Knowing that you have more options than the place you're in right now can give you such a sense of security, knowing that, hey, even if things go wrong here, I have plenty of other places I could go. And often what we do is we become so artificially tied to where we are that we feel guilty for doing that. But the truth is that your work could tell you tomorrow that they no longer need your services and not feel any guilt at talk. Hey everyone, how are you doing?
Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you, and I am so happy, so excited that we're getting to connect today because this is a subject that I think so many people have been struggling with recently, and it's stress pressure or any sort of mental weight or overwhelm that you're feeling because of work. So, when your job is harming your mental health, or when your work is harming your mental health, what do you do now?
I read some really fascinating statistics about mental health and work on stress dot org and it talks about how eighty three percent of US workers suffer from work related stress. Now listen to this. US businesses lose up to three hundred billion dollars yearly as a result of workplace stress. Stress causes around one million workers to miss work every single day. Only forty three percent of US employees think
their employers care about their work life balance. Now, I'm sure that induces a lot of stress just reading that that only forty three percent of you think that your employer cares about your work life balance. And depression leads to fifty one billion dollars in cost due to absenteeism and twenty six billion dollars in treatment costs. Work related stress causes one hundred and twenty thousand deaths and results
in one hundred and ninety billion dollars in healthcare costs yearly. Wow, the reason I'm showing this to you is not to depress you. It's not to bring you down. It's to make you aware of how seriously we have to take this. You wouldn't fall over, break your ankle or break your leg and continue walking on it day after day after day thinking that it wasn't important, or that it was normal, or that it would be okay. You just wouldn't do that,
right if you were physically injured, God forbid. But if you were physically injured, I'm sure you would take time off work. I'm sure you would adapt your saduo, I'm sure you'd have conversations to find a better balance. But it's incredible how because we can't see our mental health, we let it pass by. Because it's not obvious to us and obvious to the people around us, we let it go. Fifty five percent of Americans are stressed during the day, right, and this is twenty percent higher than
the world average. So this is something to take seriously. Now, whether you work for yourself or whether you work for a company, this still applies to you because your work can still cause you stress. Sometimes entrepreneurs their work causes are more stress because there's no clear lines between when work starts and one finishes. Right, If you work for yourself, even like I do, there is no start time and end time. There is no clear boundary between what's workspace
and what's home space. Often I'm making videos and creating content in my home space. So this applies to each and every single one of us. I don't want you to say this slightly. I'm going to be sharing some really useful insights with you about how to think about this. So there are two people who recently had to do this on the world stage. They had to speak openly
about what they were experiencing. Now, one of the people I'm speaking about is Naomi Osaka, right, and I'm sure that whether you follow Tennis or not, she opened up about prioritizing her mental health during the French Open and that was such an incredible approach and honest, vulnerable way of sharing what she was going through and how she was struggling with it. And she talked about in an
interview with Women's Health. She said, growing up being labeled a quiet one puts you in a box and even worse, makes you stand out when all you want is to blend in. But now I try to embrace and own it. And she chose to share her intention to step away from traditional press obligations on her Instagram, where she has two point eight million followers, and in this interview with Women's Health, she goes on to say, off all the things I do, I find that when I'm doing my
best to help others, it's the most fulfilling. And so it's incredible that she took that stance that she wasn't going to do traditional press because she didn't find it to be good for her mental health. Now, another great
example is Simone Biles. And I'm sure that you've been following or whether you watch the Olympics or not, this was such big news when it happened, and you know, Time magazine talked about how the Tokyo Olympics change the conversation about mental health, and it's incredible to see someone who decided not to participate because they didn't feel well. Now, when you think about these examples, they are huge for
the conversation around mental health. They are absolutely huge. Why because we're seeing people who never have been allowed to pull out, or have felt ashamed to pull out, or would have felt like they were doing something wrong, who actually did it when the whole world was watching. And guess what, they got criticized for it. There were people who didn't agree with them, there were people who laughed, there were people who called them weak, But there were
also so many people who understood their strength. There were so many people who recognize just how incredible these individuals were. And so for you, I really want you to think about this when approaching this podcast. I know it's hard, I know it's not easy. I know that you feel like everyone will judge you and they won't be able to understand you properly, or they'll think you're weak. But I want you to recognize that ignoring how you feel
will only make you weaker. Remember that ignoring how you feel will only make you weaker. So what I want to share with you today is a few methods of what to do when your job is harming your mental health. The first thing you want to do is become aware of how your work affects your mental health, how your work affects your well being, how your work has an
impact on how you feel. One of the first things is job security, or one of the biggest reasons for our mental health challenges at work is because of our insecurity about what we do. Maybe you're scared that you get fired. Maybe you're scared that you'll be made redundant. Maybe you're scared that opportunities are going to run out. Maybe you're scared that this sponse or a partnership you are waiting for is not going to fall through. And let me tell you right now, those are all really
valid concerns. I remember when I worked to a company I had that insecurity. What if I don't perform, What if I don't get promoted? What if someone does gets promoted before me? And I realized when I started working for myself that scarcity came with me. It was the idea of, well, what if I don't get that partnership, if my content doesn't get views, what if this doesn't work? How many of you could relate to that? How many
of you really really resonate with that? So the lack of security, whether you work for someone and get paid a salary or whether you work for yourself, is real. What do you do about it? What do you do about it? I've found that one of the things that helped me when I was working at a corporate firm in the city was having a really up to date LinkedIn profile. I would update my LinkedIn profile with all my recent experience, recent projects, with an updated picture, and
I would do this every quarter. So what you realize is when you update your LinkedIn profile and keep it up to date, you will get an influx of job offers. It will happen to you if you keep your LinkedIn profile active and up to date, and you're commenting, maybe you're even writing an article once in a while. Or you're uploading a picture of something that happened at work. You are going to constantly have an influx of recruiters interested in you. This is going to give you a
piece of mind like never before. Knowing that you have more options than the place you're in right now can give you such a sense of security, knowing that, hey, even if things go wrong here, I have plenty of other places I could go. And often what we do is we become so artificially tied to where we are that we feel guilty for doing that. But the truth is that your work could tell you tomorrow that they no longer need your services and not feel any guilt
at all. And all you're doing is making sure that you're presenting yourself effectively to the outside world so that people can always be interested in you and aware of the work that you do. So when you're worried about the security, when you're worried about the feeling or experience of is this going to last forever? Remember to keep your options open when you're an entrepreneur. I was speaking
to a friend the other day. He's a coach, and he closed a corporate client, and the corporate client was closed for a really good fee, and he was really excited about it. And I said to him, what I want you to do now is use this momentum and going close five more clients, going close five more at the same rate. I said to him, there are two big mistakes entrepreneurs make when it comes to security, and I'm going to share them all with you right now.
Those two right now. The first mistake is that they only have one landmark client. They only have one big client. So let's say you're a speaker or a coach, you only have one big corporate client. Let's say you are a website designer, you only have one big client. You're a photographer, you only have one big client. When you only have one big client, you run the risk of that person closing down, that person going bankrupt, that person losing their money, that company finding a new agency, of
setting yourself up to fail. And yes, you may say I wish people were more loyal, I wish people cared more, but the truth is that's just not how it works. So you want to make sure that you are going out and repeating that work for other clients. The second mistake that entrepreneurs make is they only know one person at their client. One of the biggest things I've learned is that when I have a client relationship, I need to know multiple people that work at their company because
you never know when your client will leave. You never know when that person may move on and do something else. You won't know if that person may take maternity leave or paternity leave. You just have no idea, And so it is so important that you connect with at least four people with clients that you work for, even if the client is your best friend and closest person. No matter what it is, security is a big reason why we feel like our work drains us and harms our
mental health. The other thing to be aware of is maybe you haven't been on vacation in a while. Maybe it's been a long long time since you actually took a break. I want you to take a moment to count the amount of days that you have been to
work without taking an official vacation. Studies show that more than half of Americans don't use all of their paid vacation days, according to an annual report from the US Travel Association Right, and the reason they don't take time off is because they're worried about work and they're worried that all they're going to do on their time off is worry about work. And so this may be your case. You may be someone who hasn't taken leave or vacation
because you're worried about thinking about work on vacation. Well, here's the thing. Work will continue, It will always exist. There will always be a reason that you think you don't have time to take vacation. And the truth is, the world is not going to end. Nothing is going to be that bad. If you take some good quality time for yourself and you come back more productive, more effective, and more creative, that you'll be able to catch up
in no time. Now. Another way to be aware of if our work is harmful to our mental health is if you're in an atmosphere that you feel is toxic, if there's a lot of blame, if there's a lot of gossip. That can be a really, really difficult environment to work in because you may be sitting there going, jay, I don't even know why I'm feeling this way, but now you're like, oh, that's what it is. There's a
lot of negativity around me. If that's the truth for you, I really recommend that you speak to a bus, speak to a manager and share that with them. I know people on my team will share with me if they're encountering that with a particular team member or anything around us that's going on. I would encourage you to do that, to speak to someone openly, to speak to someone vulnerably, to connect with someone that you trust at work who
can hear you out. So that is the first thing you need to do if your job is harming your mental health is become aware of how. Because if you're not aware of how, you can't find a solution. If you're not aware that you feel insecure about your job, you won't find ways to become secure. If you're not aware that you haven't taken vacation for a long time, you will forget that. The second thing you have to ask yourself is is it truly your work? This is
a really, really important question to ask. Is it truly your work? Sometimes it's our sleep schedule, Sometimes it's something happening in our personal life. Sometimes this is because we haven't been training or growing or learning or becoming better, and that's why our works affecting us. So don't make your work the scapegoat. Don't make your work the blame. Just as you don't want to be blamed at things
that you don't do at work. You don't want work to just take the blame when actually it's something you could control. Maybe you've been hustling really hard on weekends or partying really hard on weekends, and then your work feels like a drag. So in that scenario, you have to identify is it your sleep routine, is it your diet? Is it something that you've changed in your life? How can you improve that? How can you adjust or edit that so that you're no longer in that situation and
you're no longer challenged or faced with the idea. Sometimes work becoming a scapegoat, work becoming the person or place we make responsible and blame for our feeling actually stops us from dealing with what it actually is. Let's say it's actually a sleep routine and you keep blaming work, it could take months before you realize, whereas if you just be honest with yourself and you say, you know what,
it's just my sleep schedule needs to change. I realized recently sleep was a big one for me and work, and also it was the fact that I've been working around six and a half days a week, and I realized I really needed a two day weekend. I really needed to start taking a full two day weekend. So it doesn't work. It was the fact that I wasn't allowing myself to rest, and it's so important to honor
that two day weekend. Now, if you're in that build phase where you're building your passion or you're hustling, your weekend maybe compromised. But as you're growing, you want to start taking that weekend back to be truly being rest and refuel. And a lot of things that we can do for rest and refuel are not things we expect. I used to think that rest and refuel meant a massage or a spa, and I've realized that rest and refuel really means getting a cold plunge and doing an
infrared sauna. Now, I'll be honest with you, every week, before I go to do that, my mind is saying, Jay, you don't want to do that. You want something more relaxing. It's hard work, and I've realized that if I choose anything else, Let's say I choose a brunch. Let's say I choose eating a nice brunch, right, or let's say I choose going to get that spa massage or whatever it is. It never affects me the same a hike
followed by infrared sauna and a cold plunge. There's more for me mentally and physically, So make sure what you're doing to rest and refuel is actually doing just that. We have to start training like an athlete. We have
to start thinking of ourselves like an athlete. I was speaking a friend recently, and he works in an extremely stressful career, and his career means he's often working around the clock, and I said to him, you know, you're working as hard as some of the top athletes in the world, but you're not treating yourself like an athlete. You're not making sure you have a meal plan, You're not making sure that you have an exercise plan like, you're not taking care of yourself to the degree of
stress you have to deal with. You'll be surprised as to how much stress the human mind can take on when you feel prepared and when you feel connected, as opposed to when you just keep taking more and more stress on but you're not really truly aware. So I want you to start treating yourself like an athlete and training yourself like an athlete when it comes to thinking about what is really affecting your mental health. The third is become an ambassador for mental health in the world place.
The workplace needs more mental health ambassadors. The workplace needs individuals like you to advocate for others. And I recently have been doing so many internal keynotes and events with corporations where one of you has seen one of my videos, one of you has heard one of my podcasts, one of you has seen one of my interviews on the Today Show or wherever it is, and you've said to your company that we need to focus on our mental health.
Sometimes I've even come into your organizations to give the keynote and presentation because of that. And that's what I've found so fascinating that it is people like you inside a company that can advocate for mental health. When I worked at Accenture, I was one of those people, and I started meditation mondays. I started afternoon evening lunch meditation sessions. It was my way of trying to help my friends and advocate and has support them and to be able
to share what I knew about the space. We would even invite experts and psychologists and teachers into the space. So I want you to really consider that, how can you become a mental health ambassador at work? How can you take on the mantle. You may be feeling like your company doesn't care, you may be feeling like the people around you don't care. How can you show that you care? How can you take that step and make a difference in the workplace based on the experience that
you've been having. One of the reasons why we feel a lot of mental health challenges at work is because we compare ourselves to others. But just as on Instagram you compare yourself to people's highlight reels, at work, you're just comparing yourself to how someone appears. You're comparing yourself to how they look. You're comparing yourself to the suit they wear, You're comparing yourself to their performance. You have
no idea what's happening in their personal life. And the truth is, when something does happen in their personal life, you go, oh, yeah, they always work too hard, and look what happened in their personal life. But that's not what we need to do. We don't need to criticize, we don't need to compare. We need to check in with ourselves and say, what is my capacity? What capacity do I want to have, what results do I want
to have, and what capacity does that demand? Right, Like, I know that there have been times in my life where i have burned the candle at both ends, but I've done it consciously. I've known that I'm going after a certain goal and result and I'm ready to do it. And there have been times in my life where I've totally stepped back and taken a break and just accepted that that isn't the place I want to work at. And so the fourth step is take the time off
if you need it. Don't be afraid to take time off. I think so many people are scared of doing that, but actually sometimes that's the only answer. It's totally okay, it's totally valid, and it gives you the time and space to figure out whether it's the job, whether it's you, whether you can handle it or not. And that space can actually give you the distance you need to make a healthier decision. Right, the distance can help you make
a healthier decision. You don't have to quit now. The fifth step is being careful about how much you take on and the way you do. This is when you ask to take something new on. Speak to your manager and say, hey, this is what I'm working on right now. Where does this sit in the priority list? And they may even say, oh, I didn't realize you had so much on Okay, I'll find someone else to that, or they may say, oh, it's number three, don't worry about it.
The mistake you make when you accept responsibility without priority is that you set yourself up for misery right. Never take on responsibility without knowing its priority and making someone aware of all your other responsibilities. By the way, this even applies at home. This even applies with your partner, making them aware and being aware. And sometimes you're not
even aware of how many things you do. Literally, take a moment to write down everything you do professionally and everything you do personally right now, and when you next speak to someone, you don't have to read it with bitterness. You have to share. By the way, I just want you to know I'm doing all of this stuff. I'm not sure I can do more right or when you're asked to do more, say I'm doing all of this.
Where does this one fit in? It's so important? And the sixth and final step I want to encourage all of you to do is make sure that you speak to someone. Make sure that you take that opportunity to connect with someone. I think so often we suffer alone. We think telling someone about how we feel makes us weak. So much of this is related to how we think we're going to look. Isn't that just fascinating? So much of this it's related to how we think we're going
to look. But guess what, when you're struggling and you won't even be able to look at yourself properly, you won't be able to deal with that properly. And so I want you to be really, really aware that you can't just let people's opinions and how you think people will feel about you affect how you feel about yourself.
Your feelings about yourself, your relationship with about yourself are the most important things that you could potentially think about, And for so many of us, we completely let our whole life be governed by how we think people will think about what we choose to do. If your team thinks you're weak, it doesn't make you weaker. And we also have to learn to find the support to destigma ties mental health. We have to think about mental health
how we do physical health. So I hope this has giving you some insights and some advice and some things to think about. Overall, I always recommend checking with a doctor and a psychiatrist. I'm not giving medical advice that I'm giving advice and helping you become aware of some of the big challenges. I've got your back, I'm on your side, and i can't wait to see how your life changes when you implement some of these ideas. Thank you so much, sending you so much love.