January 11, 2024 • 31 mins
In this episode, Rob and I talk about the personal challenges - physical and mental - we went through. We also discuss what we did to address these challenges, and how we would approach issues going forward. Listen in to hear if we discuss something similar you are facing currently, or might have faced in the past.
www.mentalwealthpod.com
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DISCLAIMER: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not constitute legal, medical, or other forms of professional advice. The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment purposes only. The "Mental Wealth Podcast" and "Pedal My Way" names and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
www.mentalwealthpod.com
www.pedalmyway.com
DISCLAIMER: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not constitute legal, medical, or other forms of professional advice. The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment purposes only. The "Mental Wealth Podcast" and "Pedal My Way" names and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to pedle my Way podcast, where we
talk about anything related to cycling and fitness. I'm your
host mc murrali. If you're a fan of the show,
please remember to subscribe to this podcast and follow the
website Pedlemanway dot com. Also follow at pedal my Way
on Instagram to let me know of your cycling and
(00:25):
fitness goals.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey McCann, how are you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hi, Rob, I'm doing well, good evening.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
How are you good evening, sir? Yeah, doing okay, doing okay. Nice.
I was just thinking about last week's podcast, where we
talked a little bit about communicating with people that are
going through something difficult and how best to sort of
approach that problem and how best to help someone when
(00:51):
they're going through something difficult. And I'm wondering today whether
we should talk about our own personal challenges that we've
faced and continue to face at some circumstances, and what
we can do and what we've done to sort of
get through those things. I know that speaking personally about
those issues might be able to help some people. And yeah,
(01:14):
I thought we continue that theme and sort of delve
a little bit deeper into sort of the individual challenges
that you and I have faced and what we've done
to get to our current state of being. How do
you think about that? Sure?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I think that's a good idea of In the past
few weeks we talked about what was it the financial stress,
anxiety or stress about the uncertainty or about the future.
Last week you talked about your community's slash social outreach,
how you reach out to your friends if you suspect
(01:46):
of he or she having an issue, And now I
think it's kind of collect all try to see how
we can address issues that we are going through, whatever
it might be. I like this idea we can share
what we went through rather how we handle a particular
situation and kind of take it from there.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, that sounds good. When we were talking last week,
I had this idea in my mind of trying to
connect with someone on their problems really comes down to
your own experience with certain issues and the things that
have helped you and whether whether you can help them
or not. Also relate to in our lives are collective experiences, right.
Things that we've talked about, like you said, we've talked
(02:27):
about job losses, We've talked about different things that happened
in our relationships that can everyone can sort of connect
to and sort of understand. And yeah, I think let's
talk more today about what we've been going through in
our lives and try to sort of summarize some of
(02:47):
the lessons we've learned and explain a little bit more
about why we want to sort of use that knowledge
and that information to help people, and how that works
and what inspires us to do these things as individuals.
I know, for me, if we're going to get into it,
(03:07):
the first thing that came to my mind when we
were talking last week about people helping people overcome their
own challenges is that I was when I was born.
I was born with a condition called spina bifida, and
I know part of my something that identify I identify
with closely is the community of people that have disabilities
(03:31):
and people that have medical or health issues and you
know they've that day to day experience of people with
disability is something that I can connect with strongly because
although my spina bifida there are very for people that
don't know, spider buffitera is Latin for I think that
(03:54):
is a Latin phrase, but it basically I was born
with a whole in my spine and that effect central
nervous system, and it impacts all lots of different facets
of my life. But the part of the major impact
it has is that I don't have great sensitivity in
my lower part of my body and particularly my feet.
(04:18):
I don't really feel my feet very well. So part
of the challenge of that, of course, is that being
a guy that was born in Manchester in the UK,
I was obsessed with soccer from a young age. And
by the way, now that I say soccer, people in
the UK that listening to this obviously I mean football,
(04:39):
because they will be very upset if they hear me
calling soccer. I'm doing that for the American audience and
for you because.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
You might I haven't. I haven't Asian heritage, so I
know what you mean by football and soccer, but we
have to.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
We have to have like a cross national audience, right,
so I'm trying I'll do that translation for everybody. I mean,
I mean the game that we play with our feet,
So I was obsessed with that from a young age
and so not being able to feel my feet very
well put me out at disadvantage. But for me, part
of the I guess not really the challenge. But part
of the fun of overcoming something is you do the thing,
(05:20):
you play soccer, and then people find out later that
you can't. You don't have the same experience they do.
When people find out that I have this medical condition
I can't feel my feet, they're usually pretty amazed because
although I'm not a great soccer player, like I've never
I've never played even close to the amateur level. Now
on my professional level, I like just kicking the ball round.
(05:40):
The idea of belonging to a group of people that
can were born without these difficulties, We've b without these challenges,
and I'm trying trying to sort of not compete, but
try to sort of play on that level is something
that has always sort of motivated me as someone that
identifies as having a disability such as it is. You know,
(06:03):
it's something that I know a great number of people,
millions of people across North America, billions of people around
the world are born with disabilities, that are born with challenges,
health challenges, medical challenges, however you want to phrase that.
And the idea I think for me was always how
(06:23):
can I as a young like a young kid. It
took me a long time to realize that although I
wasn't able to do things as well as people that could,
you know, feel their feet normally and people that had
were born with an intact body, it took me a
long time to think of that as an opportunity for
(06:44):
provement for myself and to sort of be proud of
the achievements that I've made given my circumstances. I think
that's some pride is something that is a lot of
people that are able bodied, in people that have a disability,
pride is an essential component of that sort of growth.
For me, it was at least it took me a
long time to have pride in my ability to overcome things.
(07:06):
And then once you instill that understanding, once you have
that achievement, you know, you play a soccer game with
able bodied kids. At whatever age I was six, seven,
eight years old, I was sort of running around and
attempted to kick a ball with everybody else. Once you
see that you're able to do that, and you know,
you might do it a little differently than everyone else,
and you might have different understanding and different abilities based
(07:29):
on your circumstances, but you can sort of have your
own sense of self and pride and identity unique to
you obviously, and unique to your body and your mind.
I don't know whether you have any questions about this
or comment Boker.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, so I mean thanks for sharing, Rob, I didn't
know about the difficulty.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
You had growing up.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Actually, so you overcoming this, what was your turning point
or rather what made you have a conscious effort to
you turn the situation around? Can you share?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Sure? I don't know whether there's like one moment that
I can pinpoint, but for me it's certainly six seven,
eight years old. It was very difficult, Like I had
lots of different surgeries and lots of different hospital things,
and so you know you are obviously that affects a
lot of different things. If that affects schooling, you're behind
(08:27):
at school. You're already different from the other kids. I
know a lot of people can sort of associate or
make a connection there. You know, you feel different like
you're a young kid. You don't young kids, especially young
boys men. We don't want to feel different than our friends.
We want to be in a group. We want to
belong and I'm sure women will identify with that too.
(08:50):
As a person, you just want to belong with a group.
We are social beings, and we are we want to
feel like we are just like everybody else and we
can be part of something bigger than ourselves. Even from
a young age, I wasn't a I didn't have that
option or opportunity from a young age because I kept
(09:10):
you know, I was having surgeries, I was out of school.
You know, then you're recovering. You know, you may be
doing homework at home or in the hospital or whatever,
and trying to sort of it felt like I was
constantly trying to catch up with everybody else. So that
that was the big the big turning point. To get
back to the original question, when I start rambling big
the big turning point, I would I would put it
(09:32):
as sort of a mental turning point, realizing that not
only was like when I was, Like I said, when
I was a young kid, I feel like I felt
really sorry for myself. I felt like life is unfair?
Why why me? You know what, what did I do
to deserve this right? And this is true. I think
(09:53):
of a lot of traumatic events, that's the first instinct
a lot of people have is why me? Why did I?
I should state I'm not a mental health professional. I
don't have that knowledge, that experience of helping people professionally
through this, but knowing myself having gone through through something
like this, I felt like for me it was the
(10:15):
first instinct of why me, what's going on? Why did
I what? This is not fair? I did. I'm a
good person, I try, I do my best, or a
good kid. At that point, I'm you know, I'm nice
to people. I don't deserve this. The turning point for
me is realizing I think I was probably ten or eleven,
(10:36):
and I was cognizant of it. May have been when
I was playing during a game. I think it was.
I might have been playing soccer or running I forget,
but it was I was cognizant of the idea that
I am so lucky to be able to do that.
I am so lucky in that moment to be running
(10:58):
around just enjoying that game, enjoying the fresh air with
my friends. It doesn't matter whether to anybody other than me,
whether I think I'm different than you, or nobody else
is thinking of me as any different than them. The
(11:18):
sense I had of unfairness was all within me and
within the idea of yes, of course, objectively, it's not
fair that someone is born with a disability and someone isn't.
But this is the circumstances that you have, and you
have to enjoy being in different moments. You have to
enjoy the experience rather than staying in your head. I
(11:39):
didn't have these words to put to it when I
was a kid, but this is how I think of
it now. There was a turning point for me where
I just started thinking of enjoying the experience rather than
rather than sort of denying my progress that I'd made,
(12:01):
or deny like like thinking of it as I should
be doing better, looking looking at the progress I'd already
made from from when I was younger, and sort of
sort of going enjoy this progress, enjoy this experience. And
once I was able to do that, I think certainly
(12:21):
my mental health improved as a kid, you know, but
my I think even my physical abilities when I was
playing soccer and doing different sports, I think my ability
to do those sports improved by freeing myself from getting
frustrated that I wasn't able to do the things that
that physically able people were able to do. There are, obviously,
(12:45):
there are laws of nature and physics that you know,
we can't all be Usain Bolt. We can't all be
Michael Jordan. We can't all be Leon Lionel Messy. You know,
there are these these This is not a restriction, like, yes,
you can't be that person, but that is not that
does not restrict you from being you. You can sort
(13:07):
of do something with your own abilities, and you can
be proud of your own ability to do things to
a certain level. It might not be to the level
of the ultimate elite athletes in the world. And you know,
you can be angry at the world, but it makes
no difference to the world whether you're angry at it.
You can. You just have to sort of enjoy that experience,
(13:28):
and I was able to sort of grow from that
as a kid.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I think that's a very interesting take on it job
in terms of coming out of an adversity or rather,
you know, dealing with an adversity and seeing the positive
in it. Having gone through this at a young age,
I'm sure this is part of your life now right,
which you are obviously living with.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, spinal effort is a sort of a lifelong thing.
It doesn't really like it's a it's a day to
day thing. It affects all parts of your of your body,
your anatomy, your bowels and bladder and things like that.
But it's let's put it this way. I used to
think of it as a barrier, but I don't anymore.
I sort of think of it as like I was
quite I'm quite fortunate in the sense that my mind
(14:06):
was able to catch up with my experience in my body.
It was sort of like a I think I'm better
able to help people having gone through those experiences.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And have you had the chance to meet similar or
other people in a similar situation.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Part of my experience in going through having spine a buffer,
having this sort of condition, I realized that I was
able to sort of help others, perhaps in a way
that someone who doesn't have this condition wouldn't be able
to help others. I realized that not that it was
a responsibility, but I felt like maybe it was something
(14:44):
that I had to do for myself more than anyone else.
I had to sort of prove to myself that I
was able to sort of you know, like I said,
I was playing sports with people that were able bodied.
I was sort of doing different things that you would
normally associate with someone that had no disabilities or different
(15:04):
weren't differently abled. So part of my recent growth in
that area was attending a running group we It was
started by a lady who lives locally to me, and
I thought it was a really interesting idea. She had
a has a son in a wheelchair, and she found
(15:28):
that her son, when they would go running together, she
would push her son. And we live pretty close to
the water, so there's a great little running path by
the water, and you get the breeze there, and she
found that her son really enjoyed that, and so she
started a running group for people that would be able
to run with people in wheelchairs, so runners and then
pushing people in a wheelchair that were normally not able
(15:51):
to sort of experience running and just sort of like
have that combined group experience. And I thought that was
a cool idea. So I joined this group probably the
first time in twenty seventeen, I think, and before COVID
we were doing it every Friday night. We would go
out right after work. We would go up by the water,
and it just sort of more than anything more than
(16:14):
the physical health benefits of running and you know, the
exertion of it, you get to sort of develop a
sense of understanding about how things are for other people
that you wouldn't necessarily have if you were just sort
of running for yourself or you you know, you saw
people running, you sort of get a sense of like
people that don't have that ability to run, and you
(16:37):
get to sort of cherish the experience of being with
people that are just like people that were having the
time of their lives, like they were like they were
enjoying the experience of like the wind in their hair,
the breeze of going by the water, and just sort
of you know what. We would talk as we were
(16:58):
we were running, and you know, we would of develop
connections with the people that we were running with. So
it was sort of like a friendship group that became
sort of a social outing with an exercise component to it.
And I really felt that that when I was doing that,
it's sort of allowed me to develop a deeper understanding
(17:20):
of my own ability and my sense of control basically
more than anything else, over my body and what I
can do and what I can't do. We have to
sort of be realistic about what we can't do, but
what we can do is improve the experience of others,
even despite your own deficits. Whatever they might be, and
so that that was an important lesson for me and
(17:40):
something that I learned. I think I've probably rambled a
lot about my own experiences in this area, mccan. What
can you share in terms of something that you've been
through that you've sort of had to overcome and developed
an understanding that you didn't have before.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Sure, I've actually yours is not a ramble it to
us much more or thank you for sharing your personal
experience and the way you overcome that is something that
I think even I can learn from. But to answer
your question as to what obstacles I overcame on a
philosophical scale, the purpose in life. So they started like
(18:18):
a few years ago. Honestly, the thoughts gradually started seeping
in as to what is this that we're trying to do.
It's a kind of rhetorical question because there's no real
answer to it because nobody knows the answer. It's more
of the experience you get out of it. Each of
us go through it at different phases in life. In
terms of what is it that we're doing here? It
(18:39):
was more on a larger philosophical scale, like I mentioned,
just because there's no tangible things I can do to
control it, like kind of a rat race right at
the end of the day, everyone goes through it. I
think I found comfort in knowing that I'm not alone
in this, but the question remained that what is it
(19:00):
that we're trying to do as as humans? I started
reading books, started talking to people, kind of went into
a period of deep thought and you know, self reflection
as to what I needed to do. So I think
even now it's not like a clear answer, but something
that made sense to me is to make life out
(19:20):
of the small things. Life does not have to be
something big. It does not have to have one single
big end goal. I think it's rather the journey than
the destination, is what I kind of took away from it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Did you You know there's always that that saying of
like the it's the moments that matter rather exactly the
overarching things that you're doing, the big objective, it's not
that important compared to the memories you make along the way.
Is it something that was there a moment that occurred
to you that that that that thought occurred to you.
(19:58):
Was there's a standout thought that happened all of a sudden.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
It's it's not something that happened that changed my thinking.
It's rather me trying to make sense of it. Giving example,
so if you're making a trip a road trip from
I don't know, from New York City to going west
to Chicago, for example, we always plan for when you
reach Chicago as the end goal, and then you plan
(20:23):
trips around there. I started thinking about the trip itself,
looking at attractions, looking at national parks along the way,
some monuments along the way. So I made it more
of the journey. So I usually plan my trips like that,
which I think that the same approach I'm taking to
life as well. Ultimately we are there's a limited time
(20:46):
for each each of us have here. The only thing
that a certain man you're born is we're going to die.
So why not make the time we have memorable for
me and for my family and make as much experience
as possible because there's nothing you can you're going to
take with you except your memories when you're dying there
and you're last taking your last breath. I know this
(21:08):
might be moros and kind of depressing thought, but that
is reality. I hope my end is quick, but if not,
if it drags on, at least I can spend my
time with my memories. This is what I actually went
through in terms of the meaning of life and what
I'm doing here as a purpose, and what I took
away from it is enjoy the journey rather than the destination.
(21:29):
I'm not here to, you know, to find the next big,
big breakthrough. I know my limitations, which again goes back
to what we talked about right a couple of episodes
ago in terms of identity and stuff like that. Who
I am not is I'm not a revolutionary in any sense.
I am in my own corner of the world trying
to do what I can.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
You might be revolutionary in the sense that you're probably
the only person online right now who doesn't think they're revolutionary.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Well, I mean so that has been my kind of
mental state the past couple of years, which actually kind
of led me to start this series of conversations with you. Actually,
initially we started talking about mental health because a lot
of people in reality do go through this in terms
of finding their space in the world. As humans, we
(22:19):
need something to do for us to keep going. That's
why I think rid somewhere that it's a dangerous state
to be in once you retire because you lose that purpose.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Why are you getting up at the morning. What is
the next thing you're gonna do? Yeah, one hundred percent.
I've read studies where people just sort of their mental
health takes a big dive once they hit sixty five
and they you know, they clock out for the last time,
and they say, what do I do tomorrow? What does
tomorrow look like? Maybe? Right, maybe figuring out what tomorrow
looks like should be done at you know, thirty five,
(22:51):
forty forty five rather than like sixty five. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Right. So I don't plan to retire in the traditional
sense where I'm working today and tomorrow's my last day
at work and then I go to a beach house
somewhere and then vegetate for the rest of my life.
So I'll have to keep getting myself engaged with projects, anything,
and again, going back, this is what That's the reason
I started this series of podcasts episodes concentrating on the
(23:21):
mental health aspect, especially for men. Maybe that is something
I can leave behind. Maybe somebody can find this useful.
And I'm not the only one going through this. And again,
we don't as guys, we don't talk about this much.
It's okay, to wonder what your purpose is in life.
Est the end of the day, just enjoy the journey,
(23:42):
make little memories as you keep going.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I think what we talked about the last two episodes,
it's okay to sort of both ask your friends how
they're doing and also exactly speak to your friends and
your family and say, look, I'm not doing great and
this is what's going on. It's often difficult to find
those sort of to put out put to your feelings.
But the more you do it, I think the better
(24:05):
we become communicating these challenges. I think that's one of
the keys to me if we want to summarize the
things that I've learned through that process of you know,
having a medical condition and sort of developing my understanding
of it and then sort of developing my reaction to
it and my response to it, building my personality to
(24:27):
sort of meet those challenges, is that there are tons
of people that are all around you that want to
help you. There are just tons of people, strangers, friends, whatever,
it's what happens is I think a lot of the
time is certainly as men is, we sort of get
this feeling of like I'll take care of it myself.
(24:49):
I'll try to do this myself. And then what that
teaches you, I think is that it says nobody else
can help you with this particular problem. So you try
to do it all alone. You think nobody will understand
what I'm going through. There's nobody else that can, you know,
we sort of it's a bit arrogant to think that
we're unique, and that you know that there's eight eight
(25:13):
billion people on the planet. You know, everyone's going through
something and a lot of people are going through a
similar thing to you. And so one of the things
I learned is that we just have to sort of
find the people that are going through the similar things.
Find your group, find people that understand and make that connection,
and just sort of open yourself to the possibility that
(25:34):
maybe other people know more than you, and also opening
yourself to the idea that you might know more than
the other person you're speaking to, and be open to
sort of expressing yourself a little bit more. Yes, So
that's basically what I learned and why I like to
talk about what I'm going through, because I think it's
important to do those things.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And to add on to your kind of capture all
it's also important to know that it's okay to make mistakes,
but it's important to realize that it's just a mistake
and life goes on. You can pick yourself up and
plant the next stage. And I think physical activity goes
a long way in calming the mind down as well.
(26:15):
It doesn't matter what you do. It can be a
heavy workout for like twenty minutes or like a pleasant
walk for like ten minutes in your park. Both have
equal mind calming benefits. I continue to do that that
I really do find my mind at ease after I
do a workout, and I'm sure even for you, even
if you go for a say game of soccer or
even run, that puts in a better mood when you
(26:37):
come back.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I would just add to what you were saying. I
would also recommend if you're struggling to get outside and
you don't, you know, have the motivation to do it,
get a dog. Immediately. Get a dog, and you will
be going outside all the time, and you'll be meeting
people all the time because everybody wants to see the dog,
touch the dog, play with the dog, and the dog
(26:59):
will also push you to interact with anybody else that
has a dog. So if you're someone like me who
doesn't often interact with strangers when you're walking around, if
you can take the response extra responsibility, get a dog,
and yes, it'll it may change your the way, first
of all, the way you see the world, because you
will see the world at six thirty in the morning,
(27:22):
when you know, it's pitch black in the northeast where
we are, and it's you know, minus five celsius, so
it's freezing. But the dog is the happiest he will
ever be. He doesn't care about literally anything but being
outside and enjoying himself. And yeah, so that I'm sort
(27:44):
of being a bit tongue in cheek about it, but
definitely get a dog if you're one of those people
who has the resources to do that and the can
handle the responsibility of having an animals.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Actually, you do bring up a good point. You do
need a break between professional and personal life, especially today,
even with the hybrid working mode, we tend to work longer.
I think we covered it in one of the previous
episodes as well. It's important that we proactively take time
away for ourselves. Yeah, that'll, that will result in a
(28:19):
lot of good things. Though.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, it's very it's very difficult. I understand when we
have work responsibilities to sort of turn off our phone
and close our computer and just sort of shut down
it is. I understand that as someone that enjoys work
and is just sort of motivated by success at work.
I get that a lot of people are motivated by that,
you know, good job from their bus or whatever, and
(28:42):
you know, you want to get the project done. But
it's it's not healthy in the long term to just
be focused on work and flashing screens and you know,
worrying about the next deadline. You know, I speak from
experience where you just you get too focused on you
get too focused on worrying about the results of a project,
(29:03):
worrying about the results of work, that it might even
impact the quality of the work that you do because
you're not you're focused on the negative reaction that hasn't
happened yet that often happens to me. Where you're focused
on you know, if I don't get this thing done
at this time, this person's going to be upset. Well, yeah,
you can't control whether people can upset, you know whatever,
So you just got to really focus on yourself. As
(29:26):
probably the message that I would say to that is
if work has to be done, that's fine, but make
sure that you are you are dedicating a certain amount
of time in your day to you rather than just
all responsibility.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
This conversation has kind of covered what we try to
cover individually the past few weeks. Future an jective with
the future not knowing what to do, it's not realistic
to plan for all the unknowns and how to mitigate
the risk personally, Yes, in terms of enjoying the journey
rather than the destination. For me at least, I think
(30:01):
this is a good time to kind of break for
this episode and then we can pick it up next week.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
What do you think That sounds good? That sounds good.
I've really enjoyed this chat. I think it's a good
conversation to have, and I'm hopeful that quite a few
people would have benefited from the various topics have TOLP
we discussed today because I think there's these are important things,
and you know, I often don't have the vocabulary to
really demonstrate what I'm trying to say, but I think
these are important messages which we're trying to get across,
(30:26):
and hopefully the audience benefited from from from these messages.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yes, definitely, and for anybody who's listening, you can reach
out to us at at paddle my Way on Instagram
and also the website podcast dot battlemway dot com. So Rob,
once again, was great talking to you. Till next time.
You have a nice weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
You two my friend, great talking to McCain. Thanks again,
Thank you Rob, byebye
Hello, and welcome to pedle my Way podcast, where we
talk about anything related to cycling and fitness. I'm your
host mc murrali. If you're a fan of the show,
please remember to subscribe to this podcast and follow the
website Pedlemanway dot com. Also follow at pedal my Way
on Instagram to let me know of your cycling and
(00:25):
fitness goals.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey McCann, how are you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hi, Rob, I'm doing well, good evening.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
How are you good evening, sir? Yeah, doing okay, doing okay. Nice.
I was just thinking about last week's podcast, where we
talked a little bit about communicating with people that are
going through something difficult and how best to sort of
approach that problem and how best to help someone when
(00:51):
they're going through something difficult. And I'm wondering today whether
we should talk about our own personal challenges that we've
faced and continue to face at some circumstances, and what
we can do and what we've done to sort of
get through those things. I know that speaking personally about
those issues might be able to help some people. And yeah,
(01:14):
I thought we continue that theme and sort of delve
a little bit deeper into sort of the individual challenges
that you and I have faced and what we've done
to get to our current state of being. How do
you think about that? Sure?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I think that's a good idea of In the past
few weeks we talked about what was it the financial stress,
anxiety or stress about the uncertainty or about the future.
Last week you talked about your community's slash social outreach,
how you reach out to your friends if you suspect
(01:46):
of he or she having an issue, And now I
think it's kind of collect all try to see how
we can address issues that we are going through, whatever
it might be. I like this idea we can share
what we went through rather how we handle a particular
situation and kind of take it from there.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, that sounds good. When we were talking last week,
I had this idea in my mind of trying to
connect with someone on their problems really comes down to
your own experience with certain issues and the things that
have helped you and whether whether you can help them
or not. Also relate to in our lives are collective experiences, right.
Things that we've talked about, like you said, we've talked
(02:27):
about job losses, We've talked about different things that happened
in our relationships that can everyone can sort of connect
to and sort of understand. And yeah, I think let's
talk more today about what we've been going through in
our lives and try to sort of summarize some of
(02:47):
the lessons we've learned and explain a little bit more
about why we want to sort of use that knowledge
and that information to help people, and how that works
and what inspires us to do these things as individuals.
I know, for me, if we're going to get into it,
(03:07):
the first thing that came to my mind when we
were talking last week about people helping people overcome their
own challenges is that I was when I was born.
I was born with a condition called spina bifida, and
I know part of my something that identify I identify
with closely is the community of people that have disabilities
(03:31):
and people that have medical or health issues and you
know they've that day to day experience of people with
disability is something that I can connect with strongly because
although my spina bifida there are very for people that
don't know, spider buffitera is Latin for I think that
(03:54):
is a Latin phrase, but it basically I was born
with a whole in my spine and that effect central
nervous system, and it impacts all lots of different facets
of my life. But the part of the major impact
it has is that I don't have great sensitivity in
my lower part of my body and particularly my feet.
(04:18):
I don't really feel my feet very well. So part
of the challenge of that, of course, is that being
a guy that was born in Manchester in the UK,
I was obsessed with soccer from a young age. And
by the way, now that I say soccer, people in
the UK that listening to this obviously I mean football,
(04:39):
because they will be very upset if they hear me
calling soccer. I'm doing that for the American audience and
for you because.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
You might I haven't. I haven't Asian heritage, so I
know what you mean by football and soccer, but we
have to.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
We have to have like a cross national audience, right,
so I'm trying I'll do that translation for everybody. I mean,
I mean the game that we play with our feet,
So I was obsessed with that from a young age
and so not being able to feel my feet very
well put me out at disadvantage. But for me, part
of the I guess not really the challenge. But part
of the fun of overcoming something is you do the thing,
(05:20):
you play soccer, and then people find out later that
you can't. You don't have the same experience they do.
When people find out that I have this medical condition
I can't feel my feet, they're usually pretty amazed because
although I'm not a great soccer player, like I've never
I've never played even close to the amateur level. Now
on my professional level, I like just kicking the ball round.
(05:40):
The idea of belonging to a group of people that
can were born without these difficulties, We've b without these challenges,
and I'm trying trying to sort of not compete, but
try to sort of play on that level is something
that has always sort of motivated me as someone that
identifies as having a disability such as it is. You know,
(06:03):
it's something that I know a great number of people,
millions of people across North America, billions of people around
the world are born with disabilities, that are born with challenges,
health challenges, medical challenges, however you want to phrase that.
And the idea I think for me was always how
(06:23):
can I as a young like a young kid. It
took me a long time to realize that although I
wasn't able to do things as well as people that could,
you know, feel their feet normally and people that had
were born with an intact body, it took me a
long time to think of that as an opportunity for
(06:44):
provement for myself and to sort of be proud of
the achievements that I've made given my circumstances. I think
that's some pride is something that is a lot of
people that are able bodied, in people that have a disability,
pride is an essential component of that sort of growth.
For me, it was at least it took me a
long time to have pride in my ability to overcome things.
(07:06):
And then once you instill that understanding, once you have
that achievement, you know, you play a soccer game with
able bodied kids. At whatever age I was six, seven,
eight years old, I was sort of running around and
attempted to kick a ball with everybody else. Once you
see that you're able to do that, and you know,
you might do it a little differently than everyone else,
and you might have different understanding and different abilities based
(07:29):
on your circumstances, but you can sort of have your
own sense of self and pride and identity unique to
you obviously, and unique to your body and your mind.
I don't know whether you have any questions about this
or comment Boker.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, so I mean thanks for sharing, Rob, I didn't
know about the difficulty.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
You had growing up.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Actually, so you overcoming this, what was your turning point
or rather what made you have a conscious effort to
you turn the situation around? Can you share?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Sure? I don't know whether there's like one moment that
I can pinpoint, but for me it's certainly six seven,
eight years old. It was very difficult, Like I had
lots of different surgeries and lots of different hospital things,
and so you know you are obviously that affects a
lot of different things. If that affects schooling, you're behind
(08:27):
at school. You're already different from the other kids. I
know a lot of people can sort of associate or
make a connection there. You know, you feel different like
you're a young kid. You don't young kids, especially young
boys men. We don't want to feel different than our friends.
We want to be in a group. We want to
belong and I'm sure women will identify with that too.
(08:50):
As a person, you just want to belong with a group.
We are social beings, and we are we want to
feel like we are just like everybody else and we
can be part of something bigger than ourselves. Even from
a young age, I wasn't a I didn't have that
option or opportunity from a young age because I kept
(09:10):
you know, I was having surgeries, I was out of school.
You know, then you're recovering. You know, you may be
doing homework at home or in the hospital or whatever,
and trying to sort of it felt like I was
constantly trying to catch up with everybody else. So that
that was the big the big turning point. To get
back to the original question, when I start rambling big
the big turning point, I would I would put it
(09:32):
as sort of a mental turning point, realizing that not
only was like when I was, Like I said, when
I was a young kid, I feel like I felt
really sorry for myself. I felt like life is unfair?
Why why me? You know what, what did I do
to deserve this right? And this is true. I think
(09:53):
of a lot of traumatic events, that's the first instinct
a lot of people have is why me? Why did I?
I should state I'm not a mental health professional. I
don't have that knowledge, that experience of helping people professionally
through this, but knowing myself having gone through through something
like this, I felt like for me it was the
(10:15):
first instinct of why me, what's going on? Why did
I what? This is not fair? I did. I'm a
good person, I try, I do my best, or a
good kid. At that point, I'm you know, I'm nice
to people. I don't deserve this. The turning point for
me is realizing I think I was probably ten or eleven,
(10:36):
and I was cognizant of it. May have been when
I was playing during a game. I think it was.
I might have been playing soccer or running I forget,
but it was I was cognizant of the idea that
I am so lucky to be able to do that.
I am so lucky in that moment to be running
(10:58):
around just enjoying that game, enjoying the fresh air with
my friends. It doesn't matter whether to anybody other than me,
whether I think I'm different than you, or nobody else
is thinking of me as any different than them. The
(11:18):
sense I had of unfairness was all within me and
within the idea of yes, of course, objectively, it's not
fair that someone is born with a disability and someone isn't.
But this is the circumstances that you have, and you
have to enjoy being in different moments. You have to
enjoy the experience rather than staying in your head. I
(11:39):
didn't have these words to put to it when I
was a kid, but this is how I think of
it now. There was a turning point for me where
I just started thinking of enjoying the experience rather than
rather than sort of denying my progress that I'd made,
(12:01):
or deny like like thinking of it as I should
be doing better, looking looking at the progress I'd already
made from from when I was younger, and sort of
sort of going enjoy this progress, enjoy this experience. And
once I was able to do that, I think certainly
(12:21):
my mental health improved as a kid, you know, but
my I think even my physical abilities when I was
playing soccer and doing different sports, I think my ability
to do those sports improved by freeing myself from getting
frustrated that I wasn't able to do the things that
that physically able people were able to do. There are, obviously,
(12:45):
there are laws of nature and physics that you know,
we can't all be Usain Bolt. We can't all be
Michael Jordan. We can't all be Leon Lionel Messy. You know,
there are these these This is not a restriction, like, yes,
you can't be that person, but that is not that
does not restrict you from being you. You can sort
(13:07):
of do something with your own abilities, and you can
be proud of your own ability to do things to
a certain level. It might not be to the level
of the ultimate elite athletes in the world. And you know,
you can be angry at the world, but it makes
no difference to the world whether you're angry at it.
You can. You just have to sort of enjoy that experience,
(13:28):
and I was able to sort of grow from that
as a kid.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I think that's a very interesting take on it job
in terms of coming out of an adversity or rather,
you know, dealing with an adversity and seeing the positive
in it. Having gone through this at a young age,
I'm sure this is part of your life now right,
which you are obviously living with.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, spinal effort is a sort of a lifelong thing.
It doesn't really like it's a it's a day to
day thing. It affects all parts of your of your body,
your anatomy, your bowels and bladder and things like that.
But it's let's put it this way. I used to
think of it as a barrier, but I don't anymore.
I sort of think of it as like I was
quite I'm quite fortunate in the sense that my mind
(14:06):
was able to catch up with my experience in my body.
It was sort of like a I think I'm better
able to help people having gone through those experiences.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And have you had the chance to meet similar or
other people in a similar situation.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Part of my experience in going through having spine a buffer,
having this sort of condition, I realized that I was
able to sort of help others, perhaps in a way
that someone who doesn't have this condition wouldn't be able
to help others. I realized that not that it was
a responsibility, but I felt like maybe it was something
(14:44):
that I had to do for myself more than anyone else.
I had to sort of prove to myself that I
was able to sort of you know, like I said,
I was playing sports with people that were able bodied.
I was sort of doing different things that you would
normally associate with someone that had no disabilities or different
(15:04):
weren't differently abled. So part of my recent growth in
that area was attending a running group we It was
started by a lady who lives locally to me, and
I thought it was a really interesting idea. She had
a has a son in a wheelchair, and she found
(15:28):
that her son, when they would go running together, she
would push her son. And we live pretty close to
the water, so there's a great little running path by
the water, and you get the breeze there, and she
found that her son really enjoyed that, and so she
started a running group for people that would be able
to run with people in wheelchairs, so runners and then
pushing people in a wheelchair that were normally not able
(15:51):
to sort of experience running and just sort of like
have that combined group experience. And I thought that was
a cool idea. So I joined this group probably the
first time in twenty seventeen, I think, and before COVID
we were doing it every Friday night. We would go
out right after work. We would go up by the water,
and it just sort of more than anything more than
(16:14):
the physical health benefits of running and you know, the
exertion of it, you get to sort of develop a
sense of understanding about how things are for other people
that you wouldn't necessarily have if you were just sort
of running for yourself or you you know, you saw
people running, you sort of get a sense of like
people that don't have that ability to run, and you
(16:37):
get to sort of cherish the experience of being with
people that are just like people that were having the
time of their lives, like they were like they were
enjoying the experience of like the wind in their hair,
the breeze of going by the water, and just sort
of you know what. We would talk as we were
(16:58):
we were running, and you know, we would of develop
connections with the people that we were running with. So
it was sort of like a friendship group that became
sort of a social outing with an exercise component to it.
And I really felt that that when I was doing that,
it's sort of allowed me to develop a deeper understanding
(17:20):
of my own ability and my sense of control basically
more than anything else, over my body and what I
can do and what I can't do. We have to
sort of be realistic about what we can't do, but
what we can do is improve the experience of others,
even despite your own deficits. Whatever they might be, and
so that that was an important lesson for me and
(17:40):
something that I learned. I think I've probably rambled a
lot about my own experiences in this area, mccan. What
can you share in terms of something that you've been
through that you've sort of had to overcome and developed
an understanding that you didn't have before.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Sure, I've actually yours is not a ramble it to
us much more or thank you for sharing your personal
experience and the way you overcome that is something that
I think even I can learn from. But to answer
your question as to what obstacles I overcame on a
philosophical scale, the purpose in life. So they started like
(18:18):
a few years ago. Honestly, the thoughts gradually started seeping
in as to what is this that we're trying to do.
It's a kind of rhetorical question because there's no real
answer to it because nobody knows the answer. It's more
of the experience you get out of it. Each of
us go through it at different phases in life. In
terms of what is it that we're doing here? It
(18:39):
was more on a larger philosophical scale, like I mentioned,
just because there's no tangible things I can do to
control it, like kind of a rat race right at
the end of the day, everyone goes through it. I
think I found comfort in knowing that I'm not alone
in this, but the question remained that what is it
(19:00):
that we're trying to do as as humans? I started
reading books, started talking to people, kind of went into
a period of deep thought and you know, self reflection
as to what I needed to do. So I think
even now it's not like a clear answer, but something
that made sense to me is to make life out
(19:20):
of the small things. Life does not have to be
something big. It does not have to have one single
big end goal. I think it's rather the journey than
the destination, is what I kind of took away from it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Did you You know there's always that that saying of
like the it's the moments that matter rather exactly the
overarching things that you're doing, the big objective, it's not
that important compared to the memories you make along the way.
Is it something that was there a moment that occurred
to you that that that that thought occurred to you.
(19:58):
Was there's a standout thought that happened all of a sudden.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
It's it's not something that happened that changed my thinking.
It's rather me trying to make sense of it. Giving example,
so if you're making a trip a road trip from
I don't know, from New York City to going west
to Chicago, for example, we always plan for when you
reach Chicago as the end goal, and then you plan
(20:23):
trips around there. I started thinking about the trip itself,
looking at attractions, looking at national parks along the way,
some monuments along the way. So I made it more
of the journey. So I usually plan my trips like that,
which I think that the same approach I'm taking to
life as well. Ultimately we are there's a limited time
(20:46):
for each each of us have here. The only thing
that a certain man you're born is we're going to die.
So why not make the time we have memorable for
me and for my family and make as much experience
as possible because there's nothing you can you're going to
take with you except your memories when you're dying there
and you're last taking your last breath. I know this
(21:08):
might be moros and kind of depressing thought, but that
is reality. I hope my end is quick, but if not,
if it drags on, at least I can spend my
time with my memories. This is what I actually went
through in terms of the meaning of life and what
I'm doing here as a purpose, and what I took
away from it is enjoy the journey rather than the destination.
(21:29):
I'm not here to, you know, to find the next big,
big breakthrough. I know my limitations, which again goes back
to what we talked about right a couple of episodes
ago in terms of identity and stuff like that. Who
I am not is I'm not a revolutionary in any sense.
I am in my own corner of the world trying
to do what I can.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
You might be revolutionary in the sense that you're probably
the only person online right now who doesn't think they're revolutionary.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Well, I mean so that has been my kind of
mental state the past couple of years, which actually kind
of led me to start this series of conversations with you. Actually,
initially we started talking about mental health because a lot
of people in reality do go through this in terms
of finding their space in the world. As humans, we
(22:19):
need something to do for us to keep going. That's
why I think rid somewhere that it's a dangerous state
to be in once you retire because you lose that purpose.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Why are you getting up at the morning. What is
the next thing you're gonna do? Yeah, one hundred percent.
I've read studies where people just sort of their mental
health takes a big dive once they hit sixty five
and they you know, they clock out for the last time,
and they say, what do I do tomorrow? What does
tomorrow look like? Maybe? Right, maybe figuring out what tomorrow
looks like should be done at you know, thirty five,
(22:51):
forty forty five rather than like sixty five. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Right. So I don't plan to retire in the traditional
sense where I'm working today and tomorrow's my last day
at work and then I go to a beach house
somewhere and then vegetate for the rest of my life.
So I'll have to keep getting myself engaged with projects, anything,
and again, going back, this is what That's the reason
I started this series of podcasts episodes concentrating on the
(23:21):
mental health aspect, especially for men. Maybe that is something
I can leave behind. Maybe somebody can find this useful.
And I'm not the only one going through this. And again,
we don't as guys, we don't talk about this much.
It's okay, to wonder what your purpose is in life.
Est the end of the day, just enjoy the journey,
(23:42):
make little memories as you keep going.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I think what we talked about the last two episodes,
it's okay to sort of both ask your friends how
they're doing and also exactly speak to your friends and
your family and say, look, I'm not doing great and
this is what's going on. It's often difficult to find
those sort of to put out put to your feelings.
But the more you do it, I think the better
(24:05):
we become communicating these challenges. I think that's one of
the keys to me if we want to summarize the
things that I've learned through that process of you know,
having a medical condition and sort of developing my understanding
of it and then sort of developing my reaction to
it and my response to it, building my personality to
(24:27):
sort of meet those challenges, is that there are tons
of people that are all around you that want to
help you. There are just tons of people, strangers, friends, whatever,
it's what happens is I think a lot of the
time is certainly as men is, we sort of get
this feeling of like I'll take care of it myself.
(24:49):
I'll try to do this myself. And then what that
teaches you, I think is that it says nobody else
can help you with this particular problem. So you try
to do it all alone. You think nobody will understand
what I'm going through. There's nobody else that can, you know,
we sort of it's a bit arrogant to think that
we're unique, and that you know that there's eight eight
(25:13):
billion people on the planet. You know, everyone's going through
something and a lot of people are going through a
similar thing to you. And so one of the things
I learned is that we just have to sort of
find the people that are going through the similar things.
Find your group, find people that understand and make that connection,
and just sort of open yourself to the possibility that
(25:34):
maybe other people know more than you, and also opening
yourself to the idea that you might know more than
the other person you're speaking to, and be open to
sort of expressing yourself a little bit more. Yes, So
that's basically what I learned and why I like to
talk about what I'm going through, because I think it's
important to do those things.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And to add on to your kind of capture all
it's also important to know that it's okay to make mistakes,
but it's important to realize that it's just a mistake
and life goes on. You can pick yourself up and
plant the next stage. And I think physical activity goes
a long way in calming the mind down as well.
(26:15):
It doesn't matter what you do. It can be a
heavy workout for like twenty minutes or like a pleasant
walk for like ten minutes in your park. Both have
equal mind calming benefits. I continue to do that that
I really do find my mind at ease after I
do a workout, and I'm sure even for you, even
if you go for a say game of soccer or
even run, that puts in a better mood when you
(26:37):
come back.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I would just add to what you were saying. I
would also recommend if you're struggling to get outside and
you don't, you know, have the motivation to do it,
get a dog. Immediately. Get a dog, and you will
be going outside all the time, and you'll be meeting
people all the time because everybody wants to see the dog,
touch the dog, play with the dog, and the dog
(26:59):
will also push you to interact with anybody else that
has a dog. So if you're someone like me who
doesn't often interact with strangers when you're walking around, if
you can take the response extra responsibility, get a dog,
and yes, it'll it may change your the way, first
of all, the way you see the world, because you
will see the world at six thirty in the morning,
(27:22):
when you know, it's pitch black in the northeast where
we are, and it's you know, minus five celsius, so
it's freezing. But the dog is the happiest he will
ever be. He doesn't care about literally anything but being
outside and enjoying himself. And yeah, so that I'm sort
(27:44):
of being a bit tongue in cheek about it, but
definitely get a dog if you're one of those people
who has the resources to do that and the can
handle the responsibility of having an animals.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Actually, you do bring up a good point. You do
need a break between professional and personal life, especially today,
even with the hybrid working mode, we tend to work longer.
I think we covered it in one of the previous
episodes as well. It's important that we proactively take time
away for ourselves. Yeah, that'll, that will result in a
(28:19):
lot of good things. Though.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, it's very it's very difficult. I understand when we
have work responsibilities to sort of turn off our phone
and close our computer and just sort of shut down
it is. I understand that as someone that enjoys work
and is just sort of motivated by success at work.
I get that a lot of people are motivated by that,
you know, good job from their bus or whatever, and
(28:42):
you know, you want to get the project done. But
it's it's not healthy in the long term to just
be focused on work and flashing screens and you know,
worrying about the next deadline. You know, I speak from
experience where you just you get too focused on you
get too focused on worrying about the results of a project,
(29:03):
worrying about the results of work, that it might even
impact the quality of the work that you do because
you're not you're focused on the negative reaction that hasn't
happened yet that often happens to me. Where you're focused
on you know, if I don't get this thing done
at this time, this person's going to be upset. Well, yeah,
you can't control whether people can upset, you know whatever,
So you just got to really focus on yourself. As
(29:26):
probably the message that I would say to that is
if work has to be done, that's fine, but make
sure that you are you are dedicating a certain amount
of time in your day to you rather than just
all responsibility.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
This conversation has kind of covered what we try to
cover individually the past few weeks. Future an jective with
the future not knowing what to do, it's not realistic
to plan for all the unknowns and how to mitigate
the risk personally, Yes, in terms of enjoying the journey
rather than the destination. For me at least, I think
(30:01):
this is a good time to kind of break for
this episode and then we can pick it up next week.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
What do you think That sounds good? That sounds good.
I've really enjoyed this chat. I think it's a good
conversation to have, and I'm hopeful that quite a few
people would have benefited from the various topics have TOLP
we discussed today because I think there's these are important things,
and you know, I often don't have the vocabulary to
really demonstrate what I'm trying to say, but I think
these are important messages which we're trying to get across,
(30:26):
and hopefully the audience benefited from from from these messages.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yes, definitely, and for anybody who's listening, you can reach
out to us at at paddle my Way on Instagram
and also the website podcast dot battlemway dot com. So Rob,
once again, was great talking to you. Till next time.
You have a nice weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
You two my friend, great talking to McCain. Thanks again,
Thank you Rob, byebye
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