One thing you need to prioritize in your business for your mental health

In this episode, we're talking about what we get wrong with our mental health.

Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the weeniecast.

There's a big thing that we get wrong about caring for our mental health.

As a Western society, we're told that caring for your mental health is like an inside game.

It's a thing that you do in solitude to have really good mental health.

We're sold this idea that we have to meditate, which is a solo activity.

We have to sleep, eat good food, drink water, which, of course, like, are important.

They're foundational to living in a meat suit that requires those things.

But again, they're solo activities or things that you pretty much do alone.

We're told to go to therapy, which while, yes, there is another person there, it's still an activity that you go through pretty much alone.

As someone who is being facilitated through this process.

Foreign over the last several months, as we have been staring down the barrel of a another presidency by the Orange man, whose name I will not mention, I have been really struggling with my mental health.

And I think it's really important to talk about this on this podcast because as business owners, it's already such a lonely process to start and grow a business.

And it's normal for us to go through these normal dips and valleys as human beings.

But when you're already alone in your business, it's really easy to think that you're the only one who's struggling through it.

There's this excellent story that was shared on the Moth podcast.

I'm going to link it in the show notes, but it's about this guy who was researching cures to depression.

And, you know, he's doing all this research and he's getting a lot of answers from Americans and people in the Western world, and he finds some information on how depression is cured in a region of Africa.

And I forget the exact country it was based in.

Basically, their whole approach to curing depression is a community endeavor.

And the episode is absolutely hysterical.

So first I had to change out of my jeans and my T shirt and put on a loincloth and.

And then I sat down and then I had my chest and my arms rubbed with millet.

And then, which is a brain.

And then someone said, oh, we really should have music for this.

And I said, oh, great.

And I thought, you know, drumming, I thought some atmospheric thing.

And she came out with her very prized possession, which was a battery operated tape player for which she had one tape, which was Chariots of Fire.

So trigger warning.

There is some animal sacrifice in this story, but I highly recommend you go and listen to it.

And of course, like, I'm not recommending you sacrifice animals or do any kind of ritual.

That is not something that you're willing to do to cure depression or to work on your mental health.

But I'm pointing to this as an example of how when we really want to work on our mental health and make sure that we are grounded and make sure that we are firmly grounded in our existence, that we have hope for the future, that we have the energy to do the work that we really need to do, both in our business and in the world, so that we can have impact and protect those who are marginalized and go above and beyond as human beings.

We can't do it alone.

Caring for your mental health is not a solo game.

It's actually a community game.

So I have a small announcement that I'll give you at the end of this episode, but I really want to lay out what I'm focusing on, knowing that to take care of my mental health, I have to be immersed in community to get through this really stressful time in our lives.

And I know I am not the only one going through this right now.

So as I'm talking through this, I offer it to you as an open suggestion for you to play with and make your own.

Because what works for me may work for you, but something completely different might work as well.

Now, of course, I am spending time doing the normal things that we've been sold.

Meditation.

Meditation has been something that I have done inconsistently throughout my life.

I go through spurts where I meditate every single day, and then I don't meditate for months.

And I know that when I'm actually meditating every single day, my stress levels are so reduced, they're not eliminated completely, but it does help an incredible amount.

Now, the style of meditation that I practice is Transcendental meditation, but there are so many different modalities of meditation.

And really, at the end of the day, it's mindfulness.

It's being in the moment.

It's sitting there and just accepting whatever comes up for you.

So if you've never meditated before and you want to check it out, I invite you to just go check out different modalities, right?

You can do the classical meditation where you sit there in silence and don't do anything, and you have your eyes closed.

You can stare at a candle, you can stare at a crystal, whatever it is you're into.

You can absolutely download one of those apps.

There are a bunch of them out there right now that have guided meditations.

There's another style of meditation that's far more active if you tend to be bored by just sitting there.

And it's actually called mindfulness Based Stress reduction.

Now there's actually a free online course that walks you through an eight week program on how to do this.

It is absolutely incredible.

I am linking this in the show notes and it's going to be weeniecast.com forward/mindfulness.

And this is especially good for those of you who when you sit in silence, you tend to ruminate and get more and more obsessed around all the negative things that happen in your life because it gives you things to focus on.

I'll also be doing the traditional making sure I'm prioritizing good sleep and getting plenty of it.

Now how I do this is the totally unsexy way where I give myself a bedtime and treat myself basically like a child.

I take my phone away from myself at a certain point in the evening and I'm only allowed to read with dim lights and then I turn the lights off at a very specific time and if I don't fall asleep right away, that's just too bad.

I tell myself that I am still getting rest by not filling my brain with activities that includes doom scrolling.

I'm not doing that and really prioritizing setting a schedule where I do get a consistent nine hours of sleep a night.

I'm also doing the traditional making sure I'm eating a healthy balanced diet.

There are countless studies out there that speak to your mental well being when you are giving your body the right nutrition.

And of course I'm drinking enough water.

My mom, anytime someone talks to her and like talks about how stressed out they are and frustrated and all this stuff.

Her first question, which is honestly kind of annoying in the moment, but it is a great question and it's usually right on, is have you had any water today?

Have you drunk enough water?

And what's funny is like when she's had a hard day and she's upset or stressed out and I ask her this back, she goes, oh no, you're probably right, you're right, I'll have some water.

And it really does make a massive difference.

Like your brain can't work properly if it's not properly lubricated.

So of course you're going to get grouchy and depressed if you're dehydrated.

Now those are the traditional things that I am doing for my mental health, I'm also continuing with my therapy.

I go, I see a therapist once a week.

It has been one of the best things for my personal development and to be able to manage all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, because, let's be real, that shit is stressful, and it can go really, really well.

And it can also go really, really wrong.

And the key to being a successful entrepreneur is not avoiding all the instances where it goes wrong.

It's being able to recover quickly.

And therapy has been an incredible tool in my chest to be able to do that.

So those are the traditional things that I am doing to care for my mental health.

But here are the things that I'm really prioritizing.

In our current environment, with all the political garbage that's happening, with the dangers to marginalized people, I find myself constantly getting sucked into this vortex of fear and anxiety and scarcity, which, if you've listened to this podcast at all, you've probably gotten the point that when you're in fear, when you're anxious, and when you're in scarcity, it's hard to start and run a successful business because if you have big goals, you're not likely to actually reach them.

If you don't believe it's possible for you, just like the wannabe marathon runner who signs up for a marathon nine months from now, if they don't actually believe that they'll be able to do a marathon, there's no way in hell that they are actually going to successfully train for that marathon.

It's the same in starting and running a business, in starting a nonprofit, in running for office.

If you don't actually believe that the world is going to be what you want it to be years from now, and you don't believe that what you do matters, you're not actually going to give it your all.

And so while, yes, we do have to tend to your cortisol levels through sleep and through nutrition and through meditation and through therapy, we also need to tend to the spirit.

We also need to tend to that spark in your chest, that little flame that has hope for everything you want, that has faith that you can get it.

So how do we do this?

Well, we need other people for this.

We can't do this alone.

And really, that spark only stays alive when we immerse ourself in joy.

And where does joy come from?

I can tell you there are absolutely hobbies that I do that are solo, that I get a lot of joy from.

But that's not enough recently.

I'm a big romantasy reader and if you don't know romantasy, it's romance fantasy and they range from very tame to a little smutty.

And there's a series that I really love and it's called Fourth Wing.

And if you're a fourth Wing person, I want you to DM me because we need to band together right now.

And the third book just came out last week as I'm recording this podcast.

I read it in a few days.

I basically I actually took the day that it came out, I took the whole day off so that I could go and get the book and spend the whole day reading.

And my friends, my so called friends who are also fourth wing obsessed, they were so selfish.

They did not prioritize finishing this book at the same same time as me so that I could actually talk to them about it after finishing it.

I know I I am actively looking for new friends right now.

It's unforgivable.

And if you're listening, you know who you are.

There's nothing like reading a book that you really, really love and find like getting to that next book in a series is absolutely joyful and fun.

But you know what's more fun is talking to someone about it.

Sharing all your theories and predictions and talking about the characters that you love and the characters you can't stand and the characters that you also don't really understand what the they're doing in this book.

And what was funny is I was like sitting really resenting all these really disappointing friends that I have in my life who are being very slow readers right now.

I thought about, okay, well what communities could I tap into this joy that I know will come from talking about this book.

And so I made this TikTok, this random TikTok where I basically just did this like call for help to anyone who had already finished Onyx Storm, the name of the book, and asked them if they would do a phone call with me.

And I actually made a friend out of it and it was so much fun.

We talked for 45 minutes about this book, we exchanged phone numbers and we've been texting nonstop ever since.

I have a friend who her go to decompression activity is to do a very complex paint by numbers and have a glass of wine.

And when she talks about it, she enjoys it.

It's very clear that it is a grounding activity for her.

It helps her come down from stressful days and be focused on something that's kind of a Cozy activity for, you know, the winter times.

But when she talks about it, there's not a giggle of joy.

There's not that spark of happiness that I have heard in her when she's gone to a sip and paint with friends.

You know where she's talking about, oh my God, my tree looked so bad and so did someone else's.

And this person did a really great mountain, but this other person, their lake looked like something really inappropriate.

You know, there's that giggle of.

We all channeled our inner Bob Ross.

Feedback that I constantly get from my clients that I am most proud of is that they regularly tell me how much fun I make.

Our group coaching calls or our one on one coaching calls and how they got off the phone with me, understanding how to do the next scary thing in their business, but also laughing at the funny conversation that we had, laughing at the weird examples that I used and metaphors to help them really see, like either what they were doing wrong or how they can do this scary thing without it really freaking them out.

I do this on purpose in all of my calls with my clients because I know from both experience and from looking at the studies that when you are in joy, when you are happy, when you have a positive outlook, that is when you have access to your creativity, that is when you are your best problem solver, right?

When you're anxious and fearful and feel backed into a corner, your scope narrows.

You will only see a couple options forward in front of you.

But when you're laughing and you're being silly with your friends and you think about a struggle you've been going through, all of a sudden it's a whole field of options.

All of a sudden you remember that you met a person three years ago at that thing who had offered to help you with this other thing.

And maybe they could help you here or maybe they know someone who could help you with this problem.

And because you're in a good mood and because you have this joy and this uplift in your spirit, you feel far more confident in reaching out to them.

Looking back at my sales career before I started a business, the one most successful day that I ever had in sales was the day before I went on vacation while I was working at Equinox Fitness.

And I was so excited because I was going back to Cape Cod during the summer, which I really hadn't done because I was a Cape Cod local and you don't travel to the Cape during the summer ever.

But like I was going to give myself a beach vacation and I was the only person working that day.

And honestly, I had a bunch of people come in to the club and I didn't really talk about gym memberships.

I didn't really talk about the club.

When they came in, they noticed, they were like, wow, you're in a really good mood.

And I was like, you know, I'm going on vacation tomorrow.

And I'd walk them through the club and I'd give them the tour, but like, not really because I wasn't really talking about the club.

I'd be like, oh my God, like, I'm gonna go to this beach, I'm gonna see this person, I'm gonna go to my favorite restaurant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I was so excited, excited for this trip that I was going to be taking.

I broke my own record that day for the amount of sales that I made and for my close ratio.

Every single person I talked to, I sold.

Not selling the gym, but just being happy, Just being like buoyantly joyful.

And by the way, at least three of those clients that signed up with me became really consistent referrers to me because they had a really good experience with me in that first encounter.

Talk to anyone who's in a sales position and they'll tell you that once you're in a slump, it's really hard to get out of it.

Like once a month or a quarter is going bad and you're hearing no after, no after, no.

It's really hard to shift your energy to start hearing yes.

Salespeople just like entrepreneurs make the same classic mistake.

They think, okay, well, I'm just going to work harder.

I'm just going to push through.

I'm going to get a small win with my work and then that'll bounce me off into the next win and then the next win and the next win.

Completely missing that if they generate some source of joy outside of work, it will actually impact how they're showing up in their work.

I'm really prioritizing play and joy and I'm doing this through book clubs.

I'm doing this by inviting friends over on the occasional Friday night to do random ass arts and crafts.

I recently started doing this like 5,000 piece puzzle with my parents.

And honestly, this one, I regret this.

This puzzle is a pain in the ass.

We cannot figure it out.

We're convinced that are parts that just do not exist.

The pieces are weird shapes.

But like, even as I'm talking about it, it's like, it makes me laugh for how annoyed we are as we're doing it because we're doing it together and we're like giggling over how annoying this stupid puzzle is, but we're also not willing to give up on it.

And whatever it is that brings you joy, I invite you.

I know it feels like there's so much work to be done in your business, in your community, politically, socially.

Yes, absolutely.

But we all need to carve out time to invest in joyful moments.

And the key to this is fostering community around you wherever you go.

And I know I have extrovert privilege here, that I can say that as if it's an easy thing to go out there and just create community and friendships wherever you go.

But it honestly is fairly simple.

You can do this online, you could do this on LinkedIn, you could go on LinkedIn and make a post about things that you really enjoy doing.

I literally did this yesterday.

I talked about my new TikTok friend that I made to talk about Onyx Storm and several people in the comments reached out to me and asked can we do a book club?

Can we get together and actually talk about this book and other romantasy books that we like?

Strangers from the interwebs of course.

TikTok is another example.

Just making a silly video asking people if you read this book and you have a moment, can we talk about it?

Because I need to talk about it.

That works too, I think.

So often we overthink what we have to say to get other people to want to talk to us.

We forget that other people are just as hungry for community and friendship as we are.

They are just as hungry for joyful moments as we are.

And just like you, if you're feeling squeamish and shy about asking, they're feeling squeamish and shy about asking.

They're waiting for you to show up and say, hey, here I am.

Here's what I love.

Do you want to talk about it?

And really, you can do this around any interest?

If you really love making PowerPoint presentations, guess what?

Create a club where people make random ass PowerPoint presentations about completely disparate topics.

If you like watching TED Talks, make a TED Talk group where people watch random TED Talks and come in and talk about it.

If you love baking, have a bake off, Invite a bunch of friends to bake something at their house, bring it over and then do a silly contest.

I had this friend in San Francisco, Julie, who is one of the funniest joy most joyful people I have ever met.

Funny story, I met her because her mother was in my knitting class when I taught knitting.

And her mother, Loretta, who is the kindest woman you'll ever meet in your life, took me aside one night and she was like, you have to be friends with my daughters.

And so she set us up on this blind friend date.

And I get a message from them saying, we'll be at this bar and we're both wearing skin tight onesies.

I get there and for sure they're both wearing skin tight onesies and they were hysterical.

But she always hosted these cookie parties where she would get like just those plain ass boring sugar cookies from the grocery store.

And she would get all this frosting and all these decorations and she'd have cookie decorating parties.

And there was always a theme.

So there was always a theme.

You had to dress up, you'd show up, you'd decorate your cookies.

There would be a contest.

It was usually her parents and her boyfriend and maybe someone else would judge them.

There'd be these really weirdo prizes that everyone would laugh at.

And then we'd load up all the cookies in a little red wagon in San Francisco and we'd go bar hopping and we'd give the cookies away to drunk people.

Like, you can make up any joyful experience you want.

And again, I know it feels like this is something that's a waste of time right now, that for the seriousness of the time that we're living in, that this isn't something that we should be spending our energy on.

But guess what?

This is the only way we will have the energy to resist in the ways that we need to, to continue in our businesses so that we can still reach our ambitious goals and so that we can fight for a future that I firmly believe is still, still available to us.

The last thing I'm doing to really prioritize my mental health is I'm carving out very specific breaks for myself.

I have a dear friend who is Jewish and he recognizes, along with his whole family, the Sabbath.

And so from sundown on Friday evening to sundown on Saturday evening, they go offline, they don't do any work.

And he's been telling me about this for years.

And I always think like, wow, like that, that sounds hard.

Wow, okay.

But it's amazing because he always says it like it's this magical thing and how rejuvenating it is and how stress relieving it is.

And I tried it.

I didn't do the full thing.

We like, you know, last Saturday I told myself, I'm not going to look at my phone today.

I'm Just not.

I did send a quick text message off to my besties, who I usually am in contact with all day, and just said, hey, I'm staying offline today.

I'm not going to be looking at my phone.

I'm not dead, probably.

And I spent the day just doing the things that seemed interesting to me.

I read, I went thrifting, I went to the bookshop, I went out for coffee, I worked on that godforsaken puzzle with my parents, I played with Luna.

And I don't have words to tell you how much of my anxiety was lifted by Sunday morning.

So I know that I'm going to be imperfect at this, but I realize just how much being constantly connected to social media and the news is deteriorating my mental health.

So I'm also committing to taking a digital detox day every single week.

And here's for the announcement, I have also made the decision that I need to take a pause on a few things in my business and in my life.

And I've never done this before in the weeniecast, we've been going for over two years.

This episode will be our hundredth and twenty second episode that we've done.

And I'm realizing that one of the things that I've been struggling with over the last few months is metabolizing all the things that are coming at me from this world in order to turn it into something that I'm ready to turn into a podcast episode.

And for those of you who are consistent content creators, you know that the burnout around that is real.

So we are going on a brief sabbatical with the Weenie cast.

We will be back in mid May of 2025, but I'm really prioritizing taking a step back from things and letting myself spiritually, energetically, mentally, emotionally catch up with everything that is going on in the world.

And as I do this, I invite you to take inventory of the things that you have going on in your life.

And if you're feeling the same level of burnout that I have, if you're struggling to process the constant barrage of things that are coming at you and it matters to you to stay on the right course for your business and to have an impact on the world, to protect others and to protect our earth, I invite you to pick something on that inventory list that you can also take a step back from.

Not quit, not stop completely.

But give yourself a breather.

Give yourself permission to not be perfect.

Give yourself permission to choose you.

Because at the heart of it, here's what I deeply believe if each and every one of us is responsible for our own energy, keeps ourselves buoyant and hopeful for the future, and decides, decides, decides.

I'm repeating this word because it matters.

Decides that there is hope for our future, that we can change the very near future to be better for everyone.

That's the only way we're actually going to affect change, and it's the only way we're actually going to get the things that we want out of our business and our lives.

But we can't do that if we're not caring for ourselves.

We can't do that if we're not investing in joy and community and ensuring that that hope, that flame in our chest, actually stays burning.

So if you're just joining the weeniecast, we have 121 other episodes for you to go back and listen to.

And if I do say so myself, they're really good episodes.

They're very entertaining.

I give a lot of helpful advice.

And if you're just joining the weeniecast club, I invite you to go check them out.

And if you've been a weenie cast listener for a long time, I cannot wait to be back with you with new restored energy in the middle of May.