July 31, 2024 • 17 mins
Today we talk to Justin Azbill, a trustee of the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention. We discuss with him the alarming rates of suicide and substance abuse among construction workers. Justin shares his personal journey and the mental health challenges faced by workers in the construction industry, emphasizing the importance of breaking the stigma, seeking proactive measures, and establishing peer support groups. He also provides resources and practical advice for those struggling, highlighting the critical need for industry-wide awareness and action.
00:00 The Alarming Suicide Rates in Construction
03:11 Justin Asbill's Background and Experience
05:15 The Mental Health Crisis in Construction
07:11 Justin's Personal Struggles and Turning Point
09:27 Industry Response and Peer Support
13:00 Proactive Measures and Resources
16:10 Final Thoughts and Gratitude
Construction workers are dying by suicide at an alarming rate
#constructionworkers #mentalhealth #mentalhealthonthejobsite #selfcare #justinazbill #mentalhealth #988 #vetranscrisisline #youturnhealth #recoveryways #veterans #smarticlepodcast #podcast #smarticle @Smarticleshow @BDDoble @larryolson threads.net/@smarticleshow @brand.dobes The Smarticle Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
The construction industry has one of thehighest suicide rates among professions.
The rate among male constructionworkers, 75 percent higher than
men in the general population.
That according to the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention,
an estimated 6, 000 constructionworkers died by suicide in 2022.
Justin Asbill has spent a long time inthe construction industry, is on the
(00:40):
board of trustees for the ConstructionIndustry Alliance for Suicide Prevention.
He was recently featured in areally amazing piece by NBC News.
Justin, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having me, Iappreciate the opportunity.
I guess we all in America want morehousing, our bridges to be fortified,
more warehouses so that More peoplehave jobs, but what I took from you
(01:02):
and this piece is that building stuffin our country has a real human cost.
What is that cost, Justin?
It really comes down to, it's notall bad things that are around
mental health and suicide prevention.
That's a stigma.
There's a lot of people in theconstruction industry that are people
who are brought up to work hard.
(01:22):
You work hard to live hard mindset where.
You want something, you work for it.
And sometimes from your generationalbackground being brought up in a, my
family was in the mindset was you hadto work hard for every dollar you earn.
And you never turned down work.
That was the mindset we were given.
And I think that's the mindset inthe construction industry is that
(01:46):
if you need money, you work more,you never turn down opportunity.
I think that's 1 of the issues in theconstruction industry, because what
it leads to is burnout leadershipburnout as well as just burnout period.
You have people that are driving2 and 3 hours to work and 2 and 3
hours home after working a 10, 12hour long shift, sometimes longer.
(02:09):
Some people I know in theBoston area, some people are
trying to make ends meet where.
They'll work a 6 a.
m.
to 2 p.
m.
shift, sleep in their car for 4hours, go shower somewhere at a
gym locally or something, and thengo work the night shift till 2 a.
m., and then sleep in their car another4 or 5 hours till the morning shift.
(02:32):
And they do that Monday through Saturday.
We've found people in carsthat were sleeping in cars, and
unfortunately, when they get hurt.
Because they grow accustomedto that financial background.
When they get hurt, they have tofigure out pain management because
they still need to earn that money.
And then what happens isthey overdose, unfortunately.
So that's the substance usedisorder issue in the construction
(02:55):
industry is as well as just burnout.
The construction industry,just fatality can wring the
life out of you if you let it.
Let's talk about a little bit before we godeeper into why you chose to trumpet this,
which is an incredibly important topic.
I'd love to hear a little bitof your background, how you
got to where you are right now.
(03:16):
My journey is crazy, and itwent by in a blink of an eye.
I grew up in a suburb cityof Kansas City, Missouri.
I came back from theMarine Corps, needed a job.
Started out as an ironworker, local 10.
Worked right up in the latenineties, started going to
school, got into firefighting,and then one thing led to another.
(03:37):
I had a captain that asked me towork for his business on the side.
It was three times the amount ofmoney you make as a firefighter.
It was in safety.
So now 28 years later, I've worked forsome of the biggest companies in the
world, Keywood, Suffolk Construction,mechanical firm Canestro, another GC,
Callahan, and now I work for by far thebiggest power tool provider in the world.
(04:02):
And that's Milwaukee Tool and Safety.
When you in that an article that weread which was just incredibly powerful.
It was like a little choked up.
I'm not gonna lie I'm not an overlysensitive guy, but I was thinking about
the guys I'd work with in constructionand you talked about how You'd come
home and you were just at the endand it was your daughter and a friend
(04:22):
that sort of Pulled you out of that.
But can you talk a little bit about that?
I want to get too personal as much asyou're willing to share Yeah, no, it's
a vulnerability is a strength, man.
That's the problem with our industry.
And to be honest, some of the menin this world, I think they look
at vulnerability as a weakness.
So I was brought up same way.
My, my parents re raised men inthis family, not weak people, that
(04:46):
kind of deal, you can press thatstuff, but vulnerability is good.
It helps people evolve.
Again I never turned down work.
I am one person, I'm a missionmindset, orientated person.
Once you assign somethingto me, I'm all in.
And I was designated the safetydirector of a company at the
time, and then designated incharge of COVID, a COVID czar.
(05:10):
Large general contractor.
I was working.
Fourteen hour days at first,which led to 19 hour days quickly.
And it was completely surrounded invery hostile, emotionally charged
conversations, because peoplewere afraid people were having
to deal with compliance stuff.
(05:30):
No one knew what was really happening.
And the direct results is if we didn'tfollow our program, people died.
And it got real.
Being sleep deprived for six monthsstraight, working in an emotionally
charged environment, you start toget into dark places in your life
where you start secluding yourself.
I was the master of masking my feeling.
(05:52):
I would avoid people whomight really know me because.
They would see through me becausein my mind, I was in such a dark
place that the fear of assumptionwas worse than dying, in my opinion.
The fear of, Hey, they might fireme or I might not be able to find
another job and provide for my family,the life that I provided for them.
(06:17):
And the other side was if I quit thisjob, I'm going to be known as a failure.
And I had grown to a breakingpoint for myself because.
I was beyond mental capacity.
I call it mental chaos iswhat I was going through.
I was completely dancing withthe abyss on a daily basis.
Every, at the end, before Iasked for help, I was nonstop.
(06:41):
Anytime I was awake, if I wasn't engagedin an operational process, the only thing
I could think of is how I would end it.
And that was it.
It was just the place I got to.
And it was because.
There was no light for me.
There was no goodness happeningbecause your brain plays tricks
on you when you're sleep deprived.
It's proven and six months straight,which is what a lot of people go through.
(07:05):
They work and work and work,surrounded by negativity.
That's what happens.
Just got lucky.
Came home, I was checked out becauseof an incident that I would typically
on in today's world, not even,it wouldn't even faze me, I would
handle it completely differently.
However, I was beyond my mentalcapacity and I was mentally
(07:27):
fatigued and sleep deprived.
I'm not, I didn't drink alcohol,none of the issues like that.
It was just mentally in a badspot and it took six months and
I got lucky because that day.
After I had made, I committed to endingmy life, I was going to do it at work.
(07:48):
They don't want my wife and daughterto find me, but I was grateful that
morning that she ran out and she calledme Papa because it's her way of saying
she loves me and she asked me to stayhome that day with her, spend time
with her, and it was her way of sayingshe loved me, which was the biggest
dose of love and just something thatmy heart and mind needed at the time.
(08:12):
And then I had a peer groupmeeting later on that day.
It was ran by my best friend, Josh Rizzo.
Peer advocacy is huge.
And I definitely recommend it to anybody,just someone to talk to, because you have
the opportunity to open up to others.
But I had a call and a good friend ofmine on there had just lost his best
friend to COVID and that was my claritymoment seeing his name, John Stevens,
(08:36):
he's going through some serious pain.
He lost.
It's my clarity moment.
I was grateful.
My friend picked his phone up when Icall and say, Hey, bud, I need help, man.
And it was the biggestrelief in the world.
I was so wrong on all, everything I wasthinking about at the time, which was
I asked for help, or I told somebodyI needed help or the weakness side of
(08:57):
it, whatever I would lose everything.
And I was wrong.
I was actually embraced by manyand I'm six, six months later,
I'm going to work for one of thebest organizations in the world.
Justin, that's amazing thatyou shared your story with us.
You've been through a lot.
As you begin to speak out about someof the mental health pressures facing
(09:17):
your fellow construction workers,are you getting blowback that, hey,
you're going to ruin it for us, we'renot going to be able to make money?
Or are they proud of you for speaking out?
People are very proud aboutit, but also, they embrace me.
I have two peer groups I runevery month, Vets and Safety,
and S4S, which is PsychologicalSafety for Safety Professionals.
(09:38):
But it's funny, half the people on all ofour calls are not safety professionals.
They are industry professionalsand I probably had one of the
best calls I've ever had Friday.
I had 12 people on it.
It was everyone frompeople across the nation.
So they're embracing it.
It's something that At first, I was afraidof, to be honest, I was afraid Hey, I'm
(10:01):
going to tell somebody about all thisand what are they going to think of me?
But my phone's ringing off the hook forpeople to ask me to come, say the same
thing to their organization because theydon't want to have someone they lose.
And they know it's real.
They know leadership burnout's real.
They know the stigma is realand it's not an easy topic.
(10:22):
So any way to break the ice sopeople are at least talking about it.
That's a good start to the journey.
You talked a little bit aboutthe industry in general.
Can you talk about how the industry, I'mtalking about holistically, all Milwaukee,
everybody that's involved in construction,are they embracing this idea?
Are they aware and helping peopleget the help that they need?
(10:42):
I don't know that everyone's embracing it.
There's a lot that is becausethey see the statistics.
Unfortunately, the construction industryand I've been in it since the mid 90s.
Is a very reactive in industry.
And to be honest, it's because we'regetting information given to us.
It's sometimes three and four years old.
(11:04):
So we're reacting to informationand statistics given to us
from the past couple of years.
So the numbers are staggering.
49, 499 souls in the United Stateswere lost to suicide in 2022.
79 percent are men.
Of that statistic.
(11:26):
There's numbers from 6, 000 to 7,000 that are lost to suicide in
the construction industry alone.
Here's the biggest number that most peopledon't talk about, and that is over 17, 000
lives are lost to opiate overdosesubstance use disorder in the
construction industry alone.
(11:47):
And 22 as well.
So that's 23, 000 people inthe construction industry are
lost to either substance usedisorder or death by suicide.
When you see those comparedto what we've been focusing on
for as long as I've been in theindustry, that's the OSHA fatal for.
(12:09):
Lives lost to injury and illnessesin the construction industry,
which is at an annual averageof a little over a thousand.
Those numbers ring bells forsome organizational presence,
owners and professionals.
And I'm seeing the, it's the greatestthing ever really, to be honest,
is I'm starting to see a change.
I'm seeing people embrace theinformation and trying to do something
(12:33):
about it because they understand thatthere's a human side of construction.
Justin, you are exactly whatthe Smarticle podcast is about.
A problem that nobody reallyknows that's below the surface.
You speak out, NBC News picks it up.
And now we get to talk about somethingthat most people don't know about.
If someone knows a constructionworker, that's having an issue or
(12:55):
is a construction worker, where'sthe place they should go to,
to find help and reach out to.
So there's a couple of places and I'mglad you asked first and foremost.
The best thing to do is before youhave a crisis moment, try to learn
more about proactive measures,which I talk about it a lot.
And that's self care.
(13:17):
I do some type of physicalfitness every day.
1 hour I journal every day.
I know it's not the most guy thingto do in the world, but it makes me
feel I've self advocate for myself.
Thanks.
And I'm doing good.
You need to hear something good.
Every once in a while.
I set really healthy boundaries,my work life balance.
It's non negotiable.
I've set the, set thoseboundaries with my boss.
(13:39):
And they totally acceptit, because I'm a dad too.
And then the other sideis I have my peer group.
So there's proactive measures to learnabout before you get in crisis mode that
I like to push because it's really easyjust to say, Hey man, call the 988 number.
But that doesn't always workeverywhere in the United States.
Some areas of the countryhave not funded that enough.
(14:01):
So you may not get someoneon the phone immediately.
For It may be a day and there's groupsout there called U turn recovery
ways, which is also on the West CoastU turns in the East Coast, Boston.
A lot of construction companies use them.
They're both probably the best andthey're better than a regular EAP system.
(14:22):
But if you have an EAP where you do work.
I challenge everybodyto start utilizing it.
What is the EAP, Justin?
Employee Assistance Program.
It's free through their insurance.
Most companies that they have it,start using it before you need it.
Cause I'll tell you, it's aggravating.
I tried to use that when I was goingthrough mine, I went to try to use it.
(14:43):
It was during COVID.
They wanted me to sign up foran app, go through this process.
It was.
Hours long and the process whenI was feeling that way, I just
wanted to talk to somebody.
It's a process and I think once peoplestart to learn about it and figure out
how to use it before they're in crisismode, they see how much easier it is.
(15:05):
And then the other side is
there's no tie back to their HR group.
So they're already using it.
It's not like a red flag.
Hey, this person's using this.
What's going on?
They've been using it and there'smultiple different ways to do it.
If you really need help, man, and there'snowhere else to go, 988 is a good start.
Or if you're a veteran,there's a crisis line as well.
(15:27):
It's just very reactive.
Yeah, I know it's not a perfect world.
That's a good place to go.
And the other place is peergroups, starting a peer group.
It doesn't have to be gigantic.
I have a personal peergroup of three people.
We meet once a week.
No matter what, still are on the calland it just, Hey man, how are you doing?
(15:48):
What challenge are you having?
Like a lot of timeswe'll create questions.
The challenge ourself to bringsomething to the table last week's was
in the past 10 years, what's a lifelong lesson learned that you've had.
You would tell yourself if youhad the opportunity to see it,
to go through something, likeit makes you think about things.
Justin, thank you for coming onand sharing your story with us.
(16:10):
Thank you for bringing hope toa area that has not necessarily
had their light shined on.
I'm hoping that today's journal entrywas, I went on this great podcast
called Smarticle, made a couple ofnew best friends, Brandon and Larry.
I think that's whattoday's post is, right?
It'll be tomorrow for sure.
I start my day with gratitude everyday, man, as much as possible.
(16:33):
We are very grateful foryou coming on, Justin.
I hope anybody listening recognizes thefact that you don't have to be weak to
be strong and sense of to be emotional.
So thank you so much for that.
Thanks, Justin.
Thank you guys for having me.
God bless.
The construction industry has one of thehighest suicide rates among professions.
The rate among male constructionworkers, 75 percent higher than
men in the general population.
That according to the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention,
an estimated 6, 000 constructionworkers died by suicide in 2022.
Justin Asbill has spent a long time inthe construction industry, is on the
(00:40):
board of trustees for the ConstructionIndustry Alliance for Suicide Prevention.
He was recently featured in areally amazing piece by NBC News.
Justin, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having me, Iappreciate the opportunity.
I guess we all in America want morehousing, our bridges to be fortified,
more warehouses so that More peoplehave jobs, but what I took from you
(01:02):
and this piece is that building stuffin our country has a real human cost.
What is that cost, Justin?
It really comes down to, it's notall bad things that are around
mental health and suicide prevention.
That's a stigma.
There's a lot of people in theconstruction industry that are people
who are brought up to work hard.
(01:22):
You work hard to live hard mindset where.
You want something, you work for it.
And sometimes from your generationalbackground being brought up in a, my
family was in the mindset was you hadto work hard for every dollar you earn.
And you never turned down work.
That was the mindset we were given.
And I think that's the mindset inthe construction industry is that
(01:46):
if you need money, you work more,you never turn down opportunity.
I think that's 1 of the issues in theconstruction industry, because what
it leads to is burnout leadershipburnout as well as just burnout period.
You have people that are driving2 and 3 hours to work and 2 and 3
hours home after working a 10, 12hour long shift, sometimes longer.
(02:09):
Some people I know in theBoston area, some people are
trying to make ends meet where.
They'll work a 6 a.
m.
to 2 p.
m.
shift, sleep in their car for 4hours, go shower somewhere at a
gym locally or something, and thengo work the night shift till 2 a.
m., and then sleep in their car another4 or 5 hours till the morning shift.
(02:32):
And they do that Monday through Saturday.
We've found people in carsthat were sleeping in cars, and
unfortunately, when they get hurt.
Because they grow accustomedto that financial background.
When they get hurt, they have tofigure out pain management because
they still need to earn that money.
And then what happens isthey overdose, unfortunately.
So that's the substance usedisorder issue in the construction
(02:55):
industry is as well as just burnout.
The construction industry,just fatality can wring the
life out of you if you let it.
Let's talk about a little bit before we godeeper into why you chose to trumpet this,
which is an incredibly important topic.
I'd love to hear a little bitof your background, how you
got to where you are right now.
(03:16):
My journey is crazy, and itwent by in a blink of an eye.
I grew up in a suburb cityof Kansas City, Missouri.
I came back from theMarine Corps, needed a job.
Started out as an ironworker, local 10.
Worked right up in the latenineties, started going to
school, got into firefighting,and then one thing led to another.
(03:37):
I had a captain that asked me towork for his business on the side.
It was three times the amount ofmoney you make as a firefighter.
It was in safety.
So now 28 years later, I've worked forsome of the biggest companies in the
world, Keywood, Suffolk Construction,mechanical firm Canestro, another GC,
Callahan, and now I work for by far thebiggest power tool provider in the world.
(04:02):
And that's Milwaukee Tool and Safety.
When you in that an article that weread which was just incredibly powerful.
It was like a little choked up.
I'm not gonna lie I'm not an overlysensitive guy, but I was thinking about
the guys I'd work with in constructionand you talked about how You'd come
home and you were just at the endand it was your daughter and a friend
(04:22):
that sort of Pulled you out of that.
But can you talk a little bit about that?
I want to get too personal as much asyou're willing to share Yeah, no, it's
a vulnerability is a strength, man.
That's the problem with our industry.
And to be honest, some of the menin this world, I think they look
at vulnerability as a weakness.
So I was brought up same way.
My, my parents re raised men inthis family, not weak people, that
(04:46):
kind of deal, you can press thatstuff, but vulnerability is good.
It helps people evolve.
Again I never turned down work.
I am one person, I'm a missionmindset, orientated person.
Once you assign somethingto me, I'm all in.
And I was designated the safetydirector of a company at the
time, and then designated incharge of COVID, a COVID czar.
(05:10):
Large general contractor.
I was working.
Fourteen hour days at first,which led to 19 hour days quickly.
And it was completely surrounded invery hostile, emotionally charged
conversations, because peoplewere afraid people were having
to deal with compliance stuff.
(05:30):
No one knew what was really happening.
And the direct results is if we didn'tfollow our program, people died.
And it got real.
Being sleep deprived for six monthsstraight, working in an emotionally
charged environment, you start toget into dark places in your life
where you start secluding yourself.
I was the master of masking my feeling.
(05:52):
I would avoid people whomight really know me because.
They would see through me becausein my mind, I was in such a dark
place that the fear of assumptionwas worse than dying, in my opinion.
The fear of, Hey, they might fireme or I might not be able to find
another job and provide for my family,the life that I provided for them.
(06:17):
And the other side was if I quit thisjob, I'm going to be known as a failure.
And I had grown to a breakingpoint for myself because.
I was beyond mental capacity.
I call it mental chaos iswhat I was going through.
I was completely dancing withthe abyss on a daily basis.
Every, at the end, before Iasked for help, I was nonstop.
(06:41):
Anytime I was awake, if I wasn't engagedin an operational process, the only thing
I could think of is how I would end it.
And that was it.
It was just the place I got to.
And it was because.
There was no light for me.
There was no goodness happeningbecause your brain plays tricks
on you when you're sleep deprived.
It's proven and six months straight,which is what a lot of people go through.
(07:05):
They work and work and work,surrounded by negativity.
That's what happens.
Just got lucky.
Came home, I was checked out becauseof an incident that I would typically
on in today's world, not even,it wouldn't even faze me, I would
handle it completely differently.
However, I was beyond my mentalcapacity and I was mentally
(07:27):
fatigued and sleep deprived.
I'm not, I didn't drink alcohol,none of the issues like that.
It was just mentally in a badspot and it took six months and
I got lucky because that day.
After I had made, I committed to endingmy life, I was going to do it at work.
(07:48):
They don't want my wife and daughterto find me, but I was grateful that
morning that she ran out and she calledme Papa because it's her way of saying
she loves me and she asked me to stayhome that day with her, spend time
with her, and it was her way of sayingshe loved me, which was the biggest
dose of love and just something thatmy heart and mind needed at the time.
(08:12):
And then I had a peer groupmeeting later on that day.
It was ran by my best friend, Josh Rizzo.
Peer advocacy is huge.
And I definitely recommend it to anybody,just someone to talk to, because you have
the opportunity to open up to others.
But I had a call and a good friend ofmine on there had just lost his best
friend to COVID and that was my claritymoment seeing his name, John Stevens,
(08:36):
he's going through some serious pain.
He lost.
It's my clarity moment.
I was grateful.
My friend picked his phone up when Icall and say, Hey, bud, I need help, man.
And it was the biggestrelief in the world.
I was so wrong on all, everything I wasthinking about at the time, which was
I asked for help, or I told somebodyI needed help or the weakness side of
(08:57):
it, whatever I would lose everything.
And I was wrong.
I was actually embraced by manyand I'm six, six months later,
I'm going to work for one of thebest organizations in the world.
Justin, that's amazing thatyou shared your story with us.
You've been through a lot.
As you begin to speak out about someof the mental health pressures facing
(09:17):
your fellow construction workers,are you getting blowback that, hey,
you're going to ruin it for us, we'renot going to be able to make money?
Or are they proud of you for speaking out?
People are very proud aboutit, but also, they embrace me.
I have two peer groups I runevery month, Vets and Safety,
and S4S, which is PsychologicalSafety for Safety Professionals.
(09:38):
But it's funny, half the people on all ofour calls are not safety professionals.
They are industry professionalsand I probably had one of the
best calls I've ever had Friday.
I had 12 people on it.
It was everyone frompeople across the nation.
So they're embracing it.
It's something that At first, I was afraidof, to be honest, I was afraid Hey, I'm
(10:01):
going to tell somebody about all thisand what are they going to think of me?
But my phone's ringing off the hook forpeople to ask me to come, say the same
thing to their organization because theydon't want to have someone they lose.
And they know it's real.
They know leadership burnout's real.
They know the stigma is realand it's not an easy topic.
(10:22):
So any way to break the ice sopeople are at least talking about it.
That's a good start to the journey.
You talked a little bit aboutthe industry in general.
Can you talk about how the industry, I'mtalking about holistically, all Milwaukee,
everybody that's involved in construction,are they embracing this idea?
Are they aware and helping peopleget the help that they need?
(10:42):
I don't know that everyone's embracing it.
There's a lot that is becausethey see the statistics.
Unfortunately, the construction industryand I've been in it since the mid 90s.
Is a very reactive in industry.
And to be honest, it's because we'regetting information given to us.
It's sometimes three and four years old.
(11:04):
So we're reacting to informationand statistics given to us
from the past couple of years.
So the numbers are staggering.
49, 499 souls in the United Stateswere lost to suicide in 2022.
79 percent are men.
Of that statistic.
(11:26):
There's numbers from 6, 000 to 7,000 that are lost to suicide in
the construction industry alone.
Here's the biggest number that most peopledon't talk about, and that is over 17, 000
lives are lost to opiate overdosesubstance use disorder in the
construction industry alone.
(11:47):
And 22 as well.
So that's 23, 000 people inthe construction industry are
lost to either substance usedisorder or death by suicide.
When you see those comparedto what we've been focusing on
for as long as I've been in theindustry, that's the OSHA fatal for.
(12:09):
Lives lost to injury and illnessesin the construction industry,
which is at an annual averageof a little over a thousand.
Those numbers ring bells forsome organizational presence,
owners and professionals.
And I'm seeing the, it's the greatestthing ever really, to be honest,
is I'm starting to see a change.
I'm seeing people embrace theinformation and trying to do something
(12:33):
about it because they understand thatthere's a human side of construction.
Justin, you are exactly whatthe Smarticle podcast is about.
A problem that nobody reallyknows that's below the surface.
You speak out, NBC News picks it up.
And now we get to talk about somethingthat most people don't know about.
If someone knows a constructionworker, that's having an issue or
(12:55):
is a construction worker, where'sthe place they should go to,
to find help and reach out to.
So there's a couple of places and I'mglad you asked first and foremost.
The best thing to do is before youhave a crisis moment, try to learn
more about proactive measures,which I talk about it a lot.
And that's self care.
(13:17):
I do some type of physicalfitness every day.
1 hour I journal every day.
I know it's not the most guy thingto do in the world, but it makes me
feel I've self advocate for myself.
Thanks.
And I'm doing good.
You need to hear something good.
Every once in a while.
I set really healthy boundaries,my work life balance.
It's non negotiable.
I've set the, set thoseboundaries with my boss.
(13:39):
And they totally acceptit, because I'm a dad too.
And then the other sideis I have my peer group.
So there's proactive measures to learnabout before you get in crisis mode that
I like to push because it's really easyjust to say, Hey man, call the 988 number.
But that doesn't always workeverywhere in the United States.
Some areas of the countryhave not funded that enough.
(14:01):
So you may not get someoneon the phone immediately.
For It may be a day and there's groupsout there called U turn recovery
ways, which is also on the West CoastU turns in the East Coast, Boston.
A lot of construction companies use them.
They're both probably the best andthey're better than a regular EAP system.
(14:22):
But if you have an EAP where you do work.
I challenge everybodyto start utilizing it.
What is the EAP, Justin?
Employee Assistance Program.
It's free through their insurance.
Most companies that they have it,start using it before you need it.
Cause I'll tell you, it's aggravating.
I tried to use that when I was goingthrough mine, I went to try to use it.
(14:43):
It was during COVID.
They wanted me to sign up foran app, go through this process.
It was.
Hours long and the process whenI was feeling that way, I just
wanted to talk to somebody.
It's a process and I think once peoplestart to learn about it and figure out
how to use it before they're in crisismode, they see how much easier it is.
(15:05):
And then the other side is
there's no tie back to their HR group.
So they're already using it.
It's not like a red flag.
Hey, this person's using this.
What's going on?
They've been using it and there'smultiple different ways to do it.
If you really need help, man, and there'snowhere else to go, 988 is a good start.
Or if you're a veteran,there's a crisis line as well.
(15:27):
It's just very reactive.
Yeah, I know it's not a perfect world.
That's a good place to go.
And the other place is peergroups, starting a peer group.
It doesn't have to be gigantic.
I have a personal peergroup of three people.
We meet once a week.
No matter what, still are on the calland it just, Hey man, how are you doing?
(15:48):
What challenge are you having?
Like a lot of timeswe'll create questions.
The challenge ourself to bringsomething to the table last week's was
in the past 10 years, what's a lifelong lesson learned that you've had.
You would tell yourself if youhad the opportunity to see it,
to go through something, likeit makes you think about things.
Justin, thank you for coming onand sharing your story with us.
(16:10):
Thank you for bringing hope toa area that has not necessarily
had their light shined on.
I'm hoping that today's journal entrywas, I went on this great podcast
called Smarticle, made a couple ofnew best friends, Brandon and Larry.
I think that's whattoday's post is, right?
It'll be tomorrow for sure.
I start my day with gratitude everyday, man, as much as possible.
(16:33):
We are very grateful foryou coming on, Justin.
I hope anybody listening recognizes thefact that you don't have to be weak to
be strong and sense of to be emotional.
So thank you so much for that.
Thanks, Justin.
Thank you guys for having me.
God bless.
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