Fostering Community Growth Through Mental Health Advocacy w/ Justin Kubeck

Join us as we explore the fascinating journey of Justin Kubeck, founder of Feronus, who brings a unique perspective shaped by his upbringing in Waukesha, Wisconsin. With a career path spanning grocery work, industrial fabrication, and even wedding DJing, Justin's life took a transformative turn with his ADHD diagnosis, guiding him into the mental health sector. This episode delves into the tapestry of personal and familial experiences that shaped Justin's journey, from the influence of an outdoorsman father to the resilience built through adversity.

Justin also navigates the complex emotional landscapes of family dynamics and forgiveness. He opens up about the impact of his father's heart condition, which led to mood imbalances that defined much of Justin's formative years. Through introspective work and ongoing dialogues with his father, Justin shares his journey towards understanding and forgiveness, emphasizing the pivotal role his mother played as a mediator. This heartfelt exploration offers insights into how adversity can lead to resilience and personal growth, setting the foundation for a meaningful conversation about men's mental health and community support.

Bridging personal struggles with broader societal themes, Justin discusses the importance of fostering open conversations around men's mental health through grassroots initiatives like Feronus and Kindred. From personal battles with ADHD and depression to navigating cancer treatment, he underscores the significance of supportive relationships in overcoming life's challenges. Through community events and initiatives aimed at breaking down stigma, Justin envisions a future where mental health resources are accessible, encouraging healthier emotional expression and stronger connections within communities. Join us as we explore these powerful narratives of personal growth, community building, and the universal importance of mental well-being.

Transcript

Transcript generated by Podium.page
Help us spread the word by tweeting about us at @podiumdotpage and including us in your shownotes! https://podium.page

NOTE: There were 2 speakers identified in this transcript. Podium recommends using "Find and Replace" to change the speaker label to the appropriate name. Speaker separation errors can arise when multiple speakers speak simultaneously.

0:00:00 - Justin 
Video is now recording Yep Perfect. 

0:00:20 - John 
Okay, cool, both of them are picking up. All right, I think we're ready, we're recording. Are you warm in here? Are you cool? Like, is it too warm in here? I'm fine, okay, like, let me know if you want me to open that window at all. Okay, like, make sure this is that's off, all right, it's Quebec, not Q, quebec, beck. Okay, I was trying to say it earlier. I was like it's not Quebec, it's Quebec, quebec, yeah, as if you're Like cool Q, yeah, yeah, yeah, quebec, okay, all right. 

0:01:11 - Justin 
Ready. 

0:01:12 - John 
Yep, hi, and welcome to another episode of Unturned Stones. On today's podcast, I'm going to be interviewing Justin Quebec. Hi, there, justin's. I've known Justin for quite a bit now because I actually met him originally through his brother, who was one of my powerlifting partners back in the day, and yeah, it's been at least what 10 years now. Yeah, yeah, right around that time, like 11 years ago, was probably when I met Josh and um. During that time, you know, like I just mentioned, me and Josh were powerlifting together, got to know you a little bit, and then through that time, you need to stay connected and, um, recently you've been doing some stuff that's been as mental health related and yeah, kind of adjacent to what you got going on here. 

I think even when we talked back in the day, I knew you were kind of somebody who was aware of your mental health and, like, had some similar battles I myself was going through. 

0:01:57 - Justin 
So I was just starting to kind of figure that out for myself when we met. Yes, yeah, okay. 

0:02:04 - John 
So then, when you recently kind of started your like little venture being more on the business side of mental health because now you have a company called Ferronis- yeah that's my shirt to you too. So actually, here to start, let's have you do a little introduction for people about yourself, where you're from, how old you are, what you're doing, and we'll kind of dive into it from there Sounds good, my name is Justin Kubik. 

0:02:27 - Justin 
I'm the founder of Ferronis. I'm from Waukesha, wisconsin, and I'm 32 years old. I'm diagnosed with ADHD and life has kind of taken me all over the place. A quick background I've been. I mean, I've worked in grocery, I've worked in industrial kind of fabrication, I've worked in quality control, I've been a wedding DJ, I've been a bartender, I've been a waiter, I've been a chef. Now I'm a sales rep. So I've been all over the place as far as professional career goes. 

0:03:01 - John 
I don't know what else you want to know Well, okay, no, that's a good intro, intro, so kind of just diving from there. So you grew up in Waukesha, waukesha County, a little bit of that small country a little bit, but Waukesha is still obviously pretty densely populated too. 

0:03:15 - Justin 
It's funny because Waukesha, I say it has a small town mentality, although it's not a small town anymore, and it's true. If you get into, like the downtown community, it is a very, very tight-knit community. You'd have no idea. It's a town of 60, 70 thousand people because when you're in on Main Street everybody knows everybody yeah, so your family, your dad and mom, originally from Waukesha area no, so. So my mom and dad were, they went to Sussex Hamilton, okay, so I suppose near but yeah, very close yeah, yeah, my dad did live in Pennsylvania for a short time, okay, okay cool. 

0:03:56 - John 
So like what was early childhood like for you growing up in Waukesha County in Waukesha. 

0:04:01 - Justin 
A quiet suburbia kind of life. You know my parents weren't a huge fan of technology, so I probably played outside a bit more than your average kid. I mean my dad's also very much an outdoorsman. We did a lot of hunting so spent a lot of time outdoors and, you know, got to learn how to use my hands too. Like in the summertime. When I was a kid we spent every other weekend up in Door County and my toys for that weekend would either be the woods around the cabin or the scrap wood bin and a hammer and some nails and I could you know, maybe make something. 

So you know fairly average, because that also balanced out with access to internet at like 10, 11 years old. And you know video games I was always drawn to, even though didn't always get the support from my parents. On that. 

0:04:52 - John 
So it's like, okay, like you and Josh are both people that when you see you like, when you your presence as people like you guys had this very manly presence, your big body, people, you're, you're hairy, you got big beards, maybe not big beards, but you know, you guys hairy, you got big beards. Um, maybe not big beards, but, like you know, you guys give off, like, uh, your initial look is you guys are these very big masculine men, right? Um, and I like do you think that comes from outside of the physical trait, of the fact that you guys are just physically big? You guys have big, you know you guys have big ears. You guys are very manly looking men. Do you feel like there's any of that comes from your dad then, like your dad being kind of a very manly man, especially like your dad's a very handy guy. He knows how to do a lot of stuff. Your dad's classically a manly man. 

My dad's like a man's man sort of guy He'll fix the car, he'll fix the house, he'll fix the trans, you know. 

0:05:40 - Justin 
Exactly and you know, so you know a lot of the mentality of you know, I'll just figure out how to do it myself. If that's considered manly, then yeah, I definitely get that from my dad. It's the idea of what is and isn't manly especially in 2025, has changed so much and like one thing that I built my business on that. I didn't even really realize until after somebody kind of pointed it out. It was actually an article written about me where they said I was turning my vulnerability into my greatest strength and understanding how you know being vulnerable and you can still be manly and be vulnerable, and it's actually for the better and be vulnerable and and it's actually for the better. 

0:06:29 - John 
Yeah, so, growing up for you, did you feel like there was um? Does he feel like you were able to be vulnerable, or do you feel like there was? You had to kind of hold back vulnerability at a younger age? 

0:06:37 - Justin 
um, a little of both. I mean, my dad wasn't exactly the most supportive guy when I was a kid. I was very close to my mother as a child. I still am very close to my mom today, and my dad and I have a much better relationship now that I'm an adult. But as a kid, you know, I would express myself when I had to, when you know when it would just have an outburst or something like that. But there were a lot of times that I kept things under wraps. Okay, did you? 

0:07:07 - John 
ever like I know for you, a lot of your mental health journey were like being diagnosed with adhd came at a later point, um, but do you remember thinking you were like battling any mental health issues? And obviously that was in the 90s for us, right? Yeah, so there's a time where it really wasn't being talked about. 

0:07:23 - Justin 
But I mean, a lot of people don't know this story. I actually and I'm not formally diagnosed, but I personally believe I'm on the autism spectrum. I've talked to my doctors about it. They seemingly agree, but there's no benefit to me getting a diagnosis, so it's not something I'm really trying to pursue. And you know, along with that and ADHD and autism combined, I've always had this sense that I was different than most other people, that my brain operated in a different way. I mean, there were nights as a kid that I would. I'd be up at night in my bed midnight one o'clock, can't sleep because my mind is just going. I'm like, I know this isn't normal, I know, you know I should be able to just turn things off and go to sleep. I actually had convinced myself at one point in time that I must be mentally handicapped somehow, but my mother was good enough at manipulating my world that she kept it away from me so that everybody knew but me, or something like that okay, okay. 

0:08:29 - John 
Can I ask when you say you felt like your mom manipulated, that do you say it in like a negative context? 

0:08:34 - Justin 
no, no, okay no um, to me it was. That was how I made sense of it. I was like, okay, how would everybody know this but not tell me, and then kind of dance around it my entire life? The only person I could think of that could possibly have that much control in my life would be my mother okay, it was like and she was doing it to more protect me than anything else in my head it was your way of finding an ant, like you're trying to find an answer to it. 

0:09:01 - John 
Right, and I'm, you know, eight, nine, ten years old. How did you cope with the sleeping problem back then? Do you remember like trying to do anything or just kind of like fought it? You know you'd be up late and as a kid, my sleep was all over the place. 

0:09:12 - Justin 
So, yeah, I would fight it. I could never wake up in the morning. I was always late to school, things like that. I would sleepwalk at night when I was a kid. Yeah, all sorts of different stuff okay, did you? 

0:09:25 - John 
is that something that resolved as you got older, or you learn a deal with better? 

0:09:28 - Justin 
as you got older. Um so sleepwalking faded as I got older. I haven't slept walk in years. As far as I'm aware, um, and, I'm sorry, remind me of the second part of that question, oh did. 

0:09:43 - John 
Did it fade for you as you got older and if your teenage years were up to sleep, got easier and you're able to like get yourself to sleep, right so nights? 

0:09:50 - Justin 
the sleepwalking faded me. Getting to sleep easier didn't, which led me to working second shift for about eight years after high school, and it's only been in the last two or three years that I've really focused on like circadian rhythm practices and focusing on my sleep health, and and I mean now, I wake up between 7 and 7 30 in the morning with no alarm and I'm well rested and feeling good. 

0:10:16 - John 
Do you feel like back then, like would you notice fluctuations in sleep even just from like stressful events in life or things going on? 

0:10:29 - Justin 
You know I can't pinpoint that in particular. You know there were a few sleepwalking episodes that got associated with like movies that I would watch or something like that, but I mean, it would just be weird and seemingly out of the blue. 

I remember my dad telling me one story where and I want to say, I was maybe in seventh grade or so and I was laying on the couch he's sitting in his chair. We're watching TV in the family room and it's bedtime, so I get up and I go to my room and about 20 minutes later I come out of my room and I stand in the doorway of the family room and I just stare at my dad, don't say a word, and he acknowledges me. He's like Justin, are you okay? Is everything all right? Again, I don't say a word and I walk over by him and I kneel down next to his chair and I straighten the newspapers that were on the floor and I get up and I go back to bed, no idea why. There was no you know nightmare or anything associated with it. It just happened from time to time okay. 

0:11:34 - John 
So like during these years were like sleep was hard for you. I mean, what was this? Something that was all like you felt like was constantly affecting, like your mood, energy levels outside of it, because obviously, if you're not sleeping well as a teenage kid, you're probably suffering some other consequences of it. 

0:11:48 - Justin 
I mean the first half of my day definitely suffered consequences of it. Again, I was, you know, fighting truancy tickets and things like that in high school because I would have a hard time getting to class. You know I figured out okay that last bell rang at 7.15. So as long as I made it past the administration's office by 7 15 I could get to class without getting caught and not get it, not get in trouble for not being there on time. And so, you know, I played the game, got as much sleep as I could and, you know, did what I could. Otherwise I was, you know, I didn't sacrifice my social life. I was still going over to friends houses and partying and doing what kids do okay. 

0:12:30 - John 
So I want to get back to something that we talked about a little bit earlier here, which is that your, your new dad's, relationship got better when you got older, but meaning that when you're younger was you guys had tension and there was, right, a lot of rift between you guys' relationship. Did Josh, your brother, also have any of that tension? 

0:12:48 - Justin 
with your brother. 

0:12:49 - John 
Definitely With your dad, sorry. 

0:12:51 - Justin 
Definitely so. My dad, when I was in what? Seventh grade, eighth grade had a heart episode. Long story short, it ended up being a heart affibulation, which is somewhat common now, but it caused a mood imbalance in him. It caused a essentially him to get angry when his heart would go into affibulation. So up until I was in seventh grade or so, my dad was a very angry person. He kind of taught me the person I never wanted to be. 

Then, you know, being 12, 13 years old, I get told you know, hey, your dad is sick and we found out that his sickness is actually related to why he's acting the way he's acting and he shouldn't be acting that way anymore. And to have all that teenage angst and then have somebody tell you you know, it's not his fault, you got to learn how to forgive him. You know, and that's what my teenage years were. It was learning how to kind of patch that up and letting things go was was a big part of that. And you know I talked about it being very impactful in my life. But my brother's five and a half years older than me, he was just about an adult when all that happened and he faced the brunt force of what my dad put out during those years. 

0:14:13 - John 
Do you feel like like, how long did it take you to start forgiving him? Because I'm guessing you know you first heard this news and you're probably like it's not like you felt feelings of forgiveness. 

0:14:24 - Justin 
Oh, it took a few years, okay, um, you know, and even years later there were, there were struggles and things like that. My dad and I still butt heads from time to time, but you know, now I think it's more in a normal, somewhat healthy way okay. 

0:14:40 - John 
Um, during that time when you would butt heads with your dad before the diagnosis, how was your relationship with your mom? Would your mom try to interject a lot? Was there a lot of her trying to really curate these fights that would happen, to try to pull them back and get you guys not to be butting heads? 

0:14:56 - Justin 
Yeah, my mom is the fixer in the family, definitely, and, being the youngest in the family, of course she would do what she could to protect me from what what she was able to, okay when your dad was diagnosed then and they, you guys, got this news, do you remember how your mom handled that? 

0:15:15 - John 
how did she go? You know? 

0:15:17 - Justin 
I mean it was stressful for everybody. My dad almost died during that time. He was in a coma, for I don't remember if it was a few days or a couple weeks, and in and out of the ICU and in and out of the hospital. I remember there was one time they stabilized him. They weren't quite sure what was wrong with him yet, but they had him stable. He seemed good for for a day or so and they let him go home. And the next day my mom's at work, I'm at school, my brother's at school and my dad's chest starts feeling funny, and so he took it upon himself to drive to the hospital and he got there, walked into the emergency room, they checked him in and they I'm not a medical person they do some kind of test to rate, like your, your level of function of your heart. 

It's like a 1 to 10 scale. Most people are operating at like a 7 or 8. My dad walked in at a 3 or 4 and they said most people aren't conscious if you're under a 5. So the fact that he drove there is kind of a miracle. But you know, it was just. It was a lot of that for about three and a half months okay okay. 

0:16:23 - John 
So now, like getting out of that time, um, like learning forgiveness, like do you do you feel, like you have like memories of any specific things that helped you get past any of those like blocks, to actually start truly forgiving him? And, you know, start seeing your dad in the light of, like a lot of adults go through this right when they get older, like they see their parents as these. They're supposed to tell me how to do everything. They know everything. You get older, you realize your parents don't know everything. You get a little older, you realize where your parents are just kids who grew up themselves. And you get a little older, you realize you like have to kind of almost forgive them because, like you start to realize, well, they had parents that maybe made some mistakes for them. You know, like it starts to be the cycle. 

0:16:57 - Justin 
Do you remember there was a time where, like you had that type of acceptance of like I mean fairly early on, when I was in high school, I went through a kind of like a group class thing. This was actually my true first interaction with introspective type of work, but it was like a weekend retreat, essentially. Was this a school thing? No, no, it was me and a friend did it. Okay, and through that I kind of realized that, like there's no changing, what was it happened? And in fact everything that happened helped me be who I am today. Happened helped me be who I am today. So you know, if I'm okay with the person I've become then, rather than being upset or holding a grudge against my father for being that way when I was a kid. 

0:17:57 - John 
I should almost be thankful. Okay, yeah, which is, I think, a very healthy approach that lets you kind of get out of a victim mentality and then lets you sit more into a well, there's a silver lining. Do I like who I am as a person right now? Do I feel like I'm somebody who can grow? Well then, my past, let me be that person Right? Do you and your dad ever talk about this? Is there like a direct acknowledgement of the past compared to now and all that? 

0:18:24 - Justin 
We've had a few conversations about it. The toughest part about that specifically is one of the outlying effects of what my dad went through is some short-term memory loss. So I mean, me and my dad have had some groundbreaking conversations. I've brought my dad to tears based on what we've talked about, but how much he actually has grasped and remembers to this day I have no idea. I'll never know and I'm gonna guess probably not okay now? 

do you remember like how you're like relationship with your dad and mom affected relationships you had with you know significant others from a young age to now with your current wife, like um no, I mean when, when I started, when I was in high school and I started bringing girls around, um, it was after the fact, right, my, my dad was kind of recovering from what he had gone through during that time. My dad was kind of recovering from what he had gone through during that time and he was still kind of learning how to be in the public. Like I said, my dad has some short-term memory loss. It's nothing that detrimental. 

0:19:36 - John 
You've met my dad, yeah, if you didn't know, you wouldn't know, you wouldn't know, I wouldn't have known your dad had any memory loss just from interacting with him. 

0:19:44 - Justin 
Exactly. But he would almost get embarrassed and hide away when I would have people over or girls over when I was that age and even into young adulthood Now. I mean Shelby and I have been together for going on nine years now, so he's pretty used to her, he's pretty comfortable now, okay, do you notice? 

0:20:06 - John 
the way that you notice how you interact in relationships is defined a little bit by your childhood, how you saw your mom and dad interact with their own relationship. 

0:20:16 - Justin 
Yeah, as much as my dad was the type of person he was, he was a good guy too. I mean, he wasn't in AFib all the the time, so he wasn't having that issue constantly. Um, so I mean, you know, he's the reason why I know it's a good idea to bring flowers home every once in a while and that kind of thing like, uh, okay, so like your mom being somebody who your entire life was a fixer right, especially when you and your dad would fight, do you feel like you? 

0:20:41 - John 
that was something that you seeked out in a partner, somebody who was like a fixer. It's been a long time. I think I might have met your wife once back in the day when you guys started dating. I can't quite remember her very well, but like, do you feel like there's any ties? You get what I mean. Those personality traits that you look for in partners. 

0:21:02 - Justin 
What I looked for in her, I think, was just the stability. You know she's very stable and knows herself, knows what she wants and is okay with where she's at in life. And so for me to be able to go out and do the exciting, stressful business things and, you know, networking and going to meetings and different parties and things like that and to be able to come home to somebody that's always there and is just kind of a constant. As far as the fixer thing goes, I feel like I kind of became the fixer so I didn't really need to look for that in a partner. 

0:21:44 - John 
Okay, so that was like a character trait that you ended up really adopting within your family dynamic that you wanted to be somebody that were able to fix other people's problems or help resolve issues for them. Yeah, because I know one thing me and you connected about back in the day is the idea of being empathetic, which is that we have a hard time not almost like nowhere to absorb other people's feelings. I'm not always the biggest fan of the word empathetic, but I think it's the only way to describe what I sometimes feel and I think you yourself feel this Like if you walk into a room and you notice like somebody's sad and like it's somebody special that I know, like I can't ignore it, like my brain is going off like on oh, I want to know what's wrong, I want to help them a little bit. I feel like you probably feel that a little bit too. 

0:22:25 - Justin 
Regardless of how you feel about the word empath, I'm the type of person where, if you started talking to me right now and what you were saying brought you to tears, as you were talking to me I would start crying. 

0:22:35 - John 
Yes. 

0:22:36 - Justin 
I wouldn't be able to stop myself, it would just happen. 

0:22:39 - John 
Yeah, you're very attuned to picking up emotions like that. 

0:22:43 - Justin 
Yeah, yeah, or almost too attuned to it. It's beyond my control. 

0:22:46 - John 
Yeah yeah, your body's, just yeah. Are you a crier when you watch movies? 

0:22:51 - Justin 
Oddly enough since chemo. Yes, I cry a lot easier since I went through cancer treatment. 

0:22:56 - John 
Okay, I don't know why. 

0:22:57 - Justin 
I've tried to kind of dig in and figure out where that comes from. Part of me thinks it's from I mean, I had testicular cancer. I went through some hormone changes. I'm still kind of getting my hormones figured out, so I know that plays a certain role in it. Yeah, but yeah, I'm a much easier crier now than I was before. 

0:23:18 - John 
Okay, this is a good place to tangent into that now, which is your journey with testicular cancer, recovering from that being in remission right now, and, like what, some of the things that that opened up for you, um, and I had another thing I want to talk more about with your wife, and sure, but like I almost, let's come back to that. Um, okay, so can you tell people a bit more about your diagnosis, when you were diagnosed, and, like you know, give a little more information? 

0:23:45 - Justin 
we'll dig into it from there so in february of 2022 no, 2023, excuse me um, I found a lump where it wasn't supposed to be, um, and I went to the emergency room and they're like, hey, you, you have a mass and they only use that word when they're talking about you know a couple of things and so I got the soonest urology appointment I could, and he took one look at me and went yeah, I'm pretty sure that's cancer and we should probably operate and just remove your tumor before we even do a biopsy. It is large. We have no idea how long it had been there without me noticing, but time was of the essence. So, I mean, inside of 10 days, I had my first surgery and then it got shipped off to get analyzed. And then we found out that it wasn't just testicular cancer, it was stage three testicular cancer that had spread to my lymphatic system, which I got really lucky. I ended up with the only type of lymphatic cancer that's curable, or at least that's what I read about it. 

I'm not a doctor, I've been wrong, but I was able to get cured because of my age. I was in the like 95 percentile of being fine the whole time. You know the way I talk about my chemo treatment like, yeah, I had a port in my chest, yeah, I went through 15 weeks of treatment, but it was almost like cancer with training wheels when I hear about some of the other treatment regiments that people go on. During my first week of chemo I lost 10 pounds. They looked at me and said if you lose any more weight, we're gonna put you on an appetite stimulant. So I decided to just eat whatever I could. If it smelled good, if it sounded good, whatever it was, I would just eat it. So I ended up gaining 30 pounds during chemo. But yeah, then we beat it and I just had my 21 month remission check and we're still in the clear. 

0:25:49 - John 
That was just fantastic news. Yeah, thank you. Can you talk a little bit more about what that was like for you to get the diagnosis at the time? You know, like that period between told you're gonna have to have surgery, then, like the 10 day, you know there was a 10 day period when you actually got the surgery to get the lump removed. Was that a surreal time? Was that a weird time? Was that? 

0:26:09 - Justin 
a limbo. Yeah, I was waiting to wake up the whole time. I mean, it was earth shattering. Everything kind of ceased to matter. You know, going to my job was even difficult, you know, trying to figure out like, okay, how can I be effective at work if I should be focusing on my health right now? And that's clearly what's more important. Ultimately, during treatment, because I didn't take much time off of work work kind of became a a grounding tool for me. It gave me a sense of normalcy when I was going to work, even though I was walking in with no beard and no eyebrows and no hair. It still kind of gave me that sense of normalcy I needed. Okay, did you? 

0:26:58 - John 
like was there, I guess. Guess, let's see, like Most young men, we feel like so invincible, right, that's like the whole thing with this doctor, all right. We feel so invisible for so many years. You get into your 20s, sometimes in there, like your late 20s, early 30s, just start getting some back pain and knee pain. You start feeling less invincible. But you know, this is like a that, this is that. I'm like a such a different level, right, it's not just, oh, I turned 30, 30 and my knees started being cranky. It's like you're faced with this health thing that is serious and it it can be fatal. But then at the same time you felt like you went through something that, like you said, it was like cancer, training wheels where, but I'm sure that also didn't set into. Like you, you're kind of maybe past a couple steps that you got to be in this, like I have a 95% chance of survival, while maybe you feel like a little bit of scared of like I didn't get that 95% chance rating until after my pathology results came back. 

0:27:53 - Justin 
So from the time I went to the emergency room until about two weeks after my first surgery, I had no answers and it was around a three-week period and that was the worst. I mean, I went on anti-anxiety meds for the first time during that time. 

0:28:09 - John 
Okay, so that was the worst period of it. Okay, just like the not knowing, the waiting for me the way that I am. 

0:28:16 - Justin 
I mean and I've written about this in my blog knowledge is comfort. I can handle bad news, as long as I know it. The the bad news is still better than not knowing. 

0:28:28 - John 
Yeah, you know, if we know, at least we can plan about it okay when you got the news, I guess is it like suffice it to say that, like there was a little bit of relief, that like you know your, your chances were very high, but like, while that relief comes, is there still like a I'm still battling cancer. Like where's that line of like I'm relieved but like I still have to go through chemo and I mean it. 

0:28:53 - Justin 
It just kind of turned into like, okay, this is just something I gotta do, grin and bear it, so to speak. Um, you know, when it, when it did get tough, I had a saying I came up with that. I kind of told myself, and it can be triggering for some people. So I apologize ahead of time, but what kept my head above water while I was going through chemo was this idea that I'm either gonna be fine or it's not my problem. 

0:29:18 - John 
Okay, yeah, yeah, no, that's it's like a pacifist way of accepting the world. That's not and it's stoic. It's a stoic way of accepting the world. I don't think it's wrong, but, yeah, some people maybe don't like that, like okay, I'm either gonna be okay or you know, it doesn't matter, and, and what that means is I would ultimately pass. 

0:29:47 - Justin 
Things wouldn't go well and my problem would become everybody else's problem, and that's what I struggled with the most okay, can you talk about that more? 

0:29:57 - John 
did you feel like like you have to like brunt other people's landing if that was to be like the side things? When you know, like in that sense, well, like the. 

0:30:07 - Justin 
The best way I can put it is you know, with my dad getting sick. Right, he was fairly young not as young as I was, um, or as I am but I got to see what him going through, that did to my mom and did to his parents and did to me, and so me going through something just as life-threatening, uh, you know, I knew that's the effect that I was having, I had seen it, I had experienced it and I didn't like it okay, that's very I and that that would be again, as somebody who's empathetic, that would would be hard to probably sit there and have to deal with and accept because you want to be there to fix the problems, right, right, you want to be there and fix your wife's problems. 

Well, and that's where me kind of sharing my story, you know, people were very kind of taken back because that was an open book about my experience and what I was going through the entire time. Because I was an open book about my experience, what I was going through the entire time, where the normal response to something like a cancer diagnosis is kind of like to retreat and to kind of hurt yourself away. Being that fixer, I felt that if I shared my story openly, it provided comfort for other people and that helped me feel comfortable too. 

0:31:23 - John 
Which kind of then leads into starting Feronis, yeah Right. So if you want to kind of start talking about that a little bit, how this process brought you to this place, where you wanted to do more involvement in this men's mental health space and you wanted to again help other people get through their struggles, Right. 

0:31:43 - Justin 
So I mean first I'll start by saying I've wanted to be a business owner for as long as I can remember. You know, even as a kid. If you ask me what I want to do, you know the answer has changed a lot over the years but it always was, you know, running my own machine shop. Or, you know, being a web designer. That's freelancing or whatever it might be, but I was always kind of my own boss in my mind. 

So getting hit with a stage three cancer diagnosis kind of gives you some motivation to chase after that childhood dream a little bit. So we gave it a shot and I decided you know, let's, if I'm going to do it, let's do it right, let's try and build it around something that is going to make a difference and make things better. For those that don't know, foronis sells a line of personal care products. That's a beard oil, a shave cream and a beard wash, and for every unit I saw I donated a dollar to men's mental health services, and so I kind of saw the connection between mental health and personal care and I also saw that a lot of the issues I think in the world are caused by mental health issues. But there wasn't a lot of people doing things about it. 

0:32:57 - John 
People were talking about it, and it's great that people are talking about it, but to put action behind the words, too, was something that I really wanted to find a way to do, and so I was like let's, let's make products that people use already you know it's beard oil or shave cream, and and let's make it count towards something, yeah, which I think is like you just not enough people talk about it, but we literally all experience it and mental health probably has its hand in almost every single thing in the world. Right, because every single person operating anything is has mental health behind them. That's dictating how well they're operating, what they're doing and then how they're interacting with the world around them. If your mental health's in a good place, you're generally going to interact interact more positively with the world around you. Yeah, if it's negative, you're more likely to negatively interact with the world around you. 

It's that you know that really simplifies it down, right, but like well, I mean, you can simplify it down even more. 

0:33:51 - Justin 
If you look at like I've spent a lot of time in customer service and sales and things like that, and if you're being trained to talk on the phone to somebody else, they'll tell you smile while you speak because it changes your, your pitch and your tone of voice. Yeah, it'll change your inflection and and make you more inviting and things like that, whereas if you are frowning or remaining neutral, you don't come off as inviting, you're not as chipper and things like that. 

0:34:19 - John 
Yeah, yeah no, I'm big, yeah, I'm a big believer in that. Like your attitude really comes through your sound. Whether somebody can see you or not, they can really pick up on it. So one of the things that you know, when you had reached out to me recently with this idea for Rowan's and me kind of started talking, is, like you know, wanting to do these like events for mental health. Wanting to do these events for mental health because, again, it's this idea that men don't have as big of a space as I think they could be for them to just openly discuss mental health, but not always have to have it be as clinical either, because I think some men can be scared off by the clinical aspect of mental health Right absolutely, and I have opinions about that. 

I think clinically, mental health was originally like, designed and made around women in the 50s. That's why mental health started. 

0:35:09 - Justin 
it was mental health services were an industry to provide for women who were going through some hard times and and it was that fact that caused it to kind of be this pariah for men through the 80s, 90s and and early 2000s. Right, that was a woman's thing. You don't focus on your introspective health at all. That's not manly. 

0:35:31 - John 
Yes, but then as they started to get more towards men, they never really adjusted the way therapies were really provided and they kept just applying the same principles of how therapy worked for women, for men. We're like man, I think. You take a group of men, you go make them do something really physically hard and they all like sharing that camaraderie together. Yeah, they're gonna leave that event with fuller cups than they've ever had. They're gonna feel happier and more lighted to want to do more things in their life. 

0:35:57 - Justin 
That's what a lot of fraternities are about things like that, yeah. 

0:36:01 - John 
Yeah, right, and it really is. It's a brotherhood. Yeah, it's in the Marines, it's in the Army. 

0:36:07 - Justin 
And that's where I mean even the namesake of kindred right. The idea that we're related, even though it's not a blood relation, right. We're still both human, we can relate as men and it's important to take care of one another. 

0:36:22 - John 
Yeah, as men, and it's important to take care of one another. Yeah, now, where would you like, ideally like to like? Do you have a a really big dream where, if for own, like for ownest and kindred's involvement into men's mental health, you have like a big dream, a big goal you'd really like to get to? Or like a specific type of involvement in the Mass Med Hall community? I? 

0:36:44 - Justin 
mean I would love to daydream about, you know, hosting a symposium or something like that someday. Right now my goal is to get to my first kind of vendor trade show, but I would definitely love to turn it into like a public speaking sort of thing. And I have a lot more planned for Foronis beyond Kindred and Men's Mental Health. I mean that's definitely kind of my flagstone or flagship thing. You know, it's what I'm most comfortable with. I mean, I sort of make my own beard products during COVID and that's where the personal care side of things originated from. But it's an interesting journey. 

0:37:28 - John 
Yeah, yeah, okay. So now let's get back to the other thought I had earlier, before we got into Peronis, which was we were talking about your wife, and one of the things I would say about my mental health journey is I thought I was on some mental health journey of trying to improve it or whatever, but I really wasn't until I met my wife and I had the rock that is my wife in my life. That allowed me to actually start working on my mental health. Until then, I don't, I don't know what the hell I was doing. Until then, I was just, you know, trying to find ways to be more productive and improve my mood and blah, blah, blah. 

So what I want to kind of get at is your wife. You've known her for nine years. You guys have been knowing each other for nine years and been married for two years. Here I'm not even a year. We got married in January, that's right. Okay, not even here. Um, can you talk to me more about for you, this, this realization about your mental health, is even for you? Adhd was something I diagnosed with Four years ago. 

0:38:21 - Justin 
Oh, no, no, I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 19, 20. 

0:38:26 - John 
Okay. 

0:38:27 - Justin 
It was right after. So after high school, I went to UW Parkside for a year and then, long story short, I dropped out and I got an apartment with some friends shortly after, and it was during that time that my brother called me and said hey, I just got diagnosed with ADHD. You've talked to me about some of the same things that I have dealt with. You might want to go look into this. And so that's when I made the phone call to my mom. Hey, yes, I was 19, making a phone call to my mom asking for a doctor's appointment. But that's what we did. And a few months later I had my diagnosis and my first prescription. And now we're here. 

0:39:06 - John 
Can you talk a little bit more about that? For you Like this realization that you had ADHD and like what struggles you might've been facing before. That maybe gave you a little bit of an explanation for them. 

0:39:16 - Justin 
Well, I mean, it finally felt like I had some sort of explanation. I had felt that there was something wrong with my brain since I was seven, eight, nine years old. So for somebody to finally tell me there's some legitimacy to those feelings and there's help for that feeling is even better. What was unfortunate is ADHD. At the time this was what 2012 or so ADHD wasn't exactly 100% solidly believed in amongst doctors, and my doctor was the type that didn't really believe that ADHD was real, and so it took some strong-arming by my mother to convince him to have me die or to have me tested for it, and I went my through my testing and even my test results came back. I remember again, I was 19. 

My mom was with me, although she didn't need to be, and the psychiatrist talked to her like I wasn't in the room. Her first question to her was do you think your son has a God complex? Because apparently and this is where what exactly my mental health is and isn't is still up to debate they curved my mental health evaluation. Apparently, I tested high for everything except I tested extremely high for ADHD. So they said, if we set his base level higher and just make that high level normal, then he only has moderate ADHD, and that's where the potential or potentiality of me being on the autism spectrum comes into play yeah, which okay, like you alluded to this earlier, which is the fact that, like, even if you're officially or not officially diagnosed with autism, it doesn't really change the fact that you've lived. 

0:41:05 - John 
You know you've lived most of your life not having that label and that having the label could be good. But also, like, if you're not going to do anything like that, you know having that label doesn't mean you're going to now take this. You know specific medication that you needed, like if you have high blood pressure specifically, and like you need that label. So if you have high blood pressure specifically, and like you need that label so you get the high blood pressure medication. Autism's a little different. You're not just you're not going to take an anti-autism pill. So what I'm trying to get at with this question is nowadays, I think a lot of people are realizing that, yeah, autism is this big scale and you can fall anywhere on the scale, like you don't just, it's not just a one or zero. You can kind of have some autism, you can kind of have a high level of it, where you, your brain, cannot process input period and the science is so new on both adhd and autism. 

0:41:52 - Justin 
I I really like to remind people. I mean, it wasn't until 2020 that science commonly accepted the idea that adhd also affected women. Prior to 2020, it was commonly believed that it was, at least in medical books. It was believed that ADHD was a male-only disease Rowdy little boys and the studies on the relationship between ADHD and autism comorbidly existing has only been done in the last three years. You know all a lot of this is you know, is subject to change, is hearsay, is, you know, just theorized right? 

0:42:29 - John 
now okay. So what I almost want to get at with this entire point, though, is that they are getting really good at like diagnosing this stuff right, and like they're seeing, they're seeing the correlations, but like, do you see there's a limit of like? People want these answers and they want these labels, but then if the label doesn't directly mean you're going to get a medication to fix it, do you think some people are relying too much on wanting that label, but then they don't necessarily want to take some of the other steps in life. That's not even the right way to put it. Just, people think if, like, they're having having a hard time with things, they want that autism label, they want to like self-diagnose it, so they can explain it away. 

Yeah, and I kind of get that idea that level of like how much you needed to explain it and if you, okay, you could explain it, but if it's not going to help you do you think it's going to help you? Do you think it's beneficial to like, tie to that label a ton? 

0:43:20 - Justin 
and this is just me asking questions I mean, I'm kind of curious your opinion on that. Um, so I think it goes both ways. Are there people that you know take advantage of the system and adopt labels for the sake of copping out of responsibility, or whatever it might be? 

0:43:33 - John 
or could it be identity? 

0:43:35 - Justin 
you know a little bit like this identity politics, right like you want to be part of a group, you want to be part of a, and then you know, and that that mentality it exists and it causes a problem because within the neurodivergent community there's this phenomenon that's popped up called the cascading effect, and so what typically happens is kind of like me and my brother, I'm the cascade effect of my brother being diagnosed, when you have one person that explores their mental health and, you know, gets diagnosed with something or realizes they have an anxiety disorder or whatever it might be, and then they start talking to their friends about it. 

And then their friends start realizing like, oh, I have a lot of those things too, and they start going to their doctors. And then it starts people from the outside looking in are like, oh, it's a fad, people are jumping on the train, blah, blah, blah. But what it was is one person realized it about themselves and made it okay to talk about in their immediate circle, and then, once it was okay to talk about, people started realizing that about themselves too. And there's even I mean we've talked about, you know the idea of being an empath. You know, science has shown us like people give off frequencies. Science is starting to show us that people with neurodivergencies may be more sensitive to those frequencies, and so the idea of being an empath could simply be feeling the vibes of the room, quite literally. 

0:45:04 - John 
Yeah, yeah like an extra ability to take in something Right. 

0:45:09 - Justin 
And so you know it's hard to jump to conclusions one way or the other. As far as you know, are people legitimately seeking this out or are they jumping onto a fad as a cop-out or as something fun to do, or whatever it is, who knows? For somebody like me, the label was important because before I was ADHD, I was lazy, I was forgetful, I didn't care, I was a pleasure to have in class, but I talked too much. I had all sorts of labels that were really negative. Then I had ADHD and all those went away. 

0:45:41 - John 
So for you that that really helped you eliminate the negative labels, yeah, so okay, so okay. So that's I, so that's a very big positive. That, like I applied you know I don't think I've considered myself is like okay, if you, if you can sometimes maybe people associating with that label outside of just this they want to be maybe identify as part of this group is that it actually can help you maybe eliminate some self-deprecating thoughts. Definitely I'm just lazy. Well, no, I'm not lazy. Your brain is differently wired. 

0:46:09 - Justin 
And when you're open about what you're dealing with the people around you, then take that into consideration, or at least they should, right? So if I double book myself on my calendar, people that know me are going to. They might not be happy with me, but they're gonna be understanding, they'll be like oh yeah, that's just, and it happens from time to time, we'll get over it, we'll move past it. Um, so you know, being open about it has only been beneficial too, because you know people do accommodate for you, whether you ask them to or not and I mean the whole concept of this like cascading. 

0:46:44 - John 
I mean that's why I do this podcast, because my whole hope is that when people hear guys talking about mental health and their own mental health, or people talking about their stories, if they literally just make some rethink their story and be like, oh, maybe, like that's not something I considered that might have had an effect on me which is literally just a cascading effect. I'm looking for people to realize their own story better by hearing other people's stories spelled out in front of them. 

0:47:08 - Justin 
One of the things that I've written about on my blog as well is one of the things that sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom in general is our ability to share our experience with one another and benefit from that shared experience. You know, if humans didn't develop the ability to share their knowledge with the next generation, we wouldn't be where we are today, for sure, you know, and you know, by continuing to do that and even more pinpoint or focused approach, like on mental health, what we're doing here Should have the same effect. 

0:47:44 - John 
I Completely agree. So then, okay, back to your wife. So you, you had found that you knew about the ADHD prior when you guys were together. It sounds like you've been through a lot of growth in the last five, six years. I mean, a lot of it came through your, obviously, cancer treatment and some of like the things that, yeah, your support, how much your support system helped you through that. But looking back, would you say there's been improvements that you made because of having your wife around as opposed to not? 

0:48:12 - Justin 
Yes, you know, my wife is my second serious relationship. I had an ex-fiance prior to her and I kind of lost who I was during serious relationship. I had an ex-fiance prior to her and I kind of lost who I was during that relationship. I should also mention when I was first diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed for ADHD, I was only prescribed for about a year, year and a half. My doctor ended up moving to Florida. I ended up switching to a new doctor and I hated that doctor even more than I hated my first one. So I just decided you know what? I went 18 years without the meds. I don't need them, I'm not going to do it. And so I went on medicated until 2020. 

And during COVID, when what I thought was seasonal depression didn't go away come springtime, I decided to call my doctor and I was like, hey, well, actually I didn't have a doctor. I went online and I found a doctor and I was like, hey, I want to talk to you about some stuff. And I went in. I was like I think I'm depressed and I have ADHD and my research tells me that untreated ADHD can lead to depression. But I don't know what to treat first the untreated ADHD or lead to depression, but I don't know what to treat first, the untreated ADHD or the immediate issue, the depression. We treated both and then, about six months later, he leaned me off the antidepressants. Okay okay. 

0:49:34 - John 
Did you feel like the antidepressants helped at the time? Oh, definitely, okay, definitely. Did you have any negative effects from them? 

0:49:42 - Justin 
um, not that I really noticed, okay. Um, yeah, you know I was playing video games and it was covid. You know the world was weird, yeah yeah, it was a weird time. 

0:49:54 - John 
So probably like comparing the baseline was just hard enough already yeah um, okay, okay, and like I bring up this wife thing and like this support again, just cause I don't know how, how some of my mental health journey feels like it would have been impossible if I was still single and then I was still, like you know, trying to, like I'm trying to figure out my mental health, but also like I was always chasing women and like wanted a wife and wanted a girlfriend, so like I don't know how like those things could have happened simultaneously, that I somehow improved my mental health and made myself a better partner to find the right person. That I would have like this idea that you have to make yourself right before you find the right partner, instead of like no, you and you and another two, two imperfectly people meet and like just figure out how to make it so that you could have some perfect sense of like life together. That's for you guys. 

0:50:43 - Justin 
So this is actually a topic that we kind of got into on my podcast, the episode that aired earlier today. Day of recording, of course. But this idea that you can't pour from an empty cup right, your glass has to be filled before you can fill somebody else's glass, and I do like that idea. It makes sense. Right, if you're in a hurt place, it's really difficult to help others. Right, you should focus on your immediate issues and then focus on the people around you, and as much as I want to wholeheartedly get behind that, I'm kind of a prime example of that's not always the case, it's not. 

And the best way I can sum that up is I met Shelby. I mean, I was Shelby's boss at the time. I was working at Petco. She got hired as a cashier and I met Shelby about three months after my ex-fiance called off our wedding and we were dating about a month later and people are like don't you need time, don't you know? You're still kind of figuring stuff out and I'm like, well, I don't want to miss out on the opportunity of what I think might be something really awesome, and if she's cool, she'll let me fix myself in the meantime. And she did, and I would, and I was open about that from the get-go too. I was like, hey, just so you know, like this is where I'm at in life. It's it's not a great place, but I'm working on it. 

0:52:14 - John 
Hmm, she's stuck by me, okay, so I'll have, like I'll share a couple opinions about that entire like subject. I think you'll kind of agree with them because of what you just said. But yes, I think you're right, you can't pour from an empty cup. But I also think most people's cup isn't as empty as they quite think it is, and that they also don't understand that sometimes filling other people's cups can end up inadvertently filling yours without realizing it. On top of this whole fact that what? What you just said is wonderful, it's just if she's cool, she will give you the space to grow and not expect you to be perfect right off the bat either. And like that is this fundamental idea that you are going to find a partner who's perfect for you. You know right, it's so stupid. There is no perfect. No, no, there you find me. Anybody that you think is perfect, and you live with them for a year and you'll start finding out things that are not perfect about them pretty quickly. 

0:53:06 - Justin 
I have a buddy who just had a woman move in with him and the way that I described it to him I was like for the first couple of months you're figuring out what level of gross is you're each willing to deal with. 

0:53:20 - John 
Yeah, right, that's literally what it is. What do you accept? What do you accept? Let's try to merger cleaning habits a little bit Exactly. Merger grooming habits. Yeah, yeah, but I feel like you know that's like the fun of it, it's like you both have to kind of stumble into a better place together, right, and like I think there's a. 

0:53:37 - Justin 
Well, it takes work, you know. It takes effort from both people. The best way I've heard it put is you know, because people will say a relationship is 50-50 or you know something like that, and it's a relationship is 60-40, where both partners are trying to be the 60. 

0:53:51 - John 
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and like that that continues to pay off so big. And especially when you look back and you can look at the positive changes you've had in your mental health and you can directly attribute them to, like, the hard times and the good times of your partner. That is how you grow with your partner, and me and my wife talk about this a lot. I think couples that end up growing apart is because they're not intentional about growing together and whether that's helping each other get through mental health things in a way that the person always feels very supported. So when they get through mental health things in a way that, like, the person always feels very supported, so when they get through that struggle, they, they come back to you thinking you're the one that helped them, not they resent you because you didn't help them through that struggle. It's like, but it's like that on a micro scale on a day-to-day basis, right, those little micro like your partner all of a sudden, like builds this image of you. If somebody that's constantly there to support them, maybe sometimes they would support them or maybe never dare to support them and like, um, mental health 100 correlates with the growth of a relationship. For those two people in that relationship. 

Um, I think when you see people who get together and then like they're together five, seven years and then they get divorced, I would almost bet, like 100 of the time, that both of them have a mental health struggle that they ignored that entire time or, like you know, they didn't talk about, they didn't take seriously, right, but having a partner that you could talk to about that stuff so you can be like, honey, I'm anxious tonight and I can't be there for you tonight, right, you know? Or, honey, I'm depressed tonight. It's like I need you to like. Can you give me a little action? 

0:55:21 - Justin 
I mean me going through cancer treatment before we got married. You know, there was one night Shelby and I had a conversation and I told her like hey, this is going to be tough, this is going to be a rough ride, it's going to be stressful. And I gave her an out, I told her if you don't want to do this, we're not way, you could give me that ring back right now and I won't blame you. And she chose to stay. Um, you know, and and that really I kind of think speaks, speaks to what kind of rock she's been for me. 

0:55:50 - John 
Um, sorry, I just lost my train of thought no, I mean, that's a you know, that's a beautiful gesture that she also like, I'm sure, in her mind she's never doubted staying with you. It's not in her mind. Well right, just because things got hard. 

0:56:03 - Justin 
She well in and knowing this right, knowing that you know she chose, she hadn't out, she chose to stay right. It's almost like I feel like we got through the hard times of our marriage before we even got married. You know there's there's a lot of things that will test the marriage over the years. Health scares are one of those things that usually happen way later, but we got to figure that out ahead of time. 

0:56:30 - John 
Yeah, and I mean that's a cool thing and I'm guessing you guys' relationship just got all the stronger for it, definitely All the deeper for it, and, like she probably'm, my guess is she never makes you feel like you can't be open about your mental health with her absolutely, that was yeah. 

I mean it. It sucks that there are people in situations where maybe they can't open up to their mother, their partner, about their mental health, um, but my hope is these conversations continue to like and not everybody needs that from their partner either, or wants that from their partner that's true. That's true. Now, do you, do you not believe, every partner? Ultimately, though, most people in a relationship would probably benefit to some level of being able to talk about this stuff I would think so, but I think it's a spectrum you know it's. 

0:57:16 - Justin 
It's hard to say that everybody. You know that this is going to be the answer that's going to benefit everybody. 

It might not right and you know, as long as you know, if that person isn't, you know, confiding in their partner for their mental health needs, hopefully they have another outlet and they're getting that elsewhere. You know, that's the way that I would look at it. It doesn't have to be limited to your partner. That's actually one of the reasons or one of the ways that I connected the mental health thing to Kindred. You know, for a lot of men they don't have a lot of female perspective in their life and the only time that they might open up to a woman might be while they're getting a haircut. And actually it's kind of a stereotype that people open up to the people here cutting their hair, yeah and so putting that conversation forefront. 

You know, hey, we're already in a barber shop. This product is going to help men's mental health, and it's because you talk about mental health things to your barber or to your tattoo artist or whatever it might be yeah, yeah, just like the benefit of getting the words out of your mind sometimes yeah, I mean, you've got tattoos. 

When you're sitting in a tattoo chair for an hour or two, you got to talk to us about something with the guy or the, the woman that's tattooing you. Yeah, um, you know when? When I got a half sleeve. This is 22 hours worth of work. 

0:58:37 - John 
We got into some deep stuff during this yeah, yeah, for sure, and I feel like most, most barbers or stylists who especially have like clientele that they see consistently, they probably know more about that person's life than like some of their friends might even know, because they probably have heard them talk about the deep emotional things that they probably don't even talk about their friends or maybe their partner sometimes, exactly no, that's a very good point. 

0:58:59 - Justin 
I personally believe that people, these salon stylists, hair cutting people, they get confided in a lot, or at least the stereotype is that they are, and I'll play off of that. 

0:59:13 - John 
Personal trainers, I think, get this a lot too. Personal trainers always like because you're training the person you're lifting with them multiple times a week. They end up telling you about their entire day. And then there's life and what's happening in their life getting into exercise and powerlifting specifically. 

0:59:26 - Justin 
So much of it is a mental game, so it lends itself to talking about mental health very well yeah, yeah, for sure, well, okay. 

0:59:36 - John 
Well, to kind of wrap up the podcast, you feel like you do you have any like remarks you'd like to kind of give like end on with your perspective, your view of men's mental health here and, like um Ferronis and I, kind of moving forward, any kind of like closing words you'd like to share? 

0:59:54 - Justin 
The thing that that I'd like to say about mental health or men's mental health, because a lot of men don't want to acknowledge their mental health and people, when they hear the term mental health, automatically associate that with the idea of mental health issues or problems, and I'd like to kind of change the way that's talked about. This happened through a conversation with a friend of mine where we were talking about diets. I've been trying to lose weight lately and he pointed out, pointed out a lot of people don't think they are on a diet, but everybody's on a diet. If you don't know what you're eating every day, write down what you eat every day. You'll figure out what your diet is. That's your diet. 

And the same thing applies to mental health. You don't have to have mental health problems to focus on your mental health. It's not a positive or negative, you have it, whether you want it or not. You have your mental health, just like you have your physical health. And so to kind of get past that stigma of associating the topic of mental health as this negative trait to have it needs to be changed changed. 

1:01:03 - John 
It's almost like the idea that, like you can't just talk about mental health to come back up the baseline, you can also come a mental health to get a ball baseline. Oh, absolutely, you know, like you, how to live a happier, more fulfilled life, how to have better relationships with people around you. 

1:01:15 - Justin 
There's another podcast that I listen to, called the secular Buddhist, and one of the ways that he starts out his podcast every episode is you don't have to listen, or you don't have to be Buddhist to listen to this podcast. You don't have to be wanting to become Buddhist to be listening to that podcast. You can listen to that podcast to become a better version of whatever you already are right, and so it's like you don't have to have mental health issues to focus on your mental health. You can focus on your mental health. You can focus on your mental health to simply become a better version of yourself. 

1:01:47 - John 
And it usually like pours in pretty much every facet of your life, oh, absolutely Every facet Work relationships. 

1:01:54 - Justin 
One thing I do want to circle back before we do wrap up. You brought up the idea of us doing some events. Did you want to expand on that at all? 

1:02:00 - John 
Yeah, yeah, we kind of talked about this a little bit. Me and Justin had a meeting, kind of like seeing how our two you know my podcast, his new podcast, slash like I guess Varonis is a brand, it's an over-encompassing brand but like how we might work together. Some things that we've talked about is whether we want to do these like events, where perhaps we have, um, a room where a bunch of guys sit around maybe we talk about stuff. Another idea I got brought up is if we do something physical where, say, we do a physically challenging thing, like we take a bunch of guys to lake michigan when the water's cold, do a polar plunge yeah, we do a polar plunge, but it's it's. It would be this event where, like, every guy gets cheered on everybody to do it. It's trying to get people to do something they're very uncomfortable with and then feel the benefits of doing something hard in a group setting specifically for men, because I do think that is some of the cleanest, best therapy men can have is a setting like that. 

1:02:55 - Justin 
Somebody once challenged me on this, because in one of the older brochures that I used to hand out, I talk about how choosing kindred is choosing to take care of your community. And she's like you only donate to men's mental health services. How can you say you're taking care of the whole community if you're only focusing on men's mental health? And I said, well, I've looked for places to donate to, and actually this will be a call out If you're a men's mental health organization that's looking for donations, I'm looking for you. It is difficult to find organizations that are solely men focused. There are plenty places for men to go. I'm not trying to complain about that, but as far as the the specialty places to go, there are places for people of color, underprivileged youth, lgbtqia, women, hispanic, black. Every kind of subsection seems to have a resource that's dedicated to them, but men and when you look at the statistics, men seem to need the majority of the support. Again, there's plenty of resources for us to go to, but it's not dedicated resources. 

1:04:07 - John 
Yeah, yeah, which these events? I guess we kind of wanted to maybe make it a bit of a resource for men, where it would perhaps give them an opportunity to get something out, whether it's energy, mental energy, whatever. But so that was kind of the idea of some of these events. Uh, did you want to add more to that? 

1:04:25 - Justin 
it's just this idea of you know, building camaraderie, knowing you know literally you're not alone when you're showing up in a group together, yeah, um. 

1:04:33 - John 
And and understanding, before you show up, that you're all showing up for a similar reason, for for a common purpose yeah now a big thing too I should mention with for owners and you're get you guys are kind of very block show based, right, you've mentioned this, that, um, you guys are very walk shit heavy. Your partner on your podcast, rico Rico Camacho Camacho, him being a walk show, alderman yep in the heart 15, district 15, meaning you know you guys are very happy. I watch you heavy, which I like, because for I really I'm a big believer in communities first, like, as much as I'd love to help somebody in California, I want to help people in Milwaukee and around me first, because I think that's going to have more direct in my community around me. Well, it's the grassroots approach. 

1:05:14 - Justin 
You know, I'm not the only person in the world that can start a brand that does something like this right, and so it's much easier to focus small than it is to focus big, especially when you're starting out. So by focusing locally, we can more than likely be more effective in what we're trying to do and maybe, along the way, inspire others to do the same thing, and if they don't, hopefully we grow to the point where we can start, you know, focusing on things in other areas or across the country. Yeah, yeah. 

1:05:47 - John 
But it has to start locally. It kind of has to start with, like building up this community directly around you for that community to actually grow Right and then start to see the impact you could possibly have other places. So that's kind of like that's the big idea, I think, behind us doing some events here and this is something we're going to continue to talk about as we move forward that I think I'm really looking forward to. 

1:06:06 - Justin 
Yeah, me too Doing some events, yeah. 

1:06:09 - John 
I want to get more men in this area involved with this, and I think it'd be so fun to do this stuff in person and get to like Absolutely Get a group setting in this thing, because I think it'd be healing in fun ways. I think it'd be just fun in a lot of great ways. I think it would be something that people will want to come back to. I think it could be something that people would look forward to, something that men will look forward to in this way that, like you know, it could be our. Really I don't know, like I wish I could tell every guy, like go do a meditation retreat, including myself. I wish I could just go do a 10-day meditation retreat. Sometimes you know, like experience something, but like this could be a version of like a mini little thing that we do here in Milwaukee and, like I said, even if it's a cold punch thing, but like the atmosphere we could build around it, the energy we could build around it. 

1:06:57 - Justin 
There's so many different ways that we can take, can take it. You know, the first thing that comes to my mind, locally in waukesha, and I'd have to talk to my buddy, alfie shout out to alfie, um, but like going to an axe throwing bar or something as a group, yeah, um, you know, and maybe, considering, you know, the topic of it being mental health, make it like a sober event sort of thing. Yeah, um, you know, and not all of them have to be men. Only we can start incorporating. You know, it's important to bring your families to this sort of stuff. You should be able to talk to to them. Or, you know, maybe do a father-daughter sort of thing. 

1:07:30 - John 
You know, it's important to build those, those connections, especially on this topic I agree, I men's mental health's kind of like for me a big entry point into a lot of this stuff, especially this podcast. But ultimately, someday I hope to entry point into a lot of this stuff, especially this podcast. But ultimately someday I hope to be able to provide more than just a men's mental health thing, cause you're right, I mean someday it's it's a thing that entire family could possibly benefit from and it'd be cool if we were doing community stuff that was entire like family base as well. 

1:07:55 - Justin 
And to get back to what I was kind of saying before with that, that challenge about, you know, is taking care of men's mental health only taking care of men, or is it taking care of the community? I mean, if, if dad has an easier access to mental health, or if there's less stigma for him to seek services, will the entire family grow up in a more healthy home. Yeah, yeah well, will his children grow up knowing how to talk about those topics and handle those topics better? 

1:08:26 - John 
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, could not agree more. Yeah, I think it's. It's something that would continue to feed into the family for generations to come, because it affected, it has on generations to come. 

1:08:35 - Justin 
And the the example I used. Then I was like, okay, think of you know, think of your classmate, who's a guy, right? Have you ever seen him get angry? Can he get a little testy sometimes? What? If he had access to mental health services early on in childhood and learned how to handle himself and express himself in a healthy way. Do you think the people around him, do you think the girls in his class would feel safer when he gets upset about something? 

1:09:00 - John 
Probably yeah yeah, could not agree more, could not agree more. Well, okay, I think, uh, that was a lot that was a lot. 

This was great I really appreciate you coming here and trying to kind of get in this conversation and I'm really looking forward to what we can do. You know whether, even if it's, even if we don't end up getting an event off this year, I still believe we can. But, like I forward, I think this is an area where I don't want to like stop putting my time into it. I know it's an area you're never going to stop putting your time into. So I think we have a bright future of some things we can do. It's just the beginning, directly in this community, yeah, so thank you again. 

Thank you, tuning in to another episode of Unturned Stones. If you guys, if you want to give a couple shout-outs to your Facebook pages, Instagram pages for Ferronis. 

1:09:46 - Justin 
The easiest one is the company website, wwwferroniscom. That's F-E-R-O-N-U-S. I'm sure it'll be in the description or something. From there you can get to Instagram, facebook. We're on YouTube. Our podcast is Spotify, youtube music, apple music, pretty much everywhere. Perfect awesome. 

1:10:06 - John 
Well, thank you guys for tuning in for another episode. Um, continue trying to get some more episodes recorded here and some more content put out. Otherwise, thank you, never great day, thank you, awesome fuck. Yeah, dude, thank you so much. This is great. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page