January 6, 2025 • 51 mins
In Episode 13 I have the pleasure of chatting with Aaron Solly. And how fitting on the heels of Movember & and the stress that can come with the holiday season that we discuss Depression & Anxiety.
Aaron is a personal life coach who specializes in empowering men to heal from depression, anxiety, and overwhelm by reconnecting with their purpose, joy and unconditional love through community, coaching and transformational experiences.
We dive into Aarons personal experience with depression & The turning point for Aaron to make it through those "dark times". Which as someone who coaches and mentors others through these mental health challenges, gives him a great perspective to be able to relate with his clients.
Aaron does a great job of defining what depression is and gives amazing insight on how and where to begin making the turn in your life you so desire.
This is a great episode for anyone who make be struggling with mental health, perhaps finds themselves depressed for the first time and dealing with this types of feelings and emotions or perhaps the "bill" of the holiday season has hit and some situational depression has come up for you.
Hope you guys enjoy this one!
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Resources Mentioned in this Podcast Episode
Engage Connect Grow by Aaron Solly:
https://engagecoachinggroup.com/workbook-your-personal-growth-tool/
Engage Coaching Group & Free Resource:
https://engagecoachinggroup.com/
Guest Contact Information
Aaron Solly
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/aaronsolly/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/engageconnectgrow
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronsolly/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alfred (00:03):
Hey, everyone, and welcome to the unmodern podcast,
the podcast where we haveunscripted, unapologetic and
uncomfortable conversations thataffects everyday people.
If you've ever had an outlook,thought or an opinion that
modern day society told you tobe silent on, That you would get
in trouble for, or if you'veever heard the words, probably
shouldn't say that, then this isthe podcast for you.
(00:26):
My name is Alfred, a husband,father, and an adventure seeking
kind of guy, who over the yearshas learned to have a positive
outlook on life, regardless ofwhat society throws at me.
So if you're ready to listen,let's go.
(01:03):
Aaron, thank you for coming onthe podcast, sir.
I'm really excited for thisconversation.
I love the messaging you bring.
Recently listened to yourpodcast episode with Trevor
Turnbull, mutual friend of ours.
I'm, really excited for thisone, man.
How are you doing today?
Doing great.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me.
So I'll let you kind of Explainto the listeners here what you
bring to the table and what yourmessaging is.
And then we're going to unpackit a little bit I really want to
(01:23):
dive into this.
This is super important.
This is, I mean, depending onwho you talk to, but this is
arguably top one or two problemsthat we have in the world today
is, you know, male mental healthand more specifically depression
and anxiety.
And I would love to unpack that,but give a little bit of
background, what you bring tothe table, and we'll start
unpacking all that for you.
Aaron (01:42):
Yeah, I, I struggled with depression and anxiety for many,
many years.
And so in 2018, I founded engagecoaching group and been coaching
men since then and educatingthem in a variety of ways,
giving them an opportunity tofind ways to connect to their
authentic self and be able tothrive in their personal,
(02:03):
professional and family life.
Alfred (02:05):
To hear that you started this before COVID, because COVID
is such a mile marker, milestonefor a lot of people in terms of,
government, mental health,income, inflation.
I mean, you can almost name it,right?
People kind of put that milemarker around that 2020 date
line and then moving forward.
So to know that you did thatbefore COVID is pretty
proactive.
It almost seems almostpioneering to a degree.
(02:26):
I know this stuff is, has beentalked about for a long time,
but this is pretty fantasticthat you kind of Had your head
in the door before the worldbasically imploded.
And this became an epidemic.
That's pretty incredible, man.
So yeah, kudos to you.
That's fantastic.
Aaron (02:39):
Well, thanks.
And that interview with, thepodcast with Trevor that you
mentioned that podcast, yourgifts matter.
I actually started during COVIDcause I wanted to find a way to
get the message out there, youknow, being cooped up in my
house all day.
It's like, I need to find a wayto get you know to help, more
men and, and people that aredealing with mental health
challenges.
So that's where that, thatpodcast actually was sparked
(03:01):
during COVID.
Alfred (03:04):
Yeah.
Like a lot of creatives thesedays, it seems like a lot of,
stuff was created during that,right.
At times of times of struggle,usually that's when the best
things are created.
Really interesting.
If you don't mind unpacking,when you say you struggle with
depression, do you mind sharingkind of, you know, that whole
journey for you coming, youknow, dealing with something on
the flip side and then wantingto transition from a.
Somebody who suffers from it tosomebody who wanted to be a
healer of it.
I'm, I'm really interested inthat transition.
Aaron (03:26):
Yeah.
I, you know, looking back, I wasnever diagnosed in high school,
but I pretty certain that Istruggled with it in high
school.
I played basketball andvolleyball in high school and at
the senior level, I playedbasketball I loved playing
sports.
Absolutely loved playing sportsin junior high school.
But then when I hit grade 11 and12, the pressure completely
(03:47):
changed and the level of playingchanged.
I grew up in a small communityof 10, 000 people.
And when I was in that senioryear, our coach liked to take us
down to the lower mainlands ofVancouver to play teams.
They play every week.
We played.
We played maybe every secondweekend against the smaller
communities you know, nearWilliams Lake where I grew up,
(04:09):
but coming down to the LowerMainland, like the level of play
just increased.
We actually played against SteveNash when he was in high school
when I was in grade 12 at the,the Provincials because we were
the last place team in theprovince and we had to play.
Number one St.
Michael's University to kick itoff.
And what an experience.
They completely destroyed us byabout 20 or 30 points, but
(04:30):
incredible experience to playagainst that team.
But the level of play was, high.
And I didn't respond well tobeing yelled at and screamed at
to, you know, whenever I made amistake.
And so that actually.
That type of approach with me,whether it was with a coach or a
teacher or a friend, just kindof actually internally caused me
(04:51):
to go inside of myself and, youknow, just kind of be in this
dark place for moments, periodsof time for, you know, 2, 3
weeks, a couple months.
And I remember in high school.
wondering, okay, when is thisdark cloud going to go away?
Because when it, did go away, Ifelt amazing.
I felt confident, my sense ofhumor would come out.
I just, you know, there's noworries at all.
(05:11):
But then I would drop into theseperiods where a lot of the time
it was during the winter monthstoo, when it would happen.
And, and so into university, it,continued and to this, this
basketball coach, he did teachme one thing that I found really
helpful.
I didn't understand at the timehe, he told us as we were
stretching at the gym and just,you know, we all stood in a
(05:34):
circle at the middle of thebasketball court and did our
stretches and one of us ledthem.
He'd walk behind us and he'dsay, 80 percent of the game is
between your ears.
80 percent of the game isbetween your ears.
And then after you're donestretching, we would then move
on to offensive drills,defensive.
Plays shooting, dribbling, allthe physical and you know,
(05:57):
strategic sides of the game.
He never explained thatstatement to me.
And in high school, I thought Ineeded to run, you know, run
faster, jump higher, get back ondefense and shoot better.
I didn't understand this mentalside.
He didn't, and he put anycontext to it.
He just kept saying thestatement with no explanation.
And it took me to university toactually understand it and
(06:17):
connect to it because I wasfocused on the physical side of
the game.
And so I started to really lookat my thoughts more and journal
a lot, and that's when I saw atherapist for the first time and
did it in secret back in the90s, didn't tell anybody that I
was going to see a therapist.
And actually that therapist,after a couple sessions, it took
a lot to go to that therapistfor the first time.
(06:40):
It was nerve wracking.
And I was like doing this insecret between my, classes at
university, finding times to gosee them.
And then he, encouraged me to goto a group therapy session after
seeing him twice.
And that you know, he wanted meto go and talk about all this
stuff with a group of otherpeople.
No, I'm not going to do that.
But of course, that's what Iended up stepping into right
(07:03):
there.
And actually I didn't get asmuch out of The group, I did get
some out of it, but I found Iwas actually in such fear around
sharing what was going on for methat it, it took a lot until I
graduated university, I startedto get more help and I just
became fascinated with mindsetsand psychology.
I was in sales a lot, so, youknow, there's a lot of training
(07:24):
on that, but I just wouldcontinue to go down these dark
periods and, you know I'd go totherapy for six months, feel
great.
And then I'd stop going, right?
Or I'd be on medication for abit, antidepressant, feel great.
And then go off of it.
And then, so every six months, ayear, I'd be falling back into
the same kind of dark.
(07:45):
Wow.
Alfred (07:47):
Thanks for sharing that, man.
That's yeah, back in thenineties, I imagine.
I mean, in the 90s, I was injunior high.
I'm a little younger.
I remember school counselors.
I actually remember it vividlywhen I was in junior high, I was
struggling with, you know,getting introduced to, marijuana
and getting introduced to socialcircles and you know, female
rejection and social circlerejection and failing grades and
stuff.
And I remember going to schoolcounselor which was really my
(08:08):
introduction to a community.
Kind of a Jordan Peterson type,you know, authority mentorship,
I guess, would be the best wayto describe that for me.
And I remember that helped me alot.
It helped me where it helpedcalm me down.
It was a very small room, quietroom.
And honestly I did 95 percent ofthe talking and it was just
incredible to be able to justhave somebody who was not
(08:29):
family.
Not a friend and no skin in thegame.
I knew the feedback I wasgetting was genuine.
That's the word I would use isit wasn't that fatherly love
where it would be like, oh yeah,no, you're good.
Or, oh, don't worry about it.
It was you're failing yourgrades.
You got to study more.
Like it was prettystraightforward, but not in an
abusive way, not in anaggressive way.
It was very positive, very,uplifting of me at the time.
(08:51):
But I remember, like, I don'tremember words like depression
and anxiety being discussed whenI was in junior high or even
high school.
These words weren't used verymuch.
It was more, I'm depressed orI'm anxious.
There wasn't the shin or theitty at the end of it where it
became chronic.
It was more of an acute issuewhere Something is causing me
(09:11):
issues.
Maybe it's minus 40 in NorthernAlberta for me.
When you don't see the sun for awhile and you need to supplement
vitamin D, maybe that's why I'ma little depressed, but that
whole depression and stuffdidn't happen and didn't have a
highlight for me until justbefore COVID I would say about
2016 to 2018 somewhere in thatwindow is really when it
(09:33):
exploded.
And I don't know what yourexperience is with that, but
maybe your transition from whenyou seen that therapist, when
you started engaged coaching in2018, what was that journey like
that brought you to really Ithink I can bring some value to
this because I've overcame this.
I have a little bit of, youknow, methods and I have some
strategies to help combat this.
Aaron (09:54):
Yeah.
I was in sales positions for, asI mentioned in many, many years
of my career.
And that I felt the pressure andthat just similar to I felt in
playing basketball.
And so when the pressure hit,the way I responded to it is I
just went inside and I kind offroze and didn't know how to
move forward and did not ask forhelp.
(10:16):
A lot of the times I didn't talkabout it with with my colleagues
or my manager.
I go see, I go get help behindthe scenes, but I still was
going to work and wearing a maskand not really not really
knowing how to.
You know how to share that?
You know, I'm struggling hereand maybe I'm not in the right
career.
Maybe I'm not.
This is not right for me becauseI was I was in a toxic sales
(10:36):
environment.
A lot of cases where, you know,I just wanted to help people.
I just wanted to educate andsupport the customers that I was
working with.
And of course, Behind thescenes, I got people telling me
that you got to close this andthat and this many and and it's
just not, it wasn't the ethicalway that I wanted to do it.
And at 37 years old, I was inthe deepest, darkest depression
(10:57):
that I probably ever faced ever.
And at that point, my firstmarriage was, was breaking down.
My oldest son at the time, hewas just about getting close to
two years old.
And so everything was fallingapart.
And so to go from just kind ofstruggling at work to now,
everything is collapsing.
(11:17):
I didn't know who I was and, andwhat was wrong with me.
And that's actually one of thequestions I was trying to solve.
I remember being in the basementsuite of this townhouse that I
owned at the time in thebasement, part of the townhouse
and and the evenings go into mycomputer and essentially just,
you know, typing in what's,what's wrong with me and trying
to answer that question, liketrying to find All these
(11:39):
solutions to what's wrong.
Why aren't I confident enough?
Why aren't I stepping up as aman that everybody else is
expecting me to be?
You know, what's going on here?
How come I'm, I'm feeling soweak and you know, I'm always
being diplomatic.
I'm not expressing my opinion.
I'm people pleasing.
Like, what is wrong with me?
Why can't I just be confidentand just make a decision and
move forward with things?
(12:01):
And, you know, It was at thatpoint where I realized I
actually went to a Hay Houseevent where Wayne Dyer and
Marianne Williamson werespeaking, some other speakers,
and that weekend, it shiftedthings for me because after
hearing them speak, I alwayswanted to hear from Wayne and
kind of get his insights andthat, but walking away from
that, I did some journaling fromthere.
(12:22):
And I realized I've been askingmyself the wrong question for a
while.
And I was asking that question.
What's wrong with me for yearsleading up to that being 37.
I was asking my question, evenif it was subconsciously along
the way, but I realized I neededto ask myself, what is this for?
There's got to be a reason thatI'm going through this.
There's got to be a gift inthere somewhere, even if I'm
(12:43):
only 10 percent of me isbelieving there's a gift there.
There's got to be somethingthat's in this for me.
And I got to change myperspective.
I got to look at thisdifferently.
And, and at that point I found.
I found a therapist thatactually understood what I was
going through.
A lot of times I just went andsaw the therapist that was the,
you know, in the back then topof the yellow pages or, you
(13:04):
know, in the Google searches,top of the list.
But I actually searched out andfound somebody that understood
the anxiety and the depression Iwas going through and the kind
of the situations is related towork, related to relationships
and that therapist and teachersthat I met, because I ended up
taking a program, personalgrowth program that I actually
(13:26):
got a counseling diploma fromit.
They all kind of helped me lookat depression differently.
And they, cause they asked me,you know, what is depression for
me?
And I explained to them, it'sthat dark, that dark cloud
that's over my head, thateverything seems bleak.
Everything seems impossible.
Everything's like, it's so hardto, to do anything, to get up in
(13:47):
the morning, to put my suit onback then and the jobs I was in.
It seemed like it would take mehours to get ready and then to
put a mask on essentially atwork to play this role that
inside.
I'm just struggling, but theythen said, yeah, that's, that's
definitely, your experiencedepression.
That makes sense.
(14:08):
They also said, there's anotherway to look at depression.
As okay, what's that?
And they said, it's depressionis anger turned inward.
Anger turned inward.
And at that moment, I, that wasactually, I needed to hear that.
And I actually, it landed forme, because sometimes people
would give advice or saysomething like that to me.
And I would be like, okay, sure.
(14:29):
And then I'd move on.
But I actually, everything kindof aligned when I heard that,
because I realized that I'd beenstuffing anger.
And I didn't know how to expressit.
I thought I was bad.
I was wrong.
There was something wrong withme if I was ever angry and that
people would leave me or I'd getfired or, you know, no one would
like me if I expressed anyanger.
That's what I was believing for,for so many years.
(14:51):
And so I learned how to safelyand effectively release that
anger and through thatcounseling program that I did,
that's where I was inspired to,okay, because there was a few of
us, men in that program and thewomen that were hearing that I
was fellow students with, theywere hearing about the struggles
we were going through and they,they were understanding men
(15:13):
better.
And it made myself and my fellowcolleagues there, like we, we
got to do something, we got tohelp more men with this.
And so that's what inspired meto start engage coaching group
and to be able to step in andhelp more men and support them
with you know, going throughsimilar things that I went
through so that being in a toxicwork environment, struggling in
their relationship and notknowing how to lead, being a
(15:35):
people pleaser And not, notaccessing their anger
effectively and knowing how to,that, because the, the same
energy and the energy and theeffectiveness of anger is the
passion and anger are verysimilar.
So you can be passionate and youdon't have to be angry, but the
energy is very similar in howyou, how you express that.
(15:55):
And so it doesn't have to be abad thing to express that
passion.
You don't want to be, you know,you don't want to judge people.
You don't want to attack peoplebut you want to know how to
release it.
And understand that there'semotions underneath that anger
that, that if you don't feelthem, you're not going to be
able to be your authentic self.
You're not going to be able toactually access the core of who
you are is what, is what Ibelieve anyway.
Alfred (16:16):
I've never heard that definition.
Now, do you think that's anaccurate.
Description of depressiongeneralized or do you think
everybody's experience andsource code of depression is a
little bit different?
I imagine the triggers and whatmaybe starts it is different But
do you think that anger turnedinward is really what defines
general depression for mostpeople?
Aaron (16:34):
I think for me, because when I talk about depression,
I'm, I'm referring more tosituational depression because
I'm not a, I'm not apsychologist and I know that
there's, there's people that arereally struggling with major
depression in that.
So when I, when I refer todepression, it's it's it's
depression that comes about froma situation.
So you, you're in that toxicwork environment.
You've lost your job.
You've, you've lost yourrelationships broken down.
(16:56):
You've lost a loved one.
Like there's a situation thatcomes up that then puts you into
that state and.
And it could be anger thatpeople aren't feeling.
It could be any emotion thatthey're not feeling because
underneath anger is sadness iscan be guilt and shame and to
me, depression is it's tied toanger as it was my experience,
but it also is tied to justbeing able to feel your feelings
(17:20):
because if you're suppressingany feelings, you're going to
stay stuck in that in that placefor longer until you allow For
me, when I, when I released theanger, sadness was there and I
had all this sadness that wastied to the loss of my
grandfather when I was 10 thatI, I never felt for, for
completely grieved, you know,when I was younger and I didn't,
(17:43):
I didn't connect the dots tothat until I let the sadness to
come up
Alfred (17:47):
when you feel confident talking about depression or
coaching people throughdepression or feeling, you know
able and willing to help peoplewith this.
What do you leverage more?
Do you leverage your experiencewith depression or do you
leverage your, your counselingdiploma and your formal
education?
Is it a 50 50 split?
(18:08):
Do you feel like if you had one,but not the other, it would
change.
And if so, if there is one,which, what do you think kind of
validates your ability to reallyconfidently and successfully
coach people through thesereally, you know, hard mental
health issues?
Aaron (18:23):
Yeah, I'd say it's a combination of my experience and
the the skills that I've learnedthe program that I went through
was experiential.
So you actually learned, like,for example, the, the releasing
anger exercise that I learned,there's, there's a couple of
ways of doing it.
One is in person with somebodyas a partner, and another is a
journaling exercise where you doon your own.
(18:45):
And when you do it with apartner, it's called a four step
and in four steps.
You're essentially releasingthat anger and then getting to
the truth of what's actuallygoing on.
So that, that first step and thefourth step is you have someone
sitting, standing across fromyou and you're just letting out
verbally.
That anger and the person thatyour partner really has to be
(19:07):
able to be solid enough to beable to receive that because
sometimes, you know, people youknow, there could be some stuff
that are really coming up.
And so you just let that angerout, you communicate it and you
just get it to come up.
And then the 2nd step is, whatam I actually feeling underneath
this anger?
And so it's, it's looking atthe, the.
(19:28):
This, whether it's sadness orwhat's anger is a surface
emotion.
So what's the actual feelingunderneath that and allowing
that emotion to come up and, andthen it suggests like when.
So going back to, you know, whenwas the first time you felt
whether it's, let's say it'ssadness, when was the first time
you felt this sadness to connectthe dots to that there's there
(19:48):
could be some, some grieving ormaybe you were told that, you
know, a lot of guys were told ata young age that you're not
supposed to be crying and youknow, stop crying.
And so there could be some shamearound that.
And then the third step isaround what, you know, what
false belief are you believingabout yourself?
So what, what I'm actuallybelieving about myself is I'm,
(20:09):
I'm not good enough or I'm, I'mbad.
I'm wrong.
Like I was thinking I was badfor many years for enough for if
I was going to be angry, right?
And then, and then the finalstep is what's actually true.
What's true about.
me about this situation or this,you know, what's happening for
me right now and getting to thetruth and connecting to that,
whether you're connecting tobelieving 10 percent of that
(20:32):
truth or 100%, but as long asyou're connecting to that truth,
and you can work through thatexercise a number of times, but
that's, so I I learned adifferent techniques and
experiential types of exercisesthat I think, you has helped me
in addition to my experience andto be able to relate to the guys
that I help, but also be able tohave help them invite them to,
to, to look at really getting tofeeling those feelings that
(20:54):
maybe they haven't been wantingto feel for a while, or be able
to at least talk about thingsthey haven't been able to talk
with other people about.
And it's not, it's not like it'sgoing to necessarily immediately
happen.
It's a progression.
It depends on the individual ishow much they're they're willing
to share.
And then kind of being able tobe present with them in a safe
way is like however they were,they were able to show up and
(21:17):
what they're able to bring inthat moment.
Alfred (21:20):
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that.
The reason I ask that questionis I find a lot nowadays people
question your credentials.
What makes you qualified tospeak on an issue, talk about an
issue, or even have an opinionon an issue?
And it's been my kind ofobservation that experience
always gives people a leg upfrom a formal education or some
(21:41):
sort of an authority figuretelling you that you are now
qualified to be in thisposition.
Listen, there's no substitutefor proper training for things
like doctors and lawyers and allthat stuff.
But when we dig into theminutiae of humans, right, and
you talk about health issues,you talk about dealing with, you
know, just society in general,life problems, to me, experience
is everything, and, and I feellike that gives people really
(22:05):
The kind of the, the, theacronyms at the end of their
name, right?
To be able to speak to that.
It's like, if I'm going to go tothe gym and I want to get fit, I
don't want somebody who haseight years of formal training
at Harvard, but just got out aweek ago, I'm going to go talk
to the guy that's been workingout for eight years and the
proof is in the pudding now iswhat he's doing perfect for me.
Likely not, but I feel like froman efficiency and a more
(22:29):
streamlined trajectory to mydesired finish line.
That's the guy that is going tohelp me get to where I want to
go.
So similarly, similarly to yoursituation.
The fact that your formaltraining had a degree of
experience, experience trainingin it to me speaks more volumes
than if you say were a clinicalpsychologist or something, not
to undermine that, but I feellike that's, there's value in
(22:52):
that, that you've gone throughthe ringer and now somebody is
not starting at ground zero,they may be starting at maybe
your midpoint, you know, you'renow at say chapter 20 or 30 of
your story, They might be achapter one, but you can really
fast track them a little bitmaybe chapter five, chapter six
and be like, nope, I don't wantyou to go down the, the, the,
the learning how not to do this.
Let's teach you how to do thisand see if this is right for
(23:15):
you.
I don't know what your opinionon that is.
Aaron (23:17):
Well, yeah, that's what it speaks to my own journey.
When I was getting help a lot oftimes, the psychologist that I
was referred to was from mydoctor.
And these psychologists nevershared their, their personal
journey, their, their experiencewith depression.
It was just all exercises andbook smarts and, which was, you
(23:38):
know, you know, there'ssomething to that.
And then actually the, thefeeling good book was the first
self help book that I wasintroduced to that, that really
helped me when I first was goingthrough my depression in that.
But that's when I, when I wentto that, that dark depression at
37, that's where I realized thatI could actually ask the
therapist that I was seeing is,okay, so tell me about how
(23:59):
you've, you've personallyexperienced this.
And I, and I, and I actuallywitnesses in sessions with, with
the newer.
I'm going to be talking about alittle bit of a story that I saw
from a teacher counselor that Isaw is she would actually share
with me her own experience,which actually helped me connect
better to her and and relate toher more because knowing that
she had been through that, it'snot like she's talking about her
story the whole time, butthere's just little, little
(24:20):
indicators of that, that knowingand the little examples of
stories, it goes a long waybecause they have somebody just
coming right out of school andis book smart, you know, how are
they going to be able to helpsomebody that's really dealing
with something tough.
And if they haven't gone throughit themselves, and that's
actually when I went through thecounseling program, they kept
(24:43):
teaching us that if you want tobe able to counsel people, the
more that you step into your ownstuff that you're dealing with,
the better you're going to beyou know, prepared to be able to
support people as a counselor oras I'm a life coach be able to
help them in that.
Because.
The, the level that you accessyour own, you know, your own
(25:05):
false beliefs and darknesswithin yourself is going to, you
heal that, then you're going tobe able to now be able to heal
others because of it.
So
Alfred (25:12):
it's huge.
I think the experiencecomponent, it makes it a relate
at a human level.
It goes from being told from anauthoritative figure or an
authoritative position.
To relating one on one and Ithink that's so important right
and not to say again thatthere's not a place for that I
just know it's been myexperience that I just when I'm
dealing with something sosensitive like human emotion
(25:35):
mental health issues personalissues I feel like I'd rather be
on a Feel like I'm on a levelplaying field and feel like
somebody else has gone throughit or something similar to That
it's like, we can kind of suffertogether and I can, and there's
a, there's a calming in that forme, if that makes any sense.
But that's, that's personally,some people wouldn't agree, but
that's always been, been mything.
I want to unpack a little bitthat anger turned inward.
(25:58):
And I love that by the way.
And then you had mentioned thatthere's emotions underneath it,
like guilt, sadness.
Has it been your experience as astrategy for anybody listening,
if they are dealing withdepression, do you deal with the
surface level anger first andthen you kind of just chip away?
Or do you want to get to theroot cause?
Cause I feel like just thinkingof this off the top of my head,
(26:19):
I feel like going from the topdown surface level in.
It doesn't feel as daunting.
You're, you're, you're not goingfrom massive depression to just
like almost imploding becauseyou have this plethora of
emotion.
So, so it feels more, moreattainable, but it's maybe the
longer way where from anefficiency standpoint in my
head, just how I think I feellike if you went to the source.
(26:40):
That would get you out of yourfunk or out of your current
predicament quicker, but it's amuch Mount, it's a bigger Mount
Everest to climb.
What's kind of been yourexperience with that?
And I'm sure the strategies forboth, but just if you can share
your experience, coachingpeople, what has been more
successful, if any?
Aaron (26:57):
I think, I think the it's, it's, it's taking it one
step at a time, depending on theindividual, but really you know,
the, the gradual progressionBecause if you jump, if you jump
to too soon to the source,there's all these other feelings
and things that that may bebypassed.
Right?
So I my own experience and whatI've seen guys benefit from is
(27:18):
actually stepping into what'spresent in those feelings now.
And because that skipping aheadis kind of trying to find the,
you know, trying to get to theend result, but there's still a
journey to take to experience.
Right?
So there.
Cause I still, you know, I wasspeaking on a on a live Facebook
(27:38):
group earlier this week, and Iwas talking about my grandfather
and, and actually explainingthat journaling exercise, the
other way of dealing with, withanger and.
I, I hit emotions and sadnessabout my grandfather just doing
the talk.
And, and so there's stillhealing that I'm doing with
regard to the grieving of himthat shows up.
(27:59):
And I, I, I think it's alwaysgood to be gentle with yourself
and, and it's, it's not aboutgetting to the destination.
It's about healing along theway, whatever's showing up and
taking it taking it at a pacethat makes sense for yourself,
but also not.
Not letting the ego want you tojust get to the finish line,
because that there could beother things that are just going
(28:20):
to keep showing up.
If you try to get to the source.
Now, there is all kinds ofmodalities out there and
different ways of of getting tothe source, so to speak.
But I've I've found just beinggentle with myself and with my
clients and allowing them justto to move through things as
they as as they feel is rightfor them is seems to work the
(28:43):
best at this point.
Yeah.
Alfred (28:45):
I appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, I imagine the approach isdifferent on the individual, but
that kind of softer, more thelonger approach, but maybe more
systemic seems to just from thejust from thinking off the top
of my head, likely would be moresuccessful long term because
even if you get stagnatedhalfway through, you have at
least made progress where if youif you try to hit a home run
right away, it's either going towork or not.
(29:07):
And that can be possibly settingpeople down an even darker,
deeper path.
Aaron (29:11):
Yeah.
Cause I, you know, I'm, I'mgoing to be 50 in, I guess, six
days.
So I've, I've reflecting a loton on things.
And I, I believed for so manyyears that, that I just needed
to get to the destination thatonce I felt, you know, once I
reached the confidence and theself esteem and the happiness.
(29:34):
Yeah.
Enjoy and all that that we justremain there forever.
Once I attained it, I've got thedestination is all good.
But what I've recognized overthe last decade is just and even
more so in the last year is thatlife is is the workshop, right?
A year.
Every moment that we'reexperiencing is an opportunity
(29:56):
to grow and the more that that Istep into that and help others
step into that and knowing thatit's You're going to constantly
be growing while we're here.
Right.
And every moment that shows upis just another moment to be
able to decide how you want torespond to that.
Someone attacking you orsomebody saying something nice
to you or whatever that is, themoments are going to be the
(30:21):
learning is there is thedestination is, is, is.
Get it come, but there's stillthose those learnings along the
way and it's more of a journeyfor sure.
And in life, really, to me, I'vejust this last couple of weeks.
It's really reflecting.
It's it.
You don't necessarily need goingto workshop can be beneficial,
but actually practicing what youlearn in life is is the real
(30:45):
workshop.
What I've recognized.
Alfred (30:47):
Yeah, doing the work.
Right.
It's, you know, you can talk,you can walk the walk.
Right.
I'd love to unpack the statementthat your coach told you back
playing basketball.
80 percent of the game is inyour ears.
You said that he'd never reallyunpacked that for you.
What's your definition of that?
Like, like if you had to putkind of a, if somebody was
saying like, what does thatmean?
What does that mean for you?
Aaron (31:08):
Yeah, it's, it's the mental side of it.
Of playing sports and also themental side of life.
It's it's really that thosethoughts, those beliefs and
those values that are are nottown tangible that that that
impact performance and and howyou how you step into things and
(31:28):
how you how you play a sport orhow you live your life and
those, those thoughts, thosebeliefs and values can impact,
you know, your current situationwhere you're at and how you're,
you know, How you'reexperiencing, whether you're
playing on the basketball courtor you're in a relationship or
you're how you're performing atwork or how you're being a
(31:50):
parent.
Alfred (31:51):
Yeah, I agree.
The mental game is reallyimportant.
The reason I asked that is I wasintroduced to a concept called
rumination.
I don't know if you know whatthat is.
No.
Yeah.
So there was a girl publishedauthor on Joe Rogan and her name
is Abigail Shire.
And she was talking, she wrote abook called Irreversible Damage.
Have not read the book, but Ilistened to the podcast.
(32:12):
And she talked about a conceptcalled rumination and she
believes that is the source ofdepression.
She believes that, that is whatpropagates depression from
coming in a surface emotion orlet's say it's an anger or a
guilt or a trigger.
And that's what causes it to gofrom being depressed to
depression.
Yeah.
I'm going to read you thedefinition of that, and this is
from the Cambridge Dictionary.
(32:33):
Rumination is the tendency tofocus passively and repetitively
on one's symptoms of depression.
And the way she unpacked it isshe said if you continually
think about your depression, andyou think about the possible
outcomes or the possible reasonsfor depression, it will actually
make it worse on a compoundingscale.
And she said, so when we say 80percent is between the ears, I
(32:55):
don't want that.
To steer people in the wrongdirection of you need to think
about your depression 80 percentof the time and try to come up
with a mental solution to it.
I think everything we'vediscussed here is taking that
statement of, you know, sportsperformance or life.
Yes, 80 percent of between yourears.
But I think there's an asteriskwith that is you got to have the
(33:16):
right.
Positive or optimistic mindsettowards it.
You can't, you can't think yourway out of depression.
I, I think you, I think it'svery possible to think your way
deeper into it, but I don'tthink it's possible to think
your way out of that mentalhealth issue.
That's my personal opinion, butit was a really good podcast.
I'd recommend listening to itbecause she had some pretty
(33:36):
thought provoking.
Thought provoking stuff on that,but I just wanted to get, like,
what, what are your thoughts ona definition of something
referred to as rumination andkind of thinking about your
problems and, and thinkingabout, thinking about, thinking
about things.
I can really see how that wouldset somebody down a dark path.
Aaron (33:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, like I, to me it's, to get out of
depression, you gotta feel yourway out of it.
Yeah, thinking, thinking yourway out of it is, it may get you
so far, but, you know, becauseyou can, you can start feeling
good and everything's great and,and then you stop, you stop
doing everything that you hadlearned to get to that place.
(34:12):
So no, there's something to besaid about that because, and
when I, You know, in my book,Engage, Connect, Grow, I, the
engage section of the book isall around becoming aware of the
thoughts, the beliefs that aregoing on and, and definitely
there's, it's an when I talkabout being engaged, it's around
being aware.
(34:32):
So you, you do have to, when wetalk about 80 percent of the
game, your life is in betweenyour ears.
It's an awareness piece ofrecognizing.
That if you're in that patternof negativity and replaying that
to be able to step out of thatand and recognize it and that
can actually take that's amuscle to work is to know that
when you're going down thatpath.
(34:53):
And that you're in that cycle ofof.
of negativity and, and, andanalyzing cause some, for some
people, that's just a pattern.
And to be able to step, be ableto take a step back from that
and say, hang on a second here,why am I going down this path of
analyzing this right now?
This, this is not getting meanywhere.
Like that's, that's a skill setin its own.
And then be able to take thatand step into the feelings
(35:18):
versus Getting wrapped up in thethoughts, right?
And and also, you know,connecting to the values and
beliefs and the feelingsassociated with those.
So if I want to be happy, if Ivalue happiness, how do I, how
can I feel happy in this moment?
How can I access 20 percent 50percent 80 percent happiness in
(35:39):
this moment, instead of goingdown this rabbit hole of
negativity?
Alfred (35:44):
Yeah, 100%.
I, you know, mindset is veryimportant, but I think what
people don't understand, like,or people don't unpack a lot of
stuff, as they say, it's in yourhead, it's in your head, or it's
mindset, or it's a mental game.
I, I, I'm a firm believer ofpositivity and optimism.
I think you have to see a glasshalf full.
You have to water your own grassrather than looking at the other
side of the fence.
(36:04):
You know, I describe myself tomy wife as a professional
optimist and, you know, we did apodcast lately and she called it
my toxic positivity.
She's like, you're too positive.
I'm like, I don't think there'ssuch thing, but it's a bit much
for her and it can kind of beannoying, but like, what's the,
what's the alternative to that?
I'm toxically negative and I'malways down.
Right?
I don't, I don't want to reallyassociate with that.
I want to get your opinion onkind of modern approaches and
(36:27):
kind of opinions on, ondepression.
And I kind of.
It kind of pushes, or it kind ofchallenges the narrative, so
Andrew Tate, popular onlinepersonality, people love him,
people hate him, the guys,whatever, he says depression
doesn't exist.
And he gave a metaphor of theway depression works, is if you
have a haunted house, and youput one person who's scared of
(36:48):
ghosts, and one person who'snot, they're in it, and they
hear a bang.
The person who's scared ofghosts is going to run out and
the other person is going tosay, ah, it's the wind and go
back to bed.
And then, Curtis Jackson, aka 50Cent, said that depression's a
luxury.
You don't hear of depression inthird world countries, or
Compton, or people withinpoverty.
That, that vocabulary doesn'texist.
(37:10):
What's, what's your opinion onthat when we talk about
depression?
Because I know my experience is,depression is, is recent
vocabulary.
It hasn't, like, I haven't heardabout it.
Since I think I said about 20162018 in that time frame, what's
your opinion on that?
Do you think depression similarto how anger hides other
emotions?
Do you think depression is aword or a symptom of something
(37:31):
else?
Do you think like, do you thinkdepression exists as it is
depression?
Or do you think people aredepressed and not really dealing
with again, the source code orthe, or the, the root issue with
that?
Yeah,
Aaron (37:42):
it's definitely, there's the root of, and I believe that
the core root is, is Isunconditional love.
If, if, if somebody is not ableto access unconditional love for
themself and others and unsurehow to get to that point.
You know, that's, I think we'reall to me.
That's what we're all trying toget to.
It's a place where we can loveourselves and anybody else, no
(38:04):
matter what like who they are,where they live, their opinions
or what have you.
And so you know, similar to whatyou said there, like I, yeah,
the depression, I don't rememberit ever being talked about.
As a kid, and it's definitelybecome more of a common
language, and I think it's, it'snot, in some ways, it's nice to
have something to be able tocall it, because I think before,
(38:28):
as a guy.
It was avoided or you don't, youdon't, you don't mention that
you don't talk about it.
At least we can actually say,have something we can say that
we're going through.
But I do feel it's, for me, itwas, it's real.
Like, it's definitely you know,and I, I have still gone through
depression in the last number ofyears, I guess it doesn't,
hasn't completely gone, goneaway.
But I, I do, I have beenlistening more to yogis like
(38:51):
Michael Singer and differentspiritual experts and, and
thought leaders in that aroundspirituality.
And, and that has opened me upto, to recognizing that there's
just, there is a choice.
And that depression could justbe another, it could, it could
be just the ego deciding us to,to keep us stuck and that
there's a choice to be made of,and it's more to that workshop
(39:12):
life being the workshop is thatin this moment, how do I, who do
I want to be in this moment?
And do I want to go down thatdark, fearful place?
Or do I just want to accept thereality of what's happening
right now?
And and not make it meananything, because I think that
there's a lot of meaning that'sattached to what people say and
(39:34):
what people do and things thathappen where it's just, it's
just something that happened.
I mean, it's just this isunfolded in front of me.
It's it's it's happened.
And how I respond to that, how Ireact to that internally is is
an opportunity for to getcurious as to how come I'm
getting.
How come I'm getting frustratedabout what they said to me when
(39:57):
they said it?
I didn't say anything.
It's not, they can, they can saywhatever they want about me, but
how come it's really hitting meinside and get curious about
that and heal that versusattacking that person and
drilling into them when, is thathow you really want to be?
Is that how you want to actuallybe in the world?
(40:17):
Right.
So I don't know if that answersyour question, but
Alfred (40:20):
I think it kind of does.
It's just kind of a thoughtprovoking thought where I think
vocabulary has been hijackedrecently.
Right.
I'm definitely not going tounpack that in any way, shape or
form, but it's, people canrecognize that really, you know,
words aren't meaning words or,or, or new things come out to
describe new things, or somebodycomes out with a definition
(40:40):
that's different than thetraditional definition, but it's
supposed to be modern.
My, my personal opinion is Ihave found the best way to
handle being depressed or lowmoments in my life.
And I, and I'm gonna say the,the, the number, number three or
the top three things.
Number one is connection.
Mm-hmm Bar none.
Hands down.
It's not even a question that'smultifaceted because you have
(41:01):
family, you have friends insocial circles and, and whatnot.
I know as men, and we're gonnafocus on that'cause that's
really, we're two men talkingand focusing on men's mental
health coming off the heels ofNovember.
For me, it's been my brothers.
And when I say brothers, I meanlike my brothers in arms.
Like my, my close friends that Iwould, it's basically my family,
but that, that I didn't choose,or that I chose.
(41:22):
It's, it's those guys that I'vegone through the trenches with,
that, that's where I've foundmy, my, my best source.
an outlet for getting throughthings.
I would say the second is apositive mindset, is and where
my positive mindset comes fromis ultra accountability.
I'll give an example, my washerlet go a month ago and flooded
(41:43):
my house and my wife and I'vebeen out of our house for a
month.
Not fun.
I would not recommend it toanybody.
And when it happened, I told mywife, I said, that was my fault.
And she kind of looked at me andshe's like, what are you talking
about?
Like you are weird again, thattoxic positivity.
And I said, when's the last timeI had the washer looked at
when's the last time I took itupon myself to clean it and me
and make sure that everythingwas fine and look at the lines
(42:05):
and make sure all these things,like it's my washer, not anybody
else's.
I bought it, it's mine.
And it's, it's illogical tothink that way, truthfully.
Like that's not the, but when Ithink of it that way, I found
it's the fastest way.
To alter my state of mind andchange behavior as quickly as
possible.
Because if I sit there and sayit wasn't my fault, and I buy
(42:25):
another washer and just live mylife, I'm not gonna change and
ensure it never happens again.
So, I go the illogical route asa reaction to the situation, but
it completely changes mybehavior.
So my new washer, I'm going tomake sure that I check on it.
Maybe put a six month reminderto pull out the back, make sure
everything looks fine.
Also when they repairedeverything, we paid above and
(42:47):
beyond to have additionalwaterproofing so that if it was
to ever happen again, and I tookevery route, it wouldn't affect
the main floor, which is wherethe majority of the damage was.
So I've taken steps to go again,above and beyond, but I wouldn't
have taken that step withoutultra accountability from almost
a logical standpoint.
And I would say the third one, Iwould say is action.
(43:08):
Is the moment I feel, I feellike something is coming down on
me or a stressful situation orsomething that's really, I'm
starting to feel it.
My, maybe my hand is in too manycookie jars and I'm starting to
get overwhelmed.
I can't put it off and there'sthat Maslow's hierarchy of needs
right where they talk about youknow food shelter all that stuff
But for me, it's from a socialstandpoint.
(43:30):
Okay.
I have a birthday dinner to goto but my washer leaked What's
more important and they and it'salways playing this game of
juggling life as it comes to youand dealing With maybe you
worked hard, you know, for amonth, worked all, you know, all
the stuff, sign new clients,sold a ton of books.
You want to celebrate life hitlife happens.
You got to deal with it becauseif, if you choose to prioritize
(43:52):
the previous things, it'll quoteunquote ruminate.
Right.
While you're out to your steakdinner, you're going to think
about it.
Or while you're out celebratingwith your kids, you're going to
be like, Oh no.
Like, and I feel that is thatquick action and those three
things.
Have been my strategy to dealwith those things head on.
And I try to deal with all ofthat in a positive manner.
That's been my personal, noexperience with anybody else or
(44:14):
no coaching.
I kind of want to, you know,hear your opinion on whether
agreeing or disagreeing with me,what have, what are maybe two or
three strategies, anybodylistening that might be in a
dark place?
Cause I don't know about you,but it doesn't feel like
Christmas.
And I know I have a uniquecircumstance.
I'm out of my house, but rightnow I was talking about, I was
talking to my brother lastnight, like it just, something's
weird about 2024.
(44:35):
I don't know why.
I don't know if it was the U Selection or, or everything.
Go out.
Like, I have no idea why it doesnot feel like Christmas.
And that has a lot of peopledown that has a lot of people
really struggling.
So what are some things thatpeople from your perspective,
your more professional opinionthan mine.
Piggybacking off what I saidthat you really think can get
people to at least start makingthe climb out of their
(44:55):
struggles.
Aaron (44:56):
No, I like your list.
I like I like the three thingsthat you do and I it and it's
working for you So that's that'sfantastic.
And I think they're really good.
Strategies are doing and holdingyourself accountable is so
important Because if you'reblaming other people or you're
not going to takeaccountability, then you're not
going to be able to grow for meAnd I mentioned this in You In
my, in my book Engage, Connect,Grow is, is journaling is,
(45:21):
there's research that shows thatthe journaling is hugely
impactful in, in helping withmental health challenges, just
writing, writing out yourfeelings, writing out, even just
the situation that's, that'sgoing on for you there's There's
mental health benefits, andthere's even physical benefits
or physiological benefits to itas well.
They've seen that liver functionhas improved and immune cells
(45:45):
have improved.
It's crazy what they've, youknow, just by writing it on a
piece of paper.
And writing it on a piece ofpaper is actually the best way.
You can type on your computer,but if you're writing on a piece
of paper, it's healing.
And you know that people havehad diaries for years.
There's a reason for that.
It's helpful.
It's helpful.
And it's something that you cando, and you don't have to
necessarily share with anybodyyou know, in my, in my book, I
(46:06):
actually share my journalentries, a number of them to
help people see the progressionof when I was, like, feeling
really low and down aboutsomething, and then a year or
two, six months later, where Iwas able to get to from
journaling and the, and thebenefits of that, so that's been
a key tool for me and exerciseis also something that I've
(46:27):
recognized that when I'm in, inthe, in that down state or the
confidence is going down.
I, if I reflect and look at howmuch I've been exercising in the
last little while, that's a goodindicator as to could be why
I'm, my mind is not clear.
I'm getting more frustrated thannormal.
So physical exercises is soimportant and and, and eating
healthy and sleeping, like theseare just basics But those, those
(46:50):
can go like, if you're not, ifyou're eating crap all the time,
if you're drinking all the time,there's, there's a reason why
you're depressed you know, thatif you're not getting, if you're
not consuming healthy, healthythings and consuming water and
things are going to help yourbody, it's, that's going to put
you in a, in a, in a down stateand affect your, your, your mood
and your mindset and that aswell.
So,
Alfred (47:10):
yeah, Nice.
Yeah.
I couldn't agree more.
I discovered journaling overCOVID mutual friend of ours,
Trevor Turnbull.
Cool.
Cool.
Kind of us doing some journalentries every single day, just
writing things out.
The cool thing with all thatstuff is it's free.
It is.
Isn't that so crazy?
It's not this big grandiosething.
It's not expensive counseling.
It's kind of that you can gowalk, you can go play soccer in
(47:33):
a field.
You can, you know, grab a pieceof paper, buy a 5 journal on
Amazon and, and go and journalthat way.
I think that's really cool, man.
And yeah, kudos to turning 50,by the way, that's a pretty big
TSN turning point moment there.
Aaron (47:46):
I haven't heard that in a while.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Alfred (47:51):
I'm not sure if you've heard of the podcast or Patrick
bet David or PBD podcast.
I don't know if you've heard ofthat.
I haven't yet.
No.
Yeah, he's pretty incredible.
So he was quoting, he wasquoting somebody.
I don't know who he's quoting.
So I'm going to quote P.
B.
D.
But he read somewhere that aphilosopher of some sort had
said that a man has to do threethings in his life in order to
feel accomplished andpurposeful.
(48:11):
He said he needs to have achild, He needs to plant a tree
and he needs to write a book.
And it sounds like you'veaccomplished at least two of
those things.
And I thought that was justreally cool.
Kind of summarizing everything.
It was, it kind of had methinking, cause you know, I, I
got a daughter and a daughter onthe way, but the whole journal
on it, the fact that you havejournal entries in a book could
lead people to thinking maybeyour life has been crazy enough
(48:34):
to write a bestseller and justshare your story.
Share your gifts.
Whether you sell one book or amillion, it doesn't matter.
I thought that was really cool.
Or it's a book that you neverpublish and it's just your
journal.
That's your book.
So I
Aaron (48:46):
thought
Alfred (48:47):
that was kind of thought provoking a little bit where
those three things was kind of,kind of super cool.
Aaron (48:51):
Well, and I was in and Boy Scouts was a kid.
I planted many trees, so Ihaven't planted a tree in a
while though.
That's actually, maybe I shoulddo that before I turned 50.
Yeah.
Alfred (49:00):
Yeah.
Aaron (49:01):
That's kind of a little
Alfred (49:01):
concept.
That's a
Aaron (49:02):
really good concept.
Yeah.
I like that.
Alfred (49:05):
Well, Aaron, I want to thank you for your time today.
I don't know if you want toclose off in any messaging to
anybody listening.
And then we'll let you justsound off at the end with
anything you want to share,where people can find you and
stuff, but I don't know anyclosing thoughts or closing
topic you want to discuss here.
Aaron (49:18):
There's a quote by a famous psychologist, Carl Young,
that I, I like to share withpeople, or he he's quoted in
saying that that those who lookoutside dream and those who look
inside awake.
So I'd encourage anybody that's,that's listening to this and
(49:38):
looking to, to heal yourdepression or your mental state
is to, is to focus that healinginternally and not use external
coping mechanisms to try to healit really go inside and, and the
more that you look at what'sgoing on within you, the
feelings that are going oninside of you, the thoughts, the
beliefs that is where the truehealing, in my opinion begins.
Alfred (50:02):
Well, thank you very much.
Where can people find you ifpeople want to reach out to
Aaron and maybe sharing yourservices and, and look to kind
of hire, you know, bringsomebody on to help them with
their struggles.
Aaron (50:13):
Yeah, so Aaron, so Instagram Aaron Solly is my
handle.
They're engaged.
Coaching group is on and onFacebook.
And if you go to engage coachinggroup dot com, there's actually
a free resource.
There are three keys that youneed to achieve to be able to
thrive in your personal,professional and family life.
That is a free resource there.
And you actually, you downloadthat, you get access to the
(50:34):
master class as well.
So it might be helpful forpeople to sing.
Alfred (50:38):
And then you said you have a book as well.
Where can people find that?
Yeah.
Aaron (50:41):
Engage, connect, grow is on Amazon.
You can find it there.
Yep.
Alfred (50:46):
Awesome.
Well, thank you again, Aaron.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
I can't wait to check out someof your stuff online a little
bit more.
And if anybody has anyquestions, they know where to
find you.
I'll put everything in the shownotes.
Everyone's going to have accessto all this stuff.
Thank you again for your time,sir.
Really appreciate it.
Aaron (51:01):
Thanks so much.
Thanks for having me.
Alfred (51:04):
Well, that's it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listeningto the unmodern podcast.
If you like what you heard andwant to hear more, don't forget
to hit that subscribe buttonalso like, and follow me on
Instagram and Facebook atunmodern podcast.
Do you have suggestions forfuture guests, or if you're
interested in being a guestyourself, please visit unmodern
podcast.
(51:24):
com.
Thank you again, and we'll seeyou in the next episode.
Hey, everyone, and welcome to the unmodern podcast,
the podcast where we haveunscripted, unapologetic and
uncomfortable conversations thataffects everyday people.
If you've ever had an outlook,thought or an opinion that
modern day society told you tobe silent on, That you would get
in trouble for, or if you'veever heard the words, probably
shouldn't say that, then this isthe podcast for you.
(00:26):
My name is Alfred, a husband,father, and an adventure seeking
kind of guy, who over the yearshas learned to have a positive
outlook on life, regardless ofwhat society throws at me.
So if you're ready to listen,let's go.
(01:03):
Aaron, thank you for coming onthe podcast, sir.
I'm really excited for thisconversation.
I love the messaging you bring.
Recently listened to yourpodcast episode with Trevor
Turnbull, mutual friend of ours.
I'm, really excited for thisone, man.
How are you doing today?
Doing great.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me.
So I'll let you kind of Explainto the listeners here what you
bring to the table and what yourmessaging is.
And then we're going to unpackit a little bit I really want to
(01:23):
dive into this.
This is super important.
This is, I mean, depending onwho you talk to, but this is
arguably top one or two problemsthat we have in the world today
is, you know, male mental healthand more specifically depression
and anxiety.
And I would love to unpack that,but give a little bit of
background, what you bring tothe table, and we'll start
unpacking all that for you.
Aaron (01:42):
Yeah, I, I struggled with depression and anxiety for many,
many years.
And so in 2018, I founded engagecoaching group and been coaching
men since then and educatingthem in a variety of ways,
giving them an opportunity tofind ways to connect to their
authentic self and be able tothrive in their personal,
(02:03):
professional and family life.
Alfred (02:05):
To hear that you started this before COVID, because COVID
is such a mile marker, milestonefor a lot of people in terms of,
government, mental health,income, inflation.
I mean, you can almost name it,right?
People kind of put that milemarker around that 2020 date
line and then moving forward.
So to know that you did thatbefore COVID is pretty
proactive.
It almost seems almostpioneering to a degree.
(02:26):
I know this stuff is, has beentalked about for a long time,
but this is pretty fantasticthat you kind of Had your head
in the door before the worldbasically imploded.
And this became an epidemic.
That's pretty incredible, man.
So yeah, kudos to you.
That's fantastic.
Aaron (02:39):
Well, thanks.
And that interview with, thepodcast with Trevor that you
mentioned that podcast, yourgifts matter.
I actually started during COVIDcause I wanted to find a way to
get the message out there, youknow, being cooped up in my
house all day.
It's like, I need to find a wayto get you know to help, more
men and, and people that aredealing with mental health
challenges.
So that's where that, thatpodcast actually was sparked
(03:01):
during COVID.
Alfred (03:04):
Yeah.
Like a lot of creatives thesedays, it seems like a lot of,
stuff was created during that,right.
At times of times of struggle,usually that's when the best
things are created.
Really interesting.
If you don't mind unpacking,when you say you struggle with
depression, do you mind sharingkind of, you know, that whole
journey for you coming, youknow, dealing with something on
the flip side and then wantingto transition from a.
Somebody who suffers from it tosomebody who wanted to be a
healer of it.
I'm, I'm really interested inthat transition.
Aaron (03:26):
Yeah.
I, you know, looking back, I wasnever diagnosed in high school,
but I pretty certain that Istruggled with it in high
school.
I played basketball andvolleyball in high school and at
the senior level, I playedbasketball I loved playing
sports.
Absolutely loved playing sportsin junior high school.
But then when I hit grade 11 and12, the pressure completely
(03:47):
changed and the level of playingchanged.
I grew up in a small communityof 10, 000 people.
And when I was in that senioryear, our coach liked to take us
down to the lower mainlands ofVancouver to play teams.
They play every week.
We played.
We played maybe every secondweekend against the smaller
communities you know, nearWilliams Lake where I grew up,
(04:09):
but coming down to the LowerMainland, like the level of play
just increased.
We actually played against SteveNash when he was in high school
when I was in grade 12 at the,the Provincials because we were
the last place team in theprovince and we had to play.
Number one St.
Michael's University to kick itoff.
And what an experience.
They completely destroyed us byabout 20 or 30 points, but
(04:30):
incredible experience to playagainst that team.
But the level of play was, high.
And I didn't respond well tobeing yelled at and screamed at
to, you know, whenever I made amistake.
And so that actually.
That type of approach with me,whether it was with a coach or a
teacher or a friend, just kindof actually internally caused me
(04:51):
to go inside of myself and, youknow, just kind of be in this
dark place for moments, periodsof time for, you know, 2, 3
weeks, a couple months.
And I remember in high school.
wondering, okay, when is thisdark cloud going to go away?
Because when it, did go away, Ifelt amazing.
I felt confident, my sense ofhumor would come out.
I just, you know, there's noworries at all.
(05:11):
But then I would drop into theseperiods where a lot of the time
it was during the winter monthstoo, when it would happen.
And, and so into university, it,continued and to this, this
basketball coach, he did teachme one thing that I found really
helpful.
I didn't understand at the timehe, he told us as we were
stretching at the gym and just,you know, we all stood in a
(05:34):
circle at the middle of thebasketball court and did our
stretches and one of us ledthem.
He'd walk behind us and he'dsay, 80 percent of the game is
between your ears.
80 percent of the game isbetween your ears.
And then after you're donestretching, we would then move
on to offensive drills,defensive.
Plays shooting, dribbling, allthe physical and you know,
(05:57):
strategic sides of the game.
He never explained thatstatement to me.
And in high school, I thought Ineeded to run, you know, run
faster, jump higher, get back ondefense and shoot better.
I didn't understand this mentalside.
He didn't, and he put anycontext to it.
He just kept saying thestatement with no explanation.
And it took me to university toactually understand it and
(06:17):
connect to it because I wasfocused on the physical side of
the game.
And so I started to really lookat my thoughts more and journal
a lot, and that's when I saw atherapist for the first time and
did it in secret back in the90s, didn't tell anybody that I
was going to see a therapist.
And actually that therapist,after a couple sessions, it took
a lot to go to that therapistfor the first time.
(06:40):
It was nerve wracking.
And I was like doing this insecret between my, classes at
university, finding times to gosee them.
And then he, encouraged me to goto a group therapy session after
seeing him twice.
And that you know, he wanted meto go and talk about all this
stuff with a group of otherpeople.
No, I'm not going to do that.
But of course, that's what Iended up stepping into right
(07:03):
there.
And actually I didn't get asmuch out of The group, I did get
some out of it, but I found Iwas actually in such fear around
sharing what was going on for methat it, it took a lot until I
graduated university, I startedto get more help and I just
became fascinated with mindsetsand psychology.
I was in sales a lot, so, youknow, there's a lot of training
(07:24):
on that, but I just wouldcontinue to go down these dark
periods and, you know I'd go totherapy for six months, feel
great.
And then I'd stop going, right?
Or I'd be on medication for abit, antidepressant, feel great.
And then go off of it.
And then, so every six months, ayear, I'd be falling back into
the same kind of dark.
(07:45):
Wow.
Alfred (07:47):
Thanks for sharing that, man.
That's yeah, back in thenineties, I imagine.
I mean, in the 90s, I was injunior high.
I'm a little younger.
I remember school counselors.
I actually remember it vividlywhen I was in junior high, I was
struggling with, you know,getting introduced to, marijuana
and getting introduced to socialcircles and you know, female
rejection and social circlerejection and failing grades and
stuff.
And I remember going to schoolcounselor which was really my
(08:08):
introduction to a community.
Kind of a Jordan Peterson type,you know, authority mentorship,
I guess, would be the best wayto describe that for me.
And I remember that helped me alot.
It helped me where it helpedcalm me down.
It was a very small room, quietroom.
And honestly I did 95 percent ofthe talking and it was just
incredible to be able to justhave somebody who was not
(08:29):
family.
Not a friend and no skin in thegame.
I knew the feedback I wasgetting was genuine.
That's the word I would use isit wasn't that fatherly love
where it would be like, oh yeah,no, you're good.
Or, oh, don't worry about it.
It was you're failing yourgrades.
You got to study more.
Like it was prettystraightforward, but not in an
abusive way, not in anaggressive way.
It was very positive, very,uplifting of me at the time.
(08:51):
But I remember, like, I don'tremember words like depression
and anxiety being discussed whenI was in junior high or even
high school.
These words weren't used verymuch.
It was more, I'm depressed orI'm anxious.
There wasn't the shin or theitty at the end of it where it
became chronic.
It was more of an acute issuewhere Something is causing me
(09:11):
issues.
Maybe it's minus 40 in NorthernAlberta for me.
When you don't see the sun for awhile and you need to supplement
vitamin D, maybe that's why I'ma little depressed, but that
whole depression and stuffdidn't happen and didn't have a
highlight for me until justbefore COVID I would say about
2016 to 2018 somewhere in thatwindow is really when it
(09:33):
exploded.
And I don't know what yourexperience is with that, but
maybe your transition from whenyou seen that therapist, when
you started engaged coaching in2018, what was that journey like
that brought you to really Ithink I can bring some value to
this because I've overcame this.
I have a little bit of, youknow, methods and I have some
strategies to help combat this.
Aaron (09:54):
Yeah.
I was in sales positions for, asI mentioned in many, many years
of my career.
And that I felt the pressure andthat just similar to I felt in
playing basketball.
And so when the pressure hit,the way I responded to it is I
just went inside and I kind offroze and didn't know how to
move forward and did not ask forhelp.
(10:16):
A lot of the times I didn't talkabout it with with my colleagues
or my manager.
I go see, I go get help behindthe scenes, but I still was
going to work and wearing a maskand not really not really
knowing how to.
You know how to share that?
You know, I'm struggling hereand maybe I'm not in the right
career.
Maybe I'm not.
This is not right for me becauseI was I was in a toxic sales
(10:36):
environment.
A lot of cases where, you know,I just wanted to help people.
I just wanted to educate andsupport the customers that I was
working with.
And of course, Behind thescenes, I got people telling me
that you got to close this andthat and this many and and it's
just not, it wasn't the ethicalway that I wanted to do it.
And at 37 years old, I was inthe deepest, darkest depression
(10:57):
that I probably ever faced ever.
And at that point, my firstmarriage was, was breaking down.
My oldest son at the time, hewas just about getting close to
two years old.
And so everything was fallingapart.
And so to go from just kind ofstruggling at work to now,
everything is collapsing.
(11:17):
I didn't know who I was and, andwhat was wrong with me.
And that's actually one of thequestions I was trying to solve.
I remember being in the basementsuite of this townhouse that I
owned at the time in thebasement, part of the townhouse
and and the evenings go into mycomputer and essentially just,
you know, typing in what's,what's wrong with me and trying
to answer that question, liketrying to find All these
(11:39):
solutions to what's wrong.
Why aren't I confident enough?
Why aren't I stepping up as aman that everybody else is
expecting me to be?
You know, what's going on here?
How come I'm, I'm feeling soweak and you know, I'm always
being diplomatic.
I'm not expressing my opinion.
I'm people pleasing.
Like, what is wrong with me?
Why can't I just be confidentand just make a decision and
move forward with things?
(12:01):
And, you know, It was at thatpoint where I realized I
actually went to a Hay Houseevent where Wayne Dyer and
Marianne Williamson werespeaking, some other speakers,
and that weekend, it shiftedthings for me because after
hearing them speak, I alwayswanted to hear from Wayne and
kind of get his insights andthat, but walking away from
that, I did some journaling fromthere.
(12:22):
And I realized I've been askingmyself the wrong question for a
while.
And I was asking that question.
What's wrong with me for yearsleading up to that being 37.
I was asking my question, evenif it was subconsciously along
the way, but I realized I neededto ask myself, what is this for?
There's got to be a reason thatI'm going through this.
There's got to be a gift inthere somewhere, even if I'm
(12:43):
only 10 percent of me isbelieving there's a gift there.
There's got to be somethingthat's in this for me.
And I got to change myperspective.
I got to look at thisdifferently.
And, and at that point I found.
I found a therapist thatactually understood what I was
going through.
A lot of times I just went andsaw the therapist that was the,
you know, in the back then topof the yellow pages or, you
(13:04):
know, in the Google searches,top of the list.
But I actually searched out andfound somebody that understood
the anxiety and the depression Iwas going through and the kind
of the situations is related towork, related to relationships
and that therapist and teachersthat I met, because I ended up
taking a program, personalgrowth program that I actually
(13:26):
got a counseling diploma fromit.
They all kind of helped me lookat depression differently.
And they, cause they asked me,you know, what is depression for
me?
And I explained to them, it'sthat dark, that dark cloud
that's over my head, thateverything seems bleak.
Everything seems impossible.
Everything's like, it's so hardto, to do anything, to get up in
(13:47):
the morning, to put my suit onback then and the jobs I was in.
It seemed like it would take mehours to get ready and then to
put a mask on essentially atwork to play this role that
inside.
I'm just struggling, but theythen said, yeah, that's, that's
definitely, your experiencedepression.
That makes sense.
(14:08):
They also said, there's anotherway to look at depression.
As okay, what's that?
And they said, it's depressionis anger turned inward.
Anger turned inward.
And at that moment, I, that wasactually, I needed to hear that.
And I actually, it landed forme, because sometimes people
would give advice or saysomething like that to me.
And I would be like, okay, sure.
(14:29):
And then I'd move on.
But I actually, everything kindof aligned when I heard that,
because I realized that I'd beenstuffing anger.
And I didn't know how to expressit.
I thought I was bad.
I was wrong.
There was something wrong withme if I was ever angry and that
people would leave me or I'd getfired or, you know, no one would
like me if I expressed anyanger.
That's what I was believing for,for so many years.
(14:51):
And so I learned how to safelyand effectively release that
anger and through thatcounseling program that I did,
that's where I was inspired to,okay, because there was a few of
us, men in that program and thewomen that were hearing that I
was fellow students with, theywere hearing about the struggles
we were going through and they,they were understanding men
(15:13):
better.
And it made myself and my fellowcolleagues there, like we, we
got to do something, we got tohelp more men with this.
And so that's what inspired meto start engage coaching group
and to be able to step in andhelp more men and support them
with you know, going throughsimilar things that I went
through so that being in a toxicwork environment, struggling in
their relationship and notknowing how to lead, being a
(15:35):
people pleaser And not, notaccessing their anger
effectively and knowing how to,that, because the, the same
energy and the energy and theeffectiveness of anger is the
passion and anger are verysimilar.
So you can be passionate and youdon't have to be angry, but the
energy is very similar in howyou, how you express that.
(15:55):
And so it doesn't have to be abad thing to express that
passion.
You don't want to be, you know,you don't want to judge people.
You don't want to attack peoplebut you want to know how to
release it.
And understand that there'semotions underneath that anger
that, that if you don't feelthem, you're not going to be
able to be your authentic self.
You're not going to be able toactually access the core of who
you are is what, is what Ibelieve anyway.
Alfred (16:16):
I've never heard that definition.
Now, do you think that's anaccurate.
Description of depressiongeneralized or do you think
everybody's experience andsource code of depression is a
little bit different?
I imagine the triggers and whatmaybe starts it is different But
do you think that anger turnedinward is really what defines
general depression for mostpeople?
Aaron (16:34):
I think for me, because when I talk about depression,
I'm, I'm referring more tosituational depression because
I'm not a, I'm not apsychologist and I know that
there's, there's people that arereally struggling with major
depression in that.
So when I, when I refer todepression, it's it's it's
depression that comes about froma situation.
So you, you're in that toxicwork environment.
You've lost your job.
You've, you've lost yourrelationships broken down.
(16:56):
You've lost a loved one.
Like there's a situation thatcomes up that then puts you into
that state and.
And it could be anger thatpeople aren't feeling.
It could be any emotion thatthey're not feeling because
underneath anger is sadness iscan be guilt and shame and to
me, depression is it's tied toanger as it was my experience,
but it also is tied to justbeing able to feel your feelings
(17:20):
because if you're suppressingany feelings, you're going to
stay stuck in that in that placefor longer until you allow For
me, when I, when I released theanger, sadness was there and I
had all this sadness that wastied to the loss of my
grandfather when I was 10 thatI, I never felt for, for
completely grieved, you know,when I was younger and I didn't,
(17:43):
I didn't connect the dots tothat until I let the sadness to
come up
Alfred (17:47):
when you feel confident talking about depression or
coaching people throughdepression or feeling, you know
able and willing to help peoplewith this.
What do you leverage more?
Do you leverage your experiencewith depression or do you
leverage your, your counselingdiploma and your formal
education?
Is it a 50 50 split?
(18:08):
Do you feel like if you had one,but not the other, it would
change.
And if so, if there is one,which, what do you think kind of
validates your ability to reallyconfidently and successfully
coach people through thesereally, you know, hard mental
health issues?
Aaron (18:23):
Yeah, I'd say it's a combination of my experience and
the the skills that I've learnedthe program that I went through
was experiential.
So you actually learned, like,for example, the, the releasing
anger exercise that I learned,there's, there's a couple of
ways of doing it.
One is in person with somebodyas a partner, and another is a
journaling exercise where you doon your own.
(18:45):
And when you do it with apartner, it's called a four step
and in four steps.
You're essentially releasingthat anger and then getting to
the truth of what's actuallygoing on.
So that, that first step and thefourth step is you have someone
sitting, standing across fromyou and you're just letting out
verbally.
That anger and the person thatyour partner really has to be
(19:07):
able to be solid enough to beable to receive that because
sometimes, you know, people youknow, there could be some stuff
that are really coming up.
And so you just let that angerout, you communicate it and you
just get it to come up.
And then the 2nd step is, whatam I actually feeling underneath
this anger?
And so it's, it's looking atthe, the.
(19:28):
This, whether it's sadness orwhat's anger is a surface
emotion.
So what's the actual feelingunderneath that and allowing
that emotion to come up and, andthen it suggests like when.
So going back to, you know, whenwas the first time you felt
whether it's, let's say it'ssadness, when was the first time
you felt this sadness to connectthe dots to that there's there
(19:48):
could be some, some grieving ormaybe you were told that, you
know, a lot of guys were told ata young age that you're not
supposed to be crying and youknow, stop crying.
And so there could be some shamearound that.
And then the third step isaround what, you know, what
false belief are you believingabout yourself?
So what, what I'm actuallybelieving about myself is I'm,
(20:09):
I'm not good enough or I'm, I'mbad.
I'm wrong.
Like I was thinking I was badfor many years for enough for if
I was going to be angry, right?
And then, and then the finalstep is what's actually true.
What's true about.
me about this situation or this,you know, what's happening for
me right now and getting to thetruth and connecting to that,
whether you're connecting tobelieving 10 percent of that
(20:32):
truth or 100%, but as long asyou're connecting to that truth,
and you can work through thatexercise a number of times, but
that's, so I I learned adifferent techniques and
experiential types of exercisesthat I think, you has helped me
in addition to my experience andto be able to relate to the guys
that I help, but also be able tohave help them invite them to,
to, to look at really getting tofeeling those feelings that
(20:54):
maybe they haven't been wantingto feel for a while, or be able
to at least talk about thingsthey haven't been able to talk
with other people about.
And it's not, it's not like it'sgoing to necessarily immediately
happen.
It's a progression.
It depends on the individual ishow much they're they're willing
to share.
And then kind of being able tobe present with them in a safe
way is like however they were,they were able to show up and
(21:17):
what they're able to bring inthat moment.
Alfred (21:20):
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that.
The reason I ask that questionis I find a lot nowadays people
question your credentials.
What makes you qualified tospeak on an issue, talk about an
issue, or even have an opinionon an issue?
And it's been my kind ofobservation that experience
always gives people a leg upfrom a formal education or some
(21:41):
sort of an authority figuretelling you that you are now
qualified to be in thisposition.
Listen, there's no substitutefor proper training for things
like doctors and lawyers and allthat stuff.
But when we dig into theminutiae of humans, right, and
you talk about health issues,you talk about dealing with, you
know, just society in general,life problems, to me, experience
is everything, and, and I feellike that gives people really
(22:05):
The kind of the, the, theacronyms at the end of their
name, right?
To be able to speak to that.
It's like, if I'm going to go tothe gym and I want to get fit, I
don't want somebody who haseight years of formal training
at Harvard, but just got out aweek ago, I'm going to go talk
to the guy that's been workingout for eight years and the
proof is in the pudding now iswhat he's doing perfect for me.
Likely not, but I feel like froman efficiency and a more
(22:29):
streamlined trajectory to mydesired finish line.
That's the guy that is going tohelp me get to where I want to
go.
So similarly, similarly to yoursituation.
The fact that your formaltraining had a degree of
experience, experience trainingin it to me speaks more volumes
than if you say were a clinicalpsychologist or something, not
to undermine that, but I feellike that's, there's value in
(22:52):
that, that you've gone throughthe ringer and now somebody is
not starting at ground zero,they may be starting at maybe
your midpoint, you know, you'renow at say chapter 20 or 30 of
your story, They might be achapter one, but you can really
fast track them a little bitmaybe chapter five, chapter six
and be like, nope, I don't wantyou to go down the, the, the,
the learning how not to do this.
Let's teach you how to do thisand see if this is right for
(23:15):
you.
I don't know what your opinionon that is.
Aaron (23:17):
Well, yeah, that's what it speaks to my own journey.
When I was getting help a lot oftimes, the psychologist that I
was referred to was from mydoctor.
And these psychologists nevershared their, their personal
journey, their, their experiencewith depression.
It was just all exercises andbook smarts and, which was, you
(23:38):
know, you know, there'ssomething to that.
And then actually the, thefeeling good book was the first
self help book that I wasintroduced to that, that really
helped me when I first was goingthrough my depression in that.
But that's when I, when I wentto that, that dark depression at
37, that's where I realized thatI could actually ask the
therapist that I was seeing is,okay, so tell me about how
(23:59):
you've, you've personallyexperienced this.
And I, and I, and I actuallywitnesses in sessions with, with
the newer.
I'm going to be talking about alittle bit of a story that I saw
from a teacher counselor that Isaw is she would actually share
with me her own experience,which actually helped me connect
better to her and and relate toher more because knowing that
she had been through that, it'snot like she's talking about her
story the whole time, butthere's just little, little
(24:20):
indicators of that, that knowingand the little examples of
stories, it goes a long waybecause they have somebody just
coming right out of school andis book smart, you know, how are
they going to be able to helpsomebody that's really dealing
with something tough.
And if they haven't gone throughit themselves, and that's
actually when I went through thecounseling program, they kept
(24:43):
teaching us that if you want tobe able to counsel people, the
more that you step into your ownstuff that you're dealing with,
the better you're going to beyou know, prepared to be able to
support people as a counselor oras I'm a life coach be able to
help them in that.
Because.
The, the level that you accessyour own, you know, your own
(25:05):
false beliefs and darknesswithin yourself is going to, you
heal that, then you're going tobe able to now be able to heal
others because of it.
So
Alfred (25:12):
it's huge.
I think the experiencecomponent, it makes it a relate
at a human level.
It goes from being told from anauthoritative figure or an
authoritative position.
To relating one on one and Ithink that's so important right
and not to say again thatthere's not a place for that I
just know it's been myexperience that I just when I'm
dealing with something sosensitive like human emotion
(25:35):
mental health issues personalissues I feel like I'd rather be
on a Feel like I'm on a levelplaying field and feel like
somebody else has gone throughit or something similar to That
it's like, we can kind of suffertogether and I can, and there's
a, there's a calming in that forme, if that makes any sense.
But that's, that's personally,some people wouldn't agree, but
that's always been, been mything.
I want to unpack a little bitthat anger turned inward.
(25:58):
And I love that by the way.
And then you had mentioned thatthere's emotions underneath it,
like guilt, sadness.
Has it been your experience as astrategy for anybody listening,
if they are dealing withdepression, do you deal with the
surface level anger first andthen you kind of just chip away?
Or do you want to get to theroot cause?
Cause I feel like just thinkingof this off the top of my head,
(26:19):
I feel like going from the topdown surface level in.
It doesn't feel as daunting.
You're, you're, you're not goingfrom massive depression to just
like almost imploding becauseyou have this plethora of
emotion.
So, so it feels more, moreattainable, but it's maybe the
longer way where from anefficiency standpoint in my
head, just how I think I feellike if you went to the source.
(26:40):
That would get you out of yourfunk or out of your current
predicament quicker, but it's amuch Mount, it's a bigger Mount
Everest to climb.
What's kind of been yourexperience with that?
And I'm sure the strategies forboth, but just if you can share
your experience, coachingpeople, what has been more
successful, if any?
Aaron (26:57):
I think, I think the it's, it's, it's taking it one
step at a time, depending on theindividual, but really you know,
the, the gradual progressionBecause if you jump, if you jump
to too soon to the source,there's all these other feelings
and things that that may bebypassed.
Right?
So I my own experience and whatI've seen guys benefit from is
(27:18):
actually stepping into what'spresent in those feelings now.
And because that skipping aheadis kind of trying to find the,
you know, trying to get to theend result, but there's still a
journey to take to experience.
Right?
So there.
Cause I still, you know, I wasspeaking on a on a live Facebook
(27:38):
group earlier this week, and Iwas talking about my grandfather
and, and actually explainingthat journaling exercise, the
other way of dealing with, withanger and.
I, I hit emotions and sadnessabout my grandfather just doing
the talk.
And, and so there's stillhealing that I'm doing with
regard to the grieving of himthat shows up.
(27:59):
And I, I, I think it's alwaysgood to be gentle with yourself
and, and it's, it's not aboutgetting to the destination.
It's about healing along theway, whatever's showing up and
taking it taking it at a pacethat makes sense for yourself,
but also not.
Not letting the ego want you tojust get to the finish line,
because that there could beother things that are just going
(28:20):
to keep showing up.
If you try to get to the source.
Now, there is all kinds ofmodalities out there and
different ways of of getting tothe source, so to speak.
But I've I've found just beinggentle with myself and with my
clients and allowing them justto to move through things as
they as as they feel is rightfor them is seems to work the
(28:43):
best at this point.
Yeah.
Alfred (28:45):
I appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, I imagine the approach isdifferent on the individual, but
that kind of softer, more thelonger approach, but maybe more
systemic seems to just from thejust from thinking off the top
of my head, likely would be moresuccessful long term because
even if you get stagnatedhalfway through, you have at
least made progress where if youif you try to hit a home run
right away, it's either going towork or not.
(29:07):
And that can be possibly settingpeople down an even darker,
deeper path.
Aaron (29:11):
Yeah.
Cause I, you know, I'm, I'mgoing to be 50 in, I guess, six
days.
So I've, I've reflecting a loton on things.
And I, I believed for so manyyears that, that I just needed
to get to the destination thatonce I felt, you know, once I
reached the confidence and theself esteem and the happiness.
(29:34):
Yeah.
Enjoy and all that that we justremain there forever.
Once I attained it, I've got thedestination is all good.
But what I've recognized overthe last decade is just and even
more so in the last year is thatlife is is the workshop, right?
A year.
Every moment that we'reexperiencing is an opportunity
(29:56):
to grow and the more that that Istep into that and help others
step into that and knowing thatit's You're going to constantly
be growing while we're here.
Right.
And every moment that shows upis just another moment to be
able to decide how you want torespond to that.
Someone attacking you orsomebody saying something nice
to you or whatever that is, themoments are going to be the
(30:21):
learning is there is thedestination is, is, is.
Get it come, but there's stillthose those learnings along the
way and it's more of a journeyfor sure.
And in life, really, to me, I'vejust this last couple of weeks.
It's really reflecting.
It's it.
You don't necessarily need goingto workshop can be beneficial,
but actually practicing what youlearn in life is is the real
(30:45):
workshop.
What I've recognized.
Alfred (30:47):
Yeah, doing the work.
Right.
It's, you know, you can talk,you can walk the walk.
Right.
I'd love to unpack the statementthat your coach told you back
playing basketball.
80 percent of the game is inyour ears.
You said that he'd never reallyunpacked that for you.
What's your definition of that?
Like, like if you had to putkind of a, if somebody was
saying like, what does thatmean?
What does that mean for you?
Aaron (31:08):
Yeah, it's, it's the mental side of it.
Of playing sports and also themental side of life.
It's it's really that thosethoughts, those beliefs and
those values that are are nottown tangible that that that
impact performance and and howyou how you step into things and
(31:28):
how you how you play a sport orhow you live your life and
those, those thoughts, thosebeliefs and values can impact,
you know, your current situationwhere you're at and how you're,
you know, How you'reexperiencing, whether you're
playing on the basketball courtor you're in a relationship or
you're how you're performing atwork or how you're being a
(31:50):
parent.
Alfred (31:51):
Yeah, I agree.
The mental game is reallyimportant.
The reason I asked that is I wasintroduced to a concept called
rumination.
I don't know if you know whatthat is.
No.
Yeah.
So there was a girl publishedauthor on Joe Rogan and her name
is Abigail Shire.
And she was talking, she wrote abook called Irreversible Damage.
Have not read the book, but Ilistened to the podcast.
(32:12):
And she talked about a conceptcalled rumination and she
believes that is the source ofdepression.
She believes that, that is whatpropagates depression from
coming in a surface emotion orlet's say it's an anger or a
guilt or a trigger.
And that's what causes it to gofrom being depressed to
depression.
Yeah.
I'm going to read you thedefinition of that, and this is
from the Cambridge Dictionary.
(32:33):
Rumination is the tendency tofocus passively and repetitively
on one's symptoms of depression.
And the way she unpacked it isshe said if you continually
think about your depression, andyou think about the possible
outcomes or the possible reasonsfor depression, it will actually
make it worse on a compoundingscale.
And she said, so when we say 80percent is between the ears, I
(32:55):
don't want that.
To steer people in the wrongdirection of you need to think
about your depression 80 percentof the time and try to come up
with a mental solution to it.
I think everything we'vediscussed here is taking that
statement of, you know, sportsperformance or life.
Yes, 80 percent of between yourears.
But I think there's an asteriskwith that is you got to have the
(33:16):
right.
Positive or optimistic mindsettowards it.
You can't, you can't think yourway out of depression.
I, I think you, I think it'svery possible to think your way
deeper into it, but I don'tthink it's possible to think
your way out of that mentalhealth issue.
That's my personal opinion, butit was a really good podcast.
I'd recommend listening to itbecause she had some pretty
(33:36):
thought provoking.
Thought provoking stuff on that,but I just wanted to get, like,
what, what are your thoughts ona definition of something
referred to as rumination andkind of thinking about your
problems and, and thinkingabout, thinking about, thinking
about things.
I can really see how that wouldset somebody down a dark path.
Aaron (33:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, like I, to me it's, to get out of
depression, you gotta feel yourway out of it.
Yeah, thinking, thinking yourway out of it is, it may get you
so far, but, you know, becauseyou can, you can start feeling
good and everything's great and,and then you stop, you stop
doing everything that you hadlearned to get to that place.
(34:12):
So no, there's something to besaid about that because, and
when I, You know, in my book,Engage, Connect, Grow, I, the
engage section of the book isall around becoming aware of the
thoughts, the beliefs that aregoing on and, and definitely
there's, it's an when I talkabout being engaged, it's around
being aware.
(34:32):
So you, you do have to, when wetalk about 80 percent of the
game, your life is in betweenyour ears.
It's an awareness piece ofrecognizing.
That if you're in that patternof negativity and replaying that
to be able to step out of thatand and recognize it and that
can actually take that's amuscle to work is to know that
when you're going down thatpath.
(34:53):
And that you're in that cycle ofof.
of negativity and, and, andanalyzing cause some, for some
people, that's just a pattern.
And to be able to step, be ableto take a step back from that
and say, hang on a second here,why am I going down this path of
analyzing this right now?
This, this is not getting meanywhere.
Like that's, that's a skill setin its own.
And then be able to take thatand step into the feelings
(35:18):
versus Getting wrapped up in thethoughts, right?
And and also, you know,connecting to the values and
beliefs and the feelingsassociated with those.
So if I want to be happy, if Ivalue happiness, how do I, how
can I feel happy in this moment?
How can I access 20 percent 50percent 80 percent happiness in
(35:39):
this moment, instead of goingdown this rabbit hole of
negativity?
Alfred (35:44):
Yeah, 100%.
I, you know, mindset is veryimportant, but I think what
people don't understand, like,or people don't unpack a lot of
stuff, as they say, it's in yourhead, it's in your head, or it's
mindset, or it's a mental game.
I, I, I'm a firm believer ofpositivity and optimism.
I think you have to see a glasshalf full.
You have to water your own grassrather than looking at the other
side of the fence.
(36:04):
You know, I describe myself tomy wife as a professional
optimist and, you know, we did apodcast lately and she called it
my toxic positivity.
She's like, you're too positive.
I'm like, I don't think there'ssuch thing, but it's a bit much
for her and it can kind of beannoying, but like, what's the,
what's the alternative to that?
I'm toxically negative and I'malways down.
Right?
I don't, I don't want to reallyassociate with that.
I want to get your opinion onkind of modern approaches and
(36:27):
kind of opinions on, ondepression.
And I kind of.
It kind of pushes, or it kind ofchallenges the narrative, so
Andrew Tate, popular onlinepersonality, people love him,
people hate him, the guys,whatever, he says depression
doesn't exist.
And he gave a metaphor of theway depression works, is if you
have a haunted house, and youput one person who's scared of
(36:48):
ghosts, and one person who'snot, they're in it, and they
hear a bang.
The person who's scared ofghosts is going to run out and
the other person is going tosay, ah, it's the wind and go
back to bed.
And then, Curtis Jackson, aka 50Cent, said that depression's a
luxury.
You don't hear of depression inthird world countries, or
Compton, or people withinpoverty.
That, that vocabulary doesn'texist.
(37:10):
What's, what's your opinion onthat when we talk about
depression?
Because I know my experience is,depression is, is recent
vocabulary.
It hasn't, like, I haven't heardabout it.
Since I think I said about 20162018 in that time frame, what's
your opinion on that?
Do you think depression similarto how anger hides other
emotions?
Do you think depression is aword or a symptom of something
(37:31):
else?
Do you think like, do you thinkdepression exists as it is
depression?
Or do you think people aredepressed and not really dealing
with again, the source code orthe, or the, the root issue with
that?
Yeah,
Aaron (37:42):
it's definitely, there's the root of, and I believe that
the core root is, is Isunconditional love.
If, if, if somebody is not ableto access unconditional love for
themself and others and unsurehow to get to that point.
You know, that's, I think we'reall to me.
That's what we're all trying toget to.
It's a place where we can loveourselves and anybody else, no
(38:04):
matter what like who they are,where they live, their opinions
or what have you.
And so you know, similar to whatyou said there, like I, yeah,
the depression, I don't rememberit ever being talked about.
As a kid, and it's definitelybecome more of a common
language, and I think it's, it'snot, in some ways, it's nice to
have something to be able tocall it, because I think before,
(38:28):
as a guy.
It was avoided or you don't, youdon't, you don't mention that
you don't talk about it.
At least we can actually say,have something we can say that
we're going through.
But I do feel it's, for me, itwas, it's real.
Like, it's definitely you know,and I, I have still gone through
depression in the last number ofyears, I guess it doesn't,
hasn't completely gone, goneaway.
But I, I do, I have beenlistening more to yogis like
(38:51):
Michael Singer and differentspiritual experts and, and
thought leaders in that aroundspirituality.
And, and that has opened me upto, to recognizing that there's
just, there is a choice.
And that depression could justbe another, it could, it could
be just the ego deciding us to,to keep us stuck and that
there's a choice to be made of,and it's more to that workshop
(39:12):
life being the workshop is thatin this moment, how do I, who do
I want to be in this moment?
And do I want to go down thatdark, fearful place?
Or do I just want to accept thereality of what's happening
right now?
And and not make it meananything, because I think that
there's a lot of meaning that'sattached to what people say and
(39:34):
what people do and things thathappen where it's just, it's
just something that happened.
I mean, it's just this isunfolded in front of me.
It's it's it's happened.
And how I respond to that, how Ireact to that internally is is
an opportunity for to getcurious as to how come I'm
getting.
How come I'm getting frustratedabout what they said to me when
(39:57):
they said it?
I didn't say anything.
It's not, they can, they can saywhatever they want about me, but
how come it's really hitting meinside and get curious about
that and heal that versusattacking that person and
drilling into them when, is thathow you really want to be?
Is that how you want to actuallybe in the world?
(40:17):
Right.
So I don't know if that answersyour question, but
Alfred (40:20):
I think it kind of does.
It's just kind of a thoughtprovoking thought where I think
vocabulary has been hijackedrecently.
Right.
I'm definitely not going tounpack that in any way, shape or
form, but it's, people canrecognize that really, you know,
words aren't meaning words or,or, or new things come out to
describe new things, or somebodycomes out with a definition
(40:40):
that's different than thetraditional definition, but it's
supposed to be modern.
My, my personal opinion is Ihave found the best way to
handle being depressed or lowmoments in my life.
And I, and I'm gonna say the,the, the number, number three or
the top three things.
Number one is connection.
Mm-hmm Bar none.
Hands down.
It's not even a question that'smultifaceted because you have
(41:01):
family, you have friends insocial circles and, and whatnot.
I know as men, and we're gonnafocus on that'cause that's
really, we're two men talkingand focusing on men's mental
health coming off the heels ofNovember.
For me, it's been my brothers.
And when I say brothers, I meanlike my brothers in arms.
Like my, my close friends that Iwould, it's basically my family,
but that, that I didn't choose,or that I chose.
(41:22):
It's, it's those guys that I'vegone through the trenches with,
that, that's where I've foundmy, my, my best source.
an outlet for getting throughthings.
I would say the second is apositive mindset, is and where
my positive mindset comes fromis ultra accountability.
I'll give an example, my washerlet go a month ago and flooded
(41:43):
my house and my wife and I'vebeen out of our house for a
month.
Not fun.
I would not recommend it toanybody.
And when it happened, I told mywife, I said, that was my fault.
And she kind of looked at me andshe's like, what are you talking
about?
Like you are weird again, thattoxic positivity.
And I said, when's the last timeI had the washer looked at
when's the last time I took itupon myself to clean it and me
and make sure that everythingwas fine and look at the lines
(42:05):
and make sure all these things,like it's my washer, not anybody
else's.
I bought it, it's mine.
And it's, it's illogical tothink that way, truthfully.
Like that's not the, but when Ithink of it that way, I found
it's the fastest way.
To alter my state of mind andchange behavior as quickly as
possible.
Because if I sit there and sayit wasn't my fault, and I buy
(42:25):
another washer and just live mylife, I'm not gonna change and
ensure it never happens again.
So, I go the illogical route asa reaction to the situation, but
it completely changes mybehavior.
So my new washer, I'm going tomake sure that I check on it.
Maybe put a six month reminderto pull out the back, make sure
everything looks fine.
Also when they repairedeverything, we paid above and
(42:47):
beyond to have additionalwaterproofing so that if it was
to ever happen again, and I tookevery route, it wouldn't affect
the main floor, which is wherethe majority of the damage was.
So I've taken steps to go again,above and beyond, but I wouldn't
have taken that step withoutultra accountability from almost
a logical standpoint.
And I would say the third one, Iwould say is action.
(43:08):
Is the moment I feel, I feellike something is coming down on
me or a stressful situation orsomething that's really, I'm
starting to feel it.
My, maybe my hand is in too manycookie jars and I'm starting to
get overwhelmed.
I can't put it off and there'sthat Maslow's hierarchy of needs
right where they talk about youknow food shelter all that stuff
But for me, it's from a socialstandpoint.
(43:30):
Okay.
I have a birthday dinner to goto but my washer leaked What's
more important and they and it'salways playing this game of
juggling life as it comes to youand dealing With maybe you
worked hard, you know, for amonth, worked all, you know, all
the stuff, sign new clients,sold a ton of books.
You want to celebrate life hitlife happens.
You got to deal with it becauseif, if you choose to prioritize
(43:52):
the previous things, it'll quoteunquote ruminate.
Right.
While you're out to your steakdinner, you're going to think
about it.
Or while you're out celebratingwith your kids, you're going to
be like, Oh no.
Like, and I feel that is thatquick action and those three
things.
Have been my strategy to dealwith those things head on.
And I try to deal with all ofthat in a positive manner.
That's been my personal, noexperience with anybody else or
(44:14):
no coaching.
I kind of want to, you know,hear your opinion on whether
agreeing or disagreeing with me,what have, what are maybe two or
three strategies, anybodylistening that might be in a
dark place?
Cause I don't know about you,but it doesn't feel like
Christmas.
And I know I have a uniquecircumstance.
I'm out of my house, but rightnow I was talking about, I was
talking to my brother lastnight, like it just, something's
weird about 2024.
(44:35):
I don't know why.
I don't know if it was the U Selection or, or everything.
Go out.
Like, I have no idea why it doesnot feel like Christmas.
And that has a lot of peopledown that has a lot of people
really struggling.
So what are some things thatpeople from your perspective,
your more professional opinionthan mine.
Piggybacking off what I saidthat you really think can get
people to at least start makingthe climb out of their
(44:55):
struggles.
Aaron (44:56):
No, I like your list.
I like I like the three thingsthat you do and I it and it's
working for you So that's that'sfantastic.
And I think they're really good.
Strategies are doing and holdingyourself accountable is so
important Because if you'reblaming other people or you're
not going to takeaccountability, then you're not
going to be able to grow for meAnd I mentioned this in You In
my, in my book Engage, Connect,Grow is, is journaling is,
(45:21):
there's research that shows thatthe journaling is hugely
impactful in, in helping withmental health challenges, just
writing, writing out yourfeelings, writing out, even just
the situation that's, that'sgoing on for you there's There's
mental health benefits, andthere's even physical benefits
or physiological benefits to itas well.
They've seen that liver functionhas improved and immune cells
(45:45):
have improved.
It's crazy what they've, youknow, just by writing it on a
piece of paper.
And writing it on a piece ofpaper is actually the best way.
You can type on your computer,but if you're writing on a piece
of paper, it's healing.
And you know that people havehad diaries for years.
There's a reason for that.
It's helpful.
It's helpful.
And it's something that you cando, and you don't have to
necessarily share with anybodyyou know, in my, in my book, I
(46:06):
actually share my journalentries, a number of them to
help people see the progressionof when I was, like, feeling
really low and down aboutsomething, and then a year or
two, six months later, where Iwas able to get to from
journaling and the, and thebenefits of that, so that's been
a key tool for me and exerciseis also something that I've
(46:27):
recognized that when I'm in, inthe, in that down state or the
confidence is going down.
I, if I reflect and look at howmuch I've been exercising in the
last little while, that's a goodindicator as to could be why
I'm, my mind is not clear.
I'm getting more frustrated thannormal.
So physical exercises is soimportant and and, and eating
healthy and sleeping, like theseare just basics But those, those
(46:50):
can go like, if you're not, ifyou're eating crap all the time,
if you're drinking all the time,there's, there's a reason why
you're depressed you know, thatif you're not getting, if you're
not consuming healthy, healthythings and consuming water and
things are going to help yourbody, it's, that's going to put
you in a, in a, in a down stateand affect your, your, your mood
and your mindset and that aswell.
So,
Alfred (47:10):
yeah, Nice.
Yeah.
I couldn't agree more.
I discovered journaling overCOVID mutual friend of ours,
Trevor Turnbull.
Cool.
Cool.
Kind of us doing some journalentries every single day, just
writing things out.
The cool thing with all thatstuff is it's free.
It is.
Isn't that so crazy?
It's not this big grandiosething.
It's not expensive counseling.
It's kind of that you can gowalk, you can go play soccer in
(47:33):
a field.
You can, you know, grab a pieceof paper, buy a 5 journal on
Amazon and, and go and journalthat way.
I think that's really cool, man.
And yeah, kudos to turning 50,by the way, that's a pretty big
TSN turning point moment there.
Aaron (47:46):
I haven't heard that in a while.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Alfred (47:51):
I'm not sure if you've heard of the podcast or Patrick
bet David or PBD podcast.
I don't know if you've heard ofthat.
I haven't yet.
No.
Yeah, he's pretty incredible.
So he was quoting, he wasquoting somebody.
I don't know who he's quoting.
So I'm going to quote P.
B.
D.
But he read somewhere that aphilosopher of some sort had
said that a man has to do threethings in his life in order to
feel accomplished andpurposeful.
(48:11):
He said he needs to have achild, He needs to plant a tree
and he needs to write a book.
And it sounds like you'veaccomplished at least two of
those things.
And I thought that was justreally cool.
Kind of summarizing everything.
It was, it kind of had methinking, cause you know, I, I
got a daughter and a daughter onthe way, but the whole journal
on it, the fact that you havejournal entries in a book could
lead people to thinking maybeyour life has been crazy enough
(48:34):
to write a bestseller and justshare your story.
Share your gifts.
Whether you sell one book or amillion, it doesn't matter.
I thought that was really cool.
Or it's a book that you neverpublish and it's just your
journal.
That's your book.
So I
Aaron (48:46):
thought
Alfred (48:47):
that was kind of thought provoking a little bit where
those three things was kind of,kind of super cool.
Aaron (48:51):
Well, and I was in and Boy Scouts was a kid.
I planted many trees, so Ihaven't planted a tree in a
while though.
That's actually, maybe I shoulddo that before I turned 50.
Yeah.
Alfred (49:00):
Yeah.
Aaron (49:01):
That's kind of a little
Alfred (49:01):
concept.
That's a
Aaron (49:02):
really good concept.
Yeah.
I like that.
Alfred (49:05):
Well, Aaron, I want to thank you for your time today.
I don't know if you want toclose off in any messaging to
anybody listening.
And then we'll let you justsound off at the end with
anything you want to share,where people can find you and
stuff, but I don't know anyclosing thoughts or closing
topic you want to discuss here.
Aaron (49:18):
There's a quote by a famous psychologist, Carl Young,
that I, I like to share withpeople, or he he's quoted in
saying that that those who lookoutside dream and those who look
inside awake.
So I'd encourage anybody that's,that's listening to this and
(49:38):
looking to, to heal yourdepression or your mental state
is to, is to focus that healinginternally and not use external
coping mechanisms to try to healit really go inside and, and the
more that you look at what'sgoing on within you, the
feelings that are going oninside of you, the thoughts, the
beliefs that is where the truehealing, in my opinion begins.
Alfred (50:02):
Well, thank you very much.
Where can people find you ifpeople want to reach out to
Aaron and maybe sharing yourservices and, and look to kind
of hire, you know, bringsomebody on to help them with
their struggles.
Aaron (50:13):
Yeah, so Aaron, so Instagram Aaron Solly is my
handle.
They're engaged.
Coaching group is on and onFacebook.
And if you go to engage coachinggroup dot com, there's actually
a free resource.
There are three keys that youneed to achieve to be able to
thrive in your personal,professional and family life.
That is a free resource there.
And you actually, you downloadthat, you get access to the
(50:34):
master class as well.
So it might be helpful forpeople to sing.
Alfred (50:38):
And then you said you have a book as well.
Where can people find that?
Yeah.
Aaron (50:41):
Engage, connect, grow is on Amazon.
You can find it there.
Yep.
Alfred (50:46):
Awesome.
Well, thank you again, Aaron.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
I can't wait to check out someof your stuff online a little
bit more.
And if anybody has anyquestions, they know where to
find you.
I'll put everything in the shownotes.
Everyone's going to have accessto all this stuff.
Thank you again for your time,sir.
Really appreciate it.
Aaron (51:01):
Thanks so much.
Thanks for having me.
Alfred (51:04):
Well, that's it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listeningto the unmodern podcast.
If you like what you heard andwant to hear more, don't forget
to hit that subscribe buttonalso like, and follow me on
Instagram and Facebook atunmodern podcast.
Do you have suggestions forfuture guests, or if you're
interested in being a guestyourself, please visit unmodern
podcast.
(51:24):
com.
Thank you again, and we'll seeyou in the next episode.
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