard, hard work but it is available and like to help someone, even just to be a small piece of helping them in their journey of getting from that rock bottom spot to where they actually see their dreams materialize. It is an incredible feeling, you know, and it's something that I decided I really wanted.
Speaker 2:And that's when, like at first I was just writing, like because it's a therapeutic exercise, and I started really like writing about my life, particularly starting at the same spot that I told you as a kid and walking through that journey Just for myself. I started putting on paper to relive it a bit, to understand it, to see this is what was happening then. And eventually people started to kind of figure out what I was doing and this is my friends, you know, because I would kind of disappear for a few weeks and just go write. And they're what are you doing? I'm like I'm just writing now, just like literally writing full time, 95 every day, like why? I'm like I don't know, like makes me feel better, I'm just putting short stories together and eventually someone's like dude, people need to read that, other people need to see that, and I'm like you think so.
Speaker 2:And then like yeah, and I'm like I don't know, and sooner or later, like these short stories, I just started to weave them into a book, and enough people around me gave me the signal that like, oh, dude, you could really help people out here with the way you're communicating it and the experiences you've had. Like a lot of people out there need to know that they're not alone. You know, just like you thought you were, and I was just like you know what. The idea of that message resonating with people and actually helping them change their life in a positive way really inspired me, and so that's why I'm so. I'm on podcasts with you now and that's why I'm putting a book out later this year. That's why I'm doing all the stuff I'm doing. You know that I'm doing.
Speaker 1:The book is called Coming Up for Air, if I'm not mistaken right.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Coming up for air. Final question for you, David Shamslad you win a $2 billion lottery or you're still alive today. Which one shocks you more?
Speaker 2:That's an awesome question. I say this with no bullshit at all. Every day, at least once, I have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that I am alive. I feel like every single day. I've never held it up next to $2 billion in lottery and done a side-by-side Pepsi Coke comparison, but I do choose the latter and I can tell you that every single day, especially when things might look like bumpy around me, I just look back to what my life could have been and I do that and I think of that poof and how quickly, like everything, could disappear and I have an overwhelming, immense sense of gratitude for my life. That brings tears to my eyes. So I'll fuck the $2 billion, whoa, okay, I'd rather go try to figure out a way to earn it and just focus on the gratitude I have for being here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, brother. I'm in the same boat with you, man. I think that's why we got along so well and I think that's why there's such a great conversation is because you and I are, I think, we're so similar, just so similar. We have such similar paths and we have such similar desires. So congratulations on the baby, congrats on the marriage, congrats on the business and much success to you, man. I can't wait for the book to come out later this year. You said right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My thanks to David Shamsad for joining me, for giving us his time, for telling us his story and for sharing such intimate details. His book Coming Up for Air will be released later on in 2024. Thank you again for listening. I appreciate you beyond words when you share your time with the Fuzzy Mike. And feel free to share the Fuzzy Mike with your friends and family. It's not illegal. Stay connected with the Fuzzy Mike. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or you can email me at thefuzzymike at gmailcom For video. Please subscribe to the Fuzzy Mike YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:The Fuzzy Mike is hosted and produced by Kevin Klein, production elements by Zach Sheesh at the radio farm. Social media director is Trish Klein. I'll be back next Tuesday with a dynamic new episode of the Fuzzy Mike. I'm going to be speaking with a member of the Rock Gods Hall of Fame. He was a bassist for Ozzy Osbourne and he's worked with many, many other great rock and roll icons. Tune in. You don't want to miss that one next Tuesday. So grateful for you. Oh and, by the way, I'm also on a new podcast, the Tuttle and Klein podcast, episodes every Wednesday. Look it up, Tuttle and Klein. Thank you so much. That's it for the Fuzzy Mike. Thank you, Thought Fuzzy Mike with Kevin Klein.