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greetings hello good day wherever you are in the world thank you for joining true Hope cast the official podcast of true hope Canada this podcast true Hope

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cast really takes a deep dive into mental Health's many physiological and psychological aspects this is the show

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for you if you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and that's really what we're all about here

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at true hope Canada and true hope Canada is a mind and body based supplement company dedicated first and foremost to

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promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means you can learn more about us at

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truehopecanada.com today I welcome Benoit Kim to the show Benoit is a U.S

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army veteran he's pen educated he's a former policy maker turned therapist and host of the Discover more podcast

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in 2000 in his 2017 near deployment to the north South Korea border he

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experienced his first major depression and had to acknowledge that perseverance has not always Prevail which catalyzes

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his Venture into the realm of Mental Health he worked in the policy sector for a few years then pivoted recently into the

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clinical field as a aspirational psychedelic assisted psychotherapist today we're going to be discussing

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healing and Optimal Performance enjoy the show all right Benoit welcome to True Hope

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cast thank you so much for being with me today how are you what is going well

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good thank you for having me on and being gracious enough to respond to my Outreach email and quite a quick short

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turnaround time I'm doing really well I'm always operating and in terms of what's going

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well in terms of my emotionality my emotional well-being because as I get older especially as a veteran and who

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have gone through some of the pretty extreme psychophysiological challenges I understand that to show up well not for

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this podcast but it mines her personal life and professional productivity's sake I have to make sure the emotional

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well-being is in The Upfront so all that stuff feel great today well that's fantastic man if you take

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that perspective into every day you're gonna certainly have more positive ones and negative so that's fantastic but

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just as an introduction why don't you just let us know who you are and what it is that you do please

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uh the 40 word bio would be something like my name is Benoit Kim thanks for

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watching not butchering my name I am a veteran with the US Army I'm a pen educated former policy maker who pivot

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into the clinical realm as a therapist and I'm also the host of my podcast discover more podcast which is a show

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for introspective listeners with growth mindsets and I just I'm someone who

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embodies Emily's curiosity and I think nuances really matter and that's what I'm trying to achieve through podcasting

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through conversing with other like-minded folks to bring some more value and talk about the optimal

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relations between healing and Optimal Performance day-to-day that's really cool yeah we could

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certainly get into healing Optimal Performance and all of that and just reading your bio that you sent over to

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him which is really really really cool really interesting I just just reading it you were talking about like you you

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experienced your first kind of like major depression um when you went on your near deployment

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like five years ago and I thought it interesting when you wrote that um you had to acknowledge that perseverance

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does not always Prevail and that's interesting because I'm not sure if they

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like teach you or guide you in regards to how to deal with like deep psychological

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stuff I mean going into like any type of like Warfare is obviously going to be very psychologically challenging but

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like how did they prepare you or how did you prepare yourself how did you and

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your like your your other other people the in your deployment like how would

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you kind of like navigate the idea that okay you're going through a set of a set of training circumstances where you're

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like training you know to to go into these situations in like you know like real life and um like how would you

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prepare for yourself that psychologically because you can do all the physical stuff right you can be in incredible shape your you know attention

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your awareness and like all the checkpoints and stuff but like how do you go into that type of scenario and

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situation which you know is going to be different and challenging and all of those things but with by preparing your

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psychological State how do you prepare yourself for something like that yeah good question so challenging is an

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understatement and as you understand Simon that it's not just a physiological or the psychological it's always

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psychophysiological whether that's physical health and mental health and I don't know if you recall the 2017 very

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high tension tied between the United States and North Korea at the time Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un they were having

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this bit of a measuring contest excuse my French but I got a red button no you

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got a red button and my unit was one of the 12 that were summoned to support the

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U.S troops stationed at the North and South Korean border and I was fairly young at the time in my early 20s I was

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raised by this tiger mom who are all about achievements who didn't really believe in mental health who really felt

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Grit and discipline and willpower will always Prevail which is not the case as you may

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know so that interrupted my five year seven year plan I was supposed to become a diplomat I'm qualingual I speak four

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languages I spent my years in the three different countries and like three different continents and that deployment

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just erupted everything and for the first time I realized that wow I'm not Invincible just because I never had a

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challenge there was Salient enough significant enough that does not mean that I'm not going to have any other

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challenges and for the first time Simon I had to contemplate my own limited mortality that I may die not one day but

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within the next few months if I were to get deployed and thankfully things got better and situation de-escalated

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because of the astronomical cause of deployment and the international politics Arena but through that

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experience I was diagnosed with major depressions I just lost everything I've never stopped working out or meal

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planning on being disciplined and that was the first time I just abandoned all my habits and just got into my Cocoon of

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Darkness wow I mean it's fascinating that

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you would not get prepared like by within your trainings to to deal with

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something like that and I just find it very interesting that we send young men to war and there's obviously a couple of reasons for well a couple of main

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reasons for that that I think that one of them I probably knew and and the second is just kind of hit me now is obviously you want you know you want

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young agile fit athletic individuals going into you know combat into Warfare

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right rather than sending you know 40 50 60 year old men and but also like you're

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sending young individuals who don't have like too much like life experience because

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depression can come from many many different ways right you know you can there can be you know and I'd like to

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think that most people don't go through something really serious in regards to depression maybe until they're like late 20s 30s 40s 50s when like real like life

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stuff comes up with like work and families and you know real responsibility but it's interesting that

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we send those young men who Maybe have not experienced that type of like

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psychological challenge yet like on a large scale right like I can't think of anything more stressful and like you

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know sending a young man into like Warfare who does not yet have any real most likely doesn't have any real

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experience on like what being like super anxious or being super depressed like might be I'm not trying to compare like

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a Warfare state to like um not being able to like not being able to work to provide food for your kids

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you know like I mean it's relative at the end of the day but it's it's just interesting that we'd send young people

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out there who don't yet have their experience and to not equip them

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um to maybe deal with some of those inevitable psychological challenges like I mean were you just like this rare

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individual that like was diagnosed with a psychological disorder after this or were there other people in your regiment

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who also like suffered so before I answer a question Simon I

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want to highlight something that you said that psychological warfare is embedded and manifests through all walks

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of life whether it's your single mother raising kids trying to think about how to provide the next meals on the table

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or in my case an actual Warfare and it's not really about data and prepare us but

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how could they prepare us it's such a difference in unique circumstances where there is no other parallel processes in

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life could replicate the psychological threatening factors of life or death

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and I was diagnosed because I sought help I went to see a psychologist but a

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lot of my fellow troops men and brothers and sisters in arms they didn't really believe in mental health or stigma of it

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so they didn't really seek help so I don't really know what other people went through what I do know is half of us

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were visibly depressed and we didn't want to park and depart from our life livelihood to a land of the unknown and

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the other half were surprisingly excited because Warfare means money you can a lot of combat soldiers come

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back with fifty thousand dollars in their bank because nothing is taxed there's all these combat benefits so it

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was a mixed bag but I would say but the people who had something going on in their life outside of the military life

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none of us wanted to go for obvious reasons why do you think you asked for help you

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told me that you had you know you you were brought up in a very strict and kind of like disciplined fashion and you

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said before like before you your major depression you you know you wouldn't miss a workout you your nutrition your

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meal plans would be on point so it's it's interesting that you decided to seek out help rather than a lot of other

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people who decided maybe that that talking about your mental health is maybe a sign of weakness and obviously

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with the training that goes through the military it's you know it's kind of like all about strength and you know being first and kind of all of that like being

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vulnerable I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily connect with like being you know being in the army or being in the Navy or something like that so like

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that's it's just interesting that you decided to seek for help because it's obviously the smartest thing you could have done but why do you think you chose

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that path I wish I had a glossy flowerly answers to you Simon but if I were to retrace my

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steps back then I don't think it was really me because when this darkness is ever consuming when you feel no Pleasant

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you lose your appetite apathy lack of motivations since depression is a clusters of symptoms since I'm a

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clinical therapist uh I don't think I sought help I think it was either my God my faith the grace

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of God sort of had this intuitive whisper saying that Benoit all your families and I had amazing family

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support and social support but and you know when you're in a dark space you don't hear anything it's not

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because you don't care but because you just can't receive those feedback are well intended or not but for some reason

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I knew after about two weeks of not doing anything I was just bedridden didn't want to shower my hair looked

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like a bird's nest you know a very uh significant odor I'm sure I just had this intuitive whisper scene that Benoit

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seek help seek help otherwise this Darkness may never go away so I did

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well good for you and just back to like the deployment at a young age and the fact that you're having to think about

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death and mortality and your role in this world and the you know the quite in my opinion like limited time we have on

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this world you can a lot of people can take that as like a negative and kind of be really worried about that or you can certainly Embrace that to be a positive

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to kind of like make every moment every every every day count and thinking about

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I personally just for me I don't think I've ever had to think about like me dying until I had young kids actually

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until I got married so like when I was about 30 years of age when I got married that's when I really started thinking about

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um my death impacting somebody else that I like really really care about and obviously care about my family but like

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you know my wife and then my young kids it's just a completely different board game and I never really thought about the impact of my death on on somebody

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else and that was that was more scary than the idea of like me just dying for me when I mean that doesn't really that

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doesn't really happen anyway it's obviously going to impact somebody along the way but having to think about like

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your own mortality uh and your place in the world at such a young age when so much you've yet to

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discover so much about who you are and what your role is in the world and your connectivity to you know other other

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types of circles that's just an interesting place to be in a probably a scary place to be especially such as

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such a young age and in such a brutal environment so I'd yeah that's that's just amazing that you're able to

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actually like recognize like where you were and quite conscious about the different states that you're in before

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and after and I'm sure it's just like a remarkable contrast because how could they possibly um

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put your mind and body in a non-training in a real life environment that's in the

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training environment right like how could they possibly do that without like I don't know torturous training regimes and I don't

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know the implementation of maybe VR or something I'm not sure anyway um but what did your um what was your

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when you asked when you asked for help who did you ask for help for and how did that what did that look like I went to the Commander in my military

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first and then I was in a four-term grad school at University of Pennsylvania pursuing my degrees in policy making

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which is why I became a policy maker after the fact and just told me hey here are some of the resources there are some

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therapists in your neighborhood we have one at school if you wanted to attend to and that's how I started at the same

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time I do want to emphasize this I was a skeptic at the time I do think there's a difference between being a healthy

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skeptic and contrarian right Contracting somebody for the sake of and I think we have a saline example in the pandemic

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recently and I was very skeptical because I'm all about evidence evidence and evidence that's why I'm a social

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scientist by Drake but obviously through the experience I realized the darkness sort of faded over time so I knew it

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worked and of course that was a catalyst for me to become a therapist six years later as a full circle

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what type of therapy um what did you find work for you did you did you try alternate did you try

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different types did you fall into kind of the right one that worked for you right away because there's obviously different types of therapy and I and I

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wonder if the ones that you're recommended by your school or by your commander were specific types for like

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military types of individuals because there's obviously a certain type of person that goes into the military and

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maybe there's a certain type of therapy that that supports those types of people what do you think

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so not So Much from the Commander's side it was more of a general reference like hey I've heard good things about X Y and

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Z check them out from the school I got really lucky because you may relate that

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therapies or Psychotherapy is it's a buffet there's many different flavors there's many different orientations and

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approaches I got exceptionally lucky the first flavor I tried happens to be the flavor I really identified and resonated

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with so I sort of stuck with that and to tie this into what you said earlier that

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the Mind Body Paradigm which is your supplements Drew hope all that I think the Western culture is very big on

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hyper-independence you should do something for the sake of your own optimal being you should do something so

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that you can show up better and of course we all know the empty cup analogy and that's very cliches at the same time

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I think like you say you're a father you're a partner to your wife sometimes I think we can't do something for the

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sake of others for the sake of something that's bigger than who we are and that's sort of the lens that kind of looked

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through that I wanted to show up to myself so that I can get rid of this Darkness or move through the Darkness at

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the same time it was bringing a lot of emotional pain from my family my parents my sister of whom never see me at this

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other despair moments they've never seen me not shower for days on ends never go to the gym not wanting to eat out so I

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think all those combinations allow me to really create a buy-in for myself to seek out the flavor and that flavor of

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therapy I tried happened to be very alliance with what I was seeking at the time do you think

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um having the availability or maybe even making it some kind of like mandate for

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um military personnel to go through therapy as part of their training to be

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able to you know before they even go and before they have a because what we think you know we ideally think like what the

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normal situation would be is something happens in your life that's traumatic and then you go and get therapy to fix it up right

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um sometimes I'm in your case that worked wonderfully well but like I just I just imagine like what if there was

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you know some some pre-preparation in regards to like you know you're gonna have you go over there you're going to

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have some depressive thoughts you can have anxious thoughts you're going to have all these like things you've never

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experienced in a way that you know your mind and your body be that thoughts and emotions it's going to be like all over

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the map like so maybe there could be I mean there clearly is like some some pre-prepared training that your mind and

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your body could go through in regards to like working with a psychotherapist or a therapist or a psychologist I'm not sure

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what that would look like but do you think that the the the cadets and military people could could benefit by

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doing that beforehand you know before the trauma and then the like the the therapy

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yeah great question and so we're mandate Americans are allergic to that word and

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anything that's mandated to the military they're like no my freedom you know so

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not gonna work out realistically but personally I think yes because proactivity always trumps reactivity

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period there is not but that's a full sentence that's why my body Paradigm is important and when you do certain things

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others through small habits that compound over time which create this high yield in whatever domains you deal

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with the less backlash or Consequences of certain things so why wouldn't we bet

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against future consequences of future implications that impacts our emotional

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emotional well-being mental well-being and physical well-being but unfortunately not everyone has a

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forethought or the foresight that we share through our Collective experiences nice well yeah totally well said and I

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yeah I I it feels like I speak about this weekly on the podcast in regards to the lack of like education even with

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young children in schools in regards to their emotional beings and their their Spiritual Beings and the connection that

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their mind and body have and how we have a lot of power over our thoughts and how that can have a lot of power over our

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emotions and then ultimately to our behaviors that we may choose to exhibit determining based on those thoughts and

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those emotions so it just it just makes a lot of sense if we were introduced a little bit more of that

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that therapy style type of training being able to like talk openly and being vulnerable

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especially as a male you know being vulnerable and being okay to be open and put yourself out there to you know to

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kind of like work through like talk therapy whether that's through you know working with a teacher when you're a young kid or with your parents or with

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your friends or whatever that is like just being able to learn how to talk with less substance and about yourself

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like I think that's a that's some that's an ability that people have to like relearn I think when I think we're

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innately born with the ability to be um open and wild and kind of I mean I've

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got I've got a three-year-old right and he like he spent two hours this morning as a cat like which is amazing it's cool

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like he's super comfortable in that in that realm in that environment to use his imagination and be creative and do

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it without the about caring about what other people think but when we go into adults right like

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you'd be crazy if you spent two hours like as a cat or even two minutes right even though so it's just it's just

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interesting that we I feel like we lose the ability to be vulnerable and be open as human beings and we have to relearn

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how to communicate with ourselves like to take care of ourselves and our own mind and our own body and then with

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other people as well it's just uh I just wonder what we can we can do to help re-educate

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the world in regards to how how to better communicate with each other and create connectivity because that's a big

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thing that a lot of people are just absolutely craving especially at the moment is to be connected with with fellow human beings because we go we get

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depressed we get anxious we isolate you know like you said you explained your experience you know I'm sure you were

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like you know closing the curtains up and the last you didn't want to see other people you know like that's where people go and they get like that and I

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just like to think that in like more ancient cultures we'd be aware of these other people who might be struggling with something and

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it would be more about connection and comfort and and nurturing rather than like the isolated based behaviors that

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we exhibit when we're in those States yeah the the answer to your question is simple but it's very hard where simply

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we need a more systems where that's more volume driven than profit driven and

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unfortunately capitalism by nature is not the ethos that I just described but I do want to if I may I want to

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introduce some nuances where just because I'm a psychotherapist myself it's like oh everyone should therapy yes

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and you can do self-help books read research on books on your own talk to your friends

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um just have a intentional dedicated time to journal right I think in the west especially in America people are

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like oh everyone should meditate mindfulness eat right and therapy or

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sometimes you can sleep eight hours seven to eight hours to make sure you're hitting the right amount of sleep right

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all these things are very nuanced so I'm not saying that everyone should go see a therapist we should remove the worst

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should entirely at the same time if that's an Avenue you feel resonated with why not at the same time if you don't

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feel as comfortable there are many Rich wide array of avenues that could derive the same benefits that therapy does in a

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more maybe less stigmatized for you so there are a lot of different flavors to seek healing and optimality and growth

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awesome when you so when you you came back from your deployment you went

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through this therapy to kind of like get yourself like back on track what else did you do to support your own health

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because at the end of the day it's not like you it's not like you have this traumatic event and then you go through

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therapy and then that traumatic event is like over and it's done and you're forgetting about it you just go back to your normal life right like it doesn't

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it just doesn't work like that right you you not necessarily have to carry that experience with you but the experience

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is there but you've obviously you've learned you've you've gone through certain skills and and you've you've

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been able to talk through obviously a lot of it but like what else did you do apart from like the therapy that really

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kind of helped you work through that like that trauma great question so I want to preface by

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saying that a lot of people view therapy as the end-all be-all a lot of people who dislike therapy they're like oh I

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did the work of one hour by paying a professional licensed clinician there's 168 hours in a week Simon do you think

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spending an hour of 168 hours gonna magically heal everything we spend more time showering

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we spent more time on Instagram than therapy so to answer our questions it's the integration that's the work therapy

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is part of the work but the work happens in between the sessions so that's what I did I would come home and I'm a very

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disciplined person and genetic marker shows that everyone has different thresholds of willpower discipline there

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are biomarkers that create a variability in that as well so shout out to my parents I think I was born with a

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certain threshold of willpower and discipline or self-discipline so I'll come home I will complete the task by

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the therapist and I'll just think about it I was like huh is there any opportunity for self-discovery or

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uncovery from their sessions are there any insights that agree or disagree with if I disagree with the therapist why did

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I disagree why did they say what what they said can I Implement anything that I learned into my everyday life because

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stress cannot become personalized we think we can but stress is whole because

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emotion is complex so we have to apply and Bridge what we learn from one thing to the other otherwise we're not trying

24:29

to become a great client in a therapist just like the purpose and intention Beyond meditation

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is not to become a master meditator is so that it improves our everyday life and I think therapy is just an Avenue

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that I did that through but a lot of that came from outside of work like journaling I'm meditating thinking about

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what I learned and just um extrapolating into like how can I apply that to other

24:52

areas that's not just with my depression yeah and it sounds like those other things you did journaling meditation

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it's just is a compliment to the therapy that you that you're going with so it's like extra work like you said perfectly

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about the you know one hour a week that you're you know you go to your therapy session you kind of clock in you clock

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out and your work's done and you know everything's going to take care of itself obviously not like it's you know it's the other hours that you're away

25:15

from your therapist which is obviously really the the key and that's that's in any kind of like coaching Mentor teacher

25:22

type of environment you know like you can you can have a one-hour gym session with a trainer but like you know that's

25:28

nothing like you know the Sleep your sleep's just as important what you do in the kitchen is just as important so it's

25:34

super valuable to complement when you are working with that health professional but you've got to be like

25:40

doing the work you know they are the coach they're on the sidelines you're on the pitch playing right so it's vital

25:45

that we take a lot of responsibility and a lot of um a lot of like self-power in

25:50

regards to how we can Propel and um really advance and complement that

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therapy with those other things and I think journaling and meditation you mentioned and I'm sure like you're able

26:02

to kind of get back into like working out again and getting into the gym and we obviously know how positive that is

26:08

towards our like mental health and the food and nutrition that goes along with that as well so that's pretty that's

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amazing did your therapist or did you take this on your own like decide to share the fact that you were that you've

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gone through something and you're doing something about it with other people because I think a lot of people who go through therapy still even though they

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have asked to help or they've been like you know prescribed that they should go to therapy want to keep that like under

26:32

wraps because they believe that that's a sign of weakness or it's a sign that you know things aren't like going well and

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they wouldn't want other people to think that they might need help right like that's an insane thought but like were

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you what was your experience with sharing the fact that you were doing this amazing self-work

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so I didn't necessarily walk around with a megaphone announcing that I'm seeing a therapist per se but I did share it with

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my intimate family members to see what their thoughts were and I think it's interesting how life works right

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because in this case the catalyst is a deployment and the contemplations of mortality but I think me seeing a

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therapist was a catalyst for my parents in particular my mom to actually see the benefit and the volume of mental health

27:15

because remember my mom didn't believe that for the better 40 years of her life and she's achieved some incredible Feats

27:22

without it but she also lost out a lot of opportunity costs because we don't know what we don't know

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um but yeah I did show um people at the time with my family specifically I was single at the time

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um so yeah but I didn't really announce it to the world but with the people that I cared about and they're people that

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contributed to my why of seeing therapy I did share with him very uh honestly yeah super important to obviously work

27:46

with those people who who who you trust and those people who love you and the people that you know you obviously want

27:52

to be open and transparent with them right because you've obviously gone through something and you you interact with these people on like a daily basis

27:58

so it's just only I think it's only fair that you would share that with them and you obviously want the people that love

28:04

you to to understand and recognize what's going going on for you and in out

28:10

of Interest like what do you think that it changed your month's perception on mental health because I think you're

28:16

probably not alone in regards to your parents thinking that like therapy or like acupuncture or like nutrition all

28:23

these things that are like well like so so founded in research and Science and

28:28

um it's just interesting like a certain generation I think that's just like you know Airy fairy quackery so like how

28:35

what's how's that how's that changed how has that changed your mum's uh opinion on things like that

28:40

yeah I think regardless of the generations their circumstances that we're in I think we're always a

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byproduct of our environments and it's like the idea of environmental feedback um

28:51

to retrace my steps I think because I didn't really share the content of my therapy with them I just knew I was

28:57

seeing a therapist for my depressions that was catalyzed by the depressions but I think my mom just saw my actions

29:04

they saw the mood that was exhibiting how I was behaving and the shift of my

29:10

darkness just spoke for itself and obviously uh actions speak louder than

29:15

words is the most clichy thing but I think all creatures are tropes and there's a lot of Truth in cliches that

29:20

was the test of time so I think just me being able to attend dinner not sulking

29:27

or not being in this cocoon all night every day and actually coming out of my shell more and more openly just even

29:34

having these conversations that seem so minute but just you have to understand at the time I was not talking to anybody

29:40

I was just in my darkness so I think just seeing me opening up I think had this glow of itself and I think my mom

29:46

just saw that and she's like wow whatever my son's feelings are obviously working and because you had to I think

29:53

she had to recognize that nothing she did helped nothing but then something I did helped and wasn't always me and

29:59

shout out to the therapist who aided in my healing Journey so I think just through that she's like huh but but a

30:05

lot of different events happen until she truly had to reconcile with her own lack of mental health which is a different

30:10

story with your experience of working with your yeah working with your therapists

30:17

and and experiencing what you experience with your family during that like transition from let's just say Darkness towards the light

30:24

um how would you recommend because not a lot not everybody I think most people

30:29

aren't gonna go and seek out a therapist and attempt to do something about their

30:35

their current state I think it's a really Brave and courageous thing to do something we're not super wired for and

30:40

it's also something that like when you're in that like isolated depressive State the last thing you really want to

30:46

do is to be open be vulnerable and like reach out and and ask for help you know it's usually like a late stage kind of

30:52

thing that people would usually do but say for example somebody um within somebody has someone in their

30:59

family or their close friend Circle who's clearly exhibiting signs of you know being being a certain individual

31:05

and then like you know becoming a bit more isolated you know you were talking about like you know your body let your body language being a big indicator that

31:12

something subconsciously is not quite right and what would you recommend to you know like a if I've got like a

31:18

friend or a family member who's like you know who's clearly changed their demeanor and who I might who I might

31:24

suspect might be going through some sort of depression or anxiety or some sort of trauma because we don't want to like we don't want to poke people and be like

31:31

invasive in regards to the stuff but there is a level of responsibility between people who we care about to

31:36

check on people's well-being because we we like say oh hi how are you kind of like willy-nilly we don't really like

31:42

it's just a part of like the subconscious conversation to begin an interaction right it doesn't really hold

31:47

a whole lot of value for for those for most of those times so how do you feel like we can we can um really really

31:54

check in with people what I often tell people is that I'm not

31:59

in the business of convincing because convincing does not always work especially it's about this

32:04

hypersensitive and vulnerable topics like our emotional domains or some of the Big T's or smallities or whatever

32:10

we're going through and there is a technique called the motivational interviewing or mi in the clinical world

32:16

I encourage everyone to look it up there is a free manual online the whole ethos and the ideas of Mi motivational

32:23

interviewing is highlighting and leaning into the ambivalence because a lot of us like pattern

32:29

recognition because it's the best way to bet against the unknown air quote at the same time pattern recognition is

32:36

flawed because the past is unnecessarily the predict the future period so a lot

32:41

of people they want to convince them by dropping wisdoms dropping facts dropping

32:46

science and evidence which works for some does not work for others so to them you have to lean and ask them to seek

32:53

out their own evidence in their lives and if they're in that depressive State Simon even if they are not willing to

32:59

take the initiative yet not to resist to healing but they're not ready for the healing yet like the growth mindset

33:05

reframe right so in that case you just ask them to think about their life how has their past six months been feeling

33:11

past three months been feeling do you like the way you feel do you like your ability to show up for yourself or your

33:17

family for your academic schools or your work often if they were in that depressed state the answer is no they

33:23

don't like how they feel that's what we seek help but seeking help is difficult because you have to recognize and own up

33:30

to the fact that you need help and that's the biggest barrier for men is especially right so to that you don't

33:36

convince you ask them to seek out their own evidence in their own life and leading to their tendency for pattern

33:43

recognitions you see this is a pattern you've been exhibiting and living through the past six months a year or

33:48

whatever is this the pattern you want to go down into for the next six months if not let's have a conversations and ni is

33:55

a very effective technique even for non-clitical folks that's fantastic advice thank you for

34:00

sharing that that's really cool what is your um is your definition of healing

34:06

changed like pre your your you know that that dark

34:12

chapter and then and then after it yes so great questions so I think I used

34:18

to perceive healing as this big fancy thing oh healing modalities doing all these things Mind Body Spirit Paradigm

34:24

all these cool things which have a place but now I think I view it through more of incremental gains like Atomic habits

34:31

about James clear right one percent better every day strive for progression not Perfection so now my healing Avenue

34:38

looks more nuanced than what it did like seven eight years ago where I still see

34:43

a therapist if I feel like I need to as a proactive measures but often than not I just focus on the habits day to day

34:49

right I make sure I work out every single morning like 14 uh four four days out of the week I meditate for 20 to 30

34:56

minutes and when I Journal I don't write Journal I I do audio journaling since I'm more auditorily um receptive that

35:02

way and uh if I want to I try to identify we call it change talk in the

35:08

clinical world it's not so much focusing on the problems but the variables that allow you to show well the very balls

35:15

that you do that allow you to feel good you identified with those variables are and for me it's meditations it's audio

35:21

journaling showering and working out four or five days a week and I just make

35:26

sure that's my constant Baseline always no matter what and that's when the discipline and habit really is

35:33

helpful in addition to that I have a great social support and I read a lot of books I'm very well read I'm a ferocious

35:39

reader so I love self-help books I've been a junkie since I was 13. but I read

35:44

all about the mindset and listen to a lot of the podcast and I understand that we're in the era of motivation porn

35:50

everyone that mothers have motivations you share and we might fall into that category as podcasters but I really

35:56

appreciate the essence of the content because I don't view stories or says stories I view it as a lived experiences

36:03

that are part of someone's memories so I said if I really are attuned to the essence of what they're sharing I try to

36:10

extrapolate and distill and synthesize whatever I feel resonated with and apply that to my own life and there's a whole

36:16

long list and this might be a six hour podcast if I have to share that list with you but it's more nuanced approach

36:22

to answer your question yeah I think the I think the very interesting shift to

36:27

like long-form conversation at the topic the content that people are really like absorbing and have just been asking for

36:32

rather than

36:38

responding to you still with me yeah I think there was like a five second blackout oh okay no

36:44

worries I can make a note of that and I can just edit that up that's cool yeah I was just saying that I think it's very

36:50

interesting that people are going towards more this long-form conversation of podcasts and you know listening to

36:57

maybe one hour to two three hour like people just having very simple conversations barely scripted and I

37:04

think the best thing about that for me is just like I can I can really get the authentic part of that

37:11

individual especially when it's like you know like I really like Joe Rogan's stuff like when he's got these like really cool scientists on

37:17

um you can't you can't fake and lie for you know for three hours you can try but

37:22

people are gonna sniff you out in absolutely no time so I really love that I can

37:28

listen and watch the people who like I admire who I'm interested in and like in like really kind of quickly figure out

37:33

whether they're like they're they're talking a lot of rubbish which most of the time they're not because they actually agree to go on to this long

37:39

form discussion whether they're unable to do that but yeah we don't really get so much value out of like just like

37:45

clicks and likes and like small comments like being able to draft so much education and wisdom and I think

37:57

really powerful and um yeah it's just wonderful that we're able to do this why don't you why don't you tell us a little

38:02

bit about your podcast um yeah so the podcast was started as a simple curiosity passion project three

38:09

years ago now so to all the listeners I didn't pop on the podcast stream within the last six months I really believe in

38:15

the Avenue storytelling and like I said I think I have a certain level of intellectual Hardware shout out to my

38:22

parents and I'm a very a curious learner so I thought I had a lot more offer like

38:27

the hierarchy of ignorance I started the podcast um three years ago just to capture some

38:32

of the conversations we're having because I think when you're immersive in that space with whoever you're sitting

38:38

across and you have the intention of really having this free flow of exchange

38:43

of ideas something profound may happen but how many of us remember those 2 am conversations whether it's over a glass

38:49

of wine or sober so I me and my co-founder at the time Aiden we just said let's create a public catalog and

38:55

just capture this but with the hierarchy of ignorance realized we're mid-20s we don't know anything what do we know and

39:01

we start to shift that more towards interviewing and having experts on and now it's after three years fortunately

39:07

it's one it's a pretty I have a deep meaningful intentional community

39:13

and the ethos currently is like I said for introspective thinkers with growth mindsets by Carol dwack and just seeking

39:20

authentic life stories because as you said beautifully Simon that stories or content contents are marketing but I

39:27

think stories are much more than just content in a marketing tool by these institutions and it's just my

39:33

mission to carry the Curiosity mindset and the power of nuanced perspectives

39:39

whether it's emotional health or mental health and just to apply the NR day-to-day life and as a byproduct of

39:44

these genuine conversations across the world across the countries hopefully listeners take away something for that

39:50

but that's why it's called discover more because discovering more insights discovering more mindsets and just

39:55

discovering more stories as us as collective human beings it's a common

40:00

Humanity we're never alone and we don't walk this path alone and I think that makes life more bearable because

40:07

suffering is a part of life it certainly isn't some of the most challenging traumatic things that happen

40:13

to us can end up being the the biggest teachers and the things that Propel us forward to do quite remarkable things

40:19

and the self-development piece that can come with any type of trauma be that like small or significant you know it's

40:24

kind of relative to the individual but there's so much to be learned from like you know tough times without a question

40:31

um how can people find your podcast how can people connect with you memoir yeah you can find uh I'm not big on my

40:39

own personal Instagram just because um but if you can't find the podcast Instagram at discover more podcasts on

40:46

Instagram it's got a pretty great engagement and Community up there you can find my episodes on all audio

40:51

platforms wherever you get your dosage podcast and the YouTube expansion is happening as we speak so feel free to

40:58

check us out if you're more of a visual Watcher you like to seeing the actual interactions and not just with the audio aspect check us out on discover more

41:05

podcasts on YouTube and yeah that's I'm not here to promote everything else but if you are interested in authentic life

41:12

stories and I do speak with some of the fascinating folks and most likely I'm going to have this episode on my show as

41:18

well to provide value for both of our Collective community so um I would love for you to check us out and join us in

41:24

the train up discover more beautiful Benoit thank you so much for your time today I really appreciate you coming on to the show yeah thank you for

41:31

having me and great questions Sammy

41:37

I just don't forget to check out his podcast I'm going to listen to a few episodes myself and I might be recommending one specifically for you

41:43

all and but that is it for this week of true hope because the official podcast of true hope Canada we'll see you next

41:48

week [Music]