S1 E12 Shit2TalkAbout Improving Your Mindset with Paul Wilson
Transcript was AI generated, if there are mistakes, please let me know! Thank you in advance! Jenn Junod
Welcome to Sh!t You Don't Want to Talk About before listening to today's episode, please be advised. Some content may include discussion around topics that are difficult to hear, especially for Children under the age of 13. We want to encourage you to care for yourself, security and well being resources of each episode will be listed in the episode description and on the website Shit2TalkAbout dot com.
Jenn Junod
Paul. Welcome to the podcast. What shit do you want to talk about today?
Paul Wilson
Yeah. Well, my name is Paul. I am a mindset coach, hypnotist and a healer and I am happy to talk about anything because I've got over the stage now of feelings of regret and guilt and shame and all those kind of things and the stuff we're going to talk about today to me is really, really important that more people start to talk about it so that it doesn't become a stigma so that it helps people, you know, to, to get over it themselves to realize they're not the only one to have suffered with
XY or Z. You know what I mean? The death, divorce, depression. And there was another one as well. Which I can't remember. I've been through all of them. Yeah. And I've come out the other side and I'm smiling, life goes on and that really, to me is the whole point of it. You know, where you're in right now, that situation is temporary and you will get through it.
Now. It might take a minute, it might take a day, it might take 10 years. But there's always an ending, There's always a way to, to make changes and to look for the positive out, some of the most horrible things that have happened.
Jenn Junod
And I completely agree and thank you for that. And one thing that I was thinking about since last time we spoke because to the listeners, I asked Paul about tarot and many other questions about healing. And it's just so fascinating to me. How did you end up getting into that world? Were you always in that world? Did you grow up there? Like how, how does one even start off going into that? And what is it in more detail?
Paul Wilson
Ok. So, my growing up was pretty much, you know, working class, normal way of doing things. Dad went to work and mum had a part time job. I didn't have a brilliant childhood. I was very sickly. I had asthma, but when I was a kid, it was undiagnosed, it was just called like a wheezy chest. So, you know, the movies where the kids are choosing teams.
You've got two captains and they're picking the team. There's always one kid right at the end that neither side wants. Yeah, that was always me. I was always the one neither side wanted. and that felt horrible, you know. my dad was a man of color and in where I lived at the time there were very few people of color around, so I got stigmatized. I got called all kinds of names got bullied and, and all all the rest of it.
And it was a very challenging childhood, not a lot of smiles around that I can remember. And I got determined to get out of there and change that whole perspective and to do different things. So I left school at 15. I didn't go to college. I went into the Army for a couple of years. I spent the eighties traveling around Europe, you know, doing lots and lots of kind of part time jobs, building things, knocking, knocking things down, moving stuff from A to B and back again and helping
people do all kinds of things, summer jobs by the beach, winter jobs and ski resorts, that kind of stuff. And I had a fabulous time, met someone came back to the UK in 88 and then in 92 I joined a company, it's called the Channel Tunnel, which is a railway link under the sea between the UK and Continental Europe. And it's like two railway tunnels and like a middle tunnel in the, for all the service vehicles and rescue vehicles, that kind of thing.
I was there for 25 years and in 1997 I decided that 25 years was a really good time to end things and to move forward. Now, to be perfectly honest with you, it was, it came from the fact that I thought, you know, I wasn't gonna move any further up in the hierarchy. I wasn't particularly en enamored. I wasn't really in love with the job I was doing at the time.
And I just thought to myself, look, Paul, you've got a choice. You can either stay here and be miserable and probably make most of the people around you miserable for the next 5, 1015. God knows how many years or you can take a leap of faith and jump into the dark and see what happens. And that's what I did. So on the exact date of my 25th anniversary, I left the channel tunnel and went into the unknown.
I was gonna become a photographer, but I spoke to some professional photographers and they can very quickly said, don't bother because nowadays everybody, one of these things. Yeah. Calls himself photographer and the, the floor, the bottom that kind of dropped out of that market. And they said, unless you wanna turn your hobby into something you absolutely hate and it becomes a grind and a slob.
Don't do it. So, I thought about that and I went, you know what? They're right. I love photography. I love taking photographs. I don't want it to become something that I don't enjoy doing. So I thought, ok, well, bin that idea, let's think of something else. And at the time I, I was going through a lot of changes. I'd taken a personal trainer. I dropped a lot of fat, put on some muscle.
I did a social dynamics course. I did a stand up comedy course. I did all kinds of things and then I did a one day trial for a hypnosis training and really enjoyed it. I went with this lady that had a fear of, you know, snakes and worms and things that riddled them, crawl about the floor and we got a really good result. And at the end of the day I thought, yeah, that was ok.
But things changed the very next day because she sent me, a video and basically every Sunday morning, this lady and her family went for a walk in some local woods and dad, you know, the husband was always videoing things and, you know, cos that's what he was into anyway. Long story short, they're walking along. Dad goes to the lady. Careful, darling.
You better walk around. He goes, look, there's a big worm on the floor and she goes. No, no, no, no, it's ok, darling. And she gets her hands these very, very carefully, very gently scoops up this worm in her hands, carries it over to a grassy bank. Drops it on the grassy bank. Now, husband launched a stream of expletives cos he can't believe what he's seen and nearly drops the phone.
And I'm going, wow, I've got a superpower. So I went back to the guy that trained me, found out who trained him and went as far as I could up the ladder and bought all the books, all the courses and really just fell in love with, with hypnosis cos I then recognized I'd always had a fascination with the mind and mesmerism of that TV. Show the mentalist and all that kind of stuff.
And it really just kind of all coalesced. Yeah, out of nowhere essentially. And so I became a hypnotherapist. I was helping people with everything from alcohol problems, losing weight, stopping smoking, stress, anxiety, all that kind of stuff. But then I realized over a short period of time that I was only treating, helping a person with one tiny aspect of their life.
And I really wanted to help the whole person. So I figured out the best way to do that would be to come out like a mindset coach, which is the way I see it is. I'm helping people change everything up here, changing their, their outlook on life, going from a closed mindset and negative point of view of the world to a, a growth mindset or an open mindset and helping them basically look at their whole lives and find out what they really wanna do and help them to get there.
And that's what I've been doing. And so I kind of kept the hypnosis skill. Along with me, I learned some healing skills as well. And then during lockdown back in 2020 I was looking for something to do because, you know, lockdown was really serious in the UK. We couldn't even go out the house or that kind of stuff. And I found this, it's gonna be back to front, but it's a tarot card here. And I discovered Taro and this is from the Droid Craft Tarot, which is like a pagan tarot set.
And I found this guy online doing a really kind of, it was there, there was no kind of mystical mystery woo woo, kind of. So it's a very practical course. So I did that and taught myself tarot and really, really enjoyed it. And the idea is what I've got a bit more experience is that I will bring in the tarot into my coaching to help people get different insights into various things, aspects of their life.
Paul Wilson, Jenn Junod
There is so many questions and ask, ask, ask away.
Jenn Junod
I, I, and this is something that we didn't cover in the intro call. And that's one of the many reasons I love the intro calls is I get a little glimpse to make sure that we get along. And I had no idea that you worked for the tunnel. What did you call it?
Paul Wilson, Jenn Junod
The, the channel tunnel, the channel tunnel.
Jenn Junod
I didn't know that you were there and for so long. So when did you start working there? And when was your 25th anniversary?
Paul Wilson
Ok. So I joined in 1992 construction work started in 88. So when I joined it, it wasn't open, they were still kind of building the thing and it actually opened for business on May the fourth or 5th, 1994. And what it is is you drive your train or your truck, sorry, you drive your car or your truck onto a train and then that takes you to France to a place called just outside of Calais and back again.
And there are also passenger trains that run from London to Paris, from London to, to Belgium. And in the winter they run a service once a week down to the ski resorts in the south of France and I was there 25 years. So, yeah, it's brilliant. It's a brilliant thing. You get, you're in London, you get on a train 2.5 hours later or two and a bit hours later.
You're in the Gare de in central Paris. Absolutely brilliant. It's a great service. I love it. So for the first, what, seven years I worked in the control room, the control room is where we kind of move all the trains around and look after all the ancillary equip, you know, the, the, the drainage, the power, the the lighting, all that kind of stuff.
Then I became a duty manager. So it's kind of like my railway for my shift. I was in charge of a lot, most of it and then a bit of health and safety, but the most interesting, most fun job that I had the most worthwhile or fulfilling job was I became the, what you would call the emergency preparedness manager. So I worked with the emergency services, you know, like the 91 ones and the fire and ambulance, that kind of thing on both sides of the English channel and the local authorities and
the military. And our job was to look at what could go wrong and then how to reduce the consequences if stuff did go on. So to give you an example, every year, we would shut the system down for one night and run through disaster scenarios, you know, fires, floods, terrorism attacks, all kinds of things. So to give you an example in 9 to 2020 2012, just before the Olympics, we ran an exercise with special forces from France and the UK, put a Eurostar while these passenger trains
underground, split it in half and let you know, had terrorists on board and passengers and you know, there's lots of screaming and channels of shooting and the special forces come in, do their thing, do the searches and it's a brilliant exercise, really, really interesting exercise. But we'd also do, you know, like, collisions and derailments and all kinds of stuff.
And from that exercise, we'd do a debrief to figure out any learning points so that we could actually put those into the process and procedures for when such an event hopefully doesn't occur. But you've always gotta be prepared. And I love that job. It really, really good job. Then in 2015, my job was amalgamated with another role. It went to a friend of mine and I was transferred over to look after property services.
So things like the the catering contracts, looking after cars, mobile phones, that kind of thing. I worked some really, really cool people but I prefer to be operational kind of front lines and this really was, it was a different environment for, but I give it my best shot. And then in October 2017, I got knocked off my bicycle work on the way to work because I didn't drive.
I, I mean, I drive, I have a license but I used to cycle to work because it was literally only 20 minutes and I broke a bone just below my right elbow and just above my right elbow. So I was off work for six weeks and this, I, I couldn't do anything because I'm, I'm a right handed person. It just gave me time to think about what I was gonna do with the rest of my life. And it's really funny because at the end of that six weeks I went back to work still undecided and I was like, trying to get in my
office wading through all the piles of mail, trying to get the computer going on, just like you. We go back on vacation and then the head of hr walked past my door and he went, hi, Paul, how's the arm? And I went, hi, Nick. Have you got a minute? And I've got no idea where that came from and I went to see him, literally about four or five weeks later on the exact date December the 1st 2017 I was out.
Jenn Junod
That is, that is powerful in the fact that I, it took me also surgery, and time off of work to be able to realize I really needed to quit my job. I to, to relate a little bit. And I've had, I have a cyst on my, the right side of my head and it's a little bigger than the size of the size of a golf ball. And I, I've always had headaches there. I've had it since I was a kid like my parents knew about it.
But in 2020 I was getting such bad migraines that the only thing that would work to be able to help. It was put pressure on it and I would have to wrap a bandanna around my head or a scarf and it would actually cut off the circulation on the rest of my head. So it wasn't good where I would lay down and try to stack books on it to try to get the pressure. And I, yeah, I saw a surgeon and he was like, yeah, we have to do surgery.
And so in November November 2nd, 2020 I had my craniotomy and the podcast is launching or did launch the matter on when this airs on November 2nd. Exactly what year from my craniotomy. And to me, it's, it's so powerful when basically life causes you to put your, everything on pause, to get you to think about what you really want and not that we ever necessarily want it to happen.
It's not like you wanted to break your arm or I wanted to have brain surgery, but it really makes you think about what your next steps were w was there anything you did when you're, during your six weeks off that kinda started this or the mind shift changed? Did that happen during the six weeks that you didn't anything you remember consciously doing?
Paul Wilson
That's a really good question, Jen, because at the time I thought this idea of making a change was brand new. But on reflection, particularly a few weeks ago, I was thinking about things and it came to me that for quite a few years before this event happened, I'd been thinking to myself subconsciously that 25 was a good number to leave. Oh, yeah, like 25 years.
That's a quarter of a century. So in my mind, 25 not 23 not 22 not 24 but 25 was a nice round figure, a quarter of a century to say you've work somewhere. And at the time this happened, I didn't know that. It's just, I was sitting there and I was thinking, God, you know, literally for six weeks, it was pretty much, do I stay? Do I go, do I stay? Do I go? Do I a pretty boring conversation?
I can tell you and I just couldn't make my mind up because I was looking at the risks of leaving because, you know, at the time I was 57 I had no kind of second career. I had no real great list of qualifications. I don't have a degree. So getting another job was gonna be a major challenge. If this thing that I was gonna start didn't work. But if I stayed, what, what would I miss out on?
And in the what four years now since I've quit? I've had the most incredible experiences. I, I've met some brilliant, brilliant people. I've done some incredible things like the stand up comedy course I've mentioned, I've, you know, I started the podcast. I've talked to so many people that I would never have met if I hadn't taken that decision.
And I have got some fabulous memories I've been able to help lots of people as well and none of this would have happened if I'd stayed at work. And the interesting thing is in hindsight is that with, you know, lockdown and all that happening, I may have been furloughed on, you know, 80% of my salary and I'd have been sat at home doing nothing because you weren't in the UK, you weren't allowed to kind of go and work.
If you were furloughed, you just had to kind of just sit, sit at home and I don't know how I would have co coped with that not being able to do things as well as not being allowed to go out. Whereas for me now during COVID, because I see all of my clients online and this has been going on since 2019, it wasn't an issue. It's kind of business as usual for me.
Yeah. And so that's an interesting kind of review backwards. But yeah, to be honest with you, not enough of what went on during that six weeks that I was off work, but it's only kind of looking back at it that it hit me that I'd been thinking about leaving after 25 years anyway.
Jenn Junod
That and I love how it's different for all of us too and that you, you would thought back on it and you're like, oh, I kind of did, kinda, didn't I think of that and one? Ok. How, oh, there's like seven questions all at the same time. So, we're working on choosing one when you started going through and you saw the hypnotherapy and you saw, you did your, comedy and white, what got you down that course after you quit and made you go, ok.
I actually want to go start changing my lifestyle or I'm curious about this. Let me go check it out. Like what? Because I know for myself and this is a question I get asked a lot. So that way, you know, kind of what I'm, I, I want to get to and is so many people ask me, well, how do you change your mindset? And for myself, that's something I, I struggle with answering in the fact that I, I used to be, you know, quite overweight, very depressed.
I have a, quite the background as well and it took me years and years and years to do very small steps, but I honestly can't say what that initial step was that got me to change. And so I'm asking everybody else to see, you know, how do we help people with that? And what, what got each of us to change because it's always so different.
Paul Wilson
Don't wait for something to happen. Don't wait to fall off your bicycle or have a car. Crash or need surgery to make changes. If you're not happy with the way things are right now and, you know, you're not happy and you want to do something different, then it starts with something really simple but very important. You make a decision, you decide that you're not happy where you are now and you want to change things up and then once you've made that decision, you've gotta kind of sit
down and look at things and go, ok. Right. I've made this decision. How do I make the changes? What do I need to do? What do I need to learn? Who do I need to talk to, you know, start making notes, start writing lists, start doing, start taking action because yes, the decision is important. But if you just sit there having made the decision, you've gotta start taking action.
Now in 2018, once I decided that I didn't want to be a photographer for the reason I've already explained. I didn't have a clue what I was gonna do. I didn't want to go in a job because I'd spent 25 years doing that. I wanted something different. So I knew I wanted to work for myself, but I didn't know what to do. So I thought to myself the only way I'm gonna find something is by being open to opportunities and just throwing myself out there.
Now, Jen, a lot of people talk about stepping out of your comfort zone. And I disagree with this because there's a door behind you. If you step out of that door, you're moving into another room and leaving behind the stuff in this room where you are now. And if you come back into the room, you're leaving the stuff in the other room. And it's like with your comfort zone, if you step out of your comfort zone, go do something and then start back in again, that thing you brought back with you
is you've left it behind. So the way I look at things is you expand your comfort zone. And so by doing the stand up comedy, for example, I was expanding my comfort zone, learning new skills and testing myself to see what I was capable of. Because the course that I did was in Central London with a guy called Logan Murray who's been on TV, he writes for films and TV, and theater and all that kind of stuff, worked with lots of word big big Dames.
And we did this 13 week course, you know, 56 hours every Saturday. And we did some really bizarre exercises to learn what comedy was and, and how to be funny and how to write funny, how to turn ordinary stories and all this kind of stuff. But in the end to graduate, we had to do a live gig in front of strangers on a stage in a pub in central London. The pub was actually called The Water Rats.
The Band Oasis. Yeah, they did their first London gig in this same pub and it's literally about 10 minutes walk from a big station called, Saint Pancras, which is a bit like Grand Central. Yeah. And step. It was only a five minute set. It was only five minutes in, I tell you, you think five minutes, that's nothing. But when you've got the right material for five minutes and stand on that stage and it takes a lot of time anyway.
So we, we all took it, there was about 14 or 15 of on this course and I was about midway through and Logan got on the stage, did the introduction and I was really, really nervous cos all these people were kind of sitting there. I didn't know any of them apart from my crew that we're doing the course with and some of them had got lots of laughs and we got virtually no laughs I think.
Do I really wanna do this? And the day before we did like an extra day's training and my kind of script being ripped to shreds by Logan. And I, at one stage, I thought, you know what, I'm not gonna turn up on the Sunday night. I've got nothing. I've got no material. I'm just not gonna do it. And I had a chat with some of the, the other gang and they said no, just use the old stuff, you do because that was what that works.
And all day Saturday after the course and all day Saturday morning, Sunday morning, I'm thinking, yeah. Ok. I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. So I got out of the old material, jigged it around a little bit. Went on, went to the place, got on the stage and as soon as I put my foot on the stage, something changed, seeing the, the big bright light shining my face, turning the audience stars, I could just see kind of silhouettes.
And it was weird because I just started and just did my set and I got a couple of hecklers which was brilliant cos the hecklers kind of were, were going at me and that created some interaction and that got the audience going and it turned what could have been a, a an OK, kind of five minutes. It was really, really good five minutes because the hecklers saved me to a certain extent.
I was able to interact with them and got a really good thing going. I loved it. It was great fun. Now, I, the intention wasn't to become a stand up comedian because that just takes years and years and years. And I didn't want that. It was just basically to push myself to expand my limits of what I know I can do. And now I'm not afraid to do podcasts.
I'm not afraid to go live. I stand up in front of a real audience and which I've done a few times, just prior to COVID kicking off and I love it. I love being on stage. So maybe part of me wanted to be an actor. Yeah. And because I really do enjoy it and I do like, you know, performing cos basically when we're doing this kind of thing, we are, we are putting ourselves out there and sharing stories and telling stories and I really, really enjoy it.
And so, yeah, you've just gotta make the decision and you have to take action even if it's scary. Cos scary is good. Scary is good. They, they did some studies a few years back and they looked at fear and excitement and when you look at the physical reactions in your body, they're pretty much the same, you know, Bruce Springsteen did an interview.
I mentioned this before Bruce Springsteen did an interview years ago for one of the music magazines. They said, oh, Bruce, how do you know you're ready to go on stage? And he looked at the guy and he went, you know what? My palms get sweaty, my heart starts beating faster. I can't keep still. My breathing gets shorter. Then I know I'm ready to go on stage.
They talked to a lady called Carly Simon, a country singer, a folk singer from years back, asked her the same kind of questions. She went well, you know, my, my, my palms get sweaty and my heart beat raced. I get really, really short of breath. Iii, I just know I'm gonna have a panic attack and I can't go on stage. She canceled so many shows cos she couldn't get on stage.
But when you listen and you read what they say the symptoms are pretty much identical. So, if the thought of doing something is scary, just switch it and think. Actually I'm not scared. I'm excited and get excited about it. It's just a little, it's a little trick. Yeah, it's a kind of trick your mind. It, a switching from one set to a different set of beliefs and behaviors.
Cos, when you're excited you actually want to do the thing like a rollercoaster. Yeah. People go on a rollercoaster cos they want to be scared. Yeah. They want that feeling of the heart pounding and the sweaty palms and the, oh my God, look at that drop and all this kind of stuff. Yeah. It's the same thing.
Jenn Junod
I, I, I would say that, and I don't, you're a podcast host. So I don't know if this happens to you as well every time before I do an interview or those intro calls that I had, I, I get really flustered around the house. Like I can have all the time in the world, all the time in the world to get, like, to the podcast on time to do the interview. And then I, for some reason the last like 20 minutes before the like I'm supposed to be, you know, starting the interview.
I am like running around the house like everything is broken. I am freaking out. I am literally almost to tears by the time I start an interview and then as soon as we start recording and we're on, I'm just like, oh, ok, this is great. We're fine. This is gonna be wonderful and everything's at ease yet I can so relate to that panic attack feeling because I go through that every single time.
Paul Wilson
That is so funny, Jim, because it's kind of the same with me like today, for example, I'm drinking water, but I planned to make a cup of coffee before I came on. Yeah. But, I, I have to keep myself busy because I get flustered and if I'm th oh, what am I gonna talk about? What am I gonna say? How am I gonna say? Have I got the shirt? Right? So I just keep myself busy. So literally 15 minutes before this recording started, I did a live on linkedin.
I wrote a post and I did some other stuff and I ran out of time to go and get myself a coffee. So, hence I, I just grabbed some water because I looked at my c I went, oh my God. It, it's what was it? 158 I'm gonna go live, you know, gonna start recording in two minutes time. And so I just quickly ran to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water
Jenn Junod
and that's so funny. I, I have a, very large water glass that I use, to make sure I hydrate enough and it's just so big. It, like if I need a sip of water, it takes up the entire frame. So I was planning on getting a smaller glass and I didn't have time, like in the fluster that I have, I was like, but I have my teacup, which is a
giant teacup. It's just water in here. That's all, there's water in my teacup because I was like, it's better than my giant. So I am very grateful. Thank you for sharing that.
Paul Wilson, Jenn Junod
I am not the one that goes through that right before a interview.
Paul Wilson
No, you're not. And if you talk to anybody, sorry, go on, go, go ahead. I was gonna say if you talk to anybody that goes on stage regularly, you will still here. It's like footballers here. They all have these little habits, these little traditions to when they get ready. Like they put their right sock on first or their left shoe on first. And a lot of people have had like a rabbit's foot or they'll, they'll touch the curtain a certain way before they go on stage.
Little rituals to make to get again. It's about mindset. It's to get their mind right. OK. We're going on stage now gotta get ready. And so what you and I have just described, you could say there are rituals to get our mind in the right place to do the recording.
Jenn Junod
And it so is, and that's also something that I wanted to follow up on of digging in a little deeper from some of the items that we pulled from the intro call of. You mentioned that you were married at one point. And I would say AAA piece that I know that I went through is I didn't think that when I went through a divorce or different items in my life, that what would be possible to know that I could change my life because I understand how you said that it's making the choice and the decision to
change yet and then doing the how afterwards yet I know for a very, very long time I was stuck even knowing that the change was possible to make that decision. And when like going through, getting married and divorced and family and life, how could you tell us a little bit about your experience there and how you felt? You know, you finally saw a possibility to make that change.
Paul Wilson
Yeah. One thing I want to say though is that when we get stuck, we know we're not happy. I personally believe that it's because we're not ready to make that decision. It's because we don't know what's on the other side of that. Decision. It's the unknown. Leap into the darkness. Yeah. If I get divorced, what happens? If I quit my job? What happens if I do this, what happens?
It's the unknown. And I think that's why a lot of people actually get stuck because on my own podcast, I've spoken to several, women who've been in really horrendous relationships sometimes more than one relationship. Yeah. And they kind of get stuck into this thing and it's only when they go, you know what I've had enough, I cannot take one more minute of being with this person and that kind of stimulates them into them, making the decision to just walk out the house with a kid in
each hand in a bag. And that's it with my situation. We've been together for a long time and, you know, as it happens, the kids came along and I'll be perfectly honest with you, I kind of felt like I was being pushed to the back of the queue for attention and we found it very, very difficult to talk about things. We, we try to have conversations and they would just end up with us, you know, locking horns like two bull horns or two bulls in a field.
Yeah. And just really going at it. we just couldn't kind of seem to work around that. for about two years before I moved out the house. I was sleeping on the sofa because we, we just were not communicating. Now, I wanna be really clear here. It takes two to tango and it was 5050. I, I made an effort to communicate and then I gave up because I couldn't find a way to make it work.
Maybe if I'd made more of an effort I could have found a way to make it work and I wouldn't be divorced right now. But I didn't. Yeah. So I, you know, I've got to put my hands up to that cos that's what happens sometimes. But also having said that I believe my mind was saying, look, Paul, this is going nowhere. It is time to move on. And that's what I did.
You know, I, I made the decision that despite all the disadvantages that were gonna happen when I moved out the house, kind of all the trouble and the hurt it was gonna cause I had to think about myself and my future and my own personal well being. Now that sounds incredibly selfish. But sometimes you have to be selfish. Too many people get stuck in relationships for so long because they think, no, no, no, no, no.
I've got to put all these other people first. Yeah, I've gotta stay until the kids are, are this age or that age or the other age, I've gotta stay for this reason or that reason and they're miserable. They spend the next 1020 30 sometimes 40 years being miserable. I've spoken to people that have been in marriages for 40 plus years and then the one of the partners dies and they say it's a relief.
I spent the, the fast past 40 years in Pry, but I thought I had to stay for the kids and then I had to stay because of this and I had to stay because of that and because they're of a certain age where you just didn't do things like get divorced. You had to, you know, be very British together, like be very stoic about things and just put up with your struggles.
Now. Thankfully, that attitude is changing now, but it's still out there and a lot of people maybe listening and watching to this podcast now might be in that situation. Well, the thing is if you're not happy, I know it's not easy. I know you said you've gotta make a decision and sometimes you don't want to make that decision for various reasons, but you have to for your own sanity, for your own health and also to a certain extent for the health of your kids as well because if kids know
stuff, you don't know, I don't know how this work but you know, they, we can pick up vibes off each other and even if you're pretending to be happy, the kids know you're not. So what lesson are you teaching your kids that you're staying in something? Yeah, you're being the martyr to the cause because when you go to heaven, God will go. Oh my God, Paul, you were wonderful.
You stayed all that time suffering in that relationship. No, it's not gonna happen. We're not here to be miserable. We're here to be happy and do the best we can. So you have to make the decision and I made that decision. And in June 2012, I, I moved out of the house. I still stayed in contact with the kids. I still paid maintenance and all that kind of stuff, you know, did what was necessary and then I got divorced and that was like 9.5 years almost since.
But, you know, do I regret it? No. Could I have still been in a relationship? Yes. Would I have enjoyed that situation? No. Would my kids have enjoyed it. Would my ex-wife enjoy it highly unlikely because it wasn't working and when it's, when it's broke and you try and fix it and it doesn't get fixed, you know, you, you gotta start again, you've gotta rebuild
Jenn Junod
and that's a terrifying thing to do it to, to rebuild, especially. I know that I've done it in past relationships and so many people that they don't feel whole without another person there and how could they live their life without another person or feeling needed?
Paul Wilson
That is so wrong. You, people have to, it is, it's so long you have to stop this, of relief that you're not a whole if you don't have a partner or a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or a girlfriend, that's garbage. Yeah, a person, a partner brings extra, brings additional stuff. Yeah, you are a whole person. Yeah, you have everything you need. That's how we're built.
We are built to be dependent up until a certain age and then we become independent and go into the world. Yes. Have relationships get married all great. But don't be dependent. Thinking that there's part of you is missing because you haven't got one, a partner that's rubbish. You have everything. You need to be a great person inside you. Having a partnership brings extra stuff.
Like when you order a pizza, do they say, do you want extra toppings? You know, do you want some of this and some of that? Some pineapple, you never put pineapple pizza, by the way, do you want some pineapple or jalapenos or whatever? You know, the pizza is still there, but they're putting extra stuff on and that's what a relationship.
Jenn Junod
You'll still be a whole pizza.
Paul Wilson
You'll still be a whole pizza until you say goodbye out of it. But you get what I'm saying, you've got to stop depending on other people to bring you happiness. The only person that makes you happy is you. Yeah, I can demonstrate this right now. Ok, Jed. Look, sit up straight shoulders back. Yeah. Drop your shoulders down. Now, what I want to do is think of a really, really happy memory.
A really funny memory. Think of something. Yeah. Picture that in your mind and make it really big and bright. Think of the funniest thing. The happiest memory ever make it funnier. Make it happier. Make it see you. You know, you can, you can start smiling. Now you start laughing. Yeah. Make it funnier. Make it brighter. Make the sounds livelier, you know, make it more funnier. Imagine it's a big dial in front of you. You turn that dial so it's louder and noisier and funnier.
And it becomes a brilliant, brilliant memory. It's amazing with the best memory. The funniest memory, the happiest memory you can possibly remember. Yeah. Just keep doing that. Keep doing it, keep doing it. Keep telling that dial. Yeah. Now remember that. Now do this. Oh, you know what? It's been a really tough day, put your head down and you know, I just really, I don't know if what I can handle anymore and I just feel really, really crap. Yeah.
Paul Wilson, Jenn Junod
This is, this is hard to do because I'm like, but you see the difference.
Paul Wilson
What happened? We, we decided to think of something happy and then to ju we didn't, I didn't even say think about anything sad. Did I? I didn't think I didn't say I just said put your body down like this and automatically your body knows that if you do that. It's, it's the sad position. It's the depressed position. So this is what I mean, when I say that we can make ourselves be happy, we can choose to be happy.
You don't need anyone else to make you feel good. Yeah. Ok. Yes, there are things that someone else could do with you. The next few good. Yeah. But to be happy to smile, to have, you know, that joie de v that joy for living comes from inside. You don't need another person to do that for you. And the sooner you realize that the sooner you can then make the decision that you're thinking about making.
Jenn Junod
And that's, that's interesting in the fact of power poses or how I in the same mindset of I, I grabbed a pen just for this example of if you go like this and put the pen behind between your teeth, it will make you smile whether you like it or not, there's not, that's what it will do. And when you do these power puzzles, yes, they won't always work because we have a lot to work through yet. A lot of times it will help. And that that definitely does lead me to my next question of into your point.
You mentioned this earlier, especially in the UK. And I think it's in the UK from what I've seen is mental health is definitely on the rise in getting addressed and that's a worldwide change and I know that it's a bit different than in the US because in the UK, it's not necessarily always cool to hug and say, and yes, I've heard this many times when I was in the UK that, Americans say awesome way too much.
Paul Wilson
Yeah. There, there's a big, there's a lot of fakeness. I'm not being rude here but it's like, have a nice day. You, you go to a shop and you get served and the, the server, the person behind the counter goes have a nice day and you look at them and you know, they don't give a shit whether you have a nice day or not. It's just something they've been trained to say, why not?
Yeah, it's just, you know, thank you. Bye. You don't have a nice day. Awesome. Well, yeah, when your dad's just died, it's not awesome. Yeah, we can't be happy all the time. We could be happy most of the time. But if, say if you've just been laid off, if a parent's just been diagnosed with some horrible illness, that's not the time to, oh, I'm feeling really happy to.
That's awesome. No, of course not. But that's the time to be sad and reflective and to be compassionate. Yeah. But unfortunately some people kind of think you've gotta have this like fake positivity. No. Just, just be yourself. The best person you can be is you, yeah. Don't try and be somebody else. Don't try and put on a fake persona. Yeah. If you're not feeling good, ok, you're not feeling good. You've got a cold, you've got a cold. Yeah. If you just had some bad news and you just had
some bad news, the, the difference is you don't have to fall into a rut of bad news and depression for the next 20 years, you say? Ok, look, you know, I've been laid off and it's, I'm really pissed off and I've got to pay bills. I've got this, I've gotta tell the wife and I've got all, all this other stuff to do, deal with it, make the decision that you've gotta deal with this situation and then change your life.
Jenn Junod
How, and this is, this is a big piece of something that I did wanna talk to you about is with men's mental health because I think that is from society so much harder to deal with than a lot of women because women will have each other to talk to or, and also, you know, a lot of times, the newer generations feel much more comfortable going to therapy and there's a lot more access to therapy now with all of the digital therapies.
How as is that something that from a young age you always believed in and something your family embraced? Or is it something that you had to open yourself up to therapy? And how did you do that? And what would you suggest to other men to do so as well.
Paul Wilson
Ok. this thanks. Had several parts to that question, Jane. First of all this huge stigma attached to, to guys talking about stuff. Yeah, guys can talk about, you know, sport, politics, pretty girls and cars in public. Yeah. But if you just imagine, you know, there's a bunch of guys sitting around the table, you know. Hi, guys. How's it going?
You know? Oh, well, I've just been to see my therapist and he was really, really tough. They're gonna throw beer at you now. It's changing. It's starting to change. But there's still this huge thing about talking about mental illness. I've been through depression for a long, long, long, long time and I didn't get therapy, I didn't get help because when I was a kid, first of all I didn't know what it was.
I just felt miserable and sad. A lot of the time I, I didn't kind of talk to anybody about it because I was young and there was nobody to talk to. And as I got older, you know, I'm talking about late teens, early twenties and what have you still? I didn't recognize it, what it was. I had nobody, I didn't have like a, a really close friend or a confidant I could sit down with you.
You know what I feel really crap all the time. There was nobody, there was no access to any kind of help for that thing for this, you know what I, what I call depression now and I tried to kill myself three times. First time when I was about 14 and then the next time was around about 1992 1993 93 2 times. Yeah. And because you get to a stage, I got to a stage where I just felt hopeless.
I felt useless. I felt, I couldn't do anything. Right. I felt out of my depth and I would just spend days curled up on the sofa, essentially feeling sorry for myself. You know, like I just didn't know what to do and how to change things. I went to see a doctor and they gave me antidepressants which turned me into a zombie which made me, you know, even more lifeless.
And so I gave those up and that's what kind of led to me trying to take my life. And it was only events af immediately after the suicide attempts that made me realize I didn't want to go there again. Yeah, because, so I planned it all out. I was gonna be alone in the house for about 12 hours because my girlfriend at the time was great to be on the other side of town.
I wouldn't be back until really late. So I gathered up all the stuff with loads and loads of tablets and all kinds of things and really nice bottle of brandy. She and I started scoffing all this stuff down my neck. You know, because I just had, had enough, I want to end it in the UK. Thankfully, we don't have easy access to guns because if I did, I probably wouldn't be, there, wouldn't be here now.
So I'm going the old fashioned way. And, the next thing I know is that I'm being shaken and there's two ambulance guys there and I'm taken to the hospital and I spend the next 12 hours in the night time in a corridor on a trolley wailing like a, a wolf because they'd injected me with something and like this wave of agony. So it would be, it would be like a, the tide comes in and it's like, wow, oh, it's like real wave of pain.
Literally, I was howling like a wolf and then it would die down again and it would come up again and literally all night long. I was doing this the next day, a specialist team came to talk to me and said, look, Paul, you've done this thing. It's really serious, blah, de blah, de blah. We don't want to sex in you. Now. Section in the UK means basically being arrested for your own protection and then taken to a, a mental institution and that puts you under the protection of the government.
Essentially, they then decide when to let you out and it can, you know, has a negative effect on your, your record and your career. And stuff like that cos you've got to declare it. So I thought, well, I didn't want to go down that route as they said. But what we can do is we can encourage you to come to this establishment and get help there. So I thought, ok, what the hell, let's go do that.
So I got taken to this place and, oh my God, it was like a, a nightmare movie. This place was full of people with lots and lots of serious issues. It was during a time when people were still allowed to smoke indoors. So you had to cut a hole in front of your face and you could see where you were going. There was that much smoke going on. Yeah. And I, and I didn't know until a few hours later.
This is also a place where lots of criminals from prison would come to as a bit of a holiday. They do a bit of self harm and they get a sense of this place. So I'm sitting there in this chair in a corridor and this humongous guy comes up to me and the guy is massive. You know, he's about 20 ft tall and 20 ft across, exaggerating slightly. But you get my idea.
But he comes across and he goes, boy, you're sitting in my fucking chair mate. Move. Oh jeez, I went, I'm really sorry, mate. I, I didn't realize it was your chair and I got up and I moved straight away thinking that was the end of it. So I moved to another chair. I, I just fucking told you you sit in my chair, if you don't move now I'm gonna pull your hooking head off.
This happened about three or four chairs. Yeah. And so I thought I'm really, really sorry, mate. Can you tell me which one of these chairs isn't your yours? So I can sit down and he pointed to the far end of the corridor and said that I could go and sit in one of those. So I did, I was really scared cos this guy was massive and he used, he could have got like one hand and pulled my head off in one go.
And I'm thinking, I don't wanna be here one more second than absolutely necessary. So by this time, the nurse and the doctor, like, it's only two of them, it's like 40 or 50 patients, they're completely overwhelmed and overworked. They're going round with a nighttime doses of drugs. We all fall asleep next morning. I wake up and I grab the doctor and I go, look, I can't stay here.
You've got to stay here at least a week. I said, no, look, there is no way on this planet that I'm ever gonna strike anything like again because I do not. And I told him what happened here and I, I do not want to be here. He's, I'm asthmatic and he's making my lungs hurt. I can't breathe. I'm frightened out of my wits. You know, I just not gonna stay here one minute.
He says, ok, well, look, talk to me. So we had a conversation and I convinced him because I knew it was true that I would never, ever gonna try and take my life again because I didn't want to end up back in that place. And from that moment forward, he let me out, somebody came to pick me up and take me home. And I never tried again. And from that moment onwards, I just looked at different ways of doing things to make sure that my depression didn't come back in.
And the way I deal with it now is let me just grab this newspaper, forget that it's back to front. But you see that, where is it? You see that period that a little dot Yeah, that's how I see my depression as a tiny little dot on a, on a page of writing and I monitor it. So if that page starts to expand, I've got lots of things I can do now to make sure that it doesn't expand because you remember the cartoons where the hero is running along and they're being chased by the bad guy.
The hero reaches into the pocket and throws a black hole onto the floor and then the, the bad guy comes along falls into the hole and then I pick up the hole here and put it in the pocket and keep moving forward. That's how my depression was. To me, it was like a black hole and I'd get sucked down into it by getting sucked down into quicksand until I was covered and I couldn't see any light.
And that's when I'd end up on the sofa and with all these bad, bad dark thoughts. And so now I see it as a, a dot On a piece of paper and I've got all these things that I do to make sure that if I see it moving I can take action and that could be anything like going for a walk, phoning a friend watching a funny movie thinking about, you know, me, happy memories, the whole list of things that I do.
And that's so I say to him, I don't have depression now. I do not label myself as a depressed person. Yeah, I've had it but I've dealt with it now. And all I do is like, if you've got, one of these traditions need monitoring. I just keep an eye on it. I just monitor it. Just keep an eye on that dot I don't need to physically look at it. Now cos I know I know the signs and the symptoms and that's how I dealt with it.
Cos it was, it was a very, very dark place and that's why I'm talking to you today, Jen and I've talked about this on other podcasts, cos the more people like me can talk about it cos laugh about it and see how ridiculous those situations were. It makes it easier for other people to talk about it. And then the more people talk about it, the stigma gets reduced.
There is no stigma to breaking your leg and being in a plaster in a, in a plaster cast. People can see it. People can understand it. The challenge with mental illnesses is that people can't see it. Yeah. And unless you have a label across your head. Hello, I am a depressed person. People can't figure it out. So the more we talk about it, the more we bring it out into the open, the easier it becomes for other people to talk about it, other people to go.
You know what I could do with some help. That's the most important thing. It's about people recognizing that things aren't quite right that they can reach out and ask for help, especially guys, cos guys are taught from a very early age to be big and strong and tough and not to show weakness and to be all, you know. No. And so it's a lot, you said earlier, Jen, it's a lot easier for women to talk about stuff.
I think it is for guys. And that is still true. You get a group of guys together and they'll talk about anything but mental health and you know, stuff like that. So, yeah, the more people talk about this stuff, the, the easier it gets for others to open up about it as well.
Jenn Junod
And thank you for that Paul. I, I can say I completely have related to you of being able to put it away and for some people that really does work. And I also, it took me a very long time because I wanted to be that person that I could just be like, oh, I'm over it. K by like I can just monitor it. And it took me going through my brain surgery last year that all of the trauma that I had ever been through resurfaced because where the surgery was, is where all my long term memories are stored.
Not something they told me about before surgery. It was something that popped out afterwards and I had to go to a psychiatrist and I'm still in therapy. And one of the hardest things for me to accept was I am bipolar type two, I have depression and anxiety. I am a DH D and medications now that I know which ones to take really help stabilize me. I hate it.
I don't like, it's something that I'm grasping with because even with my medications, I will, I still have the opportunity to have a downfall to have a very depressed moment or days. Especially with being bipolar type two. There's a big difference between type one and type two. Type one is for anyone listening that doesn't know. And this is not a medical definition.
This is Jen's understanding of it is bipolar type one is where when you have a manic episode, it is more grandiose like I'm the king of the world or I can do anything possible. I can stay up for days or weeks on end. And with bipolar type two, it's more of like a, it's still a manic. it still has manic episodes, but it's just more of, I'm more productive.
I'm more talkative. I have more confidence. It's not as big of a difference, but both bipolar one and bipolar two, both ha have the same depression, they both have the same downs. And that took me a very, very long time to learn that that's why I would be randomly outgoing one minute and then the next minute I thought the world was gonna end. And it took me a lot to really, really deal with that internally and let go of the stigma myself because I do, I have a, I have a pill bottle that I have
to fill up once a week and it has like, you know, five or six pills in there because of other medical conditions too. And I know for myself that I am a lot more stable because of my medication and for other people, not in a million years, like medication is not for them. It does not work with their brain chemistry and that I, I so appreciate that you share that because sometimes it is, you know, for a certain person it's making that choice.
It is a conscious decision of walking out and never putting yourself back in that situation and working on yourself in one aspect. And another one you said of asking for help and going to therapy and then for myself, it was a, you know, I had to go see a psychiatrist and, you know, then therapy and dealing with all of it and none of them are wrong. They're just all different and we have those options now.
Paul Wilson
Yeah. One thing that really pisses me off is how people knock, traditional medicine and big pharma and all of this because they say all medication is unnecessary. It's all a rip off. It's ridiculous. I've got a friend who has two kids who are autistic. They have a regimen of medication which they must take every day which allows them to behave and we use the word normal in that sense because otherwise they just really the, they, the world cannot cope with them when they're not on
medication. They're just completely extreme, you know, you know, behavior wise and everything. So the medication helps them, your medication helps you. Yeah, like, ok, some medications don't work for other people. That's just the way it is. I still have days when I can feel the darkness coming. Like I said to you that dot starts to get bigger.
But it's, it's like, the w I don't like the word trigger but it's like a trigger that I recognize and I take action. Now, the big thing is I've decided to create this list of steps that I can take cos I don't wanna fall down into that hole again. And so it would be very easy for me to become a depressed person again if I allowed it to because it's always there.
there are always these thoughts, but I've trained myself to recognize that the thoughts come in that I don't want and to just let it go through like a, an endless train of different carriages. You know, you've got the dining car, the observation car, the sleeping car, I just let the thoughts go by now. Sometimes a thought will come in and it will kind of try and stick and become a feeling.
Oh, you've had a bad day today, Paul and things didn't work out and, oh, this has happened, that has happened and I can see it and I go, you know what? Thank you. I don't want to feel that way and just, I'll focus on something else. So it's, it's about deciding what works for you. And yeah, if you need to see a psychiatrist, if you need medication and that helps you to get through life and there's nothing wrong with that at all that there should be no stigma to any kind of treatment that
helps us because it helps. That's the only thing that matters. It helps us get through the day. It helps us get through life and we can still be happy and smile and laugh and joke. But, yeah, there's no, I don't have any issue with it at all. There are some cases where, for example, antidepressants globally don't have that, massive an effect on lots and lots of people. Yeah, but they do work really well for some people that's the important, they might not work for everyone but they
work really well for a small percentage of people. And that's a crucial thing. The people that need them should take them not just dismiss them because it didn't work for me. Yeah, that is so important because it's not only about, you know, not stigmatizing mental health about not stigmatizing the treatment and the things people need to do to get well. And that is, you know, we need to have this understanding. Absolutely.
Jenn Junod
And that's something that I had to learn too and accept of myself of antidepressants. And I do wanna say this is antidepressants and anti anxiety medication never worked for me until I started seeing a psychiatrist and accepted the fact that I'm bipolar type two and that I have to take a mood stabilizer to allow my antidepressant anti anxiety medication to work.
There are also other medications that I have taken that make me way worse. And that's why so many people that take medications and that understand that they help is they are, they can be called a, a pill cocktail or a prescription cocktail or something along those lines. And it is because you have to find what works for you. And for some people that's as you were just saying, no medication for others, it's a cocktail of medications and I know almost for, I would say almost for all
people, it's also learning steps to put into your tool belt to know to learn more about yourself and find what helps you. Like you mentioned going for a walk or phoning a friend for myself. It is if I'm feeling a certain way, I've learned to go OK, Jen, like we're going in downward spiral and if I have a downward spiral using art has been something that really helps me even if it makes no sense, what's going on the page, it really helps me get the feelings out. So I'm not holding on to them.
And as much as this is everything that we just mentioned is, is very much focused to humankind. It's to reel it back to that original question of helping men also feel open to it and destigmatize men asking for help is so, so, so important. And if you were to talk to your Children or a friend or you know, someone go having something going on, how would you have that conversation with them, that, that person to know that it's ok to go ask for help.
Paul Wilson
That person needs to be able to trust you. That person needs to be able to know that they can come and talk to you without any fear of being judged, without any fear of you saying, ah, just pull yourself together that that person could be able to listen and then talk you through the situation cos a lot of people still don't listen, don't understand and don't appreciate, like I mentioned earlier on, if I've got a broken leg, you can see, I've got a broken leg.
If I've got a mental health condition, unless there are external factors that demonstrate that, yeah, like I've got sort of like a facial tics or I do certain actions you're not gonna know until I try to kill myself or I'm standing on the edge of a bridge kind of thing. So the important thing is to find someone you trust and just go and talk to them.
And I would just, if you can't talk to a member of your family, go, talk to a priest, go and talk to, you know, somebody from the Samaritans, the Samaritans are brilliant. I don't know if you have them in the, in the USA, but it's an organization that of volunteers that will take calls, take texts, take emails from people who are not feeling too good mentally speaking and they are really, really great.
Yeah. Talk to your doctor, talk to your medical practitioner, talk, talk to someone you trust, talk to a good friend who, you know, will listen without judging you. And if the worst comes to the worst, just walk into a hospital and just say, you know what? II I wanna kill myself. I need some help, please. I just go, I need some help. They will find you someone to talk to.
You might have to wait, you might have to come back but they will start the ball rolling. Cos you've walked in and said, if I need help now, that's difficult to do. So, ideally, you need to start, you know, talk to a friend. Oh If there's somebody online that you're, you, you're in contact with that you trust, just have a conversation with them.
Find the important thing is to find someone to talk to because talking helps. And this is for guys, a lot of guys that myself included for the longest time, Jen, you're not gonna believe this. I didn't think talking helps. So I was very close off from the world and I just didn't believe that talking resolved anything. But I now realize that talking helps.
Enormously, it can also help. You just see things a bit clearer because you're, you're talking it out, you're getting the thoughts that you're in your head, which might be all kind of jumbled and messed up and you're coming out and you're talking to someone and that person is listening and understanding and not judging you. And then in your own mind, you can say, oh my God, I just said that and I just said that and I just said that I need to get help.
So it might just be the fact that you have a conversation with someone that then stimulates you to realize. Yeah, I need to go and talk to, I need to go and get help. I need to go and see my doctor. I need to walk and talk whatever it is. So find someone to talk to whatever it is you're going through and they just have to be depression. It could be, maybe the, the relationship you're in isn't working and you can't talk to your partner and you feel really burnt up inside.
Find someone to talk to someone who isn't gonna give you advice, but someone who's just gonna listen with a sympathetic and this is where therapy comes in with where counselors, counselors are trained to, to listen and not to judge you. Yeah. And to kind of maybe guide you into taking the right steps yourself. But there are so there are so many resources today that are available.
There's no reason not to reach out you. I mean, and also just recognize that we do have bad days. If I've just got laid off and I've got debts, I'm gonna feel pretty crappy. That's normal. It doesn't mean to say you're depressed. It just means to see you're in a bad situation in a difficult situation. You've got challenges, it doesn't mean you're, you're suffering from a mental illness.
It just means you're in a bad place. So that, that's also important to recognize as well that you might not necessarily be ill just in a bad situation. But you can still talk to people, you can still get this figured out. But it all starts with talking to someone and getting it clear in your own mind
Jenn Junod
100%. And, and thank you for that Paul. I, I feel like we're starting to have these conversations and even in my own relationship, I know that my partner really needs to work and talk through things and I'm not necessarily the person to do it. Yes, I love mental health and I, but in relationships as you, we were talking earlier, we still need to be our own individual self.
And we also a lot of times need help outside of our own relationships. And that's why I go to therapy because with all the shit I've gone through, there have been times that it can be very, very overwhelming for my partner and I would say he's very courageous in the fact that he's listened to some of my past therapists and have been like, cool, this is how I help Jen through this situation when she has a breakdown when she's going through this because there are still a lot of things that
trigger me and that may be the rest of my life. And because of that and for everyone listening to any women going out there or identify as women or men or anything like leading by example, does influence people to or can influence people to also receive help. And that is something that because I've always been so passionate about it.
He's now open to doing too. And I, I am so in awe of his courage to do so because it does take a lot of courage to ask for help. And sometimes I know that I have felt so vulnerable and really should be asking for help. And I can only imagine that stigma for men.
Paul Wilson, Jenn Junod
And so please please please realize that that takes courage and you're very courageous for doing so that word G vulnerability.
Paul Wilson
A lot of people, a lot of guys especially link V being vulnerable with being weak. And as you've just described, it's completely and totally the opposite. It takes a lot of guts, it takes a lot of whatever you wanna call it to actually say to someone. You know what, I'm having trouble. I'm in a difficult situation and opening yourself up and being vulnerable is an incredibly, incredibly courageous thing to do.
So please don't feel that you're being weak. You're being, you know, you're not been a big boy, you've not been a man by yourself. Fuck. That's garbage. Being a man, he's been able to open up and talk to someone. I admit that things aren't working, that you've got something that needs help.
Jenn Junod
Yes. And give me just a second, my computer just started playing something in the background and I was like, what is that? That's why I was giving you such a confused look. I was like, I don't know what Paul just said and something else is playing in the background.
Paul Wilson
I've touched nothing
Jenn Junod
and, and on that note, Paul, I, I so appreciate for you coming on and talking today. What is something that you would want to leave our listeners? Like, what's some words of encouragement that you can leave our listeners with?
Paul Wilson
Ok. A few cliches. This situation is temporary. If you're going through something now you can get it into a better situation. Whether that's a relationship, whether that's with your health, it doesn't matter. You can improve the situation, but it all starts with making a decision. Yeah. Do not be a martyr. Do not feel that it's your job to stay in a situation that you don't want to be in, like in a job that you don't like.
If it's a job that you hate? Ok, I get it. If there's no other jobs around for 1000 miles, you need that job to pay your bills and I get it. Yeah. Don't quit until you can find something else. But if you're in a situation where you can change your job or you can work for yourself or you can start a little side hustle then, then do it because we are only here once.
This is not a seven day trial. Life is not a buy one, get one free. Not life. Life is like a, a discount or a try before you buy. This is it, this is all we have this 80 years plus or minus a little bit. That's all we've got. And I wrote a post today about the fact that you might think you have time. But we don't, I've, I, I mentioned, we lost a child at 20 weeks.
a neighbor of mine died at the age of 18. A very good friend of mine and a work colleague, died suddenly, with a, a brain aneurysm at 33 and I've lost count of the number of people between 33 and 50 that have died of various illnesses and accidents. We just don't know how long any of us have on this earth. So don't waste your life doing stuff you don't wanna do, don't waste your life being places you don't want to be because you just never know how long Eddie was going.
Now. That's not morbid, that's a positive outlook. Don't think that you can do it tomorrow or next week or next year. Yeah. Do it now make the decision today and then start taking action
Jenn Junod
100%. And how do people find you? What is, what, how, what's your social media, what is your podcast like? How do we make sure people can get in contact with you? Ok.
Paul Wilson
Well, I'm everywhere. The podcast is called a Happy Hate podcast. Paul Wilson coaching on Facebook, Instagram, linkedin and Twitter. I've also started a tiktok account. Paul, I think that's Paul Wilson coaching as well.
Jenn Junod
I just started tiktok too and I'm like, this is crazy. I feel very old because I always refer to it as the tiktok.
Paul Wilson
That's interesting, Jim because the thing is that the biggest market that's expanding on tiktok right now are women from the age of 35 to 45. And that's kind of the ideal range of my clients in their early forties to mid to the late forties. So if they're on there, then I need to be where they are. And so I just started a couple of days ago kind of, you know, messing around learning the ropes. So yeah, I'm, I'm everywhere.
Jenn Junod
I will definitely follow you on tiktok. I am very excited for that. And thank you again so much for being on the podcast.
Jenn Junod
We appreciate you listening to the episode, please like follow and share on our social media at Shit2TalkAbout that is shit. The number two, talk about, stay tuned on Wednesdays and Fridays for new episodes. This episode was made possible by production manager, Tom Nan, business manager, Bill Powell, and your host, Jenn.
