Groundhog Called It Wrong, Justin Sets the Record Straight | Episode 443

Groundhog Called It Wrong, Justin Sets the Record Straight | Episode 443

We share a candid look at depression, gratitude, and why every voice counts. We reflect on balance over perfection, name our blind spots, and invite listeners to join a grassroots movement built on empathy and practical change.

• redefining voice beyond speech to music, sport, and sign language
• naming depression and treating it as a disability without shame
• resisting comparison and choosing uniqueness and balance
• daily gratitude for bodies, abilities, and overlooked basics
• confronting complacency and reframing attention
• acknowledging blind spots and centering empathy
• small life changes that restore energy and focus
• how a tiny nonprofit pursues a global mission
• concrete ways the audience can share and support

If you can give us big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, reach out to 25 contacts in your phone, send a group text, let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast
We do accept donations. If you are so moved or know somebody that it is, let them know that they can head on over to lovevoices.org

*Donate Today:  lovevoices.org

**Find our book here:

Amazon: https://voices-for-voices.org/3ZhJ6AW

Publisher: https://voices-for-voices.org/3LKL1uN

***Website: https://voices-for-voices.org/4byLXgb

Instagram: @voicesforvoices

TikTok: @voices_for_voices

Facebook: Voices for Voices

*Voices for Voices is a 501c3 nonprofit charity. All donations are 100% tax deductible.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Global Community

0:10 Share, Subscribe, And Big Goals

3:35 Many Ways To Share A Voice

3:55 Depression Named And Faced

5:00 Uniqueness Over Comparison

6:00 Gratitude And Everyday Bodies

12:30 Complacency And Reframing

15:20 Owning Blind Spots And Empathy

17:34 Small Life Changes, Big Energy

20:18 Nonprofit Reality And Support

21:40 Closing With Love And Mission

#GroundhogDay #JustinExplains #WeatherPredictions #GroundhogMythBusting #PunxsutawneyPhil #SpringWeatherForecast #AnimalBehavior #ClimateTruths #WinterVsSpring #SkepticalScience #SeasonalChanges #WildlifeInsights  #justiceforsurvivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #Episode443

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Global Community
• 0:10 Share, Subscribe, And Big Goals
• 3:35 Many Ways To Share A Voice
• 3:55 Depression Named And Faced
• 5:00 Uniqueness Over Comparison
• 6:00 Gratitude And Everyday Bodies
• 12:30 Complacency And Reframing
• 15:20 Owning Blind Spots And Empathy
• 17:34 Small Life Changes, Big Energy
• 20:18 Nonprofit Reality And Support
• 21:40 Closing With Love And Mission

Transcript

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us. We're grateful, thankful for you joining us. If you can give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We greatly appreciate that. Uh, thank you for coming with us, whether you're watching, whether you're listening, whether you're here in the United States, or you are in another land, another country. Uh, we're grateful for each and every one of you who's taken in a second or two uh to see what Voices for Voices is all about. Uh, we are third behind uh the uh the Dan Bongino show and the Joe Rogan experience. So uh it is uh that's a very big blessing uh to be so close to you, the viewers, the listeners, um, and to have so many that are watching and listening, it uh it gives me goosebumps. Uh it is uh uh as I mentioned, you know, to think that having this show, talking to you with you, um whether you're watching or listening, no matter where you're at in the world, uh, we're just so grateful that you're with us. Uh if you could do us a big favor, uh if you could reach out to maybe 25 contacts in your uh in your phone and let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We're over 440 episodes and we're going stronger than ever before. And that would be very helpful if you could you could do that. Uh also by doing that, uh, we are on our way to reaching 300 countries, 3,000 cities across the world. We're well over 1,000 cities and well over 100 countries across the world, and we are well on our way to help and reach at least 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. We have big goals, even bigger than that, if if you can believe that. Uh we really are. Uh, whether you're a believer or not, you can still come with us for the ride. Uh, because uh we can never have enough good vibes, and uh we uh we're with you, and uh we want the best of everybody. We want every single person to share their voice, however, that may be. Maybe it's the spoken word, like me, maybe it is playing an instrument, playing a sport, sign language interpretation, and the list goes on, sharing our voices is not purely restricted to the spoken word. Uh, and I think sometimes that gets lost in translation, um, and that's that's not the case. Um what I will say here at the outset, because uh having having depression that can be can be considered uh among among other diagnoses, uh, but for sure uh major oppression can be considered a disability. And that's okay. It's okay if you have major depression and it is a disability, uh I'm fighting through all the diagnoses each and every day, each and every afternoon, each and every night. Because I wanna I want to be the not only the best for me and my family, but I want to be the best for you, our viewers, our listeners. Uh and I'm gonna I'm gonna try it and keep doing the best that I the very best that I can. Uh and and that's that's just all I'm gonna do. That's all we can do. Um again, we we're living our lives, not somebody else's life. Uh that's that's a that's a critical point to to think think of and and to keep in mind that let's not compare ourselves to anybody. Don't compare yourself to me. I uh I don't gonna compare myself to anybody else because there's no one else like me. There's no one else like you. There may be similarities, but for the most part, we're we're different, we're unique. We have things that you like that I may not like. There may be things that you like that I do like, and it might be the same vice versa. Things that I like that you don't like, and things that I like that you do like. Uh taking us to how grateful I I am. I thought it was necessary to share in a show. It's uh it's a bird. Uh hopefully springtime is is is on its way a little bit sooner, regardless of what punks and tawny fell, uh the the groundhog in uh in Pennsylvania. Uh sad by the shadow and everything. But I'm uh it's hard to it's hard to think of because I overlook so many things day to day. So I am grateful for and thankful for a lot of things. I know there's a lot of people that may say, oh Justin, you have you have everything you need, everything you want. Uh I don't I I think we're just all looking for some type of balance. Uh, because there's no perfection here, we know that. And we're just looking for balance in our lives. I remember uh a yoga instructor when we were, I mean, this is years ago. This is oh man, over 15 years ago. Uh went to a yoga class, and the instructor was just asking the class, I don't know, there might have been 15, 20 people in the class, what they thought yoga and uh and the like meant to them or what it means. And the most popular answer was not that we were looking for perfection because there is no perfection, but we were trying to be as imbalanced, not in balance as in not balanced, in balance as in balanced, meaning you you know, you see the uh you know, you see the the the weights, you know, one way or or another. Um and if it's equal, then we're in balance. If not, we're imbalanced. And so uh that that's that's what came out of that. Uh and so that's that's really what I'm in in search of because there is no perfection. Also, I am and I want to go through a list here, so just bear with me. Uh I'm grateful for the two eyes I have, the two ears I have, uh, the mouth, even though even though I I guess I uh there's a movie, I'm sure there are many movies, but one movie I remember uh I think it was old school where Vince Vaughn was playing uh a friend of Will Farrell and is at the beginning at uh at Will's uh wedding reception that the best man Mitch was giving his uh best man speech, and and Vince had to take over for him because Mitch was struggling a little bit, I guess. And and Vince, you know, did his did the toast. Um and he goes, I'm not a talker, I'm not a talker, uh after his after the speech. And it's like you know, for me, there's moments where I am able to talk and am able to share in some way, somehow. Uh I'm not a perfect talker, nobody is. Sometimes I ramble, sometimes I may mispronounce a word, but we all do. We all have those moments, and that's what makes us that's what makes us human. Uh I'm grateful for my teeth, I'm grateful uh for my ten fingers, I'm thankful for my ten toes, I'm thankful for my arms, my legs, uh, hair on my head, even though it's turning gray. Um but I guess that comes with age. Um and I know that there are some people who I am grateful for my feet uh that I'm able to walk, uh, that I'm able to tie my shoes, uh, that all the things I'm just very grateful for because I know there's there's a lot of people out there that one or more of what I mention may not have. And I take the I take these things for granted sometimes a lot, actually. And I think that's that's where I can get I can get a little bit complacent of like, oh, well, whenever I wake up in the morning, I'm gonna have all my faculties. Just a word that means what I just went through. And I'm so deep in what am I gonna do that day? How am I gonna do it? When am I gonna do it? All the things. That's how complacent I I am to not even really bat an eyelash over such as today. Woke up and filming some episodes and I really didn't think any anything would uh at least from my body standpoint would uh change any of that. I mean it still can. But when I thought in my mind I th I I want to film a few episodes of the show today, I overlooked some of those very things I just said. And I shouldn't. I need to be more grateful, more thankful for what I have and not focus on what I think I think some of us may do, focus on the things that we don't have. Whether that's oh, whether that's money, whether that whatever that is. When we step into that area, it's hard to come out of. And so that's why publicly with this show I want to make sure that I'm crystal clear by sharing this because I do take things for granted. Some of us might, I know I do, and I just want to let you know that I'm sorry that I have at times taken things for granted. If you have a challenge in one of the ways or other ways that I mention, I always want to say I'm sorry for overlooking that and just assuming everybody watching and listening is like me in that respect, in these respects. And that's not the case. I'm no Superman, I'm no yeah, I'm just a human being who is trying to do the best he can with the resources, with everything that he has. Because I really do. I I have a I have the ability, especially for the show, have the ability, and our organization has the ability to reach so many people that we've talked about at the beginning of the show. In each show, we continue to reach more and more and more and more and more people, and more and more and more and more locations, geographies. Um the numbers go up, up, up so that that that's why I wanted to cover that in this particular episode. Um because it I I don't I don't want anybody to feel that I'm overlooking somebody's challenge that I maybe I don't have. I do have big challenges mentally. I work through them though. Just like you work through. You work through what what you have or don't have. That's all we can do. All we can do is the best we can with the best with with what we have. That's all we can do. That's all we can hope for. I I hope tomorrow I've the same faculties, the same workable body parts, and and uh as today, as I had yesterday. The one thing I will say closing out is by choosing to do a little um change in the arrangement of certain areas of my life can and is helpful. And it's helped give me a better perspective, at least here in the short term, because I'm just kind of getting started with with some of these changes that I needed I needed to make a long time ago, but I'm just now making them gives me the vigor, the uh intensity to be able to sit here and come on and and put a couple couple shows together. It's really remarkable the human body for lacking in one area, then other areas pick up the slack in most cases. Again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not diagnosing uh none of that. Uh, so please don't go to a doctor and say that you watch this podcast and the host was talking like that. Please don't do that. That's because that's not what my intentions were or are. So thank you for joining us. This is a grateful, thankful episode. Thank you for joining us. If you can give us big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, reach out to 25 contacts in your phone, send a group text, let them know about the voices for voices TV show and podcast. And if you're able to, we are a 501c3 nonprofit, which a lot of people don't know. They just think we're this big organization. We have less than five, less than three, less than two people um working on the show. So that's not just the filming of the show, that's the editing. Uh, that is the title, when titles, hashtags, descriptions, you name it, you're looking at the person that does it. Um voices for voices built off of my mental health as a foundation. So we are a nonprofit. We do accept donations. If you are so moved or know somebody that it is, let them know that they can head on over to lovevoices.org. Lovevoices.org. Lovevoices.org. And we'll spell this out one last time. L-O-V E V O I C E S dot O R G. Thank you so much. We're sending so much love and support your way. Thank you for the love and support you've sent our way. We're so grateful and thankful to have you as a member of the Voices for Voices Grassroots movement. And until next time, I'm Justin Alan Hayes, founder of Voices for Voices and host of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Let's celebrate all the voices in the world and let's share our voices and share the voices of those in need. Take care. We love you. Bye bye for now.