Episode 474 Mental Health Challenges With James Bullis

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Show Summary

Rob Cairns and James Bullis talk about mental health.

Show Highllights:

1. Why mental health is important.

2. Seeing a professional can help.

3. A great resource is mentioned in the show. 4. James shares his journey.

Show Notes

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here and today I’m here with my good friend James Bullis. How are you today, James?

You’re doing great today, Rob. Thanks for having me on.

Always a pleasure. And we’re going to get into a subject where I think more people need to talk about eventually, and I think less people. I think it’s getting better and we’ll get to that. In a minute. What’s the? You’re in the WordPress the design space? The agency space. You wanna call it that? What are you working on these days? And how did you get into that space?

Yeah. So I’ve been kind of in this space for almost 30 years, so I kind of got started in middle school and high school and really learning more about that presentation layer and taught myself how to code websites using an HTML for dummies book and thought I was thought I was going to be this big great web designer.

Testing.

Back when the dot Coms are taken off and then the bubble burst and all of a sudden I found myself with no job opportunities. And ended up going back to school to learn. You know why the bubble burst? And that was really interesting because they were basically like all these websites existed without any kind of a business plan. And so I was like, well, what does that really mean? And from there, I worked in my first agency. And when I started there, we were building. Sites and table. I don’t know if you remember how bad that was back in the day like 11 rollover button was like 37 pieces of of picture all cut up right? But the agency, it would take them about a year to get a website done back then and when CSS rolled around we figured out how to speed that process. Down to about two weeks and at that time what we did. Was we would build front ends and hard code and then if a customer wanted a blogging platform, we had a developer that would install WordPress on the back end and there was that he had gone on vacation and we had to do an installation and I was like, let me give that a shot because I I heard it was a pretty easy. Install. And I got in there, started tinkering around with it and this was still before a lot of people were using it for websites. And I I realized you could kind of hack it to make it work for websites. And I’ve been sold. I’ve been sold on WordPress ever since then because we we actually got it down to about an 8 hour turn around time. After that point. And so been really, really heavily involved in WordPress. I’ve owned my own agency off and on over the last 18 years as long as I’ve been using WordPress and have been exclusive to WordPress up until recently.

I guess.

And we’re and we’re not going to go there.

And we’re not going to go in there. Yeah. Yeah. But. But yeah, that’s been kind of my space. I think the other big thing that that I kind of added latched on to was marketing because I really wanted to understand. And you know how to make those business plans. So we’re kind of a dual threat at Vincent and that you know, we build websites with marketing in mind and it’s it’s really integrated. So but yeah, that’s that’s kind of what I’ve been doing and been doing it full time and don’t really see any reason to stop doing it.

Yeah, I I think building sites with marketing is really important. I don’t know if you know Adrian, Toby of Groundhog fame, you probably do.

I do, yeah.

And so his father, Paul, ran a digital agency called training business Pros and.

Toronto.

And in the day when I opened up my my agency to a client, I actually took some courses. Who Paul Paul’s become a good friend and a mentor over the years in this space. But.

OK.

The reason I mentioned it is what Paul teaches is. Having a website isn’t good enough, you just you got a market we we know you got to get people there and then they got to convert because.

Yeah.

Is really a website is just part of your marketing toolbox as far as I’m concerned.

Absolutely. We we used to always call it. We built the car and now you got to put some gas in it, because otherwise you ain’t going to go anywhere if you don’t. If you don’t gas it up.

So true and and as we talk about this stuff as business owners and this kind of leads in the conversation, the whole thing around mental health and what you do about it. And I know from talking to you and different groups and and one-on-one on Twitter over the years you’ve had your challenges. I’ve had my challenges. Yeah, I’ve shared them. Transparency. I’ve been through a divorce. I’m going through stuff now.

Ohh.

We all go through them. Why do people not take care of their head the way they do their body?

I think that the problem is we’re constantly inundated with messaging that flares up our anxiety, and I think the other, the other issue is that most people don’t know how to separate. Weight the different issues of mental health in order to really be able to address it. I I think that’s I think that’s the main thing and and I think as business owners we think that you know we should be able to take care of these things. We should be resilient. You know we’ve got to work harder. We’ve got to. We gotta make better decisions, you know? And so mental health kind of takes a back seat to all that. I think there’s a lot of culture in our in our industry where. I call it hustle culture. You know, we’ll sleep when we die and and those are all the same kind of things that I bought into you that really destroyed my health and especially my mental health.

When I when I worked in IT as a team leader and won at Brunswick as hospital. I was working. I’m trying to think some weeks I worked like 60 hours a week because I was on call all the time. And I don’t think that did my had any good service. I mean I was tired, that’s one thing, but I don’t think mental health wise, it was in a good place because you’re just hustling and working. And it’s really hard and I think what we need to do is learn to take time for ourselves and learn to to do that well. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I I. Think the biggest? We definitely need to take time for ourselves. There’s all kinds of, you know, if we’re practicing good mental health, there’s all kinds of benefits like setting boundaries, stop people pleasing, things like that. I remember I used to have a reputation in the early days where. I would have some of these customers that would e-mail me in the middle of the night and it would just so happen that I would wake. But shortly right after that and respond. And they were like, wow, it’s as if you never sleep. And I I used to take pride in that. And now I look back and I go, James, you should have gotten more sleep. Like they they didn’t need you to respond to them right there in that second.

Yeah, I I agree. I think boundaries is a big part of it. And I think that starts with the most powerful world on the face of the Earth and that’s. No, I hate to say.

It yeah, no, is a complete sentence. You don’t have to explain yourself it. No, it just means no.

The. And if you have a problem with that one, there’s a really good book. I don’t know if you’ve read it, called the artist saying no, it’s kind of out there and it’s an interesting read and don’t think when you say no to somebody, you need to qualify it. No is no cause. I I personally find when you qualify it. Then you get into discussions. Well, why, when? Where can I change your mind? I I’m just not a big one on qualifying.

Yeah, it turns into a negotiation and you find yourself justifying which just erodes at the boundary in and of itself. You know. So yes, no. Is one of the most important questions that every business or answers every business owner should be able to to respond with.

Yeah. Do you journal with James?

You know, I went through. I went through a period during this process where I did some journaling. And I did it alongside of a book that I was reading and every it was a daily read book and it had journaling prompts, and that helped me dig deeper in. And really, what I did was I used the journaling to kind of give me a launchpad of things to discuss with a therapist. Yep. So like as I went through this process through this book and and and did those, it would spark memories of things that I would need to go and talk to my therapist about. And that was very helpful to me.

You know, I find I still journal every day. I’ve probably journaled every day for the last 20 years pretty well. I miss. I might miss you all day. I’ve had different incarnations. I started in on. Then I moved to a Google doc. And then about 3 years ago, I moved to day one app. And you know who owns day one app automatic? Ohh, but yeah, but it’s just it’s just easy because if you wanna dump a picture in you just add it. It’s like a no brainer and then it’s in my it’s in my hand on my phone and I’m so.

Yeah.

Yes.

Mobile. That when I’m out and about, if I decide to write something, I can just grab my phone and write it. I I so like that. Cool. Yeah. What else do you do besides journaling? Do you to prioritize exercise?

So I think for me, the biggest, the biggest issue that I’ve had to address is anxiety and stress is a great relief, or exercise is a great reliever for stress. But anxiety is kind of a different animal and I think that as entrepreneurs.

Yep.

A lot of us suffer from more anxiety than we think that we do. I also think that if you’re anything like me, I think you confuse stress and anxiety as the same thing I was. Talking to someone yesterday about my journey of reducing my anxiety. And he’s like, Oh yeah, I’m stressed out all the time and and actually those are two different things. You know, stress comes to you because of an external stimulus that, you know, worries us. And we have to learn how to address it. But once we address that issue, the stress. And go away. Anxiety is fear. Unfounded fears that you kind of make. Up in your. Head. You know, you’re constantly asking yourself, what if you know, what if this or what if that, but it it leads to. Just this never ending cycle that blocks you from really being able to to perform at your best. And so for me. The best thing that I’ve done for my anxiety is to go to a therapist. I’ve I’ve told people about my mental health journey, and they often say, well, I’ve tried therapy and it really didn’t. Didn’t help but. For me, in my case, the anxiety was actually being driven by unresolved childhood trauma as and so when I went to the therapist and actually got a diagnosis, I I had no idea. I’ve been living with PTSD for decades, and it was a result of this trauma that I hadn’t resolved. And it was causing all of these issues with anxiety. And as I started kind of addressing those and I also take advantage of medication to help with that anxiety. I started seeing the power of those stories fade away and up until I think it was like a couple months ago. All of a sudden one day I realized I was sitting there and I had no, I wasn’t worrying about anything and it was really odd to me because I was like, surely. Some kind of anxiety is gonna come and hit me. And so I went to my therapist and I was like, I’m having this really strange problem where I don’t have any anxiety. What do I do? It’s like he’s like, why can’t you just live in peace? That’s peace.

He’s like ohh. I agree with you and we talked about kinda I anxiety in childhood traumas. It’s really interesting. There’s a book I really like and I don’t know if I’ve talked to you about them anywhere and I’m sure. People have heard me talk about and probably getting sick. 1 is a book called Own Your Past. Change your future. Exactly and. Author that is Doctor Don deloney. He he does a mental health podcast on the Ramsey. Network and then his latest book is a book called Living a Non Anxious Life Box, All about how to how to deal with anxiety and I think. The first one is kind of important because I think what happens in our past shapes where our mental health is, and I think there’s just and you gotta want to break that cycle or change that cycle. And I don’t think it’s just with mental health. I think it’s with life in general. People don’t want to change cycles.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, they don’t want to change cycles. They don’t want to, you know, for me, it’s been a journey of reevaluating how I respond to to things. And, you know, because of my unresolved childhood traumas that I was dealing with, I would, I would, I I would actually end up taking it out of my clients. Sometimes, and the reason being is because because I was living anxiety, which is you’re living in fear. That anxiety actually is generated inside your amygdala in your brain, which is your reptile brain. And so if you’re constantly living in anxiety, you would never actually escape that reptile brain to go into your prefrontal cortex, which is the part where you make healthy decisions. That are based on data. And and so I was constantly sitting there in this thing. And I I would feel like ohh no, I’m not good enough. You know, I suffer from imposter syndrome. I would suffer from shiny object syndrome like I have this problem. I gotta go buy this thing or this course or listen to this guru in order to to fix this problem. But none of those things were actually anything that were worth helping me, and this is how I’ve been like running my business for 20 years, you know, is based off of all this emotion. And the biggest thing was like my therapist saying like.

I know.

Listen, business is not an emotion game. You’ve got to take the emotion out of it. You need to stand back and you need to observe like you’re a scientist. And that taking that that approach has really helped to be able to sit back and not instantly respond to emails or. To try to people please cause people pleasing sounds like it’s fun, but it’s actually a form of manipulation where you’re trying to control the other person that you’re trying to please. And these were all learned behaviors from from childhood traumas and so now. Now I have to sit back and observe, and now that the anxiety has gone down, my amygdala can have a little bit of a rest, and my prefrontal cortex can take over. And now it can actually address issues and think with a clear head. Stress is still there, which you know, it’s always going to be there.

Yeah.

I should go and and and take care of it, but the anxiety was the biggest problem. That was really. Holding me back.

No, I I agree with you. Gotta you gotta find a way to deal with. Yeah, and isn’t part of the problem that you and I both work from home, right? And that’s a bit of an issue. And we’re social creatures by nature. I I know I am. So when I’m stuck at home for. Three days 4. Days and I’m not out to see a client or out see somebody. It’s not a good thing. I don’t think you think that impacts.

Yeah.

A little. Bit.

Absolutely. Loneliness is probably one of the especially since the pandemic loneliness is probably the biggest issue that. Affects people like us, you know, entrepreneurs who are trying to make things happen and you don’t have anybody to really bounce those ideas off of. And so, like, being a part of some communities where we have, you know, the same values and we, we could talk about things. Some of those can be really hard to find. You know, I looked down, I found a mastermind. And all of us, even though we’d spent. You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars learning skills. We all suffered from the same issues of imposter syndrome and shiny object syndrome. And you know, all these different issues. And so we were able to get real with each other and that that allowed me to get real with my therapist. And that was that was the big thing. I went to them. For years before I finally realized I wasn’t being completely honest and real with him. And once I did that once I built up that trust with him. Then the work began and it moved pretty quickly after that.

No, I agree. Do you have any other good suggestions or how you deal with things that? You want to share?

I’d say a big thing that that people often overlook and I kind of mentioned it earlier.

There’s a there’s.

A real thing called sleep hygiene. Like you, you literally need some hours of sleep. And I always thought, you know, I could work. I could sleep very little throughout the week and then try to make it up. In my research I’ve come to find you really can’t make up the sleep. You really need a good block of sleep every single day, and so I made it a priority. I I’ve I’ve, like, eliminated all my alarms because I was, like, found myself waking up too early. I still wake up around 4:30. In the morning, just cause of natural, you gotta get up and Yep, you know, drain the bladder. I think every everybody has a certain age. That’s just a appointment. You have to keep.

Yeah.

Here.

And then. But these days after I check in on a few things, I go right back to bed and make sure I get that good. That good sleep. And that’s been that’s been a huge thing for for me. And I think that as we improve business and improve, you know money rolling in, we’ll improve our quality of the foods that we eat. And you know, be able to exercise more. I like to go to the pool myself. I go. I like to go and exercise and stretch out in the pool. And that that helps out quite a bit.

Now my my big thing is after dinner at night, I go for an hour walk every night, every day.

Nice.

Whether rain or shine or snow in Canada, yes. No. Yeah. And I I just dress for it. I go for a walk. Sleep wise. One of the things I do is my I actually encourage people if you can’t. Get away from your smartphone. Don’t even leave it in the bedroom. Not a good idea. What I’ll do is mine goes on. I have an Android so it goes on a do not disturb mode and there’s only four. There’s only 5 people that can bounce through that do not disturb mode. I should tell you clients are not one out of five. It’s like my partner, my best friend, my mom, my brother. It’s my son. That’s about it. I mean the rest. Everybody else can go away.

Yeah.

Morning. Yeah. And I and I’ll get and it goes and do not disturb mode at 8:30 at night believe. It or not? So I might be up and I I’m not taking calls. I’m done. Yeah. The other thing I think helps good sleep hygiene is I like to read. So before bed, half hour before bed, I never do screen time. I read. I read a.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Paper book. Believe it or not, nice. We’re all. We’re all in computers or Kindles or iPads all day. So I I choose to read a paper book. And that puts me. That unwinds my reign from thinking all the time.

That’s cool. Yeah, yeah, I I. Like reading to you, it really does like just getting away from. The blue light, you know that’s it’s just sitting there constantly keeping you awake and yeah, especially like us. We stare at screens all day long.

Yeah. And and here we are again, doing a podcast. And what are we staring at? And eating’s a big part of it too, and what I’ll share is most of my listeners. No, I’m a diabetic, so eating is really important for me. Until I had this last flare up in February, which I was talking to you before we went to record, my breakfast habits were terrible again. So I just get breakfast. Every day, all day, I may grab a snack at 10:00 and then have. Lunch. Now, because I’ve got the sugar issues and they’re back under control, I’m almost pretty regimented about when I eat them. Pretty low, hard and fast. I have to eat it this time. On this day and this time at this day. And it’s it’s much better that way. I was talking about getting out early and being a social creature. I have a standing client, one of my best friends who owns a jewelry store, an independent store, and I typically will go there on a Wednesday. It’s in the middle of the week. It gets me out of the house. I pretty well go every Wednesday whether I need to or not. And the reason is just the headspace.

Yeah.

And when I’m there, I I have to sleep.

You need.

You need something else to talk about, you know.

Or some or somebody else to talk to. Yeah. And we’re gonna launch a major e-commerce site in February with probably 2000 products. I’ll drop shipped. Yeah, big deal. But that’s not why I go. I go because it gets me away from.

Yeah, absolutely. 1.

This space, where it’s me, myself and I and zoom calls and. And Slack chats to they don’t appreciate them, but they’re not the same, you know.

Yeah. I think the the other thing that I’ve that I’ve experienced as I’ve gone through this is it’s mainly reevaluate how we market to clients or you know or helping our clients market in marketing. There are a lot of ways that we use to motivate buyers. And almost always, fear is one of the fastest ways to get people to move fear of missing out. Yeah, is is a very common tactic. And I realize that if every marketer out there is using these tactics, we are getting inundated, you know, with these messages that make us feel less than, you know, like how many people I gotta talk about, you’ve got to get to 10K a month. You know, maybe some people don’t need to make 10. You know how many people are out there saying this piece of software is going to solve every problem you’re ever going to have, but only if you buy it in the next 5 minutes, you know? And. And so we’ve kind of reevaluated the way that we want to.

Right.

Attract new customers and instead of using fear as a catalyst, we’re using empowerment and authenticity as a catalyst and I think that’s that’s what people want. You know, they want to be empowered. And even though fear is a great motivator, I don’t want to contribute to the anxiety of other people.

And what I’ll tell you too is from my experience, fear based marketing. I get some initial sales, but it doesn’t build that long term relationship. And I and I really care about long term relationships with clients.

Absolutely.

You got a I got a staple clients. I was talking to 1:00 this morning has been a client for 14 years. And Yep, I’ve got some long term great clients and they’re the ones who caused me. No grief. Believe or not, all these new clients caused me all kinds of grief. And every day, all day. And I don’t think like being fearful helps.

Wow. Absolutely.

Because if everybody’s doing it. And that. And there’s a really good book that I I tell the whole the time was written in 2009 called the inside advantage by guy, by name of Robert Bloom. I know if you’ve read the book. But Robert talks about. How you make your business different and where how you need to stand out and also not to fight the price battle to the bottom because we all know where that. One goes right.

Yeah, it’s just it goes to nothing, yes.

So I don’t. I don’t think there’s necessarily the solution. I think taking care of people. And being known as somebody who’s caring and empathetic is a better way to market your brand than being fair.

I remember when I went through sales training, I did. I did like a version of Sandler sales training. And you know, they have a process because if you can walk through the process, you don’t default to what we call Commission breath, it’s it’s a, it’s desperation, right. And I think that. If we’re, if we, as the business owner or even as the market. There are constantly living in anxiety. It’s going to project desperation out there to who you’re putting out there. And so if we in turn use that as our marketing tactics, it’s going to be desperate. And like you said, those are short. Those become short term relationships because once they realize it’s not going to solve their problem. You know, they’re not empowered. It doesn’t feel authentic. They’re gonna walk away. So.

And truly business and life is a marathon. It’s not a Sprint, and we need to realize that like we need to realize the best things in life, take life and the best things in life are worth investing that time into. Now. You might set up some short term goals to help you get there so it doesn’t look so bad, but.

Yeah.

It’s still a marathon.

Absolutely. And we don’t need to run the race of trying to get there as quickly as possible, because otherwise we suffer from burnout. And then you’re then you’re where I was a couple of years ago, like last year in the spring. I tell people I I was utterly hopeless. I I was literally sitting in front of my wife asking her, like, where does hope come from? Like, how can I generate this hope? You know, because it must be something that we can generate, you know, and and really is just. I was burned out so. Much and anxiety had just completely taken over my life that I couldn’t. I could not think straight.

No, I get that. Do you have any real good resources online that anybody can kind of look at? Is there anything you looked at online? No.

There was this book I want to find that book. I think it’s it’s on there.

Sorry swagger swagger. For putting you on the spot again.

Well, I should have pulled this up already, but. OK, someone recommended this book to me and I like I said I started working through it. And I think it’s I think I already bought it. So it’s not in this list. It’s a really great book. Basically, you’re taking an inventory of, you know, all the way that you think about things and the and and where you want your life to go. And it’s a daily read and has journal prompts to go along with it, and I’ll see if I can. On the book titled to to Come Up with that, you know, I see a lot of people talk about better health. That might be a good way to kind of get started. I’ve not used it myself, but I’ve had friends and family members who have. And it’s a great way to get started, you know. When when you’re. When you’re overwhelmed with anxiety, you’re really in a. A state of crisis at all times in your head and so. You know, if you don’t have so. So there are I think you need to I think you need multiple levels of support like you definitely need those friends. You definitely need those community members. You need a, you know your family. If you have family that you can turn to. But I think there’s something to be said about. Having a paid professional. That it’s their job to help you be able to think through some of these things because they’re trained in ways that all of us are not trained in, but the the book is called. Claim your power and it’s by Masten, Kip and. It’s a. It was a great book to kind of get another thing I figured out.

Yeah.

I had no idea that, so I grew up in a military family and I grew up overseas and I realized that I was this thing called a third culture kid and 3rd culture kid basically means like you’re living when you live abroad and this affects. And. Children of diplomats, children of missionaries and children of military families that travel around abroad a lot, and it was this phenomenon called third culture kid. What it means is that you’re you’re in this different culture that’s different from your parents culture. And you’re trying to fit in and because it’s the only culture you know, you absorb that. Mature and the parents don’t necessarily teach you their culture, and so you kind of raised in this culture. But then inevitably you end up coming back to, we call your passport country. Yeah, you know, you end up backing your passport country. And so at 10 years old, I’m back in the States and I have no idea how to operate the the the culture is completely different and I and and my parent.

Oh God.

Didn’t realize that you know, they had taught me the culture and then to make matters worse, when we got out of the military and now we were living in civilian life, that that was a big culture shock as well. So there was all these things and had I not gone through this process somewhere for the therapist, I would have never known that these were, like things that I needed to address. And and discover for myself.

By the way, thanks to you, I just had in another book to my soon to be my side table to be read so. He is.

I think you’ll enjoy it as.

Right, yeah.

I I would recommend like you know if you if you’re thinking about going to therapy, I’d recommend starting with a book like that to just kind of get the juices flowing. But I I strongly recommend getting that paid, you know, paid health advisor to to call you out cuz there could be some. Some ways that you’re thinking about. The way that you respond your behaviors that need to be addressed and can some. Yeah, it doesn’t take long to make the adjustments that you need so.

Yeah, I’m not going to therapy and let’s be honest with it, it’s expensive. It’s not cheap. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Social worker in the Toronto area, not a psychologist. Social workers about $150.00 Canadian and our psychologists go up over 2. 100 better help, better help is about $400.00 a month I think right now give or take. So what I would say is if you don’t have a health problem or you’re money strapped that some people are.

Wow, I didn’t know that.

Ohh look online at local student therapists and I know people are gonna scoff at me and say that’s a bad idea. I would actually argue, you know, and I’ll tell you why. I was listening to John Delaney, who I talked about his books. We also as a call in podcast and one thing he says is. If as a as a guy, he’s been a teacher, if you go to a student therapist, you don’t just have the student looking at it, you have its professor looking at it too, so you’re actually getting more eyeballs on your teeth than if you went and saw. And we all see residents in the hospital. So why is this any different when you think about?

Yeah.

You know the key is to. Go get some help.

Yeah, that’s interesting. You said that cause my daughter did that this morning. She’s been trying to get in. And to see her therapist. But they’re so bad. They’re just so packed right now. But she was able to get in to see her student therapist on on campus, and she looked like she really enjoyed it. So that’s a really good.

Tip. Yeah, I I have done. I’ve seen accounts for at least monthly three years. I’ve increased that the weekly I went through a divorce so about five years ago and I did. I did weekly coming out of the divorce just to. Help me get. Realize some things and realize it wasn’t all my fault and realize where I stood. I’m not. I’m not doing it weekly for some other reasons right now. Which I’m not gonna get into and, but but the point in the matter is, if you’re gonna increase or decrease the frequency, do it. But I think doing it monthly, for me it has been a part of my health regime is going to see my endocrinologist or my family doctor or any other doctor I.

See. Yeah, absolutely.

So I think. OK. Do you have anything else you want to kind of leave a tip for?

Yeah, you know, I mean. They. I would just encourage you know if you are an entrepreneur or business owner, if you’re even thinking about becoming an entrepreneur or business owner. I would strongly recommend that you evaluate your mental health and try to find some clarity before taking this on cause if if you aren’t. A business owner and an entrepreneur, this isn’t this is incredibly harder than it looks like. I think. I think a lot of people are industry glorified because it is hard to do. And when you get wins, I mean it is the highest to high that you can possibly have to be able to help somebody in. Exchange value.

And.

But I would strongly recommend that people and I I think the new generations, understand that I think the younger generations are are understanding that but strongly recommend that you have a plan for your mental health because you if you get into this line of work and you don’t, you’ll find yourself. Doing some habits that are not going to serve you in the long run, and I think that if you can have your mental health under control. In in a in a good way. Then you’ll be light years ahead of all your competition. I think it’s gonna be a a secret weapon for some people. I already is.

I I would agree with you and I gotta thank you for. A ring to jump on and having a hard conversation cause this isn’t an easy one, it isn’t. Your transparency and your life experiences like. I see a lot of similarities and stuff I’ve been through and that’s why I wanted to have the conversation because this is so dear to my heart, like it really is and I appreciate you. For willing to do that, a lot of people wouldn’t and.

I I appreciate you having the opportunity to put something like this out because you and I know that you know if this can help one person out.

Yeah.

There just be able to to have that hope and be able to perform better that you’re going to serve better than ever before if you can. If you can get your mental health in a in a better state.

Yeah. So true. It’s I want to talk to you about some agency work. Where do they go, by the way?

Yeah. So they can find me a Vinton media.com. We we named the company after Vinton Surf when I would, when I ended up going back to school, I found out about Vince and Surf. He’s one of the fathers of the Internet and shot him an e-mail. He actually responded back to me and what he responded back was I was asking him that when they were basically developing.

Yeah.

The technology and the infrastructure, did they have any idea that the the commercial implications and he responded back to say we never envisioned the commercial implications of of the Internet? And so it’s not spelled the same as his name, but it’s kind of a homage to him. But yeah, Vincent media.com, we do we we focus on diagnostics first web web presence next and then obviously growth for small businesses, but. I’m always open to talk about this stuff, so if your audience wants to reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn, I highly recommend that. And if you have questions and you wanna talk about mental health, feel free to reach out there or DM me on Twitter.

Isn’t always fun when you hear from one of the founders in your field. It’s just so amazing you’re saying that I I’m walking over on my shelf. I’m an old school business programmer. Before I got into tech support and on my shelf there’s a 1960s book called The KNRC Bible. You probably know it. Kernighan and Ritchie, and one of my profs gifted me when I graduated as a. As a reward, a forked addition. And it sits on my shelf as a reminder to what that’s meant to my career and more importantly what the Prophet mentioned in my career. He’s still a good friend of this day. So you know.

I got books on my bookshelf back there. The same thing. I’ve got that the copy of the HTML for Dummies book that I use to to learn. But yeah, it’s good to have those reminders there.

Thanks for the conversation. I appreciate you so much and thanks for sharing. You have an awesome day my friend.

Absolutely. You too have a great one.