welcome visionaries creators innovators entrepreneurs leaders and growth seekers of all types to the passion struck podcast hi i’m john miles a peak performance coach multi-industry ceo navy veteran and entrepreneur on a mission to make passion go viral for millions worldwide and each week i do so by sharing with you an inspirational message in interviewing high achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets and lessons to becoming passion struck the purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips tasks and activities you can use to achieve peak performance and for two passion driven life you have always wanted to have now let’s become passion stride welcome to momentum friday in episode 55 of the passion struck podcast and today we passed a huge milestone i think that there are many metrics that you can look at for a podcast it’s popularity the number of downloads but to me the most important thing is the response that you’re getting from your audience and today we surpassed 1 000 5 star likes thank you so much for supporting this podcast i know that there are millions out there and you could be listening to a ton of others and your time is the most important thing so i just wanted to express my gratitude for joining our cause and helping passion go viral for millions around the world today’s episode is a transition from the ones that i’ve been doing that were focused on humility ego and diplomacy and over the next couple of weeks i want to start focusing on mental health and why mental health is so important to you having success in your life and to becoming passion struck today’s episode starts with two great quotes the first is from dwayne the rock johnson and he says i found that with depression one of the most important things that you can realize is that you are not alone you are not the first to go through it you’re not going to be the last to go through it and prince harry said the experience i’ve had is that once you start talking about it experiencing a mental health struggle you come to the realization that you realize that you’re actually part of quite a large club and i think both of those two quotes from the rock and from prince harry are instrumental in today’s episode where i want to unpack why your mental health is so important to relationships relationships at work relationships with friends and family and your relationship with romantic partners our mental health has a significant impact on the quality of our relationships all of those that i just mentioned just like every other single piece of your life our mental health significantly affects our interactions with others and can lead to significant relationship problems if not properly cared for however suffering or mental health can occur due to no particular fault of our own it could be caused by high stress levels those that we often have in our careers a chemical or hormone imbalance or a traumatic life experience and like millions of others across the world i have dealt with my own mental health struggles and i think it is so important that we talk about it and that’s why i am doing this episode today when my mental health has suffered in the past i have found myself feeling lethargic on edge and most importantly i was unable to empathize with loved ones i found myself feeling isolated numb and unable to connect with others like i was able to in the past and i am not alone and neither are you so let’s talk about how your mental health impacts those relationships i’m going to first start with talking about how it impacts relationships that you have with romantic partners i think we all can agree that having open communication is absolutely vital for the success of a relationship that you have with a romantic partner it’s essential because there is going to be no happy relationship if you don’t have honest communication and forthright communication however i have found that those moments when i struggle with mental health are when i genuinely grapple with communication with anyone especially romantic partners a big part of this is because we as men tend to close down instead of being vulnerable with those who love us and we love the most let’s face it there has been a significant stigma placed on mental health and especially around the concept of men’s mental health because of this opening up to your loved ones can be absolutely terrifying many people regardless of gender struggle with the ideations about mental health it’s not just men alone they feel ashamed and guilty about the feelings that they’re experiencing about how they’re viewing themselves and how they think others are likely viewing them poor mental health can rear its head in many different ways from codependency all the way to isolation and the person who is struggling with poor mental health often feels that they’re alone and misunderstood as they find themselves completely frustrated with how their life is going meanwhile their partner may also feel completely helpless confused and also feeling alone in their own agony as they are trying to connect with their partner and they sit there and wonder why their partner is struggling so much why their partner is not opening up to them and what they can do to try to help that other person the result is that conflicts become more and more frequent as tensions rise and overall communication decreases now that we’ve covered how mental health can impact your romantic relationships let’s now cover how it can impact relationships with friends and family throughout our lives we form relationships with family and friends that are extremely important to us for many of us our families form the cornerstone of our support infrastructure and what happens to that support structure when we’re feeling alone misunderstood and frustrated when we are dealing with poor mental health it has a significant and lasting impact on our relationships with family and friends especially if we’re not communicating to them our minds trick us into believing that nobody cares and that causes us to build resentment and then tension in our family and friend relationships when a loved one is struggling with poor mental health it is so common that family and friends likely also feel the effects of those struggles and oftentimes they just can’t pinpoint why it is that you’re pulling away or that you’re quieter than you normally are you may feel that your family and friends aren’t showing up for you in the way that you would hope when you’re going through this and on the other side they may be trying to help you and you may be resisting and they may be getting very frustrated themselves because they may be feeling that their efforts to help and reach out to you are not appreciated and not reciprocated it is a cycle that can be extremely destructive if it’s not handled properly now we’ve talked about romantic relationships we’ve talked about family and friends now let’s talk about how poor mental health can impact you in the work environment i remember throughout my career i often saw peers bosses colleagues joke about people who were depressed anxious might be going through post-traumatic situation and it used to anger me so much because as i think about this your mental health is just as important if not more important to your performance as your physical health and yet we don’t treat the two the same way those who are experiencing or mental health let’s face it they likely could show up to work in very unpredictable ways ways that you’re not used to seeing that person perform they may show up in a way where they’re irritable they could be withdrawn or they could be experiencing fatigue because they’re not sleeping well so you they may be lethargic in the way that they’re performing their duties this obviously can cause tension and stress in that workplace his coworkers and colleagues feel like they’re walking on eggshells around that person who’s having the mental health issue they end up attempting to avoid you because they fear that if they’re interacting with that person with mental health issues that they’re going to upset them in some way or another and you if you’re experiencing that mental health issue may be experiencing so much pent up emotion that it can cause you to be irritable to burst out in anger and show a much quicker temper than you’re used to doing in the past i have seen it happen so many times that a person who is experiencing a mental health issue can significantly impact the entire workplace environment and this leads to higher stress levels poorer performance and overall growing negativity across the entire workplace environment it impacts co-workers ability to communicate with each other in an open and honest way which leads to a downfall in the performance of everyone involved just think about this in terms of the military if you were having to go and fight in battle would you prefer to fight with someone who’s physically injured which is where we have historically placed our emphasis whether it be the military or your typical workplace environment or would you rather go fight with someone who is not mentally fit to fight i would tell you honestly given my experience i would pick an injured person every day of the week over someone who’s not there mentally did you know that forbes magazine recently cited that 70 of individuals who do personal development masterminds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance increased communication skills and overall better relationships and we at passionstruck are obsessed with self-development coaching and mentorship that is why we’ve created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential because people doing great things in business and life are just like you only they’ve had a coach along the way and we’ve got that covered too let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach growth-minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again go to passionstruck.com coaching right now and let’s get igniting so now that we’ve talked about how mental issues can impact your romantic relationships your family and friends and the work environment let’s go over some tips on how you can take care of your mental health and ultimately improve all of those relationships fortunately you don’t have to struggle with mental health issues on your own the greatest thing that you can do to help your mental health is actually acknowledge that you have an issue and it’s impacting you that is the first and most important step that you can take because dealing with it in isolation i can tell you is so unhealthy and it’s just gonna lead to making it worse and worse in the long term i know it may seem uncomfortable but it’s so important that you be vulnerable and you open up and you seek the help of a healthcare professional especially when you believe that your mental health is reaching a point that is getting beyond your own personal control along with seeking a mental health professional there are additional steps that you can take to improve your mental health and by taking these steps it will ultimately help you improve your relationships with your loved ones your partners your friends your peers co-workers colleagues at work i’m going to give you three different steps that you can take the first is taking care of your physical health and i’ve talked about physical health and mental health all throughout this episode and that is because our physical and mental health are absolutely co-dependent and highly reliant on each other when our physical health is struggling when we’re not getting enough sleep we could be experiencing pain we could be experiencing a chronic issue we could be experiencing a short-term issue regardless of what it is if we’re not performing at our peak physically it is definitely going to have a mental aspect to it as well and that’s why when we’re having physical issues our mental issues will happen right alongside it so it may start with you taking small steps to improve your physical health these could be eating a better diet exercising more regularly changing the way that you’re going about your sleep pattern so that you’re taking into account things that you can do to achieve a more sound sleep things like getting rid of blue light half an hour to an hour before you go to bed reading a book before you get it go to bed establishing a set schedule for when you go to bed and when you wake up etc etc by doing all of those things it will significantly impact your mental health as well and as your mental health improves along with your physical health you will find that your relationships will also improve alongside them both another thing that you can do is to give yourself a break our minds are not wired to be constantly on and that is what is happening to so many of us today we are constantly on because we are viewing the world through the lens of what appears to be urgent instead of what is important for our physical and mental health and well-being there’s no reason to be working 24 hours a day seven days a week we all absolutely need a break and i found that when i perform the best it wasn’t when i was putting in those hundred hour weeks it was when i had proper balance between work and taking care of my health and mental well-being take time out every single day to allow your mind to rest you will find that doing so will decrease your stress levels improve your overall resilience and most importantly increase your overall cognitive functioning and that’s really what we’re after isn’t it how to achieve peak performance allowing yourself a break will not only help you with that performance it will also give you that extra energy that you need work on those important relationships that you have across all aspects of your life third and i find this extremely important is allowing yourself to feel emotions when you are feeling sad angry or any other negative emotion seek a healthy and productive way to release that emotion bottling up those emotions and doing nothing about them serves no one i can tell you that from personal experience it’s detrimental to your mental health it’s detrimental to your physical health and it will cause too many long-term issues in the future if you don’t handle it today so we have covered a lot today and i want to give you clear takeaway from today’s episode we all struggle for mental health from time to time so if you’re experiencing it don’t feel like you’re alone you’re part of literally millions and millions who are experiencing mental health issues just like millions and millions are experiencing physical health issues you can improve that mental health and you can do it through self-care and by seeking professional help and i know it may seem daunting if you haven’t had that professional help in the past but i can tell you personally it has helped me so many times to take me to a better place where i become more open to focus on my self-narrative look at where my mindset is and get myself out of that negativity to a point of better overall performance or mental health is actually the main culprit behind many of the most common relationship issues that we face today things like breakups tension communication problems and ultimately conflict and i’ll leave you with this last word of wisdom a healthy mind is such a crucial element to a happy family happy friendships happy work relationships and ultimately a happy life i hope that you found value in today’s episode and if there is a topic you would like me to cover or a guest that you would like us to showcase on this podcast please dm me at john r miles on instagram and if you haven’t gone there before please check out and subscribe to our youtube channel which is also john r miles and lastly we have some amazing episodes coming up in the future i will be interviewing astronaut ayla baron who’s getting ready to go up on the iss in october i’m also going to interview former astronaut captain wendy lawrence a distinguished graduate of the us naval academy and i’m going to do those two episodes in tandem so we can talk to an astronaut who is part of the shuttle program who knows kayla and kayla’s journey as well i also have nascar driver jesse luigi who has won two diversity awards and is now racing in nascar xfinity i have on navy steel commander mark devine and doctors mark lewis and former seal and dr bob adams such great content coming your way thank you as always for listening and supporting to the podcast thank you so much for joining us the purpose of our show is to make passion go viral and we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential if you want to hear more please subscribe to the passion start podcast on spotify itunes stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcasts at and if you absolutely love this episode we’d appreciate a five-star rating on itunes and you sharing it with three of your most growth-minded friends so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion star community if you’d like to learn more about the show and our mission you can go to passionstruck.com where you can sign up for our newsletter look at our tools and also download the show notes for today’s episode additionally you can listen to us every tuesday and friday for even more inspiring content and remember make a choice work hard and step into your sharp edges thank you again for joining us.
