When Shane Sams from Flip to Lifestyle and I sat down to chat, laughter came easy, but so did the hard truths about entrepreneurship's mental toll. Our conversation takes you through the heart of anxiety and depression as we swap personal stories that unveil the stark realities behind the business veneer.
This episode isn't just about battling inner demons; it's a roadmap through the complex landscape of our emotions as we run our businesses.
Enjoy
When Shane Sams from Flip to Lifestyle and I sat down to chat, laughter came easy, but so did the hard truths about entrepreneurship's mental toll. Our conversation takes you through the heart of anxiety and depression as we swap personal stories that unveil the stark realities behind the business veneer.
This episode isn't just about battling inner demons; it's a roadmap through the complex landscape of our emotions as we run our businesses.
Enjoy
Hey, welcome back to the expert ownership podcast. This is Jason. David is out of town. It seems like that happens a lot. Right, he is out of town, but I just got done doing a podcast with my good friend Shane Sams over at Flip to Lifestyle, and we talked about anxiety, we talked about how entrepreneurs can experience that and Shane and I both kind of had our own little bouts with it and I give several different anecdotes on how I got past anxiety and then it'll give you a little exercise to do. And I did that on Shane's podcast. But then I thought you know what, I'm going to take that audio from that podcast and I want to put it on ours. So, without further ado, let me go ahead and let you jump into that conversation that I had with my good buddy, Shane Sams, on anxiety. Be blessed.
Speaker 2:Hey y'all, welcome back to the Shane Sams show. I am Shane Sams and I'm glad to be with you today. And I'm especially glad to be with one of my great friends, man, one of the best entrepreneurs, investors, influencers, handsome dad, all of it all the above Jason Benham, jason.
Speaker 1:Hey, Shane, can you start giving me an intro like that? Every time I come in the door from a long day at work and my wife is there?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I will.
Speaker 1:She needs that type of presentation. You call me. Come on, shane, now introducing.
Speaker 2:Wangan at 175 pounds, six foot one. Jason Benham, it's your father, your husband.
Speaker 1:He's here.
Speaker 2:Here he is, dude. I love that I read a thing this morning. It's funny. This was just so on topic. Me and some buddies were talking about just some hard stuff going on in one of my friends. His parenting is having a hard time with one of his kids and I read this thing that showed up on my Facebook news feed. It said it takes six to eight people to lift you into your grave as pallbearers right To lift up your coffin, to lift you into the grave. But then it said what if you had six to eight people to lift you up when you were alive?
Speaker 1:And that's really what it's all about man, that's good stuff, dude. I like that. All right, hey, shane, listen. I just watched that movie People of the snow or something like that.
Speaker 1:You know where in the Andes Mountains in the 70s that rugby team crashed and they stayed out there for 70 days or 71 days or whatever, and they end up having to eat people, which is crazy, but that's how they survived. So I just want to start this podcast off by saying Shane, if we get in a car crash or a plane crash and we get stranded and I'm dead, you have permission to eat me.
Speaker 2:All right, man, that is the highest honor that anyone has ever given me on the podcast or in my life, I think, jason. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Start on my love handles OK. There's some fat there, so there's some marble That'll last longer. More energy, more energy.
Speaker 2:I won't get to the hair and the beard and the carbs until later. You know what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying yeah, yeah, wait on that.
Speaker 2:Watch my figure up on the mountain.
Speaker 1:You remember that movie Alive that was a movie when we were kids too. Yeah, yeah, I think the one on Netflix is the spin-off of that, so it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:How's there a sequel? They all got out and they ate each other. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:It's not a sequel. It's like a spin-off, it's just a read-out. Oh, I got you. We did it, hey, but you know what's funny is, back when I was building my businesses hot and heavy 20 years ago, I heard Nando Perrado, who was the main guy from that whole thing, talk about it and he said and this is crazy, how did we get off on this on your?
Speaker 2:podcast. This was not supposed to be a podcast about cannibalism today.
Speaker 1:I don't know how it started, but he said their mindset on why they did that was. He said, of course they were starving, they needed protein. And he said people who donate their bodies to science, or their organ donors or whatever, they're using their dead bodies to help other people stay alive. And he said that's how they justified it. Wow, so how about that? So you can eat me, Shane, OK.
Speaker 2:Thank you and vice versa. I'll last you a little longer. I could probably feed you and David for a couple of days. You know what?
Speaker 1:I'm saying, oh, that's funny, I got bulk broke.
Speaker 2:I got bulk Alive. So this conversation started in an interesting way. Jason and I were out on the road, we were speaking together and we were riding in the SUV over to the venue on the morning of and we had just spoken a couple of weeks before with a pastor oh crap, I forgot his name.
Speaker 1:Oh, the pastor who was in the car with us.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, the Bible app guy, oh, craig Groschell, craig Groschell, yeah, I don't know where in the world.
Speaker 2:It's early guys. I've only had one cup of coffee Bear with me. But we were talking about Craig Groschell. We had spoken with him a couple of weeks before and I had mentioned just in chatting and me and Jason are together a lot, we talk a lot and we've never really talked about this. It's a topic, though, but I said man Craig Groschell had some videos on YouTube about anxiety and depression that really really pulled me out of a really dark time and a really dark space. And then Jason texted me a little while later or the next day or something. He's like man, I'd love to get some of those videos.
Speaker 2:Talk to you, because I've been through some depression and anxiety too, and when I went through my depression, I went through this six-month period of I had never experienced. I thought I had been depressed before, but until you experience what depression actually feels like, I don't think you can properly define it, and it's just a really hard thing. And I thought I was all alone. I'm like why am I feeling this way? I've got a beautiful wife, I've got healthy kids, I've got a business that makes money. Why would I be depressed? And I realized as I started talking about it transparently that a lot of other people felt this way.
Speaker 2:In fact, I actually was doing a speaking gig and the guy who hired me, I called him. I was during this depression. About three months in, I called him and I said I cannot do this. I cannot go out on stage right now. I cannot do this. And he said, shane, you got to do it. This is dark forces holding you back. Something's trying to keep you from giving this talk.
Speaker 2:And Jocelyn helped. She's my joke writer and, if y'all know this, she writes all my jokes. Jason, oh, that's impressive. I'm not funny. It's Jocelyn, it's funny, and so she's my speech writer, basically helps me with my speeches. And she told me. She said, shane, you need to write the talk that you need to hear and not the talk that the audience needs to hear, because they wanted me to talk about profit maximizing.
Speaker 2:So I went out there, jason man, and I said guys, this is the part of my presentation where I tell you I'm an entrepreneur. I tell you all the money I made, I tell you all the success I've had, but, honestly, I'm not going to talk about the day I am suffering through. Horrific depression and anxiety Took everything. I could even be here and I want to talk to you about how I'm trying to climb out of this whole. Jason, I had a standing ovation and I had, out of 100 of those guys 100 businessmen I probably have 50 of them walk up to me with tears in their eyes and say I thought I was the only one you know what I mean, yeah, but this is near and dear to my heart, man, but I want to switch it over to you a little bit, because we haven't even talked about this yet.
Speaker 2:But tell me about your experience with depression, anxiety, like when did it happen? Like what happened?
Speaker 1:when you started. Well, you know, I think one of the things that is a common misconception is that people think depression just involves sadness and that things are bad in your life. But that's often the opposite, because oftentimes people that are experiencing depression it's not because things are bad in their life. If you think about a balloon, you know it's full of air and you think about like one of those helium balloons and then once the air starts to come out of it, it's like it's more moldable and it doesn't float as high or whatever because it's getting depressed, which basically means the air is getting let out.
Speaker 1:So people like us, you know, like we're entrepreneurs, man, we're crushers, like we're ambitious, we can get things done, and it's like we got all this air and we're floating, but then something happens where we got a little pinprick or something and it could happen a number of different ways and we start to get depressed, which means that we no longer have the inflation of air that we once had. We don't have that motivation and that's that feeling of all of a sudden. Now, it's not that I'm overwhelmingly sad, it's that I'm not really feeling anything.
Speaker 2:Yes, dude, that is that numbness where you can't access. You can't access any kind of happiness, any kind of joy, any kind of true sadness. You can't even cry, you don't know what's going on. That's the weirdest feeling in the entire world, it's. You know? There's a name for that. It's called act. I think it's called acafesia. Yeah, it's when your brain stops being able to feel joy or get motivated or do anything else, when you're in a state of depression or anxiety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know we say depression, anxiety. You know, I do think there's a difference in both. It's. It's kind of a fine line, but it all runs hand in hand and what I realized was happening to me because, you know, let me, let me say this real quick Anxiety is, is something that, honestly, our body is going to feel, whether we go through the negative aspects of anxiety or the positive.
Speaker 1:You know, right, I talk about there's three levels of anxiety level one, level two, level three. Level one is that is because I apply it to pressure. You know I talk about pressure a lot. You know, like, if you think about level one pressure, it's like if, if I don't put air pressure in my tire up to 33 pounds and it gradually deflate, deflates or depresses, right, the air is in my, the air in my tires, I'm not going to be able to move the car. So there needs to be some level of stress, there needs to be some level of pressure in your life. And and what I like in that too, is I got to have pressure to provide for my family, I got to provide for myself, I've got to take care of myself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, right, I need that kind of pressure, the people who don't feel that pressure. They're entitled.
Speaker 1:So, that's level one pressure. We're supposed to feel a certain level of pressure. That's level one pressure. Level two pressure is when now, all of a sudden, the stakes have moved up. Now I've got to give a speech, I've got to take a test, I've got a. You know, if you're a musician, I got to sing a song. I've got to write a book, or I've got to whatever it is. You know, if you're a nurse and you're now going to deliver your first baby, it's like, okay, now, all of a sudden, we're at level two pressure. Level two pressure is that supposed to not happen all the time. We're supposed to always feel level one pressure. Level two pressure is only supposed to happen every now and then. You know where the stakes are higher. You know my son, college basketball player, and he's on the free throw line with two seconds to go and they're down by two. He's got to hit both of them. Well, he's supposed to feel level two pressure at that moment. Okay, level two pressure is hey, I'm a little heightened, now I'm going to control it.
Speaker 2:And it's going to end. That's the thing I'm going to go away eventually the game will be over at some point yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's exactly right. Now I'm going to allow myself to feel this and experience this excitement. My heart rates elevated a little bit. I'm going to try to control it at the same time, but I don't need to fear it. It's like now, all of a sudden. Yeah, I am a little nervous. Okay, I get it. I'm about to walk on stage in front of 3000 people, okay, so you're supposed to feel a little something. Well, that's good, we don't have to fear it, okay.
Speaker 1:But the problem is, is level three pressure? Hey, level three pressure is fight or flight, or sometimes freeze, and this is that pressure that you feel when someone has broken into your house and you have a decision to make. It's either my family or him, right, you know what I'm saying. Like, or it's, I mean, god forbid. You know, like what happened at 9 11,. You know you're in your office and all of a sudden, you know you're in an office a mile away and all of a sudden you hear a loud boom and it's like you're looking, you're seeing smoke, okay, and we all feel level three at that point, like you're in threat, there is danger. You need to handle it now, okay. And now what happens when your body hits level three, and that's supposed to happen only every now and then, it's just occasionally. All right, it's the, you know, the, the caveman. All of a sudden, the saber tooth tiger staring out of the bushes, baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the fangs out of the bushes, okay.
Speaker 1:Our body is created to handle that. And so you know, we, we have these things called hormones that are released in our bodies and these hormones, whenever we get to level three, we've got adrenaline right and cortisol. Those two things are happening crazy at level three. And level three is when that, when adrenaline comes, what adrenaline does is it goes to the rest of our body and says you need energy. At the same time, cortisol is going to the same parts of our body and telling certain facets of our body we don't need you right now. So if I'm at level three and all of a sudden I'm eating, I'm eating at a restaurant and somebody breaks in, you know, to the restaurant and they've got a machine gun and they, you know they start telling people get down, get down.
Speaker 2:Okay, now we're all at level three. Adrenaline comes in. We're getting pretty cataclysmic here. We've talked about cannibalism 9-11 terrorism, like someone's getting triggered on this podcast. I love this you got to go through this. We have to cover all the situations. We've done everything, from nervous to nuclear bomb. I haven't done a nuclear bomb. Okay, nuclear bomb goes off.
Speaker 1:Okay. So let's go back to the restaurant Now. Everybody's at level three at that moment. Okay, so adrenaline has gone through your body and told certain parts of you wake up, we need energy. Let's do what we need to do now. Okay, we're going to fight or we're going to run All right. Now cortisol is also going through the rest of my body, telling certain things like okay, digestive system, we don't need you right now. I don't need you digesting food. Um, you're pancreas. I don't need you secreting insulin right now. I don't need you doing any of that kind of stuff. Your kidneys, hey. You know what we love the job that you do and how you filter things, but we don't need that right now because all of our energy Bladder.
Speaker 1:Bladder we might need it Bladder, because this was really scary.
Speaker 2:Okay, bladder. Bladder is still on the team. It's still on the starting team in the emergency Right.
Speaker 1:But you know we just need to Proposhima. What da wrong. Okay, get them pre sonst Options. But you got here on the main司 in the emergency. What was do? Contact with people. We had um time to come the the EULB. Okay, as you perform.
Speaker 1:Hi, that's Jen Heart disease. Great, one second, all right. So we've done about. When are you preserve I'm going to have, but I'm just going to take a look. You want me to. You can see in your body I'm going to heightened level of stress and we need all this energy. Okay, what happens? When we are now operating at level one, we get to level two, but level two turns into level three because of our thinking oh man, I got to step on stage and speak in front of my whole class. What if I pass out? What if I say something stupid and that person back there laughs at me? And then they got it on video. And when they put it on video, it's going to go viral and I'm going to be the person everybody's laughing at. You see, now you're thinking, you are projecting powerlessness, you're projecting this fear into the future.
Speaker 2:It's the future. Yeah, it knocks you into level three. You know that knocks you into level three.
Speaker 1:No saber tooth tiger, though, yeah, man, no saber tooth tiger. So now, all of a sudden, you're feeling things in your body that start to freak you out, because your body starts to shut down, because you're doing a level three. Do you remember? Do?
Speaker 2:you remember in LA when you were running up those steps and you just caught your foot and just like oh, I did. And like tripped. You know what I'm saying, but that was a, but like nobody could see it, like it was only us that could see it, I saw it, I saw it, I saw I was dying, laughing man, what happened? But like I saw it, but you pop back up, you run out there, even though 9000 people nobody saw it.
Speaker 2:But still that's one of those moments where you, like you, had your level two pressure. You're about to go out and do your thing. Oh crap, now you're thinking to anybody see that? What's going on? Am I going? To freak out. Am I going to figure like that can send you into level three, even though there's no problem with it whatsoever?
Speaker 1:And it just so happens to be, there's 9000 people there. You know so, but here's, here's the key. So fear is about a past or present threat. Anxiety is about a future threat. Anxiety is projecting fear into the future, and you know what. It has everything to do with your thinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a doctor, and you're not either, shane. Neither one of us would sit here and say that all anxiety is a result of your thinking like Okay, I get that, because there are some things physiologically you're going to need to take care of, and sometimes you need to get a little bit of pause there and talk about that, let's, let's, let's hit.
Speaker 2:Pause there for a sec, because that's that's a good point. One of the problems that I had is the my anxiety is it's almost like they're a seesaw and your, your body is actually supposed to titrate between anxiety and depression. That's actually a sign of healthiness. It's when you get stuck in one place or the other, or your body and your brain misinterpret the signals of your hormones, where things can go haywire, like one of my problems was I hit some some massive anxiety about some stuff because honestly sometimes as entrepreneurs we push ourselves so hard in that level two that we
Speaker 2:stay there way too long. So then our body starts getting confused. Anxiety and excitement are actually the same chemical response. Waking up in the morning is only done because your body releases cortisol, and then your body can misinterpret those signals and like too much cortisol too long, that's right Throw you into anxiety. You can't attach it to anything, you don't know what it is. You start looking for problems. You start reading WebMD and you think that you've got every kind of cancer and everything in the world.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying? Yes, you're looking at all that and your body and force your brain, your brain, your mind tries to take over, and it's not just thinking, thinking, that's not what we're talking about here, guys. It's literally those loops that you get into where you can't. You're trying, your brain's trying to solve the problem of what's happening to your body and you get stuck in this anxiety and after a while, your body runs out of cortisol.
Speaker 2:Your body runs out of everything else, you crash and then you get stuck in what we call depression, numbness, acathesia. You know so. There is a physical component to it on top of that, and sometimes that does require correction with medicine. I actually took SSRIs for about seven months because I needed that to calm my system down and turn down the noise, to give my brain time to catch up to my body. You know so, it's okay. That's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly right and I like the way that you saw that you saw meds as a temporary solution to get you to a point of health. Yeah, not where. You end up in the place of my uncle, who's been, who's been on anxiety meds and anti-depressants for over 20 years and now he literally sits in a bedroom and shakes. And saw him the other day and he's like and he barely could get it out. He's like I wish I would have gone back and not take those meds.
Speaker 2:You know, like, do you know? Do you know what meds, do you know what they are? Was it Benzo? Oh man, he gave me SSRIs.
Speaker 1:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you definitely sound like you know what you're talking about. But anyway. So I've got family that have you know like. I've got some family that, honestly, like I've got a family member and every time he comes off his medicine he goes almost suicidal, almost almost like hot. It's like he has to go back on it Now, whether or not that's because the medicine or that's just his chemistry, I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know, I would say, and I would definitely say if that happens, stay on your meds.
Speaker 2:Yes, bro, you know so let's just be clear, guys don't think we're ever bashing medicine, but I also think we all can agree that life lived without medicine would probably be the best alternative if we can get there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So how do you stay out of level, allowing yourself to move to from level two to level three? It's all a matter of your mind. It's a matter of your thinking, and when the minute fear presents itself into your thinking, you will find yourself stuck at level three for things that shouldn't give you level three anxiety.
Speaker 2:What's an example of that in your past that's brought you into level three? Can you think of anything specific that that took you in, like looking back with 20, 20 hindsight? It's hard to tell in the moment, but like that you know, that's what caused this.
Speaker 1:This is one of the one of the things. Well, I'm going to get to that. So let me go back. I was crushing it in business, by God's grace, doing a lot of things with my twin brother. I was with Shane, going to life surge and doing all this kind of stuff, and then, in the spring of 20, what are we in 24, now, spring of 22.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I literally had like a crash. I got to a point where in the crash for me was, I literally had a hard time getting on an airplane and then I felt claustrophobic and I had to go speak in front of this crowd and I was like I don't want to do it, I don't know and I had no idea what was going on. But just it was this massive amount of anxiety and fear inside me and I had never been scared to speak ever a day in my life. Shane, you know me.
Speaker 1:I know you put me on stage, give me a microphone, here we go. I didn't want to do it, and and so I. It took me probably two months to get it over, that anxiety, and there was times where I was like I'm going to take medicine. I got to do this because I got to and fortunately I was able to work through it without that. But what I realized there were several genesis moments that got me to where I was. One of the main things, honestly, shane, was I was an entrepreneur and I was running a marathon at a sprint pace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, been there, bro, you can't do that man.
Speaker 1:No, I was running a marathon at a sprint pace. Why? Because you're supposed to hustle, hustle, hustle right. And just imagine what happens whenever you know. If you run that hard for that long, what do you think's going to happen?
Speaker 2:You are going to court is our court, is our court, is our court, is our court, is our crash?
Speaker 1:It's telling you it's close, you know like calm down, calm down, calm down, and you just get stuck. And this is why I really believe that. You know, when we read the scripture, it's called a Christian walk. It's not a Christian run. Why? Because when I walk with somebody, I can talk with them, I can listen and I can talk. Okay now, if all of a sudden, me and Jesus are taking a nice stroll together and I'm like hey, jesus, let's run, let's just run, why are we walking when we can run? We can get so much more done. Well then, guess what happens when you start running? All of a sudden, you stop talking.
Speaker 2:And you stop listening, you can't hear what you're about. Stop, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:You can't hear anymore and you're ceased to talk. Now, I never stopped talking to God. I mean, obviously, this wasn't just a spiritual thing for me. This was in my business and in my own life. I was running and therefore I stopped hearing my body tell me certain things. Hey, you need to slow down a little bit. Like I had written six books in six years and just talking about it.
Speaker 2:You've been taking me six years to write one son.
Speaker 1:That's hard, that's hard.
Speaker 2:That's hard work, you know it's crazy hard work and I was just.
Speaker 1:I was taxing my brain all the time. I wasn't reading books, unless I can learn something from it, and it was self-help and productivity type stuff, and I found myself like literally addicted to productivity you know where.
Speaker 1:I wasn't like watching certain movies or anything unless I was going to learn something from it, and I was addicted to productivity and I was running, running, running and then I crashed. Okay, so after I crashed, I went back into my history to try to figure out what in the world led me to this, and one of the things that I discovered.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you a question real quick. Yeah, at that moment, because I want to see if you had a similar experience to me, because you've watched me run for four years now. Oh yeah, we're all running crazy, like you slide inside ways sliding in sideways.
Speaker 2:You're not an entrepreneur. If you're not skidding in sideways, son, in the parking lot, that's right. Maybe I need to reevaluate that statement. But like did you when you felt that? Did you immediately tell anybody? Or was there some kind of like, did you tell David? Did you tell your wife? Or did you hesitate and think, man, I can't tell anybody this, I'm Jason. I hesitated, man, I keep going.
Speaker 1:I hesitated. Like what am I supposed to say that you know, I know that Tori made steaks for lunch and that day or one of those days, and I didn't care Like I just was, like I just want to go in my room. I got all these people coming over and I'm like what is wrong with me, man?
Speaker 2:So yeah, a few days and that's just dude. That is so dangerous. You know what I'm saying? You're right Is wrong Cause then you go internal and you start figuring it out and you're hiding and masking it from everybody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you lose your support? You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do not do that. So find the people who love you the most and tell them what's going on and they'll understand. But then here's the. The dangerous part is when fear comes in. So you've been feeling it in your body, you've been feeling some type of anxiety and all of a sudden, fear comes in. And fear, you know it attaches to something that happened in the past. But it but what anxiety does is it takes fear and then it projects it into the future. Okay, so now I'm thinking, dang, will I be able to walk my daughter down the aisle? Like, I don't even want to be in front of people right now. Like, will I ever be able to speak again If I don't speak again? Who am I? Like? You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like it's projecting fear into the future. Remember when Jesus was on the boat with his disciples and the storm picked up and he was asleep in the boat, his disciples, these professional fishermen, guys who are pros on the water, they literally thought they were going to die. And what they did was they woke Jesus up, who was completely at rest, and they projected fear into the future. They're like we are going to die, don't you care? Like they projected fear in the future. Like this boat is going to capsize, we're going to end up in the water. That water is going to overtake us and we're all going to drown. Okay, that is projecting fear into the future and anxiety, like the outcome or something.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, right. Jesus now rebukes, gets up. He rebukes the wind in the way, so he calms down the outside in order to calm down what was going on on the inside. To the disciples and because he had to do it in that order, he had to calm down what was going on the outside in order to calm down what was going on the inside. He rebuked them for their lack of faith. Now, if they would have reversed the order, they would have been like okay, wait a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the wind waves are picking up. It's like crazy. I really feel like we possibly could die. But you know what? Jesus is in the boat and I think God's going to protect him. He's going to protect him, he's going to protect us. So I'm going to calm myself down, I'm going to self soothe right now. I'm going to bring that heart rate down, I'm going to start focusing on what's true. I'm not going to project powerlessness into the future. I'm going to project power into the future. And when you do that now, all of a sudden you start to calm down what's on the inside and then, in time, guess what God's going to do? He's going to calm down what's on the outside.
Speaker 2:Well, I, I, uh, it was during my, during my depression. I learned a really powerful technique for this. Yeah, On the mind side, and it's called brain retraining. Super interesting, Um, it's. It's exactly what you're saying, is it? And what I was thinking the same thing. I was like I'm never going to be able to make a living again.
Speaker 2:I'm never going to be able to go out again, I'm going to lose everything I've ever I've got and like. And of course I finally got Jocelyn in the loop. I one day I was like I told her I said something's wrong in my mind and I can't solve this problem and I'm the problem. So I forgot that's my what.
Speaker 2:I'm supposed to be, you know, and she was just like stunned. But it was because my brain was like trapped in these dark loops of the future and the past. And this, this interesting thing I learned, was at night. I would sit there and and the first thing that I would do is I would think about the past, the evidence, the truth the ships never sank before. The wind never got me before. Why would the wind get me? Now? I know how to sail this boat, that's right. I'm, I'm in the same boat. But then what was really interesting I love that you said I'm not going to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle. Like what in the world? Like where did that come?
Speaker 1:from, but exactly.
Speaker 2:So what I? But you? What you do is you say the opposite of that outcome. So if you're thinking I'm not going to be able to walk my daughter, you immediately say stop, I'm going to create a future memory of me walking my daughter down the aisle and holding Nana Joe's hand. I'm handing it off to this amazing man. Right Same thing. Jesus is going to wake up and tell the wind to stop.
Speaker 2:That's the moral of that story, and that was one of the things over six months of this depression and anxiety that really pulled me out of it was that future visualization and recognition of past evidence in my brain all of a sudden locked the past, the future and the present into a stable place where I can actually process some stuff and get through it.
Speaker 1:That's why over a note, I think it's right at 365 times in the Bible we're told do not fear, Because God knows what it's going to do to our bodies. He created our bodies, he's like. If you project fear into your future, your body is going to kick in, as if you're being chased by a saber tooth tiger, and if you stay that way for too long, your body can't function. You literally cannot function If you're running from a saber tooth tiger all the time. You're just going to stop and you're going to get eaten.
Speaker 2:And if you don't stop what we have found? This happened to me and Jocelyn. Jocelyn experienced some depression for about a year and a half after we sold our first company. It was almost like postpartum depression for the business that's the only way I can explain it, because the business was her baby. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and her body, dude, was like you're not dealing with this, I can't handle this anymore. And she just went into like freeze and I never understood it, because I think, as a man, we're all like, ah, let's go, but then my body completely shut down for two straight months. Man, I did not work at all. Yeah, I can do it, because my body just said, hey, until your brain figures this out, until your heart figures this out, we're just going to stop the vehicle from running through life and we're just going to shut it down, and that's what it's going to be.
Speaker 1:And that's why I talk so much about your thoughts, because we're all. We're always taught in the scripture 365 times do not fear, we can be at peace in our mind. And there are some techniques. I'll share a couple with you. But there are some techniques. But here's what Satan does, because he is the author of confusion. So anxiety Is it? Is it just that I'm projecting fear into the future, or did something really happen in the past that I need to go back and visit, Like what is going on here? I'll tell you it's yes to all of it Cause he's the author of confusion.
Speaker 1:So there's a bunch of different stuff going on. Well, I'll give you one example, and this is what you asked earlier. Do I remember a time? Well, when I was going through my several months bout with anxiety, shane, I had a hard time standing on stage without the fear of passing out on stage, like, I mean, I had never thought of that before. But then all of a sudden, I'm like I feel like I feel kind of lightheaded right now.
Speaker 1:You know like literally, there were times where I was on stage and I felt lightheaded and I would have to take more.
Speaker 2:You hid this well, which I probably hid it from. You probably had no clue. I was depressed the other time either. So our masks are really good, you know what I'm saying so, like you hid this really well, because I would have never guessed.
Speaker 1:He told me, and, and what I realized was after I went through my anxiety and I started doing some serious soul searching, I remember something that happened when I was 12 years old.
Speaker 1:I was 12 years old, I was in junior high school and our Christian school that we were going to in Dallas, texas, garland Christian Academy they were going to take us from that we they didn't want us wearing our own clothes anymore. They wanted us to upgrade to uniforms. And so they asked a bunch of students, like there's probably 15 or 20 of us hey, we need you to model these uniforms for all the parents when they come in, so that we can convince the parents that we need to go to uniforms and now the parents can have to buy all these uniforms. So they took 15, 20 of us, we put all these uniforms on and our job, we literally walked out on stage. We stood there in front of all the parents and then they explained what the uniforms were. Okay, I'm 12 years old. Right before I walk out on stage, my dad goes hey, bud, you know I was in the military and if you're going to stand on stage in front of people, you got to make sure that you don't lock your knees, otherwise you could pass out.
Speaker 2:Oh geez, Inception baby, there's the trauma. Let me ask you this what do you think?
Speaker 1:What do you think I was thinking of? As some little 12 year old kid, I'm gonna pass on stage.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I hope I don't pass out. I never thought of that until after I went through anxiety and I realized, you know, I had this unconscious fear wrapped inside of me for that long that I never even knew was there. And it took about with anxiety for me to do some soul searching. Now I can stand on stage and I'm not worried. I'm not because I know that ultimately that's a lie. Is it true that if you lock your knees you could pass out? Heck, yeah, it is. So be smart. Like you know, you lose your knees up. Go for a walk, you know. Take a walk on stage, you know, do whatever, do that kind of stuff, but I don't have to fear it.
Speaker 1:You see, what was happening was that thought would come back into my mind and it was all happening subconsciously and I had this fear oh no, I might pass out. That's how you know. It's anxiety, because you're projecting something into the future. It's fear. I'm projecting fear into the future, just like the disciples did on that boat we are going to die. Well, they weren't dead then, but they said something bad is going to happen in the future. And so I understood at that moment. I can't project fear. When I'm on that stage, you know what I need to do, be doing. I need to be projecting power into the future, not powerlessness. I'm going to go out on stage. I'm going to give the people what God put into my heart. Why? Because these people need it and they need me to be confident. They need me to be strong. It ain't about me, it's about them, you know, and I was able to get past that. But that was just one little thing.
Speaker 2:That was something that in my moment of anxiety, I discovered that we all have those, and I actually I've got a great mentor and I'm in a little mastermind group with him and some of the other people he talks to, and we were talking about this exact same thing how those little things like hold us back, and I was, and I was, I remembered. And also, too, it's why it's so important to deal with anxiety and depression and mental health head on, because if you're not actively trying to, it's not just avoiding the fear of the future, it is dealing with those little moments in the past, like I had a. I had a teacher one time. I was in music class. Never forget this Second or third grade. And you've, man, my voice is loud, it's powerful and I'm just belting it out, so, and I'm just like trying to be a hopper singer.
Speaker 2:I'm a bit tone deaf though. I got a voice for radio but not for song. Okay, and like and like, and I was singing. I remember I remember this teacher stopped the whole class, singled me out and said hey, shane, you're singing so much louder than the other kids that I'm going to. I want you to do something for me.
Speaker 2:I want you to not sing in this next song because you're you're drowning them out Wow, and so I don't think I sang in church for the next 20 years. I don't think I sang crazy, isn't it crazy?
Speaker 2:A car, just that. And she didn't mean anything by it. She actually thought it was endearing and cute and fun, right, uh-huh. But my little brain took that the wrong way and it affected me for years and years and years when it came to singing, like in public or anything like that. But, like, the beauty of anxiety and depression and mental health that I have found is that it lets you deal with those past things that are holding you back. And also, man builds in empathy because you know now. I know what that's like to experience it. I know what it's like to get through it. I know what it's like to deal with that part of my past and it's so much easier when I'm talking to another brother or good friend or anybody. Yeah, let's talk about this stuff, let's get this out in the open. It's okay to be affected by the past. It's just not okay to stay there, and that's what it helps. Really all about is getting out of that mess man.
Speaker 1:That's such a good point because, you know, the turning point for me was when I started thanking God for my anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Because I really felt like God was saying your body is speaking to you. I want you to get to the bottom of some things that you've never gotten to bottom of before, and I started thinking deeply about things that I had never thought deeply about. That's when I remembered the thing that happened when I was 12 years old. I never knew that before, but God allowed me to go through anxiety to discover that. Okay, you know what else? I discovered that, just as you said, anxiety and excitement feel like the exact same thing. So does anxiety and conviction.
Speaker 1:Yes, Like anxiety and conviction it is the same thing.
Speaker 2:It's the energy to move. That's what anxiety really is. We would without anxiety. We would be the fat people from Wally in chairs wheeling around the space. Oh, I remember that you know what I'm saying, like we wouldn't do anything if we didn't have the anxiety to make us take action.
Speaker 1:Yes, and what Satan wants to do is he wants to rob us of the beauty of anxiety. Okay, he wants to rob us because he doesn't want us being excited and moving to action. He doesn't want us repenting. Okay, that's the famous verse. Philippians four, verse six be anxious for nothing, but in everything. By prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, make your request known to God. And then verse 7, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and minds of Christ Jesus. Okay, so we all know that, right, we all know that verse Like that's.
Speaker 1:So many people quote that verse. Have you ever thought of the context that that's in? Is that the apostle Paul was writing to the Philippians and he was specifically telling two ladies, eulodia and Sintakey Crazy names, I'd never named my girls this but these chicks were fighting. They were fighting with each other and he was saying hey, I need these ladies to get along. Okay, and then he tells them in verse 4, right after he tells these ladies hey, listen, y'all need to start getting along. And then he goes rejoice in the Lord. Always, again, I will say rejoice, which means you need to be full of joy.
Speaker 1:But now check out what he says here, in the very next verse, verse number 5, before he gets to be anxious for nothing. Look what he says. He says let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near your gentle spirit. This is so incredibly important because this is all about anxiety, because these two women were doing something with each other. They both had negative thoughts toward each other, they were thinking negative thoughts, they were saying negative things, they were doing negative stuff to each other. And then he says hey, hey, hey, you guys need to be full of joy. Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. Which basically means be reasonable in the way you think about people. I did a massive research on this, matthew Henry, the great commentator be reasonable with the way that you think about people. So when I'm sitting on this airplane two years ago and I'm feeling anxiety, I didn't want to get on the plane. It's like crazy what I'm feeling.
Speaker 2:Did David know this? Did your brother know? No, no, no, my wife didn't even know at this point.
Speaker 1:And so I'm sitting there and I felt the Lord's prick in my spirit, which we've all felt, this little piece of conviction Like. He brought to mind three people who had hurt me in my past and I never really released them of it. I mean, I said I did, I wasn't really consciously thinking about them or anything like that. Put it aside, I did. And yet at the same time, if their name was mentioned, there was a little bit of a negative connotation that came up in my mind and I felt, like the Lord said I need you to repent of that, the way that you've been thinking about these people, which is a form of bitterness. I wouldn't say it was full blown bitterness, but it was enough to where it was agitating my spirit.
Speaker 2:Listen, you can't be growing. It's like just a seed of it, kind of yeah that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:You know, you can't be right with God and wrong with people. And I was wrong with these three people and this was way in the past. And I felt, like the Lord said, I need you to pray blessing over them, their marriages and their families. And I did that and I asked God to repent, to forgive me for that bitterness, and I repented and I prayed blessing over their family and every day since then, when God brings them to mind, I pray blessings over the families. And I felt in that moment something lift from me. Now I wasn't out of my anxiety pit yet. That was just one of the things.
Speaker 1:Hey, my dad, I had already remembered that story, with my dad telling me don't lock your knees on stage. You know I had remembered that and I'm like okay, so I'm operating out of a fear from the past, I'm projecting into the future. Okay, I got it Not going to do that anymore. Now I'm starting to get convicted of some things. You know some other things that the Lord convicted me of. It wasn't just negative thinking. I was watching movies. I didn't watch like Red Star movies, bad Language or anything like that, but I was watching a bunch of those crime thrillers and some of them were getting pretty gory and I didn't realize what it was doing in my body, like it was stuck inside my subconscious and I was seeing murders. I mean, I love true crime I really do but some of them, you know, it gets a little gruesome and I should have been shutting those things off, but I wasn't because I was too enthralled in the special, especially when you're in the throes of anxiety and stuff you can't do it.
Speaker 2:I found yeah, I found it like going to baseline man helped me a lot, like even getting out of town and like just going out like into the woods or something like just for a walk, you know, like just being able to remove myself from humanity for a minute to get back into like just myself and nature and God, and just like seeking and like that you got filtering out everything. Man, just like it gets it off the plate because you can't. It's like trying to clean the kitchen counter and your kids behind you squirt and catch up everywhere you go. It's just all right there with you, man. You can't clean it up if you can't get out of the mess.
Speaker 1:And I had to. I had to shape up the movies I was watching, the music I was listening to and again, I mean, I'm a Christian man, you know, with Christian ministries and stuff I wasn't watching anything bad or listening to bad stuff, but some of that stuff was agitating my spirit and I didn't even know it and it was, it was affecting my body. Another thing I actually was you're going to laugh at this I was eating too much dark chocolate. My body already doesn't handle.
Speaker 2:You like dark chocolate? Now, son, I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, you're getting in that candy basket, getting in that candy basket backstage and catering man. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But see, my body doesn't respond to caffeine well at all. Like I cannot have even a sip of energy drink, and I didn't realize that dark chocolate had as much caffeine in it as it does.
Speaker 1:but it was agitating me, so you got to pay attention to what you're putting into your body you know, Another thing that I discovered in my as I was going back and trying to figure out what was causing all this, is that I tend to operate. I tended to operate out of guilt more than gratitude, Like I got to do this thing rather than I get to do this thing Obligation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was terrible. Another thing, shane, and this is huge for a lot of people self-consciousness, just straight up, like I'm more concerned about what you think of me than what I have in me to give to you to help you, I want you to think good of me. Like self-consciousness man. It will rob you of the ability to be fully present and next thing you know, you're having anxiety and panic attacks because you won't stop thinking of yourself. You got it, you got to get out of that, and so I had to learn to detach from some past mistakes. And how I got out of it was this I just, you know, my wife and I, we have a marriage business. It's beauty in battle. We got a book called Beauty in Battle Winning a Marriage by Waging a War and in there we teach couples how to overcome the negative thinking that they're experiencing toward their spouse or toward themselves.
Speaker 1:And when I was experiencing this anxiety, I took those same three steps and I applied it to my anxiety. The three steps are this recognize, renounce, replace, recognize, renounce, replace. First, you've got to recognize the thoughts that you're having in that moment. You got to recognize them, that they came from the enemy, because fear comes from Satan. Faith comes from God, right? So if I'm projecting a thought, a ruminating thought, like what you talked about earlier, shane, where you just get caught in these loops that's called ruminating thoughts where it's just negative, fearful thinking, and I'm caught in that loop, you got to recognize right out of the gate the thoughts that you're having and that they come from Satan. Like this is Satan at work in my mind. You know that's recognized.
Speaker 1:Number two you got to renounce the lie behind the thought. Renounce the lie, shane, you said it earlier. When I've got that thought, the same, will I ever get to walk my daughter down the aisle? Oh, my gosh, I'll never get out of this. Well, that's a lie. So Satan has given you those thoughts. You got to recognize him. You will not be able to defeat the enemy if you don't see him Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Also too, like I just want to back it up for everybody here too. Like we're not saying that. This is like I'm going to sit down and recognize this Five minutes later. The recognition is okay. My dad said I was going to pass out on stage. You get in therapy, you talk to people, you deal with it, you recognize it fully and you look at it as oh wait a minute, that is not true, even though I feel like it's true and I have felt like it's true my whole life. And then, by recognizing it, dealing with it, doing the work, you now have the opportunity to push that I don't have to believe that. That's exactly right to renounce it yeah this is it takes work guys.
Speaker 2:We're not. We're not up here being Superman saying you know. I recognize today this childhood trauma that I've been dealing with for 30 years and I renounce you. You're gone, I don't have to think about you. Even when you renounce it, you still probably go think about it. You just got a tool to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah you can't defeat the enemy you don't see. So we have to keep our eyes open. And so we first recognize, okay, that thought, that's, that's, if it's negative and fearful, that comes from Satan and you're not going to buy into it. You're going to renounce the lie behind it. Okay, that's step number two. And number three is you replace with truth. Recognize, renounce, replace. You replace it with truth. Let me show you what this looks like.
Speaker 1:Here's an exercise that I teach to a lot of people when they come in for our executive coaching. Okay, number one write down three, three of the top lies that you're tempted to believe, which basically means three of the top anxieties, three of the top things that make you fearful, three of the top things that make you feel depressed or anxious or whatever. Right, Whatever those things are. It could be anything. It could be a fear of speaking in front of people. You know. It could be. I mean, I've actually talked to spouses before like wives fearful of making a dinner that would go back to the office, A dinner that would go bad for their family, Like that was one of their things. Hey, I get it. You know, maybe they had a dad who was really hardcore on them and they could never please him. So write down those three top things, Okay.
Speaker 1:Now the second thing you want to do is you want to find a Bible verse that counteracts each one of those. Okay. So if it's, if it's fear around public speaking, it could be something as simple, as I go and I find Philippians 4 13. I can do all things and I write all things in all caps. You know all things through Christ, who strengthens me. So that's going to be my Bible verse, Okay.
Speaker 1:And then the third thing that you want to do is you want to write out a personal declaration that that personalizes that truth in your life. And so what that does is that reframes the truth of the scripture and it makes it your own. I can speak publicly because God has given me a message and I am going, and I'm not going to let fear cause me, you know, or keep me from giving what I have to help other people. You see, like that's a declaration. So you're going to write down the anxiety. You're going to write down the thing that it's causing fear in you or causing anxiety in you. You're going to find a Bible verse that's specific to that thing or even gets close. Then you want to personalize it. Right, A sentence or two that personalizes it. Okay.
Speaker 1:Then you're going to memorize that verse and that declaration and then, when that thought comes in, Boom, You're going to say the verse. You're going to say the declaration. You're going to say the verse, you're going to say the declaration, you're going to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and you're going to act like it's true, Even if you don't feel like it's true. You're going to act like it's true, Okay, Like what you did, Shane. You walked out on that stage when you didn't want to walk out on that stage, you didn't feel like walking on that stage, but you did it. You acted like it was true that you had the ability to speak in front of those people and you did it. And look how it turned out.
Speaker 2:Action is the remedy for rumination it really is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:That's good People think you're supposed to. Well, I'm not gonna say that, I'm gonna my personal experience. I, when this happened to me, I thought that I was supposed to think my way out of it first. Then I'd feel better and I could do things Like that speech I was supposed to give and I thought I was gonna give it. Yeah, but thanks to my wife, who's incredible and I'm glad I told her I was feeling anxious Tell your wives, tell your families people, but I, it was the.
Speaker 2:that was actually. I think the first moment that I started climbing out of the valley, out of the pit, was when I was like I'm gonna go do this talk even though I don't feel like it, because feelings are kind of a terrible master and if you're just basing everything on feelings, you're not, you're not gonna get out of the pit, it's just not gonna be.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's such a good point. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Where does, where does, where does um? You said something interesting a minute ago about, I think, back to the Bible verse from Mike growing up like as you forgive, you will be forgiven. You forgive us as we forgive others. I think that's an amazing life principle.
Speaker 2:When I uncovered some pretty I won't say like I don't wanna contextualize or downplay anybody with these trauma, but like for me and from my experience it was there was some pretty bad situation that I uncovered. Took me about a year of therapy to figure this out, right, okay, and the people that were involved in this trauma still around, still alive, still whatever, you know what I'm saying. And I think people wanna run and reconcile and talk, but like I don't think that's necessary for healing from anxiety and depression. Like I just felt like I had to just be like hey, this was people doing the best they could with what they had and I had to like kind of forgive them without having to go talk it out and hash it out and let's take up the trauma again, dude. But like I think you, if you can get some forgiveness into your methodology here, like that's what we all need to do to really be like a win.
Speaker 2:Anxiety shows back up. I'm equipped with a very powerful tool I forgive, I can deal with myself. I don't have to have an apology or reconciliation. It's just no, this is what happened. I forgive me for how I dealt with it. I was doing the best I could. I forgive them of how they dealt with it. I'm doing the best I could, and the longer you live outside of like forgiveness, I think the longer anxiety and depression haunts you.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right. You know, in our book Beauty and Battle we talk. We have a chapter and they're called forgiveness redefined, because forgiveness is such. I mean, it is one of the paths out of anxiety and it's what I had to walk through. But here's the thing about forgiveness.
Speaker 1:We are taught to forgive as God forgives. Does God forgive an unrepentant sinner If they refuse to repent? Does God grant them forgiveness? No, he doesn't. So if we're supposed to forgive as God forgives, then what are we supposed to do with somebody who wrongs us but they don't repent? Well, here's one thing we can't do.
Speaker 1:Now, follow me on this. You're gonna have to really hear me out. You cannot grant them forgiveness because they did not ask for it. You can't give them something they did not ask for, but at the same time, you can't walk around with an unforgiving spirit. You can't right? No, you can't, because then that would be sin in you. So what do you do? Well, let me give you two examples. Jesus when the paralyzed man was lowered down through the roof by his four friends. You remember that story in the Bible? Jesus was teaching in a house and this paralyzed man was lowered down through a roof and Jesus looked at him and he peered into his soul. He looked through his eyes and he could see this man you know, back in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:Cripple and leprosy and all that kind of stuff was a sign of sin. So Jesus sees this paralyzed man, he looks into his soul through his eyes and says your sins are forgiven. He did that before he healed him. So Jesus had the power to forgive sins while he was on this earth. But then the second example is Jesus when he was on the cross. He did not look at the centurions, he did not look at the religious leaders who were standing around looking at him. He did not look at them and say your sins are forgiven. But what did he say? Father, forgive them.
Speaker 1:You see, in the first situation, when he knew the man was repentant, he granted forgiveness.
Speaker 1:In the second situation, when he knew these men, these men who were nailing him to the cross and those religious leaders, they weren't repentant, but he didn't die in a spirit of unforgiveness. No, no, what Jesus did was he gave the situation to God, essentially saying he released it to God, and essentially said something like what we would say God, this person wronged me and I want to grant them forgiveness, but they haven't asked for it. Now I can't hold on to unforgiveness. So here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna hand the situation to you and I pray that you would bring them to a point of repentance, that they know what they did. And when they come to me and ask for forgiveness, I'm gonna grant it to them, not because they deserve it, but because you forgave me when I didn't deserve it. In the meantime, I'm gonna stay in a position of being ready to forgive and in the meantime, you're gonna take it over from here and you take the situation Now, if you forgive-.
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's an interesting so like get to the point of readiness.
Speaker 1:You gotta stay ready to forgive.
Speaker 2:That's enough, because some people can't forgive someone that hurt them. So get to the point of readiness, Because that person never that person never.
Speaker 1:Here's what happens. If somebody wrongs us and they never repent and we grant them forgiveness, there is something in our body that can't handle that, because forgiveness is meant to if somebody wrongs us. They are meant to experience justice. If we forgive and the person hasn't repented, we trample God's justice and our bodies. Just it doesn't sit well.
Speaker 1:I have walked people through this and I'm like look, you have blindly forgiven this person out of the goodness of your heart and you've given them something they never asked for. You need to take it back and you need to give it to God. And you know what? I've seen people released and like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. And I'm like, and look, you don't hate that person anymore. You're like God, I pray you would deal with them on this and I pray you would treat them gently, just as you've treated me. And when they come and they ask for forgiveness, I'm gonna give it to them. I'm gonna give it to them and I can't wait for that to happen, but in the meantime, if they don't, I'm gonna draw boundaries around our relationship.
Speaker 1:Like don't go jumping into BFF mode, draw boundaries and then stay in a position of readiness to forgive, and when you do that, I'm telling you, you'll see a release of anxiety in you. That's what I had to do with these three people that I said that was-.
Speaker 2:That's interesting because, like it is true that you hear stories and also some things are just so horrific. Some big T trauma is horrific, like you can't just forgive and we're gonna go to Christmas together and we're gonna do all those things anymore, right?
Speaker 2:So, maybe that is the key is like it's releasing the having to solve the problem. You know, like sometimes anxiety, sometimes you've got problems you can't solve y'all, and sometimes you've got people you just can't deal with and you gotta just release it. So that gives you a path, kinda to do that. Man, how are you feeling now? Feeling any anxiety? Now? I was like Better than.
Speaker 1:I've ever felt before, when I started thanking God for the anxiety and then I brought my wife into it, I brought my brother into it and you know my wife was like, hey, this is temporary, you're going through this. And she really helped me see that there was light at the end of the tunnel. And you know what I did? Have to give up some certain foods that I could tell agitated. I haven't drank green tea since Because I've noticed that when I drank green tea my body started to feel jittery. And what happens when your body starts to feel that it's from a food? All of a sudden my brain starts to go oh no, here I am again. It's happening. No, no, no, no, that's not true. I just ate something I shouldn't have eaten. So I'm not gonna eat that anymore, I'm not gonna drink that anymore.
Speaker 1:So I feel strong and powerful and thankful that the Lord allowed me to go through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my takeaways just from listening to you. Man is like one. When anxiety comes, our society is always trying to avoid it, and I don't think that that's the right solution. You gotta feel into it, Be thankful for it and figure out what it's attached to.
Speaker 2:Two, make changes that help you. Like it's funny because I'm half ADD. I say half, I got ADD and caffeine regulates my energy and gives me focus, so it's so weird. It's like I need the dark chocolate. You know what I'm saying? I need the pineapple. Listen to your body and do you need the pineapple?
Speaker 1:man, I need pineapple, yeah man.
Speaker 2:And then three. I love the concept. You know we hear so much about forgiveness and things like that, but there is a. There are people who've had things happen that they probably can't or shouldn't forgive, but they can release it until there's an opportunity for reconciliation.
Speaker 1:You release it to God Really cool thing and he will bring that person to repentance. He's either gonna do it in this life or he's gonna do it in the next life. Either way they will repent. Interesting man.
Speaker 2:Well, dude, I love you. Man. Thank you so much, dude. I think it's important for everybody. You don't get anything else from this. Me and Jason were in fellowship in a car and we started talking about real stuff, and that opened the door to have a conversation about real stuff. So tell somebody that you trust and get the help. And, man, if you ever feel anxious, you better call me son.
Speaker 1:Don't you sit there and do that alone, man Again you know what I mean, but I love you, dude Thanks everybody real quick about whatever you wanna promote real quick and where they can find you.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, hey, shane and I are on the same speaking circuit at lifesurgecom and we have a lot of fun. We come into a ton of different cities. You know my wife and I have a. You can go to Jason and Toricom or beautyinbattlecom where we help entrepreneurs who are married crush it. And then you know, my brother and I have a business coaching thing that we do for high achieving entrepreneurs at expertownershipcom. So we got a lot of stuff going on but I still, man, I'm still not accomplished in half of what you're accomplishing, shane.
Speaker 2:Oh, get out of here, man I ain't accomplishing. My greatest accomplishment is meeting you, being your friend, whatever.
Speaker 1:I tell lots of people your story man. I love it.
Speaker 2:You too, man, all right, love you, buddy I love you too man.