Space Summary
The Twitter Space Staying Sane in this Crazy Market featuring Mental Health Collective hosted by Solve_Care. In a volatile market, maintaining mental health is crucial for optimal decision-making. The Mental Health Collective provides valuable insights on stress management, self-care, and resilience in finance. Understanding triggers, setting boundaries, and seeking therapy are emphasized to navigate market-induced anxiety. Mindfulness practices and establishing support networks are fundamental for staying balanced amidst financial pressures. Prioritizing mental well-being alongside financial responsibilities is key to sustainable success in the market.
For more spaces, visit the Lifestyle page.
Questions
Q: How can individuals prioritize mental health during market instability?
A: By recognizing triggers, setting boundaries, and seeking professional help when needed.
Q: What self-care strategies are effective in managing financial stress?
A: Exercise, meditation, proper sleep, and healthy habits contribute to mental well-being in finance.
Q: How does mindfulness aid in coping with market volatility?
A: Mindfulness practices help individuals stay present, reducing anxiety and increasing resilience in unpredictable markets.
Q: Why is it crucial to establish boundaries while dealing with financial pressures?
A: Boundaries protect mental health, prevent burnout, and promote a healthy work-life balance in finance.
Q: What role do support networks play in maintaining mental wellness during market fluctuations?
A: Support systems provide emotional aid, perspective, and a sense of community during challenging financial times.
Q: When should individuals consider therapy for market-induced stress?
A: Therapy is beneficial when financial stress impacts daily functioning, relationships, or overall well-being.
Q: How can financial literacy positively impact mental health in a volatile market?
A: Understanding finance reduces uncertainty, empowers decision-making, and alleviates stress related to money matters.
Highlights
Time: 00:10:25
Importance of Mental Health in Finance Discussing the significance of mental well-being for making sound financial decisions.
Time: 00:22:40
Self-Care Practices for Financial Professionals Exploring effective self-care routines like exercise and meditation to manage financial stress.
Time: 00:35:15
Boundary Setting for Mental Health Highlighting the importance of establishing boundaries to protect mental well-being in finance.
Time: 00:45:50
Therapy and Support Networks in Finance Examining the role of therapy and support systems in managing market-induced anxiety.
Key Takeaways
- Prioritize mental health amidst market chaos for clearer decision-making.
- Implement self-care routines like exercise, meditation, and healthy habits.
- Establish boundaries to manage stress and prevent burnout in finance.
- Utilize support networks and therapy to cope with market-induced anxiety.
- Practice mindfulness to stay grounded and resilient during turbulent market conditions.
- Acknowledge the emotional impact of market shifts on mental health.
- Seek professional help when market stress negatively affects daily life.
- Learn to differentiate between personal self-worth and financial success.
- Understand the importance of balance in managing financial responsibilities.
- Educate oneself on financial literacy to empower decision-making and reduce stress.
Behind the Mic
Initial Greetings and Introductions
Hello. Hello. Let's give it two minutes for everyone to join up. I need to join from my other account. So I sound good, but. Yeah. Let me get you on stage 1 second. Let me turn this down. I forget how good this microphone is. I have to talk. Talking like a library voice, but it's a good mic. Sounds good. Let me make sure my volume is working here. All right. How you doing today, mental health collective? Lewis Finn.
Sharing Experiences and Gratitude
Yeah, not too bad, Mike. Great to be here. I know you said you were going to give it a couple of minutes for people to, like, pour in, and I'd literally just finished work and I was trying to wolf down some food, so hugely appreciate it. Nice. You know, I'm in. I'm in Istanbul right now, and they have these wet burgers which are like, almost like pita bread buns that are soaked in tomato sauce. And it's a burger, they're so good. But I just. I just ate like two of them so fast. I'll need like a prodding stick or something if you start nodding off. I'm very aware of food naps. Yeah, yeah. And that was a greasy meal. I have meetings after this as well, so I have to stay up.
Navigating Time Zones
Yeah. Fail you on that. Obviously. Web free never stops. It's the time zones that get me. So I'll have like a meeting in a time zone, then I'll get the wrong time zone and then I'll be like 2 hours ahead and it's just. Oh, time zones. Yeah, definitely. I travel non stop, sometimes I'll be in Vietnam and work until four in the morning, and then sometimes I'm in Mexico and I start work at two in the morning. It's kind of a crazy life, but I love it. Yeah, I think the unpredictability is definitely something to make each day different. You definitely don't have too much monotony in web three.
Engagement and Event Kickoff
Yeah, definitely. All right, everyone, be sure to share the space, like the space, retweet the space, send some emojis, get it out there. We'll start in about 1 minute. All right, let's get this started. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are around the world. Welcome back to another x space hosted by solvecare. I'm your host, Michael Norton, and today we have a very special guest. This is probably right up everyone's alley because we are speaking on staying sane in a crazy market.
Discussion on Mental Health
And no one better to join us than Lewis Finn from mental Health collective. How you doing today, Lewis? Yeah, great to be here. And I think it is definitely an on trend subject, part of my pun there. But, yeah, obviously a lot of things happening in the market. And I know, although there can be good times, there could be a lot of bad times as well. So obviously, we're going to try and discuss ways, obviously, to look after yourself more and just. Just look after your own mental health. So tell us a little bit about mental health collective.
Origins of Mental Health Collective
When did you start, why did you start and what do you do? Absolutely. So I started the mental health collective nearly three years ago with my friend Vic. I'm from the UK, he was based in America, and it was around the middle of COVID times for me, personally, I was going through a breakup of a long term relationship, and obviously with the combined stress of COVID I was in a really bad place mentally. And at the same time, with COVID and the lockdowns and everything, I couldn't really grieve the relationship as you would in a traditional way. Obviously. Usually you'll try and go see your friends kind of thing, but with everywhere locked down, I was kind of just confined to my four walls.
Mental Health Support Challenges
I've reached out for mental health support through my GP and unfortunately, there was huge waiting lists, which is completely understandable, but obviously, when you're feeling like that, you're kind of looking for any kind of outlook just to kind of feel better. And it was around the time, I think, spaces had started. And I met Vic online, just randomly in a space, and we just started hosting space, I think, just for people to kind of. I know a lot of people were going through a lot of difficult things at that time, so we just kind of started opening rooms and holding space just for anybody who was struggling, really.
Feedback and Expansion to Charity
And over the time of doing it, I got a lot myself from hosting the spaces. And at the same time, we just saw the feedback were getting from everybody else. We continued doing the spaces and we figured the next step was to become a charity. So we became a registered 501 free charity, and we've been doing it consistently now, like, as I said, for nearly three years, we've hosted over 750 spaces. And we don't offer advice or anything like that. We just provide a space where people can share and just kind of talk through whatever they're dealing with.
Anonymity and Authenticity in Discussions
I know a lot of the times in men especially, it's hard having. Just reaching out to people close to you in terms of, like, social circles, obviously, there's fear of repercussions, but the beauty of Twitter, with it all being online and you've got that degree of anonymity. We've actually found that people are the most honest and authentic selves. So the goal of what we're doing is to get in a position where we can run this twenty four seven and just provide space for anybody who's struggling. As I said, we're not a replacement for medical services, but we feel it definitely helps just from the feedback we've received and from my own journey.
Shared Experiences and Safe Spaces
That's awesome. Yeah, I actually went through a similar thing during lockdown, which, you know, provoked me to sell everything I own and start traveling the world. But I know not everyone can do that. So it's wonderful to have that kind of, you know, a space where you feel safe and you can talk through it. Just curious what, you know, you've probably encountered quite a lot during your, you know, 750 spaces, a whole lot of time. Do you have like a regular group that joins you? Do you, do you have pop ins, anything like that?
Space Consistency and Accessibility
Yeah. Well, the main thing, obviously, the main thing about what we're doing, we want it to always be free and accessible, but it's the consistency as well. So currently, at the moment, we're hosting Monday to Wednesdays, same time, every day. You can follow this account, find out more, check the website. We put all the space links on Monday. But yeah, we try to be consistent and keep it the same time every day. And anybody can drop in. I usually, I'm hosting the rooms and there's no pressure to come up and speak. People just kind of drop in, have a listen to the room, and then we find that over a few spaces they actually build up the confidence to come up and share.
Confronting Emotional Challenges in Trading
But anybody's welcome and there's no prerequisites or anything like that. That's wonderful. Now in Web three, you get a lot of people who are investing into small projects, there's hacks, there's all sorts of things. You see these posts on Reddit and even on X, like I just got drained my whole life savings and just these horrible things and that you see a lot of people supporting them, writing messages of support. But, you know, in a time of, you know, when it just feels like everything's out to get you and you feel all alone, you know, aside from joining a group and discussing it, what other, like, tools and tips have you learned along the way to help you cope with something like that?
Navigating the NFT Market
I think there's a lot of factors, obviously, within the NFT scene, especially at the moment, I think it's quite a lot quieter than it was. But I mean, I remember at the peak of the last bull, I think the main thing that people had to be wary of was obviously the FOMO. Nobody wanted to miss the next mint kind of thing. And at the same time, just like you say, you've got to be wary of parks, just not opening any, like, malicious links. And I think as well, just being mindful of obviously, what you're investing. I mean, I've known a few people who, like, trade regularly and stuff, and they always say if you're ever in a position where you're constantly checking your phone or your computer and I, maybe you're a bit over exposed, should I say?
Self-Care and Financial Decisions
But yeah, as well. I think, as I said, it's not so prevalent as it was, but another one as well was tying it into the FOMO was with all these, like all the projects and stuff are based all over the world. So I know people who are literally up like 20 hours a day just trying to catch the next main, trying to like catch the next meme coin kind of thing. But at the same time, you're not, if you're only getting 4 hours of sleep a night, essentially, you're not really in the mindset to be making like, big financial decisions, I would argue. I know sleep hugely impacts you, so obviously, just make sure you're getting lost lots of rest and just taking that step back before kind of jumping into any investment.
Taking Breaks and Reflecting
Yeah, it's kind of like that 24 hours cool down period. In California, if you purchase a car, they give you, I think it's 48 hours that you can walk back in and say, I don't want the car. I changed my mind. And it's because these salespeople are so aggressive and, you know, they'll tell you anything to get you to buy a car that they actually implemented a 48 hours rule so you can walk back in and there's no fees, no penalties, nothing. You just give the car back to them. And so it's kind of funny to say that because you feel, you know, when everything's going crazy, you know, crypto moves so fast that even 48 hours seems like, oh, I missed out, you know, so it's, it is tough to balance that, you know, take that break, you know, think about it logically, get some sleep.
Creating Calm in a Hectic Environment
But at the same time, there's that FOMO. Yeah, as you said, and we're coming up to another market cycle, or most of us believe so. And with interest rates dropping and whatnot, that's usually a key indicator for a good market, and we're going to be coming back to that. So what would you say, you know, aside from sleep and taking a little bit of a break, what would you say you can do in a 30 minutes, 1 hour period to kind of calm yourself down and collect your thoughts? I think any kind of activity just kind of getting you away from being in front of the screen or the phone kind of thing and just getting yourself out of that mindset for a while.
Improving Mental State Through Breaks
I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people who've maybe they've had a bad trade, and then instead of just taking that step back and thinking, right, I'm going to have a bit of time, kind of get my head out of the markets, they're trying to recuperate that money, and then you can end up in really terrible financial situations. I think it's just doing something that isn't anything to do with, obviously, trading or nfts or anything like that. Just being completely out of that zone for, like you say, maybe 30 minutes an hour can definitely help and give you, like, a fresh perspective and a new set of eyes, should I say?
Favorite Relaxation Techniques
I always like, you know, meditation is a big one for me. I also like my audiobooks. Listening to audiobooks or, you know, when things are really bad, you just open up instagram, go to the reels, and look at some funny memes for a while. That's kind of my go to for it. So, yeah, so we are going to open this space up. So if anyone wants to jump on stage and kind of share their experience with, you know, controlling themselves in the market, you know, crypto does.
Behind the Scenes of the Trading World
A lot of times, it's synonymous with gambling. And as you said, you make a bad trade or you get rugged and you try and chase those losses just like you would a gambler. And it's something that you have to really take into account, and you really need a plan and stick to it and know that not every plan works, and you have to formulate a new plan and figure it out and think it through before you act again. So on your spaces, you know, 750 spaces. I can imagine you've had quite a few guests.
Engaging Conversations and Professional Perspectives
Have you had guests that are, you know, in the industry, you know, like mental health professionals, anything like that? Absolutely. I did want to make just one more point as well, which made me aware of it when you were speaking, I think, as well. Just trading with emotions as well. I think that can be quite a big one. Obviously, if you've got, like, a set trading mythology or whatever, if you're. If that's being impacted by you trading on emotions, obviously you're not. You're not following it with that kind of just peaceful mindset.
Discussion Dynamics
I've completely forgot the last question. You said apologies, could you repeat that? I was gonna say, do you often have like, mental health professionals join you on this, or do you find this as more of like, you know, a pub group that kind of gets together and just discusses and there's no kind of restrictions or, you know, no one's judging or anything like that?
Peer Support
Yeah, we've obviously, we've had discussions with professionals, and being a charity, we do rely on volunteers and we do have quite a few mental health professionals within the organization. My background, obviously, I'm not a mental health professional, but I'm coming from the area of lived experience. So I've just share, like, how I've navigated certain difficulties in my own life. And I think this is the good thing about peer support. I think we're all experts in our own lives to some degree. And what we found as well is that a lot of people who do attend the spaces are also doing like traditional therapy as well.
Role of Mental Health Professionals
So what they found is a lot of the times after they've had a session, they'll actually come in the space to kind of talk through and process that session with, obviously people who've been in similar situations. But we have had like, mental health professionals, we've done like, spaces with Doctor heave. I do remember not too long ago, we did a space with self care as well, party there, but I can't remember off the top of my head who it was. Yeah, I was just going to say, but I think as well, like I said, I think in the terms of what we're doing, like I said, we don't offer advice and it is good to have the mental health professionals within our organization.
Addressing Mental Health Concerns
Obviously, if anything seems a bit out of hand, I can refer to them and get some professional feedback. But at the same time, I think this is the beauty of it. It's just people sharing stories and if that can help people navigate through their own life, just through hearing that stories, we definitely, from the feedback we've heard, is that it can help. That's wonderful. Yeah, it's definitely. It's good to not feel alone in situations, especially during lockdown. That is a terrible time for a lot of people.
NHS and Wait Times
So you spoke about the NHS earlier and the long wait time for mental health. Has that wait time gotten better? Do you know? It has slightly improved. I think one of the main issues with COVID was a lot of people who haven't necessarily struggled too much with mental health. A lot of people were experiencing mental health, well, I don't like to say symptoms, but just mental health struggles for the first time. So I think there was a lot of backlog from that. A lot of people were suffering from anxiety, depression, but the wait times have definitely decreased.
Challenges with Public and Private Health
But they are still huge wait times and it's kind of one of them, unless you. How the UK works is it's basically when you pay tax, a percentage of your tax is going to support the NHS, but to get kind of anywhere fast, you need to be looking to pay private. And I mean, with inflation and everything, that is quite a difficult thing for a lot of people at the moment. Yeah, definitely. I was. I lived in the US for most of my life, but I was actually born in England. And in the US, part of your tax money doesn't go to healthcare, it just goes to the military.
Finding Resources for Mental Health
So it's not very helpful. But I feel kind of silly for asking this and I should know this, but where would someone find a resource if I was having like a mental crisis? Yeah, absolutely. So obviously we do the pay support spaces, but we, obviously we're not crisis lines or anything like that, but whenever we do host spaces, we also make sure every single space that we have pinned in the nest, international crisis numbers. So we've got numbers for just about every major, like, country.
Crisis Management and Support
So we have obviously had people coming in with suicidal ideation, which is out of the scope of things. We can, like in terms of the legality issues as well. But we've like, referred. We always refer people to crisis lines and then just kind of check up on them and make sure they are doing okay. But absolutely, if you are in crisis or you feel it's ever been too much, don't hesitate to ring these numbers. There are people specifically there to answer these calls and they're trained up to answer these calls as well.
Listening to Those in Need
So just don't ever feel if things are getting too much that people don't want to hear or they don't want to listen, because as I said, people are here and they do want to listen. And if you ever do feel like that yourself, if you go onto our pinned tweet, there's crisis lines in there as well. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, I have it in the jumbotron. Yeah. So, you know, mental health is one of the most neglected things. You kind of see it boiling over in certain places.
Impact of Social and Financial Issues
You have this lack of mental care that people do and available options, and then you tie in financial troubles through inflation and things like that, and you suddenly find yourself at a boiling point and you see kind of what happened in the UK recently with all the riots. You know, obviously that's. That was spurred from, you know, an event. But, you know, things like that do happen when there's no real education and no real commitment to mental health on a regular basis.
Mental Health Maintenance
And I'm curious, through all your spaces, what kind of, like daily mental health things do you do that kind of keep you on the right track and make sure that you are checking in with yourself? Oh, great question, Mike. Yeah, this is a big one for me. I consider myself, obviously, doing this basis. I consider myself quite an empathetic person, but with the nature of what we do, obviously you're always hearing people at, like, really difficult times in their lives.
Managing Emotional Strain
It is quite hard sometimes not to take this on myself. So I always make sure that I'm kind of keeping in track with my own routines. I've found a big indicator for me that things may be slipping, is my routines always go first. Like, I'm quite consistent with my routine and when I start to see it slipping, that's when I notice maybe I need to take that step back. And it actually happened two weeks ago.
Importance of Self-Care
I was kind of feeling myself slipping a bit. And at the same time I feel like if I'm nothing in a good place mentally, I can't provide adequate support for other people. There's a good phrase you can't pour from an empty cup. So I actually took a week off a couple of weeks ago just to kind of get myself balanced mentally as well. And I think that's it as well. Just kind of setting your own boundaries.
Boundaries in Mental Health Support
Obviously a host of spaces for anybody struggling, but I always make it clear that my support is offered through the space. I can't really do anything outside of the space because, one, I'm not qualified and it's kind of out of my scope and then that starts to impact my own mental health. So I think a huge one for me is just keeping boundaries and sticking to them and just kind of keeping in a routine.
Being Kind to Yourself
And they're the huge ones for me. And then if you do notice yourself kind of slipping, just don't be too hard on yourself for like, having that step back. And I know, especially within, like, the web free NFT crypto scene, like you said earlier, a couple of days off, you feel like, oh, no, I've missed everything. But as we all know, the markets are always there and you've just got to look after yourself to carry on for another day, I guess.
Stigma of Mental Health in Web3
Yeah, absolutely. Now there's the kind of I see on the pinned post, you're talking about getting over the stigma. And I think about in web three, you lose to a trade or something wrong happens, you get hacked and people immediately point the finger at you and say, well, it's because you did this. You know, it's because you were dealing with those cryptocurrencies and things like that.
Understanding Mental Health Issues
And I think a lot of strong men and strong women, they see their mental health issues as something they can overcome themselves. And it's not a big issue. You know, when I think about getting mental health or getting, you know, help with my mental health, I think of people who have lost their parents or gone through something extremely tragic. And, you know, so it is harder to think, oh, well, I should probably check in and I should probably, you know, join one of these groups and talk about some of the issues going on and not let it build up on the inside.
Addressing Stigma and Seeking Help
So what kind of tricks do you use to help people get over that stigma of reaching out for help? Yeah, another great question. I think especially as well, I think hindsight is a beautiful thing. I think once you got to that position or someone can kind of see you there, it's okay. It's easy for them to kind of say, well, if you didn't do that. Well, if you didn't do that.
Normalizing Mental Health Conversations
But obviously with, when you're living it in the present moment, it's completely different. But in terms of breaking the stigma, I think just talking about mental health, and I'll use an example from the last bull cycle we had, and I could have relate to nfts as well. Obviously, the Degen life. I mean, I, at the peak of the bull, people were, it was like a badge of honor not to go to sleep and just to not essentially care too much about your mental health.
The Pressure of Web3 Success
And even people even started like releasing projects based on just not sleeping and staying up trying to find these mints. And I think as well, it's kind of easy to jump on bandwagons. But a lot of the time, the people who may have been running these projects or pushing this kind of life would probably not actively live in that life outside. But I think a lot of people kind of got sucked in.
Cultural Differences in Mental Health
And because it was so normalized, it also created that stigma around web three and negative mental health. But I think the best way to kind of overcome it. I know especially within, like the crypto, there's some huge and just really welcoming communities, I think kind of getting to know people within your community who you can resonate with, but at the same time, people can kind of keep you in check as well.
Building Supportive Communities
As I said, it's easy to be kind of trapped into an echo chamber and everyone's just encouraging each other, but I think just taking that step back or finding someone who you can just kind of check in with can definitely help. But I think just talking about mental health, I think the more we're honest about how we're feeling and what we're struggling with, the more it's going to be normalized and then at the same time, we're all reducing that stigma and just kind of creating a ripple effect.
Encouraging Positive Change
And I think, as I was saying, people were actively encouraging, like the. It's really hard to say the Degen life, obviously, if people are starting to positively look after their mental health, and you could even, I don't know, push it within the scene, I think a lot of people are going to start to follow up, follow that trend as well. So I think just be mindful of what you're trying to, like, not want to say push, but what you like pushing on others at the same time and just.
Global Perspectives on Mental Health
Just try and be that change, I guess. That's really cool. Now, over 750 different x spaces, I can imagine you've seen people or spoken to people, I should say, from all over the world. What kind of cultural differences have you seen when it comes to dealing with mental health? Yeah, this is what I love about Twitter.
Cultural Similarities in Mental Health
And obviously the space is we get people from all over the world, we get people from search, India, China, you name it. There's probably someone who's hopped in from these spaces. But I think obviously there are, like, cultural differences and we do try to keep, like, politics and religion out of the space. Obviously we don't. We can't say any cat say that, but just kind of keep being mindful of others who are in the room.
Shared Human Experience
Yeah, but what I've actually found with the time doing it doesn't matter where you're from, who you are, your colour, your race, your sexuality, none of that matters. We're all dealing with similar issues wherever you are in the world. And at the same time, we're all struggling with mental health. So I think if we use, obviously, mental health to kind of bring people together, I think you'll find that people are not too different it doesn't matter where you are.
Social Media's Impact
Yeah, I think about, you know, crypto media, especially, you know, social media. They can be very harsh on you. If you come out and you say, you know, I lost money on this trade, some people will be supportive, especially if it's your own community on x. But if you were to go to Reddit and say, I lost money on this coin, you know, people are brutal.
Criticism and Accountability on Social Media
They're just like, why are you so stupid? Why didn't you do your research? This is on YouTube, even for hacks. People will comment and be like, why did you give them access to your wallet? Like, why are you so stupid? You know, and I feel like social media is the antithesis of mental health. Would you agree? Do you think social media is having a big impact on people?
Balancing Social Media Representation
Yeah, absolutely. I think you bring up a great point. I mean, look at any trading account who's got a large following. I'll sit five minutes and wait for you, then wait for you to show them a trade that they've lost. I think just having the honesty within trades, that's going to make things more. Trying to word it right. Obviously showing the darker side as well as the good side.
Honesty on Social Media
So I think if people can just start being more honest on social media about maybe, like I said, bad trades that they're having, or, like, any feelings of stroke struggling that they may be going through, I think just leading by example and using your following for good, as opposed to just kind of promoting and chilling things, I think that can definitely help. And you're also, if you're approaching things like that, I think you're going to attract a lot more of a community that's going to help each other, should I say? But I do completely agree just as well. Just how with, like, how memes are and how things can go viral, it's so easy to jump on bandwagons. And you usually find a lot of the times, the things that do go viral are quite negative things.
Viral Negativity
I mean, this is taking it back years and years ago, but a prime example, I don't know if anyone, too many people remember, but there was a guy called Chris Tucker, and basically it was when Britney was going through quite a difficult time and he'd done that video just kind of saying, leave Britney alone. And obviously he didn't expect to get the views that he did and for it to go viral and then suddenly he's like shot into stardom overnight but not necessarily in a positive light, and his life got completely ripped apart just from like ten second clip that he posted. So it's so easy to jump on negative bandwagon with social media, but just, I think, just take that step back and just kind of think what other people in that position must be feeling themselves just having a bit of empathy.
Reflections on Youth and Social Media
Yeah, I think about that quite a bit. I saw a post about, you know, how different generations partied. And I think about when I was young and used to go out and go to parties and have a bit too much to drink and make a fool of myself. And I think, you know, that's fine. You know, if somebody took a photo with their terrible camera, that's one thing. But, you know, nowadays if a kid goes out and they have a bit too much to drink, their 4k high definition video is going to be online and laughed at by millions of people, you know, and it just destroys them. It's, it's insane how the, kind of the social media can be used to just, yeah, as you said with the leave Britney alone quote, I still know that video and I can hear it in my head because I've seen it so many times.
Future of Social Media and Mental Health
And, yeah, it's a crazy world, especially for the younger generation. And I wonder how social media is going to play out and how mental health will play out with that. Well, I'd like to think, obviously, I know a lot of this, a lot of the negativity is pushed by the media. Obviously, negative news sells. So I think a lot of things are clickbait as well, kind of lead you in with this, with these negative things. But I'd like to think that people are starting to kind of see through that. So I'd like to think that maybe a counterculture forming of just people just being nice.
Embracing Positivity
And I think when there's that much negativity in the world at the moment, I think people are going to start slowly gravitating towards just looking at the positive things. I know so many people, especially people who come in our spaces and just with like the algorithms within social media, like you may click one post about, I don't know, like a politics or something like that, and then next, that's kind of in your algorithm and you sucked and drawn into these kind of like negative places and echo chambers. So I think, as well, try and.
Mindful Content Consumption
Try and control what you're consuming in terms of content. I think just be mindful of, like, what you're clicking on. Like, if you're clicking on a lot of negative things, you're gonna. The algorithm's gonna start showing you a lot more of these things. So I think, as well, kind of being. Kind of being mindful of what you consume in terms of the content. Yeah, definitely. I remember when I went to one of your spaces, and actually, my advice was to have multiple social media accounts, have a burner social media account on your main account, only look at positive things that make you happy.
Balancing Accounts
And if there's anything that is not part of that, you know, click the I'm not interested button. And then on your alternate account, you can go ahead and follow politics and news and, you know, all the things that, you know, you want to see as well, but you don't want that as part of your main feed. And that was my advice, because now I have, when I go on to see my friends posts, I'm not seeing anything negative there. You know, it's. It's just completely positive. And then when I do feel like a nice old doom scroll, I can switch to my other account and go look at, you know, some dark memes and some politics and, you know, videos like that.
Experiences of Humility
Yeah, I was just going to say, that's a great idea, but back over to you, mate. Yeah, so I was going to gonna say, you know, through my travels, I have been really humbled. Like, I have seen some things that shocked me to my core. And I'll give one example is I landed in Manila, and I was getting a cab out to, like, a restaurant, and I saw these kids all playing, and I thought, well, that's cool. You know, they're all kind of near a bridge and they're all playing by themselves. And, you know, when I was coming back from the restaurant, it was dark.
The Reality of Poverty
You know, I had stayed out for a little bit, and all these kids were sleeping on cardboard boxes around a fire, and it just broke me. Like, something inside of me was just like, oh, my God. You know, like. And from then on, you think, wow, you know what? In my life, my troubles, they're so insignificant compared to something like that. Now, I'm wondering, through all the different spaces that you've done, have you encountered something like that just completely humbled you?
Humbling Experiences in Italy
Yeah, I mean, we've tried not to divulge too much of what happened within the spaces, obviously, that's people's own stories to tell. But just in terms of real life, I think one of the most humbling experience I had was when I went to Italy. I'd gone to Rome. And I don't know if you've been to Rome, but it's a really beautiful place. Is like all these lavish. Yeah, all these lavish shops. We went to the Trevi fountain and stuff like that. But what kind of just knocked things into perspective for me was so there was like a brand new, not even a mark on the window or anything.
Contrasting Realities
This lovely Gucci store. I think there was a la Costa right next door and no further than like 10 seconds away from that store, all these rich business people, like, coming in out of the shop. There was a poor dude, and he literally had no legs. And he was pulling around, pulling himself around on a skateboard, trying to get spare change. And it's just things like that just kind of, like, knock things into perspective of how difficult things are for some people. But I think as well, just seeing things like that, you can definitely encourage you just to preach more like gratitude within your own life.
Embracing Gratitude
I mean, it's easy to say, oh, look, they've got all this, they've got all that. But then you're always comparing yourself to others. And I think when you're comparing yourself to others a lot, that's when it can. You can find difficulties within yourself. I think just preaching gratitude and being grateful for what you have. As you say, some people aren't even fortunate enough to have, like, a roof over their heads, obviously thinking of them poor kids that you were talking about.
Sharing Struggles
But I found as well, in the spaces that if I'm having, like, a bad day, just hearing that I'm not the only one who's going through a bad day, just kind of. It brings me back around as well. I'm like, yeah, I've had a bad day, but it's not necessarily a bad life. And I think within their moments, it's easy to think, like, something like, you could have a bad trade or lose money on, like, a mint or something like that. And it's. It's easy to just kind of get in that mindset of like, oh, whatever, everything kind of goes wrong for me.
Perspective on Life
But as I said again, it's, it might be a bad day, but it's not necessarily a bad life. So I think just preaching gratitude and like you said, just seeing things out and about can definitely humble you. And I think if you do see things like this, just whenever you are kind of feeling like, just take that step back and just remember, like, things may be bad at the moment, but they could potentially be a lot worse. So just kind of be grateful as much as you can for what you've got.
Comparison with Keeping Up with the Joneses
Yeah, definitely. You know, I want to take off something that you said in there. In the US, they call it keeping up with the Joneses is where your neighbor buys a new car. So then you think you need to buy a new car. You know, and social media, you see all these, you know, lavish jewelry, lavish lifestyles. You know, everyone's just posting their a game, their best of reel. You know, you're not seeing most people's downtimes and hardships and things like that, and it can really get to you.
Living Simply
And, you know, for me, I sold everything I have and I live out of a backpack. So every time I think, oh, maybe I should go buy things, I'm like, you know, I can't fit anything more in this backpack, so, you know, there's no sense in me wanting more. But what kind of tips and tricks do you have to get yourself out of that mentality of keeping up with the Joneses?
Embracing Uniqueness
Well, I think this is a beauty of humanity. We're all completely unique in our own way, and I think that's the first step of why we can't really make comparisons. No other person has gone through the exact experiences at the exact time that you have in your life. And I think that's the beauty of what makes us all unique. So I think just kind of being true to yourself and just recognizing qualities within yourself.
Finding Strength in Differences
Obviously, some people are good at swimming, some people are good at football. But if you are an excellent swimmer and you start looking at the guy who plays football thinking, oh, I wish I was good at football. You never know. He might be looking at you thinking, oh, I wish I was really good at swimming. But I did want to throw it back to you. I'd love to know. I can understand there have been a lot of mixed emotions as kind of pulling the trigger in terms of selling everything.
Turning Point in Life
I feel it might have been quite a scary time, but I've got a feeling it felt quite liberating as well. So I just wondered, just like, what you were feeling in terms of your emotions when you did actually kind of decide, I'm going to pack up and I'm going to leave, and how do you feel? Where do you think you are now as opposed to where you would have been if you hadn't taken that step.
Life Changes Through Experiences
Yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard of the rule of nines when it comes to life, that every nine years your life will drastically change. And for me, it was, you know, and there's a good book on it. I can't remember the name, but if you google the rule of nine's life book, you'll probably find it. But it explains that as you're coming up to this next phase of nine years, you kind of transition into something else.
Embracing Change
And I read that book, and I loved it because, you know, when I was 18, you know, I went through a lot of hardship. I don't want to really get into here, but when I hit 27, it was a huge change in my life. You know, I was suddenly doing way better than I've ever done before. And I was approaching, you know, the next nine. The next nine was coming up, and suddenly I was no longer teaching because of COVID I left my teaching job.
Life's Transformations
I got out of a long relationship. I needed to move because I was staying somewhere that, you know, my best friend, he was getting married. He was going to move in with her. I couldn't afford a two bedroom apartment in San Diego by myself. That's sanity. And all these things were changing. And it just. I thought about the nine year plan, and I thought, you know what? Let's just do it.
Taking a Leap of Faith
You know, I was originally born in England. I have a lot of family there. So my initial plan was just to go to England, you know, for six months, and then, you know, see if I liked it over there, maybe move over there. And then it just turned into this. You know, I looked at flights from England, and I was like, wait a second. I can fly to Italy for $25, $30.
Discovering Freedom
That's insane. And I just suddenly realized what is tying me down, you know? And so I had a little bit of stuff left over in the US. You know, obviously, I. Because I was moving, I kind of cleared a lot of it already, but I kind of cleared it all through that. And it was really liberating. You know, as you get older, as a single guy, your friend group starts to thin out.
Building New Connections
You know, you still have these friends, but now they're having families and kids, and they don't have enough time for you. And just went through Covid, which is very quiet, and, you know, you're alone a lot of the time and just to. Just to travel and meet people all over the world. And, you know, now I have all these friends and people that I talk to online from all over the world. It's very liberating, and it was kind of like a big change for me.
The Journey of Self-Discovery
It felt like everything needed to change. And, you know, I did that once before when I was 18, and I. And I felt like it was time again to do it again.
Embracing a New Lifestyle
And, yeah, I was right. You know, I love this lifestyle, and I can't see myself stopping anytime soon. And, you know, I did find a girlfriend along the way who now travels with me, and, you know, life is completely different, and I'm glad I took the big leap for that.
Reflections on the Rule of Nine
Yeah, I absolutely love that. And this is actually my first time hearing about the rule of nine. And I next year will be my 36th birthday, so that will technically be my next nine. And just with what you were saying, I think it does kind of suit quite well. I mean, for me, my twenties were quite a difficult time. A lot of stuff happened when I was younger, but I think just in terms of mental health, a lot of things that happen when you're younger, you don't really start to process until you're in your late teens, early twenties. And for me, like, all through that time was a very difficult time. And obviously you got to the age of 27, and I think just being in that bad place obviously pushed me to do what I'm doing with the mental health collective.
Growth and Future Aspirations
But at the same time, I think within them, nine years, I've definitely seen myself grow as a person and have felt that kind of shift. So I'm hoping, like, for my 36th birthday, that. I'm hoping this is when, like, kind of all the MHC can kick off and stuff. And for me, it was, I think, especially through my twenties and stuff, I never really had a purpose. And I think this is just from my own experience, but I feel a lot of the times when you are struggling with mental health, especially, like, depression, I think for me, it's because I never had a purpose, or, like, any purpose I did were kind of materialistic or something out to kind of benefit me.
Finding Purpose Through Helping Others
But since doing this and just hosting the spaces and just trying to devote my time to other people, I think that's when I've noticed that I've got a purpose essentially bigger than me. And I would, without blowing my own trumpet, I would argue that I'm quite good at doing it, and I get a lot myself out of helping other people, and it completely shift my own perspective just on what other people are going through and kind of just how I deal with things myself. So now I know about the role of nine, I think it's all coming perfectly into my 36th birthday next year, so definitely thank you for sharing that.
Changes in Friendships Over Time
And as well, just. I was just going to say as well, I've noticed that myself, just kind of, as you get older, I. A lot of friend groups can kind of part ways, and I know when you're like, 14 or 15 years old, you were going to best friends for life. And I think people just get older. They do their own things. They might have kids. I was lucky in terms of the kids that I had my first when I was 18. I've got three boys with the oldest being 15 now, so I'm lucky in terms of their growing up. And they'll be leaving the nest soon, wherever. A lot of my friends who kind of left it late, they're just. They've got like, two, three year-olds. And I'm just thinking, better you than me.
Reflections on Parenting and Life Changes
That's so good. Yeah. Wow. The rule of nine really does work with you having kids at 18, you know, now you come up to another big change. I highly recommend the book. I'll find it for you. And I love the point you made about goals because that, for me, was one of the biggest drivers of me getting out of that. I was exactly the same in my twenties, had no care for my life. I had no goals, no aspirations. And, you know, I started reading a lot of, like, I wouldn't say self-help books, whatever you call them, motivational books.
The Importance of Goal Setting
But, you know, things that. And started making goals, and that was a big change in my life. You know, even now I write my goals out, whether it's financial goals or fitness goals or anything like that. Of course, it's a lot harder when you're traveling all the time. And, you know, one of the things that was hardest for me is when you reach that goal, because you make this goal and you work toward it for years, and then you finally achieve it, and then you have that feeling of what now you have to restart and you have to set those goals again. And it's not as easy as you think to set the second round of goals. Have you ever encountered something like that?
Lack of Accomplishment After Achievements
I was just laughing as loud as I could with my mic mute because I'm exactly the same for me as well. I'm one of them. When I do achieve the goal, I never really have that sense of accomplishment. It's like, I know some people are like, wow, I've done all that, take that step back. But for me, it's kind of like, right, that's over with. What do I want to do now? But I think just writing goals down like you say, is huge. And as well, I know if you do write down goals or you set yourself goals, I think setting yourself achievable goals, it's easy to, like, I'll use an example for the gym.
Realistic Goal Setting in Fitness
Say you haven't been to the gym for two or three years, something like that. And I don't know, say you were squat, say we're deadlifting 200 kg or something. If you've not done something for a long time or it's your first time doing something like that, it's easy to go, it's easy to set over realistic, like overestimating like your goals kind of thing. And so you could have maybe not been at the gym for three years and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna go straight back in and try and lift my working weight when I was like training heavily. And then if you can't do it, you kind of, you just feel like, you feel sad though.
The Impact of Friendly Support
You're like, oh, I thought I was gonna achieve that. So I think in terms of setting goals, just setting manageable goals as well. And I think if you set in small, you could set yourself long-term goals. But I think setting yourself small goals as well, then you, like, you say you're noticing you're ticking stuff off and you can see that progression, especially if you're writing down, you can see all that progression on paper. But yeah, I am exactly the same. But it's just I never have an essential accomplishment. You just nailed me on the head.
Personal Experience with Achievements
I was actually like a power lifter and I was squatting 200. Obviously I slowed down as I got a little bit older. But about a year ago I was in Georgia and I was running for a cab and I didn't see a stairwell that was completely painted black with no streetlights. And I broke a rib. And since then I actually haven't really. I went to the gym like twice in the last year and it is kind of, it's that feeling of, oh, I got to start all over and now I'm way older, you know, that kind of thing. So yeah, I feel that quite a bit.
Book Recommendations for Goals
But I wanted to ask you know, what kind of, do you have any book recommendations that you've been reading or that you've read that you kind of give to? We have kind of a younger audience, kind of university audience, and, you know, we want them to set goals and do better. So I'm curious, do you have any book recommendations? Oh, difficult one. I do struggle to read quite a lot. I've got obviously. Well, not obviously, but I've got ADHD, so it can be quite difficult for me to read sometimes just kind of keeping my focus.
Advice on Consuming Content
So I haven't really got any particular books offhand, but I think I'm more. I just. I think I get a lot from just kind of, I don't know, just being mindful of the content that I'm consuming. I know it's not necessarily books, but just being, like, aware of what I'm wanting to learn or whatever kind of thing. But no off hands. I've definitely not got any books off the top of my head. Sorry, mate. Yeah, it's all right.
Starting Points for Reading
You know, at first it was very hard for me to sit down and read because I just really hadn't done it since school. I started with audiobooks and then, you know, I found a book that I kind of enjoyed and got into. It took me forever to read that first book. And, yeah, it's kind of. It's. It's just like going to the gym. If you think you're going to sit down and read for an hour every day, you're having a laugh, you're going to fall asleep.
Joining Collective Spaces
So you got to start with that small, you know, I'm going to read for two minutes, I'm going to read for three minutes. I'm going to read for five minutes. It is something you have to build up, but I can definitely understand if you have, you know, ADHD and things like that. It can be hard, but, yeah. So let's once again cover how people can join a and be a part of your X spaces and potentially participate.
Providing Information About the Spaces
Absolutely. Cheers, Mike. Yeah, I'll just kind of do a quick rundown. So if you do want to join one of our spaces, we host them the same time, Monday to Wednesday. We were hosting seven days a week at one point, but a few of our hosts have had to take, like, a bit of a backseat for their own mental health, which we completely support. So we're just running Monday to Wednesday at the moment. And that will be. It'll be seven till 08:30 p.m. GMT.
Utilizing Resources for Time
I think that's free till 04:30 p.m. EDT. Yeah, I'm sure you're better with clocks than me, mate, so I'll hand over to you. Yeah, GMT is 1 hour ahead of UTC, by the way. See this? This is what I bet, and this is where I get going off a tangent here. So I only recently discovered, and I'm from the UK I always thought it was GMT, and I recently discovered that there's a BST, which I thought was GMT originally.
Navigating Time Zones
But, yeah, just. It's confusing for me, and especially when the US clocks change. But just in terms of joining. Yeah, so just. We host the same time every day. If you follow this account, we'll do a daily question, and within that question will be links to any spaces. We've got that there. We've also got a website, and on every Monday around lunchtime for me, we'll put all the spaces on there so you can kind of set reminders yourself.
Encouragement to Join Spaces
If you do want to hop in and join, there's absolutely no pressure to speak. We don't put any pressure on the audience members. We know some people just kind of like listening. So if you do want to come, you're more than welcome to come check in. Obviously, we don't provide advice, but I think if you are struggling and you feel like you might benefit, just hop in. We've got a space in five minutes that we'll be doing.
Building Confidence Through Participation
Just hop in and just kind of sit around and see. Just kind of get a vibe for what we're doing. I think a lot of the times it can be quite daunting the first time you attend, but I think just hearing other people speak, it kind of builds your own confidence up as well. But, yeah, if anyone does want to join, you're more than welcome. And as I said, we're running Monday to Wednesday at the moment, and we start five minutes from now.
Final Insights and Takeaway
Remember, everyone, your mind is your greatest asset. You need to stay calm during the crazy markets. You need to stay focused. You need to have a plan, and without that, you can get wrecked really bad. So take care of yourself. Everyone, I want to give a big thank you to Lewis Finn for joining at mental health collective. You guys can join their spaces in five minutes or four minutes, as he said. And, yeah, thank you guys all for joining us today.
