Thanks to Chris for allowing me to have an open discussion about entrepreneurship depression. I have personally been through this and it does get tough. This is why I am an open book and let discussions be upfront, because life too short to hide behind an invisible wall. Entrepreneurship isn't real life.
Ian Fernando: What up guys Ian Fernando here from IanFernando.com and today I have another guest that I met through the event that happen this past week through down on my circle. Chris has been telling me a story about him while we were conversating at the event and it was actually something interesting that I've been wanting to talk about since a lot of psychology happened in business.
I wanted to have an open discussion with him what he thinks about like for example state of mind how to get yourself motivated in the morning depression we're going to go into things such as how to get yourself out of the gum or the stalling the point of your entrepreneurship.
Since entrepreneurship can be like an isolated lonely place I know personally for me he's been hard. So Chris where everybody just watching or reading about this just introduce yourself and talk to talk to us and tell everybody what your background is?
Christopher Browning: Yeah well hi everybody I'm Christopher and I'm a business coach business coach consultant and I also do sass conversion rate optimization.
So I came from a computer science background and I really help guys mostly men work through issues inside of the business to help the growth so sometimes its strategic and strategies and tactics and a lot of times it's psychology about what's walking them from doing what they are didn't need to know or they already know.
Them doing what they know they already need to do.
Ian Fernando: That's right yeah okay so since you're a business coach and somebody stuck or they want to figure out how to grow their business and they can't figure out why.
I know I'm in that state of mind something where I can't figure out what's going on and you know I just want to give up. How does one person kick themselves to reset their car and get and move forward again instead of just stalling?
Christopher Browning: Yeah there's a couple of reasons why people stalled on the business one is the thing that they're doing isn't exciting anymore and typically what I find is that people started whatever the thing it was because they were just making money.
So it's something that I just kind of like it's an easy way to make money I'm going to jump into it and then they make a lot of money at times and then they realize I don't really like this anymore but they feel kind of stuck I don't know what else to do and there in this place was what am I who am I what's my purpose in life and it's kind of sucky they made some money I don't know what it is.
The other one is to feel like a fraud it may actually feel passionate about something that they're doing. I'm going to use the word passion a little bit later differently than what most people. They may feel like they want to go in a direction but they don't feel confident good so they feel scared they back out and they don't they don't push themselves. You say that they don't they have the confidence.
So I'll talk about definition of what passion is, passion isn't really something that makes you joyous or Happy the true root word of passion is actually about pain.
So if you look at like the passion of the Christ, crimes of passion it's about its point of suffering.
Ian Fernando: It can be mental or critical.
Christopher Browning: Well the point is that it's something worth doing something worth it there's a pain that you're willing to push through because the result on the other side it's going to be worth the effort to put into it.
Okay it's really if we use Chris as an example the reason it's a passion of Christ because he dying it was worth the end result that he thought he was going get out of it crimes of passion kind of the same thing.
That's like a be justified to kill somebody and that whole turmoil it feels like you know there's justification over what I've done but when we're looking inside a business there's always your systems inside of the business and if we're looking for an easy quick fix and we want business to always go well and there's not a real reason to force to push through it.
Then we often flake out we often get the point where when we meet resistance and the resistance isn't what's going through then we stall we can get depressed. We can procrastinate the point is finding something that it's worth fighting for.
Ian Fernando: That's in sync because I know when I got to business, I was held up against the wall I was working three jobs and I was like you know I can't do this work anymore the resistance there but and your freedom was worth fighting for and now there's slot entrepreneurs like I know if I myself here and now you were saying earlier than that he would just do it for money and not really think about what their purpose is right and more recently like now there's a lot of articles I've been reading about depression.
I personally went into depression for three months. I was losing money my first time, I think it was my second or third year into it into affiliate marketing and I was making money and then I was losing one to 7k a day on for a week straight.
And I was like man why did I get into affiliate marketing, I at this just point in my life just by luck, right or did it actually take skill at that time right.
So I was questioning everything now till maybe I need to go back to the job maybe I just need to make this you know not my fault. I'm just a side gig like I did before, before I became a full-time entrepreneur or a full-time affiliate marketer right.
So the way I kicked myself out of it I'm not sure on this is that I got tattoos on it right and my mind was in such a mental painful state that I was like you know what I just need something to kick myself out of it.
Going to the gym cooking usually does that for me but I really need some sort of physical pain and this is what I got my hands it would remind me every day.
Chris if somebody's in this state of questioned what do you how does one electronic kick themselves out you know like I mean you can tell you something I wanna be positive every day but how did that person like I got out of it because I needed some physical pain and it's a jump start or just goes like recharge and Jump start my mind.
Christopher Browning: Presence is a funny thing there's no one solution that's going to solve something for everybody.
I do think there is pain is definitely always involved you know because I was depressed also I was suicidal for good year and a half it was and for me the frustration was I got I hated programming so start off is a computer program and I got to the point where I just don't like programming anymore.
And I got to the point where I could literally could not physically program anymore and that scared me because I was thinking well if I can't do this I can't do anything.
If I can't do anything I'm kind of worthless that's how I got into depression and now and I got to the point where I was so depressed that I could only do one hour of work. This is if you see me before this is my story that I tell everybody but people always come to me for advice and certain wise and I had the point where I had about an hour to two hours’ worth of energy to the whole day and the rest of time I was kind of sleeping are us kind of worthless.
People come to me and say "hey give me some advice on something" I said sure but the problem is if I give you advice at this time I’m not going to be able to wash my clothes not going to be cooking. So would you be able to do something so would you be willing to do some work while I sleep in exchange for some knowledge that I give you people are like yeah.
So what I found out later on is that I can actually leverage that. I was able to give advice and the said of them give me an hour back they're going to do two or three hours’ worth of work for me. Because what I was giving to them was far more valuable than the time that they're giving back.
And so then that's kind of the key word I made a switch to understand that everybody's got something where we can work in hours with the time is worth the three or four hours’ worth of effort from somebody else.
Because they've got something that probably we need also that it would take me three hours to do then they can do it in one hour. So for me to figure out how to get out of depression there are many different ways one of the ways is to figure out what you're uniquely good at.
Part of the reasons that we don't understand what we need to be good at is because we're so good at it we discounted so it's like if I'm not naturally a good runner and I just kind of run just run and I run and run and people are like how do you run so well you know I don't know I just do it.
Well teach me how to run it’s like I don't know a teach you, you just do it yeah and you kind of get like some stupid answer like you don't try your best or go on every day don't give up.
And you get these platitudes that don't sound right well that's when you hear that from somebody what you're hearing from somebody's working in their area of competence and that such competence it's unconscious competence.
They don't even know why they're good at it and we all have that so what we have to do is figure out what our unconscious competence is and then we can learn to leverage that against the rest of the world and we find meaning in our life, because we find that that people need us there's something in us from way we do something that there's a select group of people not everybody but there's a slightly beautiful that need us so much that they're willing to pay us some money or some time or event that go a long way.
So that gives our sense or it gives us a sense of meaning then what we do is that sense of meaning it's forgotten.
Well how can I bring that sense of meaning to the rest of the world in a certain way and that where I'm interacting with the world that it's energizing for me because I can't help but do this one thing?
And then you just monetize, it that's kind of what I do for business coaching and that's where you find your, you could say your confidence.
One of the tricks about confidence is that we think we have to be confident in all things. I'm not able to do all things or a majority of things and somehow I'm a failure. But if we can find competence or confidence, competence in one small area that gives us confidence of our entire life.
It's what we're able to do is walk into a room and we can say I know there's probably two people in this room. I don't need to connect with everybody so that even gives me another sense of confidence whereas before when we're not confident we feel like hey I have that person like maybe that person like me I need everybody like me instead we can said it’s like I don't need everybody to like me.
I just need one or two people to kind of need me and those are the only people you interact with, that’s it.
Ian Fernando: Yeah that's actually really goddamn interesting, so then what do you think about the state of society now where we're all of our attention we very attention hungry there is social media and all this and you have businesses wanting to ramp up their Facebook Likes on Instagram and you know entrepreneurs they want to be seen as the rich guy with the Lambos and all that.
Like how did that affect I guess it state of mind yeah you know that’s conversation itself sometimes?
Christopher Browning: Yeah I'll give you my quick answer I thought my head which is people that fall prey to these ideas of like yeah I'm going to follow after a Lamborghini for the most part are the ones that are still looking for their own significance.
Because I think you know hey Lamborghinis the thing that's going to make me happy or they give that as a status symbol. And so there's a lot of people that are willing to prey on people who have not yet found confidence inside themselves and to get that.
So like they you know money's going to be the solution to things. I've worked with people who are millionaires and they said my business you know I'm making lots of money but the sucks the systems I have to go through it's something else it had the toys I've had everything else but it doesn't bring me fulfillment.
We sit down asked what makes you happy they write it all out like well you know hang out with friends maybe traveling a little bit enjoying good conversations in a certain way and I said great well how much does it cost you to do that?
They're like far less then I'm making so why don’t you just do that instead and then people are like what do I do by the money like I feel have to feel successful like who fucking cares.
Ian Fernando: Success comes in two variants I guess is money as a scoreboard or it's self-compassion right, I think so where I know I made a lot of money before and now I'm like you know what I'm going to need to make a lot of money. I just need to be happy now just because the industry the state of the industry is up and down.
I hate having these three six months of downtime were come in so now I'm more looking towards the long term model and creating that systems to make a valid business instead of like these fly by I've business through the marketing or trials or continuity all last night.
So it's actually really in seeing that like how myself with someone with depression I was taught you can kick yourself out of it.
Right but it's really not that easy you know.
Christopher Browning: There are some physiological changes that have to happen inside your mind.
Ian Fernando: It's like dopamine.
Christopher Browning: So just because you get your life on track that's where the SSRI stuff or some of the other antidepressant meds can help I am went on them in they're not they don't fix you unless you know what your ultimate goal is.
Is what happens you got them the depressive state because you got worried you got to the point where you're depleting all your dopamine all the other chemicals inside of your brain because you weren't being present minded you're focusing too much on the past or the future and you.
Ian Fernando: I didn't even know you had a LIMIT of dopamine.
Christopher Browning: Yeah so and then what happens is it is that you deplete it all and then you just kind of feel lifeless and so the so there's so we'll get to a little bit more deeper theory since you kind of got me on that that there's three types of stress. There's outside stress that kind of you know comes into your world okay.
Then then psychological stress then it becomes physiological stress so if you kind of think of like a bubble like this and then you got things coming in and you or this bubble. Right so if you are able if you've got strong personal boundaries were able to reflect the stress off so it doesn't get into your mind.
But then once it gets into your mind if you don't learn to think properly then what happens that starts to cause anxiety or it comes up to physical systems inside of our bodies and then that's when we start depleting all the things.
So if you don't do the right things if you're eating or good pharmaceuticals or things like that to replenish the right things in the body it doesn't matter if you get your thinking straight because your chemistry is still off you're going to stay in the depression.
So now there's a flip side of what happens is that even if you get your chemicals things correct but if you don't get the mental state correct you'll continue to fall back into depression and that's why some people get stuck on anti-depressants for the rest of your life because they never go through the process.
If you're going out what is my meaning of my what's with the unique thing that can bring to the world or what's my passion I'm willing to suffer through to make life worthwhile.
Ian Fernando: Well guys, that's a lot of good good stuff I mean something a lot of stuff that I just learned right now but we're running out of time I want to get Chris to say. What is the next or what's the best way a person can actually start their day on a positive level. Once they wake up or if you're in the middle of an assignment or campaign or business choice and they're somewhat in like a poor mood how do they boost themselves back up.
Christopher Browning: This is I've got two great ones for you the first one is you probably seen toward the victory man posts you stand up and spread your hands up so your body and the mind go together.
So if you stand up and make yourself larger it's going to have a lot other really interesting one for really quickly is breathing. If you find yourself in a depressive state which also notice is that your breath is very short.
So you just learning to breathe deep two or three breaths don't think anything what you'll find is you having your thoughts inside your head. Because when we get depressed or we get anxious our body automatically starts going to shallow breaths just like you're going into fight-or-flight and that causes you to not think about possibilities.
It then causes you to think about quick you know solutions about a danger. You can’t think about possibilities when you're in danger.
So that's all the other one the other one is gratitude so if you ever finding the place where you got your ideas in your frustrating doesn't look like got any options.
I just want you to take time to find things of you grateful for like mine's always fairs the light bulb I'm always excited that I can turn the switch on and I can turn the switch on right and I get instant light that means I don't have to like chop wood I don't have to light a fire not to do all this other stuff.
Ian Fernando: Are you just automatically thinking that or you're writing it down or you like just looking at the light bulb or like?
Christopher Browning: This is an example like that yeah but do other things you got friends in your life got even if you've got 25 bucks in your account may not seem a lot but you could think well you know what there's actually tons of people in the world that have debt or they don't have anything.
I got a roof over my head if you start having gratitude again what happens to get you to the point of seeing possibilities so it's just sometimes we're looking for just a smidgen we're not looking for a lot we're just looking for like one little thing to get us back in the right direction and then action creates truly creates confidence.
You can't fake it till you make it like confidence like a lot of people say so I can't say I'm going to pretend I'm going to be confident you can get yourself hyped up for a little bit but it's not lasting what you can do is create small wins and small wins together create large ones.
So there's nothing in life where it's like hey I got this big win it's always chopped up from smaller pieces and then what you're able to see is if you know the end goal that you want you just keep subdividing out so smaller, smaller, smaller small pieces.
Till you get to the point where it's like alright what I need to do is get up and walk harder to computer and write an email to a person I can do that no it's going to happen after that but I take action. And that's a part about depression is that when we get into depression we get a point I'm not taking any action.
So if we learn to take small actions we start seeing results in our life then we can realize that we're able to push the stress out of a life that has come into us then we learn to also build better boundaries around our personal life.
Ian Fernando: Well Chris I mean that's awesome I mean we're going to everybody want more advice from you or can they find you at.
Christopher Browning: You can find me at coach after ChristopherBrowning.com or smart rapidgrowth.com actually goes to the exact same URL.
Ian Fernando: Awesome I appreciate thank you gave me a lot of insight actually from a conversation we had by a DC event. So yeah it was awesome well guys that's it for now thank you thank you Chris and stay tuned if you have any questions leave them in the comment and I'll post some backup to Christian and I’ll respond to you.
