Take Flight – Business Growth Strategies with Business Coach Dan Holstein

Maintaining your Mental Health. An Interview with Brian Janes of Impact Counselling

March 22, 2022 Dan Holstein Season 1 Episode 80
Take Flight – Business Growth Strategies with Business Coach Dan Holstein
Maintaining your Mental Health. An Interview with Brian Janes of Impact Counselling
Show Notes Transcript

Have you ever had one of those days where you'd prefer to just stay home, and not go into your business and deal with all the stress? 

I think we've all been there at one point or another. 

As business owners, we are subject to a lot of pressure, stress and challenges on a daily basis: Meeting client expectations, handling cashflow issues, staffing issues, competition, marketing, sales, finance - the list goes on. 

Running a business can be tough, and can take a toll on a business owner. 

In this week's video, I interview psychotherapist Brian Janes who works with and helps a lot of business owners. In our chat, Brian shares strategies for business owners on how to manage and reduce stress, regain balance, recognize the signs of mental health challenges and how to get help if things get really challenging. 

I learned a lot in my conversation with Brian, and I'm sure you will too. If you ever struggle with stress in your business or life, please watch this video. 

And if you want to talk to Brian, you can reach him at:
Brian Janes
Impact Counselling Services
https://www.impactcounselling.com
(905) 746-7428

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Hey Everybody, Dan Holstein here, and I'm here with my friend and colleague Brian Janes, a registered psychotherapist with Impact Counselling Services. Welcome Brian Good to see you Dan You likewise, as well. Brian was a client of mine in our group program and we got to chatting more about what Brian does as a registered psychotherapist And the concept of mental health for business owners came out. So our video today is all about mental health for business owners How to recognize signs of challenges in mental health and what to do about it? So with that why don't we start off with telling us a little bit more about what you do as a registered psychotherapist then we can define what mental health is. Sure, so I would meet people usually on a one-on-one setting or sometimes couples I also would work with families and basically would help them with whatever challenges they're facing. So I work with a lot of people that struggle with addictions in their family or couples that are struggling in their relationship. Okay. Good stuff. So how do we define mental health? Because that's a term that could be interpreted a lot of different ways. So, how do we describe it succinctly? Sure, so from my perspective to keep it simple I'd say there are four buckets under the umbrella of mental health. One would be clearly definable mental disorders like say, schizophrenia or something like borderline personality disorder something like that. A second one would be addictions and 3 and 4 would be anxiety and depression which can vary from anywhere on a continuum from "I'm feeling a little anxious" to "I'm totally petrified all the time" Or "If I'm depressed, I'm feeling a little depressed today" versus "I haven't got out of bed for five days." Gotcha. So for all these different aspects, there's a scale in severity. yeah. Okay, great so our context today is around business owners and so business owners often they've got a lot of pressure on them. There's a lot that they need to deliver, they're growing their business, responsible for income generation, not just for themselves, but for their employees and all of their families, there's customers to look after and please, there's vendors to deal with, there's fires to put out and a lot of what I've seen with business owners I've met over the years is lot of them are kind of stressed out So, how do we determine whether someone's stressed out or suffering through some mental health challenges? One of the things that we first want to look at is where their balance might be

from looking at their challenges. It would be:

How aligned is their life to what their priorities are? And therefore are they in balance with all their different priorities and the important roles in their life? A lot of business owners tend to be out of balance usually focusing more towards the work? Towards the work. That's right. What are some of the symptoms of someone that's having some challenges staying in balance? How does that show up in a mental health perspective? That would be a person who might find that they're struggling to - they're noticing that they might be experiencing less resiliency so therefore not able to return the call from that angry client as quickly as they used to be able to or avoiding problems or dealing with issues. Avoidance is a key aspect of that. They also might find that taking it outside of the scope of mental health that other aspects of their lives are not being maintained well. Their physical health, their sleeping, they might notice that they're snapping at friends and family more than they're used to. And then from a mental perspective, they might be noticing some increases in feelings of anxiousness or depression. Okay, so stressed out could be more situational for a shorter period but what you're talking about the resiliency and things like that That sounds like that's more pervasive and not just stressed out about business, but also other aspects of life that it's starting to show up in as well. They're noticing that they have perhaps less energy or a feeling of less capability of getting through the challenges that life is putting in front of them. So less capability, less, I guess we can even call mojo - to just get out there and do what they need to do. Right, right I suspect that doesn't happen right away overnight That would be something that would build over time through staying out of that work life and family balance? Sure, sure It can be an incremental increase to that happening And that might be seen or reflected in the way they're - "this was my boundary I worked from here to here and the rest of this time is family time" and then work starts creeping into family time"I'm too tired to go to the gym today because I've been too busy focusing on work" and before you know it, do that long enough, it's kind of like running a car with the engine revved in the red that eventually that cars going to break down. Gotcha. It needs the maintenance. That's right. So it starts off a bit at a time, that extra little bit of work, that extra client they take on, the extra phone call, the Saturday. I've seen this with business owners over the years as well, where they start off with their business and they're really excited and they're going great guns and they're taking on all - they can take on the world They've got that energy that mojo, that resilience is very strong, and then over time it can shift because they're not getting in that balance. Everything becomes so work focused and before we started shooting that concept you were talking about of having the ladder of "success" so-called up against the wrong wall and then climbing those rungs working so hard and getting there not feeling that fulfillment that they thought would be there when they arrived. All that sends you to compile into, or lead up into that diminishing of resilience, and the - sounds like exhaustion on some levels as well. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And also within that while working within the business there can also be different losses that might happen as they're going through. Dreams or optimism that they may have had when they started out might not be being fulfilled as quickly as they wanted which can also lead to more discouragement and impact their mental health. And when you say "losses" do you mean an event like, you lose the big customer or a team member quits because of something you said. Like that type of thing? Yeah. Yeah. Or falling well short of certain goals that a person may have thought were very attainable or could have been attainable But yes losing customers unexpectedly losing that key employee that you weren't anticipating And that can also impact or their business can be impacted by losses outside of their business meaning their personal life, like maybe someone that they loved passed away unexpectedly So all these things add up to impact the resiliency that an entrepreneur has to move forward. Which is a critical thing we need to maintain as entrepreneurs if we're able to continue to get up and do what we need to do every day. You touched on something interesting there about not hitting a goal. I see this with business owners as well, we'll set, as a group, we'll set big goals for ourselves and we get out there and we try to make it happen, do you find that the business owners that you encounter, that they put a lot of pressure on themselves to achieve, and when they don't, that leads to a diminishing of the resilience? Yeah, especially if they are closely aligned to their personal value - their self value that they hold for themselves to attaining that goal to becoming whatever they hope to achieve. Whatever they're looking for in that achievement, If they don't do it, those people who are more closely aligned to that really can start being so very hard on themselves, judging themselves, and start creating some more bigger mental health problems for themselves. So the the performance of business turns into the worth of the business owner if they're really tightly aligned that way. Right. Awesome. So what are some techniques for business owners that might be holding themselves to such a high standard? How can they balance that out a little bit? What are some of the things they can do to preserve their mental health while they're going through the ups and downs with business and relationships and everything else? Sure, I would say that whatever self-care exercise that they choose to do, and we can talk about what those might be, that that becomes sacred time and they're very intentional about implementing that on a daily basis. So things that might work for some people would be exercise meditation, commitment to quality of sleep, reading for personal growth, reading for business growth, you can do that as well. Maybe there's an area you want to expand and you want to become more competent in one area of your business And you're just committed that "I'm going to read on this for 30 minutes a day." And that's my wife, tries to get me to read fiction. I'm always reading some next business book She says "why don't you read a story?" "But this is a biography about business. It's a story!" Right, right So whatever that person feels reassuring and nourishing, and if they were to say to me"well I only get reassured or I really get nourished through working on my business." I would have a challenge them on that. I think they lost, their focus not accurate. A little bit too narrow? Yes. and I guess the danger of that is if their only reference point of self-worth or feeling okay is if the business is doing well, then if the business has something happened even beyond the business owners control, that could impact how they're feeling about things. Yes. So what about silos, in terms of, I heard the term, I forget where I learned, but success silos? Work is one success silo. Family, how family is doing is another. hobbies, education, friendships, things like that. That's part of that balance piece right? To make sure that we're engaging different aspects of life and not just business. Right, so that while you may have a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, within the business,"other areas of my life are continuing to grow and move forward." And it can be a challenge to maintain that, but it is - people are capable of doing it and they just need to prioritize that. And there's a few key areas that you touched on earlier. So it's the physical side, the emotional, the mental, and then the spiritual side as well. Right right. That's a nice way - the PEMS Model, when I would work with clients, that would be something would we look for. Where are you physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, in your life right now? If we're not looking at the business specifically, but we're looking at those four areas can we get to the place of health within those four areas? That's a great place to find out where we're going to start to do the work. Maybe the area that's performing the least well. Okay, is that the way that we go? Is there any one area where you could say carte blanche,"If you're struggling with either physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, if you're not looking after those areas, What would be, so that if you have to pick one, what would be the number one to start in at? Is there a specific one or is it case-by-case? Definitely, I would say case-by-case, as far as that goes. If you're talking about, if I said take away everything else and what's one thing you could do to change your circumstance? Yeah, just a quick tip. I would find 30 minutes a day to exercise. Whatever that looks like. Studies have continually shown that for the widest range of mental health and physical challenges, a preventive tool that you can use Exercise is far and away the best. How strenuous does that need to be? Are we talking about going to the gym? Can it be going for a walk? These studies are based typically on walking 30 minutes a day. That's considered exercise and the adequate amount that people would need. Great, and with that half an hour of walking, they can take it on their lunch that they're not taking on a regular basis, right? That's right. Yes! Good stuff. So what if a business owner is really stuck in with their businesses and they're feeling too busy or too stressed out or too Non-resiliant, un-resourced, whatever, to get into some of those health practices or maintenance practices for themself, and they're not doing that maintenance. What do you see happen in those cases? Generally speaking, we would see a continued deterioration of their ability to focus, be present, face what's in front of them and also maybe increasing conflicts in other areas of their life. Like personal relationships, friends. Sure even business relationships. We have more challenges around personal relationship, business relationship, partnerships, things like that. So the business could continue, or it could start, a business could be doing great, even though the business owner might be feeling challenged Right So then we see the business itself could be having some challenges which is going to lead to that bit of a spiral. Right. People feeling a little bit bad about what's going on. Sure sure, and then what can happen also as a part of that is also addictive behaviour could come forward. Addiction is a pretty wide subject. What are we referred to specifically when we're saying "addictive behaviour"? It could look like substance addictions which might be including drugs and alcohol, or maybe alcohol is abused, not in the place of an addiction, but it's certainly becoming a bigger problem. There are also process addictions where people are addicted to certain behaviours such as gambling and there can also be - and this would be sort of a quasi definition - of being addicted to work and wanting to focus more time on work. Because if you work more, then you'll fix it, right? Yeah. That's right. It's interesting, a lot of things that you've talked about in terms of the personal maintenance isn't about doing it, it's about Being. I think it's important thing to remember too, is that we can only do so much and at the end of the day our solutions aren't necessary going to come from doing more of what we're already doing We need just to Be and to think and get some new ideas. Right, and to maintain the machine so that it can keep on moving forward like the idea of sawing down the tree that Stephen Covey talks about. The guy comes down, sees another guy sawing down a tree. He's been at it for hours. The first man says "why don't you take a break and sharpen the saw?" And the man sawing responds "I'm too busy sawing to take a break." It becomes this cycle that keeps on wearing away at their skills and capabilities to move through things. I've never done that ever, personally. Yeah, me neither. Never known a business owner to do that. Actually, now that we've talked about it, I think we have to recognize as well that if a business or who's watching this is thinking, if any of this is resonating with you, if you've seen yourself in any of the conversation we've had, you're not alone. I think that probably at some point, every business owner goes through some kind of challenge and some may feel it more deeply than others I guess the thing to say is that people aren't alone. I think that a mental challenge, mental health challenges, Probably are a lot more widespread than everyone might realize. Would you say that's accurate in your professional opinion? Yeah, absolutely. I think we live at a really good time for this where the re's less and less stigma around talking about mental health issues. And large corporations are actually getting behind sponsoring days like the Bell Canada "Let's talk" and that sort of thing, right. So yes. Definitely. People are learning that they don't have to stay stuck in isolation with their problems. It's kind of funny, if you broke your elbow, you go to the doctor and there's nothing embarrassing about that. If you're having a challenge mentally - it's "oh, I'm going to be judged" and "what are people going to think?" and I guess that could turn into a bit of shame as well if someone's thinking "hey, why am I having this problem? Everyone else is perfect and it's just me" So did you see that in your practice as well? Yeah. Instances of shame showing up with business owners and others? Yeah, sometimes someone will be presenting a problem of "I'm not feeling well" or "I'm feeling more anxious" and the more we talk and work away at it, it might not be the first session, but eventually we get to maybe that there's something they feel a lot of shame about. That they're afraid of being judged or criticized by somebody else. Ironically, they've been spending all that time judging and criticizing themselves. Keeping themselves down, right? so by talking about it and sharing what's going on for us, "I lost this important client" or"I made this poor decision that I was committed to and I invested money into it and actually have lost my commitment to it and I've lost my money." Instead of keeping that in and internalizing it and letting self-talk do what it does, which is usually criticize, finding safe people that you can share with and be open and honest and take a risk can be tremendously healing. And probably little bit scary as well. Yeah. No one necessarily wants to share the inner sanctum of challenge. I'll do that now. Actually, I'm going to share something that happened to me when I was a new coach I went from being an IT guy running an IT services and software firm, to being a business coach and during that transition phase, it was a real identity shift. And I felt at the beginning I wasn't doing a very good job I was felt like I was struggling a little bit and "how am I ever going to make this work?" And we have conferences a couple of times a year and I'm going I'm meeting these super amazing achievers, and I went "oh my goodness, these amazing individuals. I'm down here" I would feel shameful about myself or a little bit embarrassed with my lack of results I had at a certain point in, but what I found was, every once in a while I've shared that in our inner forums and people that are new, they kind of look up to me now, I do some training, and they go"Oh, you had challenges?" Now I'm one of those guys other people are looking up to a little bit, and when I share that I've had that challenge that has made it okay for them as well"Wow, I thought I was the only guy or gal running through that" or "had that thing you mentioned." And so I think it's important that we talk about it, because it's not embarrassing. It shouldn't be. It's just that we're humans going through learnings and challenges and situations, right? Yeah, absolutely, and I can identify too. When I first started my practice up in Huntsville and I was working somewhere else and I wanted to start a private practice on the side I signed a lease and a year-long lease$3,600 or whatever it was and I - A cardboard box. Yeah. Yeah. I got into fear. I didn't know enough of what I was doing I wasn't sure how to go about this and I just got paralyzed and a year went by and I had one client and it was a totally humiliating experience and then I was able to share that, take a risk with some people who serve in my support network and tell them what happened and really get validated by some people that I consider to be very successful and say "hey Brian, we would be here all day if we talked about the amount of money or bad choices I made too". And it just normalized things for me and I was able to take that off and say"oh ok. It's just I'm learning. I can move forward. This isn't something that's used to beat myself up with" And it doesn't define us. It's just something that we go through and we as long as we learn and move forward. I think that's a really good point that we don't have to stay stuck. Right. We don't have to stay isolated. We don't have to feel bad about it. We have to reframe things a little bit and then get some support that we need. What are some ways that folks that might be struggling with a bit of mental health, they might even not even call it that, they may call it stressed out, burnt out, whatever But if any of the things that we've covered, resonate with you what are some things that people can do, what are resources they can reach out to to get some support? Sure sure. I believe that shame keeps people stuck in isolation, and the way to heal that is by sharing that with other people. Safe people. People would come to someone like a therapist for example, potentially or a coach from a business perspective too. They could also call the Canadian Mental Health Association or call a mental health helpline if people are struggling with any kind of addictive behaviour and they're not sure, they could reach out to a 12-step program Basically anyone - it's just important to reach out to someone and not keep on carrying this weight. There's a lot of resources. If someone's feeling stuck, they don't have to stay stuck. There's a lot of ways that don't get support from guys like you and I and plus the other organizations and resources that you mentioned. Yeah, great, okay

as we wrap up here, a couple takeaways is:

it's okay to go through mental health challenges, many people do even though we may not realize it. Support is available. It's okay. Everyone's enough. Yep. and take some action, and talk to someone, and just get supported. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much Brian, I really appreciate you coming over and having a chat. Thanks Dan. Take care everybody. Bye bye.