Lost in Life? This Speech Will Help You Find Your Way | Simon Sinek | MotivationArk
I reached a point in my career where I had fallen out of love with my work and I didn't want to wake up and do it anymore I just I was done everyone will go through stress everyone will go through trauma mental health is the big and important topic right now you know I think when somebody says fine they're lying there's nothing more dangerous in a modern society than a lonely man I need to somebody to sit in the mud with me don't need them to fix me or clean me off or give me a towel I just need him to sit in the mud with me so I don't feel alone when I'm sitting in the mud when my friends are struggling I don't say take your time when my friends are struggling I say go on when my friends are crying I say go on the underlying message is and I am here sitting in the mud with you it is the greatest honor of my life I live my life by that code I reached a point in my career where I had fallen out of love with my work I'm superficially my my life was good you know I owned my own business we had amazing clients we did amazing work and uh I didn't want to wake up and do it anymore I just I was done you know and I was deeply embarrassed feeling bad because I shouldn't look what I'm doing look at the things I'm getting to do like I shouldn't be you know depressed or you know not want to go to work and so I kept it all those negative feelings to myself which really is stupid um and the feelings got darker and darker and darker and they feed on each they feed on themselves and that's the problem with keeping negative feelings to yourself they they fester and grow and it got to the point where I was in really a dark place but all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier more in control and more successful than I really felt so nobody knew and it wasn't until a very dear friend of mine came to me and said there's something wrong there's something different I don't know what it is but something's off and I for whatever reason I I opened up and came clean and it was cathartic you know it was a weight lifted off my shoulders and all of that energy that went into lying hiding and faking every day I now had new energy Renewed Energy to actually find a solution I think it's really hard when your friends say to you there's something wrong and you go no everything's fine and then they let it go or they're not even willing to say something's off they just kind of it's too uncomfortable you know we don't like discomfort we certainly don't like causing discomfort and we certainly don't want to create tension or a fight and so we just leave it and I think the courageous friends the friends who truly truly truly love you are the ones who lean into that tension and go I don't care what you say and I know you're lying to me I love you to death and I know something's wrong and I'm going to keep asking you until you tell me you know and more importantly whatever it is I got you I love you you're safe I don't know what it is and I don't care what it is just know that I'm your partner and you are never alone you know she said to me you're not alone here um so I think the she had the courage to get me to open up and then I just stepped into the safe space mental health is a big and important topic right now and had a conversation with somebody recently and I've realized I actually don't like the term mental health you know um it sounds like a fixed destination it sounds like you know if you if you don't have health like if you're not perfect there's something wrong with you so any kind of Divergence or sadness means you're imperfect that's not true and I think it's an unfair standard to call it mental health and I think because at the end of the day like think about your body when you go to the gym we call that Fitness and some days you have good days at the gym and some days you're bad at the gym bad days of the gym some days your body feels amazing you can lift huge weight and someday for whatever reason you got enough sleep you're eating well you're hydrated you just your body's just not working that day and we're all familiar with that and it doesn't really bother us you're like ah bad day today and you move on and you allow that to happen but we don't treat our mental Fitness the same way you know being a human you are 100 mentally fit if you have sadness and if you have joy and if you have doubt and uncertainty and insecurity that that's what it is to be human like your body sometimes has pain there's nothing wrong with your body and so I I like to call it mental Fitness rather than mental health right I'm always working on my mental Fitness and I allow for periods of Darkness so right now when you said how are you the space that I'm sitting in is I'm actually feeling quite lonely and I learned about how to manage mental Fitness during covid more than I ever had prior because we had to deal with so much right and so prior I would have been embarrassed by saying I'm feeling lonely I would have hitted it or suppressed it don't like negative feelings uh whereas now I'm just sitting in it not worried about it um I'm allowing it to go through me like I'm allowing myself to have a bad day at the gym and weirdly even though it's not necessarily fun um weirdly appreciative of it because it makes me human I acknowledge that I'm human it's relatable and so that's how I feel right now I'm more open about being in a darker space in the shadows right now because because it makes me feel it makes me feel quite frankly normal it makes me feel human and it's part of mental Fitness you know and if I didn't have off days or off weeks then how would I know what to work on you know how would I know what good good looks like how would I know how to appreciate the Happy Days if I didn't have some days that were down so I'm I'm weirdly grateful for what I'm going through right now you know human beings are despite our own self opinions we're not that strong and we're not that smart but in teams and groups we're amazing and so trying to solve your own life problems by yourself so I've got some really bad news you can't which is why addiction exists because I can't solve these problems myself I can't overcome the stress myself so I'm gonna drink you know or I'm gonna do something else that's harmful to myself my family and my relationships as all addictions are whether you're addicted to your cell phone addicted to alcohol addicted to drugs you're going to destroy your relationships you're going to destroy yourself and there is tremendous value for somebody who loves you to say I got you I'm here let's do this together or for you to call a friend and say I think I'm struggling and I think I can't do this alone can you help me it's humiliating but it is perhaps the single greatest lesson that any human being can learn which is to say I don't know and I need help and I think being comfortable with asking for help and saying I don't know um it turns out we're surrounded by people who want to take care of us a