Update time. A lot of people have been asking (thank you for your interest!), and I'm squeaking this in before midnight on the 4-year anniversary of my first post on this thread, AND it's my 1000th post on the forum, PLUS I haven't posted in this thread since 2020, so I wanted to make it a good one.
Progress Recap
I'm going to take a step back and just reflect on where I have come since my first post in this thread.
4 years ago I started this thread.
I just took a moment to reread the first post on this progress thread, and wow... I was really hurting in those days. This forum became such a refuge for me at that time (and ever since, really). It's the one place where I can still dream big. It's the one place where I can still find encouragement to make progress. It's the one place where interest and curiosity and hard work are things that I can engage in without getting shut down. It's hard to fully articulate how much thankfulness I feel for the existence of this forum and the MANY kind people who I have interacted with and gotten to know over that time.
The rest of my life was like one giant rain of blows of adversity. A difficult marriage. Difficult finances. Difficult work situations. Unresolved grief over something I really cared about that had blown up in my face. Overall, October 2018 kicked off what has been the most difficult season of my life. As a result, my mental health suffered pretty badly.
Mental health is no joke (and I was one of those people who used to think it was a joke). I took it for granted that I used to be just "emotionally even-keel" all the time. I thought anxiety was mostly fake. I thought the whole mental health hoopla was overblown. I was like, "Why don't people just choose to be happy?" Until it happened to me.
Dr. Nolan Williams
recently said on the Andrew Huberman podcast, "Depression is the most disabling condition worldwide." and I feel like I have just barely tasted how bad and disabling it can get.
It came on slowly and then quickly... kind of like if you're eating something on a daily basis that you're allergic to, but your allergy is not THAT bad, so you go on eating this thing day after day. Little by little, it takes a toll on your body, and then "suddenly" you have some major health problem to deal with.
Mental health is like that. There's this thing in your environment that chips away at your thinking, your outlook, your positivity. Maybe it's just barely chipping away. You can stand up under it for a while. You tell yourself that you're still ok. But sooner or later, all that chipping away gets somewhere. Suddenly, you find that the mental structures that you always depended on and always assumed would be there have eroded too much, and things come crashing down.
The results of this were sad and regrettable, and I'm not thrilled about my lack of progress compared to where I think I could have gotten otherwise. I missed opportunities due to simply not getting back to people. I made choices for comfort and stability rather than risk taking and reaching for bigger rewards. I was in survival mode for a really long time.
This is one of those things that you don't really hear very much about. These "detours" to your trajectory are not fun. It would be easy to downplay them or pretend they don't exist. It would be tempting to tell the story in a way that only focuses on the good things that DID happen without acknowledging all the things that didn't go well.
At one level, I think we all know that's a real thing in entrepreneurship. But it's easy to look at detours and failures solely through the lens of "I tried this and it didn't work, and I tried that and it didn't work, but I kept persevering, and finally something worked."
We never consider the possibility of the detour looking like, "I was more fragile than anticipated" or "the actions I took were less effective than they could have been if I had been 'my old self'," or "Instead of getting my head in the game, I found myself turning to self-soothing behaviors that got me nowhere." Not living up to your own expectations is a hard pill to swallow, especially when you know you could have done more in your better days and now you're falling short of that.
I feel like I was one of those people who "isn't ready to be helped." And that stings. Because I can see that in other people, and I want so badly for them to snap out of it, but then I know how I just barely limped along myself.
Thoughts on helping someone who isn't ready to be helped
Since I've been that person, let me speak to the difficulty of trying to help someone who isn't ready to be helped due to mindset blockages.
More than one forum member gave me a leg up in the form of offering me work and/or mentorship. If I had been more "whole" in my mindset, I know I could have taken much greater advantage of the help that was offered. Instead, it was kind of like offering someone the chance to go skiing or to Six Flags, but the day comes and they're in bed with a violent case of the stomach flu. They just can't take you up on it. Even if they wanted to, and even if they dragged themselves out of bed, they'd just be miserable all day and not be able to take full advantage of the trip the way a healthy person would (and indeed, they might actually experience low-grade trauma over the very thing that was supposed to be fun).
I want to keep this in mind for when I'm in a better place and I'm reaching out to people coming behind me to give them a hand. Based on knowing how it felt to BE that person who was struggling, I think these principles are good to keep in mind:
- Being compassionate goes further than the RAH-RAH GaryV-style hype. I'm not talking about limp-wristed, namby-pamby "compassion" that's essentially the same as condoning bad behavior. I mean things like, "Hey, I see you. It sounds like you're struggling. Sorry that this is hard. Have you been drinking enough water recently? Are you getting enough nutrition and sleep? Take good care of yourself. You've got this. I believe in you. Just do the next step."
- Baby steps might have to be broken down smaller than you think.
- Just because someone isn't quite ready to be helped doesn't mean that they can't do ANYTHING towards a better position. Even if someone is not ready to take full action the way you could, they'll still benefit if they attempt SOMETHING.
- Be patient when people's own internal barriers lead them to make frustratingly inept choices. It's SO tempting to throw up your hands and write someone off when this happens. Instead, point their focus back to the goal and to any viable action step that is available.
- Maybe you do need to set boundaries if someone truly isn't getting it and it's becoming a waste of your time. For example, "Looks like you're not quite ready to do this step. Let me know when you finally are, and I'll be here for you at that point." Leaving the door open for when that litmus test is passed can be a good way to balance the competing pull of wanting to help but not seeing that person do their part.
- Sometimes people might be in a position in life where they legitimately need the structure and outside accountability that comes with a job. There's no shame in this. It can be a good way to regroup and still at least pull in an income while they are getting back into the saddle mentally.
- Setting goals is not necessarily helpful. It just feels like an exercise in futility to that person. While they might comply outwardly ("Sure, I'll write down a SMART goal"), internally they may be thinking, "I'll either hit it or I won't, and the existence of the goal isn't going to contribute anything towards my likelihood of success." What's more helpful is just exercising a repetitive sequence of [Identify the next action] > [Do that] > [Repeat]. Even if the larger goal takes shape very slowly, this at least helps the person to develop the default pattern of taking action.
- Uncovering the reason for blockages is super helpful. "Why am I feeling stuck right now? What fear is underneath this resistance? Is there a cognitive distortion in my thinking? What unhelpful belief is contributing to my lack of action? Do I feel ashamed of myself for something and is that causing paralysis?" Just labeling the mental baggage is a great first step toward seeing it for what it is and getting rid of it.
- If there is a high-intensity constant stressor in the person's daily environment, such as a special needs child or a significant health issue or a toxic relationship, then they have to either get rid of that stressor, or else, if it's going to stay for whatever reason, they have to be absolutely ruthless about eliminating other sources of stress, even if they're "minor." Anything that takes a toll on your mental health needs to go. As an analogy, my purse is not that big or that heavy. I always carry it into the store with me. But when I was on crutches for a sprained ankle, I stopped carrying my purse into stores because it was too much. It's the same concept with mental health. Cut loose any and all optional things that are mildly stressful. You don't have the luxury not to.
- I think we can all see examples around us of people who are exactly where they are in life because of bad choices, poor mindsets, and unhelpful behaviors. But someone's prior track record does not have to be the final verdict on their future possibilities. There's always hope that someone can change, see the light, and take different actions. They have to be the ones who want it, of course. And they ultimately have to be the ones who do the work to get there. But being part of their support network is a wonderful gift to offer them.
Ok, enough with philosophical ruminations.
Here's a quick (really quick, because I'm really pushing midnight now!) recap on where I am with work stuff.
Copywriting
I have declined copywriting jobs since April. I am such a reluctant copywriter anyway. I can do it, but it takes so much out of me. And I always have to drag myself kicking and screaming to make myself work. I don't have to do that with other kinds of work. It has been a pleasant relief to not have to do any writing or freelance work for a while.
My product
So in 2020 I had this thing manufactured, and it's a bummer, but the boxes of product are still out in my garage. Chalk that up as one of the casualties of mental health (or the lack thereof).
It would bring in, oh, $10-15k if I were to sell it all... and I paid, oh, I forget, but in the ballpark of $4-5k to get it made... so I'm kind of ambivalent about whether to even bother.
There's a couple of problems with the product. 1) The quality is not good. It's not like my prototype at all. I'm really disappointed that I didn't make more emphasis on making sure that the manufacturer's method of making this was just as good as the original design. It wasn't, and it leaves the product somewhere between "not fun to use" and "not even usable." 2) I'm not excited about the product given these flaws. 3) I'm hesitant to spend any advertising money into it, given 1 and 2. We'll see what I decide to do with it.
Helping to build an ISP
Now this is the fun part. You know how I said I had to drag myself kicking and screaming to make myself do copywriting? Yeah none of that happens with this work. I'm having the time of my life, working with amazing people, and helping to build a real fastlane business.
Full disclosure - it's a job, and I'm an employee. In management, but still. The owner is a friend. But I'm not an owner. But you know what? That's exactly what I needed in this season. I needed the stability, the predictability, the variability, the interestingness.
It's a brand new company, and it's growing like gangbusters, and we are all loving every minute of it, and I'm getting the opportunity to face some of the challenges of running a business without ALL of the burden on my shoulders of owning the business. Like I said, for this season in my life, it's just what I needed.
Welp, there's my update, 2 minutes under the wire before midnight! haha
Thanks for reading!
www.thefastlaneforum.com
