Getting Out of Your Head with Brian Sachetta

Brian Sachetta is the author and owner of Get Out of Your Head®, a brand and book series that seeks to help folks overcome anxiety and depression.

By trade, Brian is a software developer. He combines his experiences in the tech world with previous mental health battles to draw parallels between computer systems and the human mind and give readers practical strategies for evading their own psychological demons.
Brian currently has two books on the market, “Get Out of Your Head: A Toolkit for Living with and Overcoming Anxiety” and “Get Out of Your Head Vol. 2: Navigating the Abyss of Depression.” His mission is to help as many sufferers as possible through not only those books but also his blog and podcast appearances.

Since high school / college, my career has been mostly: software development from 9-5 (combination of FT jobs, freelance projects, and starting a few small companies / apps with friends), then writing on nights and weekends.

I enjoy both professions, but I find more meaning in the writing and would like to lean into it more. Just a matter of having the sales to support my living expenses (not quite there yet).
In my free time (besides writing), you can find me checking out new restaurants, running / walking around town, listening to audiobooks and podcasts, or traveling to warm weather (Boston is cold 6-7 months a year).

Connect with Brian:
Get Out of Your Head: A Toolkit for Living with and Overcoming Anxiety (Get Out of Your Head® Book 1) Kindle Edition
Get Out of Your Head Vol. 2: Navigating the Abyss of Depression (Get Out of Your Head®) Kindle Edition
https://getoutofyourhead.com
https://www.facebook.com/getoutofyourheadbooks
https://www.instagram.com/getoutofyourhead
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-sachetta
https://www.youtube.com/@getoutofyourhead


About the Host -
Belinda Ellsworth is a Speaker, Trainer, Best-Selling Author, and Podcaster
She has been a professional speaker, mover, and shaker for more than 25 years. Having built three successful companies, she has helped thousands of entrepreneurs make better decisions, create successful systems, and build business strategies using her "Four Pillars of Success" system.

Belinda has always had a passion and zest for life with the skill for turning dreams into reality.

How to Connect with Belinda:
Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/workfromyourhappyplace
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/belindaellsworth
Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/workfromyourhappyplace/
Website - www.workfromyourhappyplace.com

Join my membership program and discover the art of creating and sharing amazing experiences with like-minded people, all from the comfort of your own home. You get to connect with others online, learn new skills and techniques, and grow your network without ever having to leave your computer screen. To know more, click on the link https://workfromyourhappyplace.com/vip/

You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts and it includes the Apple podcast app, any Android podcast app, Google Play Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, and via www.workfromyourhappyplace.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Work from your Happy Place, the podcast that equips you with the
knowledge and inspiration to live your dreamsand find your own happy plays. You
will be encouraged by and learn fromentrepreneurs and artists who are already working from
their happy plays, all while pursuingtheir passion with a purpose. Be sure

(00:20):
to sign up for our free weeklynewsletter for our recap of the week's guests
and a preview of what's in store. We also have two special gifts for
you, a video the five coreprinciple Still Living a half year Life and
a printable download title Top ten salesstrategies Go to work for your Happy Place
dot com, forward slash free.Fill out the attached form to receive your

(00:44):
gifts and be added to our newsletter. And now here's your host, Belinda
Ellsworth. Hi, it's Bilina here, and before we get started with today's
show, I'd like to tell youabout some exciting things coming soon that I
think you're going to love. Afterover five hundred episodes, we've discovered so
many tips, tools and bits ofknowledge that we want to share it all

(01:06):
with you. So this spring,we are launching a brand new online community
and quarterly subscription box. Here's howit works. Each quarter, you'll receive
an amazing box full of items tobring you happiness in both work and in
life. Each box includes items designedby entrepreneurs just like yourself for your home,
office, personal care, and somuch more. It will also contain

(01:30):
a business book and our Acts ofKindness shareables so you can show appreciation to
your customers and anyone who needs tobe lifted up. In the months between
box deliveries, you'll learn from anamazing community of business owners, including guided
trainings on business skills and personal development, a book club that features Q and
a time directly with that month's author, and a monthly featured guest from whom

(01:53):
you'll learn strategies to grow your ownbusiness. You'll learn from one another through
our private group as well as ourlives while Q and a session where you
can get all of your questions answeredsound exciting. How would you like a
free six month subscription to enter?Get on our VIP list by going to
work from your happy place dot comforward slash VIP. Now, sit back,

(02:15):
relax and enjoy today's show. Helloeveryone, and welcome to our show.
Today. I've got a great guestin store for you. I have
Brian Sachata with me, and Brianis the author and owner of Get Out
of Your Head, a brand andbook series that seeks to help folks overcome
anxiety and depression. By trade Brianas a software developer. He combines his

(02:38):
experiences in the tech world with previousmental health battles to draw parallels between computer
systems and the human mind and givereaders practical strategies for ebating their own psychological
demons. Welcome to the show,Brian, Hi, Belinda, thanks for
having me. Oh it's my pleasure. Wow, what a great time and

(03:00):
timely subject. I guess you're probablyseeing more and more of how much people
are dealing with anxiety and depression sinceCOVID. It's kind of been really a
very overwhelming thing for people, andthey really haven't found a lot of people
haven't found their way out of itsince COVID. Yeah, no doubt about

(03:23):
it. I mean, obviously myheart goes out to all of those folks.
It's been a challenging few years foreveryone, right. I think if
you flash back to twenty twenty,it's like, Okay, the world shuts
down. We're all trapped in ourhouses, we don't know what's going on,
right We're listening to the news,we're watching TV, and we're hearing
all these stories about like you know, how deadly this virus could be or

(03:44):
might not be, whatever it is. But you watch a lot of these
news channels for long enough and youget pretty scared. Right. So,
in twenty twenty, it was avery very anxious time, And not that
it's not anymore. It certainly is, but there's just different concerns these days.
Right. So, I think whenyou put yourself in an environment one
way or another, whether you're forcedinto it or you know, just the
way that your your work life andyour social life are structured. If you

(04:05):
are kind of by yourself or isolatedfor a long time, you know,
if you're not getting outside, notable to get outside, share your emotions
with people, and you know,have those type connections that you know,
we evolved to need over time,right, Like we are very social creatures.
And so it's like looking back inthat period of twenty twenty, it's
like, obviously it was a veryscary time just because of the virus,

(04:27):
but also like all of the thingsthat we needed to thrive as human beings,
those needs were not being fulfilled,and we kind of weren't really allowed
to fulfill them, right because wewere stuck in our houses. So,
yeah, it's been a turbulent andscary last few years. And then obviously,
you know, since then, it'slike economic uncertainty, there's geopolitical conflicts,
all all things of that nature.So it's it's been scary times.

(04:49):
And yeah, I guess, likeyou know, you see the statistics start
to rise or continue to rise,and all I can really do right is
say, here's some content that Ithink is helpful. You know, I'm
offering myself to be of service tofolks that are struggling and hopefully, you
know, we can work through someof this stuff together and potentially get through
it. Great. That is awesome. Well, Brian, why don't we

(05:12):
get to know you a little bitbetter? Tell us a little bit about
your journey and then how you cameto do what you're doing today. Yeah,
I would probably go back to youknow, late high school, early
college. That was when I firstreally started to be hampered or hindered by
you know, anxiety. At thetime, I didn't really have a term
for it. I you know,I don't come like my family, we
are not doctors or anything like that, so I don't really come from a

(05:33):
clinical background or anything. I'm reallyjust a dude, right, And if
you read you know, my booksand my blogs and stuff, it's you
know, I try to bring someof the science into my articles and my
content, but it's really like mywork is like sort of a lay person's
guide to dealing with anxiety, depression, these certain mental health conditions. So,
you know, going back to highschool, it was like there would

(05:53):
be basketball games and track meets andyou know, potentially hanging out with women
that I was interested in with orwhatever. And it's like, you know,
I'm not I certainly am not tryingto make it seem as though my
life was all that difficult. Itwas just that, you know, I
think as a kid, it's likethat you come up on these things that
are you know, events or whateverthey are, that are that are meaningful

(06:13):
to you, that are important toyou, right, And eventually it's like
if you if you have a brainor I guess yeah, if you have
a brain that is sort of predisposedto thinking patterns that that make you anxious,
if you are a worry word,so to speak, right, Eventually
you will come up into these situationsand you won't know what to do and
you'll feel pretty terrible, right,So that was kind of my entry point,

(06:33):
was like, you know, goingto these basketball games leading up to
track meets and having these feelings oflike, you know, again not the
end of the world, like it'sjust a tract meat, but as a
kid, right, I don't wantto discount the fact that as a seventeen
year old, as an eighteen yearold, somebody who is going through these
encounters and feeling these these emotions,right, that can be really painful and

(06:54):
really difficult to deal with. Soit was like, as a teenager,
I went through a lot of situationslike that. And again not trying to
compare my situations to what other folksare going through. I note folks that
are listening have been through a lotof difficult things. But so it was
like going off to college really dealingwith anxiety, you know, on the
dating front, and also just kindof not knowing where I was going,

(07:15):
right, feeling a little bit lostin my own life, not having a
direction, a sense of purpose andwhatnot. And so I spent a lot
of time in college really sided kindof fighting with my own mind right day
after day, kind of being inmy dorm room and thinking all these scary
thoughts and trying to push them awayor outrun them and whatnot. And so,
you know, fast forward to aboutI would say, twenty fifteen,
twenty sixteen, it was like Ihad you know, I had done some

(07:36):
therapy, I had read a bunchof books on mental health. I had
read a lot of journal articles,and I just felt as though I had
made some progress with my own anxiety, you know, in a various across
various situations and sort of like differentareas of my life. Whether it was
like you know, going skydiving,going on a job interview, you know,
giving a public speech, whatever,It's like, those are all things

(07:59):
that's scare and it's like if youare again predisposed to anxiety or anxious thought
patterns leading up to those situations,so that's going to be you know,
you're going to deal with a lotof stress, a lot of a lot
of pain. And so it waslike I felt as though I had been
through a lot of that pain forten ish years, and I had again,
you know, going to therapy,reading different pieces of content, and

(08:20):
whatnot. Just felt as though Ihad distilled a lot of strategies down and
applied them in my own life tobe able to say, Okay, I
tested this one out in this specificsituation, I tested this other one out
in a different kind of situation.And I wanted to see, you know,
which ones were effective for me andwhich ones were not. And then
eventually I got to the point inthis twenty fifteen twenty sixteen period when I
was twenty five twenty six years old, and I said to myself, I

(08:43):
now have a lot of insights onanxiety. I have real world experience,
some knowledge, some understanding as toOkay, some of the strategies that are
you know, the ones that arepopularized or talked about a lot in I
don't know, some books and youknow, journals and stuff like that,
they didn't work for me. SoI wanted to talk about, you know,
some of those pitfalls as well asthe things that I found maybe did

(09:05):
work for me that were counterintuitive ormaybe against some of the societal wisdom that
we hear a lot. So eventuallygot to the point where I distilled those
notes down and I said, Ihave enough content here where I feel as
though I could write a book,and so I did that, and that
was kind of the beginning of thejourney. And I guess the interesting thing,
right was I didn't really have muchof a strategy. I kind of

(09:26):
was just like, I'm going towrite this book and I hope that it
sells, but I have no idea, and so I credit or I say,
now, right, I say,even though I had no idea or
no strategy and not really a greatgame plan, I'm glad that I started
anyway, because I look back andI say, if I knew how difficult
it would be to write books,to sell books, to reach people and

(09:46):
whatnot, I may have never gottenstarted. And if I didn't get started,
I may not have then written,you know, written blog post number
ten and blog post number forty andblog posts number fifty and book number two
and done a bunch of podcasts andwhatnot. So the journey itself has kind
of expanded and grown over the years. It's been about I've been really doing
the content side of things for aboutsix years now, you know. I

(10:07):
started writing that first book in Ernestin twenty seventeen. So it's it's been
an interesting journey. I now havea second book that's out on the subject
of depression, and that again kindof the same idea of taking some of
my real world experiences, taking someof the things that I've been through,
distilling them down, bringing in someof the clinical research to say, hey,

(10:28):
like, this is how I canexplain what I went through, and
then here's how we can apply thatto a reader situation, or how a
reader could come in and say,oh, I understand, I'm kind of
you know, taking this and applyingit to my own life and figuring out
how I could use these strategies orthese perspectives moving forward. Sure, So
name of the first book? Whatwas the first title? Yeah, so
the first book's called Get Out ofyour Head, A Toolkit for Living with

(10:52):
and Overcoming Anxiety. Okay, perfect, And what's the second one. The
second one is Get out of yourHead Volume two, Navigating the Abyss of
Depression. Oh, fantastic. Good. So they kind of build on one
another. That's great. So inyour level of expertise, then and then
these are just kind of like threethree tips. So let's talk about anxiety

(11:13):
first, because depression can be it'sa little deeper, right, So let's
talk about anxiety and some three tipsfor helping people sort of navigate or overcoming
some of the anxiety issues that they'rehaving. Definitely, So there's a lot
of tips that I could talk about. So it's it's hard to pick a

(11:33):
few, right, but let's getstarted with one and then let's see where
we get to. So the firstone that I like to talk about,
right, So I come back tothis again and again in my writings,
and you know, I had Ihad sort of alluded to a notion of
like in my writings and in mybooks, I wanted to talk about some
of the things that I had heardfrom other experts that didn't quite work for
me. And so I think youhear in the self help space, the

(11:54):
personal development space that you know,in order for in order to achieve the
things that you want to achieve,in order to make manifest what you want,
you know, to bring to fruitionin the world, you have to
envision it in your mind, right. You have to you know, engage
in what people would call positive visualization. So if you have a public speech
coming up, and you you knowyou want to do well in that speech,

(12:16):
right, you want to make surethat your message resonates with the audience
and whatnot. Then, according tothis logic, you should go into your
mind try to see yourself on stageperforming well, saying all your lines correctly,
so on and so forth. Ithink that can be helpful for folks
like in general. Right, Butwhen it comes to anxiety, what ends
up happening, right, is likewe return to these situations again and again

(12:39):
in our minds. And so there'san event that's, you know, this
speech that is approaching on our calendarsthat we are already a little bit afraid
of, right, We're already anxiousof. And so we've got this desire
on one side that we want somethinggood to happen, and then we have
this fear on the other side,where we don't want to be nervous during
the speech. We don't want tohave a panic attack or faint on stage

(13:00):
something like that, Right, Andso it becomes really difficult in our visualizations
to separate those two things, thedesire and the fear, And so we
keep going back and we're you know, we're seeing ourselves on stage, but
then there's always that little unsettling feelingnagging at us to say, oh,
you know, I'm not sure thatI totally know how to do this yet,
or I'm still a little worried thatI'm gonna be nervous or whatever.

(13:22):
And so what can quickly happen is, instead of you know, necessarily visualizing
ourselves doing well, we we makethis subtle yet yet like strong shift to
trying to push out anxiety in thatsituation, trying to ward off our nervousness
in our visualizations. Right, sorather than say I'm on stage, I'm
doing well, I'm performing, I'msaying all my lines correctly, we are

(13:43):
instead in our minds saying, Okay, I'm on stage, I'm not nervous,
I'm not having a panic attack,so on and so forth, and
you know, on the anxiety front, right, it's like it just becomes
really really difficult to get back tothat point of like true doing a visualization
that you know, maybe the quoteunquote experts would tell us to do.

(14:05):
And so I usually say to folksthat number one, if you want to
achieve something in your life, thewhole notion that you have to see it
in your mind before it can comethrough fruition is just total bs. Right,
It's like we've all done things inour lives that we didn't even know
we were capable of, and thenwe look back and we're like, oh,
my goodness, I can't believe thathappened, right, And I think
the other thing too, is thatagain, just the fact that it's so

(14:28):
hard, like it's so hard toseparate the fear from from the desire,
and even if we could, it'slike the message we are sending to our
brains when we are constantly revisiting thissubject in our mind is that it's really
important and we don't know how it'sgoing to go. Right. If you
have something on your calendar or youhave to go, you know, perform

(14:48):
a task or whatever it is,and you are certain of it, you
just show up to it. Youyou almost don't even realize that you're there,
right, It's sort of you're onautopilot, and so you go and
do it, and then you stepout and you're like, oh, you
know, I was just at thatjob interview. It went fine. I
just went, you know, outto lunch with my friend. Wasn't thinking
about it. I was in themoment. I was having a great time.
And so visualization can really easily tipinto what I would call rumination and

(15:11):
so again, just on the anxietyfront, I would say, if somebody
is telling you that you need tovisualize, you know, things occurring in
your life before they can actually cometo fruition, just ignore that logic.
You're gonna you know, you'll saveyourself a ton of agony if you do.
And then also, like we weobviously sometimes tell ourselves that we need
to visualize these things. And I'mI'm if you're listening, I am giving

(15:35):
you permission, uh, you know, to not have to engage in that
sort of behavior. I've been thatdown that road many many many times over
the course of a decade. AndI'm sure a lot of people who are
listening they have been down that pathas well. So I think you know,
tip number one is, let's forgetabout visualization when it comes to anxiety.
Like do your best whether you know, if you have to approach some

(15:56):
situation in your life that scares you, do your best, like and I
know this is so much easier saidthan done, but do your best to
just go there and let it happen, right and like kind of let the
chips fall where they may. Sothat's that's point number one that I wanted
to bring up before I jump totwo and three. Any questions points of
clarification you want to touch on.No, I think that was pretty pretty

(16:18):
in depth, and I definitely thinkthat I think you explained it really well
about the desire and fear. Soif you're trying to, you know,
visualize you doing a really great job, the fear is still there, like
it doesn't really it doesn't really eliminatethe fear piece of it. And I
think that just visualized doing a greatjob is great advice, but it is

(16:44):
not always necessarily going to make thatfear go away, which is actually what's
probably causing the majority of the anxiety. Definitely, So let's let's jump into
two and three, and I'm kindof gonna, you know, I'm kind
of going to live them or justjust go off the cuff because I think
as we're talking some different points comeup that can be interesting. So,

(17:06):
you know, in the first book, I talk about these things called the
three tenets of anxiety, which arebasically sort of just three fundamental principles around
how anxiety works. And so theone that I wanted to talk about next
was the notion it's very very similarto what we were just discussing, which
is basically that you cannot solve fearor anxiety, right. It's it's just

(17:26):
an emotion. You can't think yourselfthrough it. And so, just like
on the visualization front, where wereturn you know, to our ruminations,
to the thoughts swirling in our minds, we turn them over and over and
over again. You know, alot of the times we'll sit down and
we'll say to ourselves, Okay,I'm nervous about you know, going out
with that that man or woman orwhatever, that that that date that I
have coming up. And if Ican just see myself, you know,

(17:48):
on the date, and I can, and I can kind of like address
the fear and be like, Ishouldn't be nervous for all these reasons.
And if I just continually try toyou know, reassure myself or convince myself
or myself confidence, then this fearis going to dissipate and I will get
it to go away. The morethat we focus on an emotion, the
more it expands. Right. Andso it's like if we continually think about
our fear in it, I guesswe would be saying we're trying to solve

(18:12):
our fear. The more that we'retrying to solve it, the more we're
expanding it. And so what youreally need to do when you find yourself
in an anxious situation, and againit's always easier said than done, but
you actually need to sort of doa one eighty and get out of your
head right. So that is thereason I wanted to bring this one in
is because it, you know,ties in so closely to you know,

(18:33):
my work itself, and then thebrand and the name of the brand as
well. So it's like, whatdoes it mean to get out of your
head? Right? It's to dropthe thoughts that you are constantly running in
your mind, to go for awalk, to get back into your body,
to find a way to basically,like again with these emotions, right,
Rather than stewing on them and lettingthem expand, we want them to
flow through us. And so ifwe are sitting on our couches and we

(18:56):
are stewing on, you know,whatever the subject is that is making us
fearful, that's going to stick rightin our brains, right in our hearts,
right in our guts wherever it is. And I'm not trying to be
woo woo, but I'm just saying, like, you know, that feeling
is going to stick, and soit's like, how do we get that
feeling through us. It's to getup off our couches, move around a
little bit, like, you know, give ourselves a reason to get back

(19:18):
into our bodies and allow the energythat you know, then courses through us
to almost force that emotion out ofus. It's you know, I guess
another way of stating all of thisis to distract ourselves with something that doesn't
have to do with the mind.If you listen to popular folks these days,
like Andrew Huberman, he sometimes sayshe's got a famous podcast, and
he sometimes says, you can't controlthe mind with the mind. You need

(19:41):
to almost do it with the body. Right. So it's like, if
you're really anxious, go do somethingthat is like totally different from sitting down
and thinking. Go for a run, go lift some weights, you know,
do some intense stretching, whatever itmay be. But like, you
just don't want to continue to drivedown into those dark parts of your mind
because it's like it's almost a rabbithole, right, it doesn't end.

(20:03):
You keep going further and further.The only way out of it. Is
to do something entirely different. Sothat would be step number two. I
guess i'll pause again since I canbe a little long winded on these.
Yeah, that's fine, so Ithink just to reiterate, and I suppose
just you said so beautifully. Butit's just like instead of keep thinking about
it, like start moving, getup, do something different, change the

(20:26):
narrative, change the picture. AndI do believe that that helps. I
know that's something I do for myselfwhen I'm feeling that way. So let's
do number three. That's great.Yeah, so yeah, we'll go on
to number three. So this oneis basically just you know, sort of
a mandate, is like, okay, so if we're in our heads or
I guess, breaking down how anxietyworks, right, Like, I like

(20:48):
to say that anxiety is basically futureoriented fear, So it's something that we
are worried about. It's a similarfeeling to fear, but it's surrounding a
concept, a possibility, or anidea that isn't necessarily yet here today,
right. So sometimes people will saythat fear is sort of the equivalent like
being out in the woods and havinga bear walk in front of us on

(21:11):
our path. If that is thecase, then anxiety is basically us worrying
about being in front of a beartwo weeks from now. And so if
you think about that definition, yousay to yourself, Okay, if anxiety
is going mentally to somewhere off inthe future and thinking about a scary possibility,

(21:32):
then one way And you know,it's not fool proof. None of
these ideas are fuel proof, butit's like one way to possibly mitigate some
of that anxiety is to get backinto the present moment, right, So
basically dropping some of those fears andsaying, okay, what is actually happening
today, what is going on infront of me? You know, could
I engage myself in some sort oftask that I might find interesting, that

(21:53):
I might find stimulating. So againgoing back to the kind of the idea
of how anxiety we're it's like alot of us will say that we are
being really present right if we're ifwe're sitting on our couch and we're worrying
about some no, I am presentright now, and I am I am
afraid right now. Right. It'sa new it's sort of a nuanced slash
semantic sort of thing. But usuallythat like what's the case there is that

(22:17):
yeah, you feel afraid right now, but the subject of that fear is
again off in the distance. Andthe interesting thing about that phenomenon, right,
is that the things that we worryabout often don't even come to fruition.
Right. So it's like, Okay, I have a job interview two
weeks from now. I'm really afraidthat, like I'm gonna mess up horribly,
They're going to laugh me out ofthe room, so on and so

(22:41):
forth, And not all the time, but you know, maybe maybe once
I don't twenty percent of the time, whatever it may be, maybe the
inner the company calls us and says, hey, I actually we found somebody
else. We're going to cancel theinterview. Or you go in and you
know, you have a totally differentexperience from the one that you thought you
might have or that you feared thatyou might have. And so there's a

(23:02):
quote that often gets attributed to MarkTwain that that feels relevant here that I
like to reference sometimes, and hebasically says, I've been through many terrible
things in my life, some ofwhich actually happened, right, And so
it's like, we just have thispropensity to make ourselves so miserable over things
that again, we can't predict thefuture, so we can't know if certain

(23:22):
things are gonna come true or not. But it's like we create so much
misery for ourselves over mere possibilities.And so again this third idea of getting
back into the present moment, it'salso similar to step number two right where
it's like, Okay, instead ofthinking about that job interview, that skydive,
that first date, whatever it isthat is scaring us, jump into

(23:45):
some task that exists right now,or you know, go for a walk,
find something interesting, Go look ata mural on the street, right,
go find a colorful garden, andjust sort of marvel at that sort
of thing and be like, I'min the present moment right here. All
I'm doing is thinking about what isin front of me. And as I
continue to do that, it becomesreally hard for my fears to penetrate my

(24:06):
psyche. So that's the third stepagain, not a fool proofs strategy or
tactic or whatever, but I thinkit's just interesting to think about the way
that anxiety works and sort of itsdefinition, and then from there almost reverse
engineer the solution for ourselves to beable to say, look, I know
those things often the distance they arescary. I'm not trying to deny that,

(24:27):
right, But given the fact thatthey're not yet here today, why
don't we try to enjoy what wecan, right, Why don't we try
to place ourselves into something that's goingto bring us a little bit of optimism,
a little bit of hope in thiscurrent moment. I think that's really
really great advice. Something that Ialso do if I'm really struggling with a

(24:49):
particular item is like just listing outwhat's fact and what's fiction, Like,
Okay, this is what I'm afraidof. What's actually fact about that?
Like what's the what's the reality oflet that actually happening? Like what are
the facts you know? And thenwhat's and then what is fiction? And

(25:11):
when I can put that out onpaper and actually see what's facts and what's
fiction, it helps me to comeup with better sort of solutions then in
my mind. Or even if ifI if it's a fact and then I
can see it, then I'm likecan I live with that? Or can
I overcome that? Because you can'tovercome the fiction. So that's that's a

(25:33):
helpful thing for myself that I alsodo and I and I encourage our readers
to like just take a piece ofpaper and okay, especially if it's hanging
on for you. The first thingI agree with you is like, get
get out of your space, dosomething different, change the narrative. That
is huge. But if it keepson with you, then like actually sit

(25:55):
down and say what's real about thisand what isn't real? That's I've find
to be very helpful, definitely,And if I can just add one thing
there is you know, our mindshave a way of blowing things out of
proportion and making making us feel sohorrible, and so the activity that you
outlined allows us to sit down andsay, I'm over here, like I've

(26:15):
sort of almost detached from the actualexperience or thing that I'm fearing, and
I'm not worrying that. You know, this math exam that is coming up
is going to kill me, right, And when you sit down with that
piece of paper, you're like,look, it's scary. I want to
get you know, I want toget good marks on this exam and so
on and so forth. But atthe same time, even if I don't

(26:37):
do well, like I'll be okay, you know, yeah, yeah,
exactly exactly. So we we knoweverybody kind of has their superpowers and there
are skill sets that really have helpedthem and through their success journey, and

(26:57):
so what have you sort of discussas yours? Oh my goodness, Now
I'm wondering if I gave an answerto this in my pre pre interview screen
that I didn't that I now don'tremember. I will tell you you said
organization is one of your and yourwillingness to pivot. Those are the two

(27:18):
that you gave me. Perfect,Thank you so much. You're welcome.
Yeah, let's start with willingness topivot. Right. I think in life
you just never know what is goingto get thrown your way. Right,
So it's like we start off andwe say, I'm going I'm going to
do things in this fashion and inthis order. I'm going to go to
med school and I'm going to becomea doctor and X y Z. And
I'm not saying that you can't seta path for your life and then follow

(27:41):
that path and kind of get towhere you had originally set out for yourself.
But I do know that like thingsinevitably change, right, It's like
we cannot predict everything that will comeour way. And so you know,
if I look back and I sayto myself, if at seventeen you said
to me like Brian would go onto write a few books, you know,

(28:03):
work with a lot of people ontheir mental health and whatnot, I'd
be like, what are you talkingabout? You know. But I think
as I went along, right,it just to me it felt as though
I got to a point with theanxiety and with the depression that like,
it just became such a large partof my life, in such a part
of my soul that it was itwas like I can't ignore this anymore.

(28:23):
And so you know, it wentthe pivoting piece right like it became.
You know, I guess if Igo back to that twenty fifteen ish period
where I where I kind of satdown, I said, like, oh,
I could write a book here,right, I also could not have
done that, but for one reasonor another, I decided to do that.
And you know, at the time, I'm sure there were other endeavors

(28:44):
that I was interested in, butI decided to pivot into you know,
becoming an author or like you know, trying to publish different content and whatnot.
And for me, I look backand I say, not only did
that help me? Because you know, I think a lot of authors will
say, especially in the self helpspace, they'll say that writing is cathartic
and therapeutic for them. Right,Not only it's like, sure, we

(29:04):
are helping people, but we're alsoprocessing our own, our own issues,
our own baggage and whatnot as wego. And so I look back and
I say to myself, that helpedme on my own journey, that you
know, the ability to pivot intothis space. But then also, like
I think about the people that Ihave heard from, and I'm really you
know, I'm not I'm not tryingto boast here. It's just meaningful for

(29:25):
me to get emails and get Facebookmessages from from readers who say, you
know, your book really impacted me, and I'm grateful for that. And
I think back and I say,if I hadn't made that pivot, right,
if I hadn't been willing to jumpinto this some of this stuff that
again, at sixteen seventeen, Iwould have told you I had no interest
in or had no idea that I'dever go into it, then I wouldn't

(29:45):
have gotten those messages. And Iwouldn't have helped support those people. And
also right I think, you know, on a more tactical standpoint, you
know, within my own business,I've had different issues that have arisen.
I had a you know, alarge, a large public sure came out
with a book of the same namein twenty twenty. It sold really,
really well, and so you know, I'm sitting there on Amazon. My

(30:07):
book actually got kicked off of Amazonbecause you know, somebody in the system
thought that I was trying to impersonatethis other author, and I had to
sit down and I had to,you know, figure out, like,
Okay, how am I going topivot this business, How I'm going to
How am I going to change mymessage a little bit such that I stand
out from this other person? Uh? And you know the I guess Amazon
and some of the other retailers don'tconfuse me for this other person. So

(30:30):
you know, I had to goand change the messaging the branding a little
bit. But it was you know, it was unfortunate that I had to
do some of those things, andI didn't want to deal with all of
that. But I came back tothe idea of like, if I don't
pivot, then I'm gonna you know, kind of be drowned in the sea
of you know, other books,other content or whatever. I'm not going
to be able to stand out,and then I'm not going to have that
impact on readers, and some ofthe people that I could have reached,

(30:53):
I won't reach, and I won'tget those messages of people saying, hey,
you know this was really helpful forme, and that sort of thing.
So, yeah, there's there's sortof macro pivoting and micropivoting in there,
but just being able to stay nimble, whether it's like you're in a
startup, you're in college and youwant to change your major or whatever it
is, it's definitely a really important, you know, life skill to have.
Absolutely, So let's talk about greatast accomplishment are something that you're super

(31:18):
proud of or that has significant meaningfor you. Yeah, So again I
think I think I probably should havepulled up my my survey before I before
I jumped on the interview. Butyou know, if I had to,
if I had to pick one offat the top of my head, you
know, it would really be publishingthe first book and then the things that
that came out of that, youknow, I there. Again. It's

(31:41):
tough. I don't want to tootmy own horn here, but I also
want to ahead, you know,talk about the impact that some of the
work has had. You know,I published that first book in twenty eighteen.
You know, basically, I sometimesrefer to it as Get out of
your Head Volume One. Got alot of messages from different readers, you
know, that said, hey,this book really helped me. I was
struggling with anxiety for a long time. I was able to change some of
my patterns and so on and soforth. I got, you know,

(32:04):
I got a lot of those messages. But then I also got a message
from one reader on the West Coast, and he was like, this book
like fundamentally changed my life. Iwas ready to divorce my wife. I
was ready to quit my job.I was thinking about you know, maybe
you know, not being here anymore, or just not enjoying life. Right,
He's like, and I read thisand it just fired me up.
And you know, in the lastsix months, my wife and I have

(32:27):
like really changed the course of ourrelationship where you know, it's stronger than
ever. We love each other morethan ever. I feel fired up to
go to work and then he attacheda picture and he was like, and
by the way, like this thismade such an impact on my life that
I actually took the logo you know, on the front of the book cover
and tattooed it on my chest andI was just like, oh my goodness,

(32:47):
Like I you know, one ofthose really humbling moments where it's like,
Okay, despite all the struggle,right, like both within myself of
the psychological journey, but then alsoon the publish front, like you know,
I've had I've had some legal battleswith this publisher who put out this
other book. Despite all of thoseissues, I can still come back and

(33:08):
I can say look at the factthat like take all that other stuff aside,
and like these these books are helpingpeople. Right, There's I just
I don't know how to describe itother than it's like at the end of
the day, like you can boileverything else away, the money, the
fame, whatever it is, andI'm not famous, but like, at
the end of the day, wewhat is most meaningful, I think,

(33:29):
right, is to help other people. And to be able to do that
for real, It's just like itreally does move you absolutely. So this
is kind of our signature question ofthe show, and that is, what
does working from your happy place meanto you? Oh? Man? So
I think I have an answer here, right is, and I think I

(33:51):
can tie it into the mental healthspace as well. So I have found
over the last ten years or sothat you know, there's there are a
lot of bad things in the world. So I don't want to say there's
nothing worse. But let's say you'reliving a relatively normal life and you know
you're somebody who has a job,and you know you're relatively fortunate, right

(34:12):
It is a terrible thing to wakeup every day and report to a job
that you have zero passion for,that you don't enjoy. That is super
stressful in all that I have foundthroughout various instances across my life, and
some of them I chronicle, youknow, in my books when I get
into those projects or if I'm ona job like that. You know,
the tough piece, right is,like we all have bills to pay and

(34:32):
whatnot. We can't necessarily just likepick up and you know, go somewhere
else overnight. We have to strategizewhat we're going to do and find ways
such that we can still pay ourmortgages and all that. But I think
that for me, what I havefound and a lot of people find this
right, is when you become disengagedin the work that you are doing,
that is a really, really toughplace to be because it's not just the

(34:53):
disengagement. It's like once I actuallyI actually just finished putting out a blog
post about this this morning, whichis basically like, so you know,
as somebody who experiences anxiety and depressionor somebody who you know has struggles on
the psychological side of things, Ithink that we can say that our brains
sort of default to the behavior ofworrying, and so like that's you know,

(35:17):
kind of just how we're wired.And so it's like it's almost one
of those things where it's like youhave to play to your strong suits,
and you have to play to yourbrain strong suits. So if if we're
just going to say that more oftenthan not, our brains like to worry,
we need to give them something toworry about and something good to worry
about. Right. So it's likeif we are in jobs where we are
totally disengaged all the time, andI'll put my hand up and say I

(35:40):
have absolutely been there, many times, it will not be long before you
are thinking about like just subjects thatrip you apart and don't make a lot
of sense. Right, It's likeit's sort of the what's the end?
I'm not trying I'm not you know, I'm not trying to be sexist or
anything. But it's like and I'mreally like I know that sometimes people say
no offense, but you know peopletalk about like it's like, what is

(36:04):
it like middle class housewives, howit's like they you know a lot of
them find themselves on antidepressants and youknow, psychotropic medication. I think the
issue, right is like there aresometimes where it's like, yeah, being
a mother is an amazing and difficultjob, but if you are, you
know, if you are in ahousehold where you know you don't have a
lot to do every day and you'reyou're constantly bored and whatnot, it might

(36:27):
not be long before you're turning scaryideas over in your mind. And so
same sort of concept applies here,is like if you're in a job that
you don't enjoy, it probably won'tbe long before your mind is just running
off into scary and weird places andyou're thinking about you know, unruly subjects
that don't make a lot of sense, like all of a sudden, you
just fall into like a state ofgeneralized anxiety. Right. So getting back

(36:50):
to actually answering the question of youknow, what does it mean to work
from your happy place? For me, it means to find work that you
find engaging and to then lean intothe at work and have fun with it,
right, because I think that alot of people. One of the
difficulties we have in society, right, there's this sort of notion of like
I'll be happy when XYZ happens,Right, I'll be happy when I get

(37:12):
this job, I'll be happy whenI get this car, whatever. And
then you listen to some of thepeople, some of the famous people who
have been there before, and theysay to themselves, like, dude,
it's not the money that makes youhappy. It's not the car that makes
you happy, it's not that youknow, it's not XYZ that makes you
happy. And it's like you boilit down, it's like what makes you
happy? And I would say it'sdoing things that you enjoy with people that

(37:34):
you enjoy and just seeing where thattakes you. Right. A lot of
the times, right, it's likethe issue with getting to a certain place
and being like, I'll be happywhen I have the mansion. It's the
dream of the mansion that excites youuntil you get there. And then you
get to the mansion and all ofa sudden, the dream is gone,
and maybe the excitement is gone orit tapers off after like a year,

(37:55):
right, you fall back to youknow, people talk about the hedonic treadmill
where it's like eventually your set pointfor happiness kind of readjusts to your new
circumstances. And so for me,it's like I always want to have something
that I'm striving towards and something thatexcites me, right, whether it's work,
whether it's a goal, something thatis fun. And then once I've

(38:15):
achieved that thing, I need toremember that I now then have to set
a new goal. Right. It'snot like, Okay, I got to
the top of the mountain and I'mdone. Because if you are not,
you know, if you're not engagingin work that excites you, if you're
not pursuing goals that also excite you, like that energy is not going to
be inside you, and then allof a sudden you're going to look around
and you're going to say to yourself, I have XYZ, I have this,

(38:37):
I have that, and somehow I'mnot happy, Like what's wrong?
Right? And so I don't know, maybe going back to the sort of
like the parent in the suburbs,right, who is dealing with psychological disorders
or just distress or whatever. Right, it's like it is possible that that
person has gotten to the point wherelike they have all those nice things,

(38:57):
but they don't have that energy,right, because it's like, Okay,
I did what I was supposed todo. What do I do now?
Right? Maybe in empty nester syndromeor something, you almost always have to
constantly reinvent yourself. And so Iwould say just going back to me answering
the question, right, is basicallysaying working from my happy place is just
doing things that I enjoy, doingthings that I'm passionate about, and finding
a way to infuse some of thatwork with meaning, right, being able

(39:21):
to take it and turn back andsay I'm doing this for a reason,
I'm going to impact people in apositive way. Something like that. Great,
you know, I just want toadd to that. And the only
reason I really do is because I'mdoing this series on money and some of
the myths around like money doesn't buyyou happiness, and it's like, really,
people hear this forever and I'm tryingto debunk some of these myths on

(39:46):
what is the real root of that? And so what I would say to
you and what came through my mindand that is like for me, I
had my dream home that I reallywanted to build, and so that dream
home and it's not certainly a mansionto some people that might be, but
it's a nice, big home thatI designed predominantly for entertaining because I love

(40:09):
entertaining and so and I wanted itto be like year round, like you
know, we're on a lake.I wanted people to be able to drop
in, and so we accomplished that. I worked really hard and I accomplished
that. And is it the housethat brings me happiness? Yes? And
no no, But my purpose ofwhy I wanted to have it has certainly

(40:32):
brought me some of the greatest joy. We have entertained a huge amount of
people here. We're able to offerthis up to some organizations would say,
can we'd love to do a fundraisingevent? Can we do it at your
home? Absolutely that would be amazing, especially if we align with that organization.

(40:52):
And so we've been able to doa lot of really great things and
having the home and having this homehas made me extremely happy. Is it
just the house, No, it'swhat I've been able to do because it's
the purpose behind it. And soI think we just have to be really

(41:13):
careful, like when people say,oh, money can't buy you happiness,
because if you work really hard andthen it isn't the thing that's going to
make you happy. But it's thethings that you're able to do with that
income that certainly can make you happier, whether that is sharing experiences with people

(41:35):
and additional relationships are what you're ableto do. And a lot of people,
especially in sales and I've taught salesforever, they have a hard time
selling because going after the money iswell, this isn't going to make me
happy, and we just have tobe careful about that one. Yeah,
I love I love that addition.I think it rounds out my answer in

(41:55):
a much nicer way. But yeah, so it's like I think I think
another way to say, right,money alone will not buy you happiness,
but it can be an avenue tothat happiness, and I think that,
you know, kind of the thelast piece I kind of or want to
add or sort of like a wayof reframing it, right is you know
I had kind of said, youget the mansion and then you get bored

(42:16):
of it or whatever. Right,But it's like you either have to keep
the energy alive through something else thatyou're doing, I e. You know,
you you know, having these gatheringsand entertaining people, which it's like,
how much energy do you get fromthat? Right, That's amazing.
That must be so fun to beable to share that. And then the
other piece would be, you know, given the fact that our brains just

(42:37):
tend to sometimes get used to things, we have to remember to remain grateful
for what we have, right tobe able to look back and say,
Okay, like, yeah, Inow have gotten a little bit used to
the fact that I have this nicehouse. But like if I look back
fifteen years ago and say, man, I was living in like a studio
apartment or whatever it is, thatjust reconnecting to that can really respark that

(42:58):
energy in our minds. Yeah,I love the fact that you brought that
story in just because it's like,yeah, you hear you hear all these
kind of doom and gloom scenarios.But it's like, no, you can.
You can have what you want andyou can have an amazing time,
but you do have to be reallymethodical about it, right. It's not
like, yeah, Okay, Igot the house and I'm just gonna sit
in it and I'm done right exactly. Well, it's interesting because, as

(43:20):
I said, we live on alake, and so summer season becomes people
will literally drive their boat up bythe house and if they see us,
they pop in and they'll either they'llhave a drink or they'll hang out on
the patio for a while. AndI had somebody recently said, oh,
my god, doesn't that annoy youor don't you get tired of that?
And I said, no, It'sone of one of the most fun things
about summer season. And if I'mbusy and I don't see them and they

(43:44):
come up, like people know,like, oh, if I don't come
out when the boat's pulling up,then people tool away, you know what
I mean. But I wouldn't havechosen to have that life if I didn't
enjoy that. And so for somepeople they go, gosh, that would
annoy the living daylights out of me. Well, then you probably never choose
to live on a lake where peopledrop in, like summer is drop in

(44:06):
and we drop in on other people. And I just I love that aspect
of it. So that's another funthing. But it is funny. I'm
different. I had somebody just saythat to me last weekend. Doesn't that
get annoying? It's like, gosh, no, it's so much fun.
Like I guess it's all the waythat you choose to see it or look
at it as perspective. But anyway, this is been a delightful interview.

(44:31):
Thank you so much, and thankyou for the work that you're doing and
helping others. I know it's reallyan important subject, and I know the
statistics are showing that, you know, more people than ever are dealing with
anxiety, especially in a post COVIDworld of unsurety and uncertainty, and a

(44:52):
lot of people were displaced in theirjobs and haven't figured out what to do
yet, and then this is thisconstant still you know kind of anxiety is
hanging over them. So I appreciatethe work you're doing. Thank you for
being a guest today, And wherecan our listeners find you. Yeah,
best place to find me would beget out of your head dot com.

(45:13):
So that's all one word, nodashes, no spaces, and just wanting
to say thank you for having mea a fun conversation and it's it's kind
of cool that the different things youcan riff on as you go back and
forth. Oh gosh, absolutely well. Thank you so much, Brian,
and to all of our listeners outthere, thank you for joining us.
We know you have a choice ofwhere to spend your time and we're so
grateful that you chose to spend itwith us today. Please share this with

(45:37):
your friends. That's the greatest formof compliment that you can give Brian or
myself, and subscribe or follow soyou don't miss a single great episode,
and don't forget to check out ourwebsite. We've got a lot of really
cool things going on at work fromyour happy place with our new community and
membership. So thanks everyone, andwe'll see you next time on work from

(45:57):
your happy places.