Unmasking Vulnerability: From Achieving Goals to Embracing Emotional Depth | Newton Cheng

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I'm not sure what happened, but in the moment, I started to cry. I could feel the tears just start welling up in my eyes. And I said, right now I'm struggling, because the number of days that I'm proud of how I'm showing up as a father is going down. And I don't know how to turn that around. Today's guest is Newton Cheng. He's a world champion competitive power lifter, and he's a director of health and performance at Google.

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As we discuss in this episode, when you look at Newton on paper, his life appeared to be a series of fantastic check marks, a successful career, a happy marriage, beautiful kids. However, the pandemic forced Newton to confront a pretty difficult truth. He was struggling to show up as a father in the way that he wanted to, and he didn't really know how to turn that around. And in a moment of vulnerability during a team meeting for work, Newton broke down in tears.

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pretty much shattering cultural norms of masculinity and showing his coworkers a side of himself he had never revealed before. On today's episode, Newton discusses his journey of self-discovery and mental health and how he learned to find compassion for himself. His story is a powerful reminder that even those who seem to have it all together might be struggling beneath the surface. I'd like to give a thank you to Mickey, Tracy, and Emily for sponsoring two episodes of the show each month.

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Your support through Patreon really allows me to grow the show and continue bringing these important stories to the public, so thank you. Information about the Patreon can be found in the show notes if anyone is interested in helping to support in a more direct way. So without further ado, let's jump into this episode with Newton Cheng to discover the life shift that led him to the path of self-love and compassion. I'm Maciel Houli, and this is The Life Shift.

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candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

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Hello my friends, welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with a brand new connection, Newton. Hey Newton. Hey, how are you? Fantastic, I think. It is a Monday that we're recording this and Mondays are usually like full of my real job and not my podcasting job, so it feels a little weird to be behind the microphone on a Monday. Well, I'm honored to be on a Monday then and breaking that pattern up. Thank you, I appreciate it. There's nothing.

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that I want to do more than have these conversations. And so I'm just honored that people want to be a part of it, like you, and that people are listening and really resonating with the stories that others are sharing. We were talking before we recorded about, you know, kind of what are we seeing that the listeners are really getting from these episodes now that we're into it a year? I say we. It's just me sitting here behind the microphone and doing everything. But.

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My goal when I started was really that each story would find the person that needed to hear it the most And so that in their circumstance, they didn't feel so alone and so I think Your story is going to resonate with a lot of people even if they're not in the exact same situation Yeah, I hope so. I think as i've told it what I what comes back to me is It's never oh my gosh. That's the most amazing story. It's it's definitely

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that resonates with me. I'm glad you named that. I didn't recognize that that was what was going on with me, but now I can feel that. So that's why I continue to tell my story. And you know what? I think that's been the most interesting part of this journey is that sometimes a guest will come on and there's really this like big event that we're talking about a big event that's happened in their lives. But what I'm finding is that a lot of the listeners attached to a little tiny moment that's in

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their story, like a little thing, not this huge thing that would clearly on paper be like the big moment, right? But the little things are the ones that attach. And I think not that yours is a little situation, but it's not like a plane crash or something really extreme in that sense. And this is something that's more tangible in, or maybe not tangible, but more relatable in the human experience.

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a lot of people have gone through what you've gone through. Yes, yeah, I think what I'll say is, the facts of the situation are kind of unique, but I don't think the feelings will be unique at all. I love for the guests to kind of paint the picture of what life is like leading up to this moment so that we get an understanding of like, how this moment changed and created a new trajectory, possibly for each guest. So maybe you can kind of give us a little bit about who you are and who you were.

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leading up to this moment. I'm gonna dial back actually about 13 years before this moment. And so now don't panic. I'm not gonna fill your entire episode just with the story, but I think the- It's your story. The context and I think the buildup is helpful. So I think of my life in three major roles, husband and father. I am a world champion competitive powerlifter.

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And then I am director of health and performance at a small company called Google. Tiny. Yes. We, I think we make pants. I'm not clear yet on the business model, but, uh, it's kind of a, we'll have to Google that to figure it out. So those are like the main parts of my life, but dial back 13 years. I was actually a hardware engineer working on the PlayStation three. I come from a pretty traditional Asian American background. And so I was raised to go for stable job.

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I focused on education, I checked all the boxes, I got the good grades, and I ended up in a place where I wasn't enjoying my job, I knew I was interested in health and wellbeing. And so being the box checker I am, I said, okay, well, how do I check a box out of my way from this career into a different one? And I applied to business schools, I got into Berkeley. And so I go to get my MBA at Berkeley.

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And I have this now long shot dream of like somehow via this experience, I'm going to pivot my career from being a hardware engineer working on the PlayStation 3 to doing something interesting in the space of health and wellbeing. So I go through the MBA program, which is wonderful. At the end, somehow I land this dream job of working as fitness operations manager at Google in 2008. So they're still growing rapidly.

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And they're known for having these amazing amenities for taking care of the health and well-being of employees and in ways that companies haven't done in the past. So here I am. I've somehow landed my dream job. Coming out of business school, I'm now engaged to my dream girl. You fast forward 13 years and the career at Google has gone really well. And so now life has gotten more complex. I have married my dream girl.

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I have adopted our first daughter. So now I have my two dream girls. I am now a world champion competitive power lifter. And that was not on the radar at all 13 years ago. And then somehow now I am director of health and performance at Google. So the career has climbed and climbed and climbed where I am now seen as a leader in this field of looking at the intersection of health and well-being and

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performance both in work and life, and how does that apply at a corporation like Google? And so life has just gotten awesome, but really, really complex. And before you jump further, I think it's interesting, there's a couple of interesting pieces. I often talk to people about this checklist life, but yours was a checklist life, but also maybe that checklist was more apparent because of your background and your parents, is that true?

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Yes. Like there were more expectations of you that were like literal expectations. Whereas what I'm saying is like in my world, I felt like nobody was telling me I had to do all these things. I just felt like society was saying like, you got to do this, then you got to go to college and you got to get a good job, then you got to get promoted, then you have to, you know, like buy a house and all these things. But you also have this other layer of, of your family that was kind of putting these pressures on you. Was that?

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more obvious pressure or was that more internalized? It was a combo. I think the obvious side was that if you looked at my family, both my immediate and then extended family, I was surrounded by doctors and engineers. So if you can see it, you can be it. And so what I could see was a sea of straight A getting degree, you know, graduating doctors and engineers.

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And so I'm like, that's what I see, that's what I will be. There were other explicit expectations, like my parents, they actually have a clause in their will that says you don't get your portion of the inheritance unless you graduate college. It's like very, very clear. And that comes from a place of love. Like I feel their love. I don't think of that as like that's messed up and I resent you. But it's really clear what they value.

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So between all of that, and then as you're growing up, you have report cards, you have activities, you start to internalize this fear of who am I and what does it mean if I don't get that A, or if I don't achieve like my big sister did or my other big sister. And so you start to build the pressure into your DNA. And this is something in my story I have to unravel, and I'm still unraveling this via.

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therapy, journaling, reflection. It's like the expectations, you know, my parents long retired and stopped putting pressure on me. They're still there and they're as heavy as ever. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people can relate to that internalization of like, I need to be, or success equals this, you know, like we have to do this in order to be seen as a full human or someone that has achieved something.

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And so it's interesting to hear the balance of how there were external pressures, but also that feeling of like, I got to fit in, or I have to compete in a way. And also thinking of your story of like, you're in a successful career as a hardware engineer, but the only way to pivot in your mind because of probably conditioning in a way was to get another degree. Yes. Whereas...

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I think other people, I would agree with you. I would do the same thing you did, but I think other people would be like, well, you don't need to do that. There are other ways to pivot. But I imagine that your upbringing kind of brought you, or like, okay, well, this is the path to get there. Yeah, there was one conversation when I was first starting to explore careers in health and wellbeing with a relative for my extended family. And mind you, I'm like 25 at the time.

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at this point. So you know a lot. I know a ton. But I also I am sure I'm like, hey, I'm pretty young. I got should have a lot of runway here. Like, you know, life life can end at any point, but relatively young. And so I think I was starting to show some of the like the more openness, like, why do we have to check these boxes? I could do many things. And I still remember his response was like, you only get so many bullets to fire and light.

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And at that point I felt two things like one was indignance like Who the eff are you like to tell me I only have this many bullets at age 25? But then you know, he has the same internalized pressure I do so it stoked all the fear Where i'm like, oh Maybe he's right Like what what am I throwing away here? You know, I i'm gonna throw away with a degree in engineering the and the career It was going pretty well

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And so I had to fight through that. And I think since then, it's, you know, we've talked about the internalized pressure. I think the thing that I realized, if you look at my resume, it looks like I'm building towards something. Really what I was doing was this internalized pressure. It's this fear of not being enough. I'm running from a fear of having to answer this question. If I stop achieving, what does that say about me?

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And I'm like, if I don't stop checking boxes, I have to answer that question. And that, even though I'm coming to like stare at it and ponder it, it still terrifies me. Yeah, I can relate from a different perspective. When I was a kid, my mother died and I was eight. And the pressure I put on myself was very much, if I don't do well, people, I mean like,

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I actually, I put the pressure that I thought people needed to see that I was going to be okay. And if I didn't do well, then I wasn't going to be okay in their minds. And so all of my journey up until I kind of what you're talking about, like stopped and go, okay, I need to stop checking these boxes. But up until like mid thirties, I was very much like next. What's next? What's the next achievement that I can get? What's the next accomplishment that I can tell people about?

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way back when everyone thought I would fall apart and my life would be over and I would become like, someone that lives on the street and does drugs all the time because his mom died. And so a lot of that was that nobody put that pressure on me. Not one person told me you need to do this, that, or the other, but I took that as that eight-year-old and the fear that, like you, people wouldn't approve of me or...

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be okay with me if I wasn't successful, or they would attach something to it, or they would abandon me. Because in my mind, my mom dying was her abandoning me. It wasn't not a logical thing. So I can relate to this idea of like, okay, well, I'm just going to get another degree. Because then that quiets the noise. Because look, I'm going on a new path, but look, I'm getting a degree to do it. And therefore, check mark, I'm still on the right path kind of thing.

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And so I can definitely relate to what you're talking about. And it's hard even still to like, okay, no, I don't need to do that for anyone. I need to do what's right for me. Wow. Okay. So you, sorry, I'm not gonna try to turn this into a reverse interview, but so as an eight-year-old, you may have had people showing up with really good intent of saying, you know, trying to say, are you gonna be okay? As an eight-year-old, that's a lot to process.

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and a lot to reframe and try to think there's something horrible that's happened. And where you landed was, I have to show them I'm gonna be okay by achieving and checking boxes. And you built on that into your 30s. Or, I mean, even still, I think there's a little bit, I think we always have that little child. And I do now after a lot of reflection, I realize that...

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It was all out of fear of abandonment again, in the sense that people would leave if I wasn't good enough. And so to that good enough comment, like, is it enough? Is it ever enough? And for that little kid or for, I mean, even you, that was probably instilled in you as a child growing up, that kid still remembers, right? And so are we ever enough? But anyway, we went way off on a tangent and I want you to be able to get to your story, but.

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Oh, this story is coming back to that little kid. That little kid is integrated into my psyche, like so intimately now. And for all the kids' troubles and for all the kids, I like to call them superpowers. I'm gonna come back to that as we build through the story. But yeah, thank you for going there. I love that. I think we can't ever get rid of it, but I think it's good to acknowledge what that kid needs and how can we best...

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serve what that kid needs, but also this like grown up version of us as well. Yeah, I actually had a good dinner with a good friend on Saturday where I think we're in different places in wrestling with our inner child where I think he had a pretty traumatic childhood. And so he is trying to dispel the inner child. And I have said like, I tried that for a while, it didn't work. And so instead I have.

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found a way to have compassion for and take care of that child. And so that child, he's, you know, he's part of my family roster and I care for that child and he cares for me. That's so important and it's also, I think, emotionally mature. I think it takes a while to get there though and you probably do have to make mistakes and find what works for you because what your path is is not going to be what your friend's path is. What's my path? You know, I think we all have to find.

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what makes the most sense so that we can live truly as ourselves. And so in that vein, maybe you can bring us back to what this must have been a couple of years ago, in which somewhere around this time where everything on paper looked like you were like killing it. You were you were doing all the things. All your boxes were checked. That paper was full of check marks. Yes. So so the paper I was checking all the boxes, everything was looking good. It's March 20, 20.

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this thing called COVID appeared. And if you'll remember what that felt like, suddenly, like it accelerated and accelerated and accelerated and then suddenly March 2020, the entire world just seemed to shut down overnight. And so we all get sent home from work. Those of us with kids, we lose our childcare. And then we're all kind of sitting in this cloud of fear of this thing, COVID-19. We don't know how dangerous it is for us.

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We don't know how dangerous it is for our children, and then especially for our loved ones who might be at risk, like such as my aging parents. But what I knew was that this was clearly this time of crisis. And so the way I was raised was that in time of crisis, this is when you show up and you lean in and you lead. And so at work, even though now we're working remotely, so for context, I oversee a bunch of our

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on-site amenities around health and wellbeing to support the Google community. Now we're at home. So practically overnight, we pivoted as many offerings as we could to digital offerings that could be streamed to your homes. And then we started taking on more responsibilities across the organization because it felt like the right thing to do. And then we spend more time checking in with each other. And it was all so exhausting on top of the stress and the unknowns.

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but it felt like the right thing to do. And so we started sprinting like this. This is March. We're sprinting, we're sprinting, we're sprinting, we're giving and supporting. Now it's about midsummer and I'm starting to really feel it where at this point in order to run like this, I'm getting up at maybe 5.30 or six so that I can get in my powerlifting training. And then...

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I get to work, I try to meditate to just quiet my brain enough so that it wasn't even a practice of mindfulness. It was just to get it to a state of, from anxiety and panic down to what felt like normal or at least manageable. And then I had to divvy up my day into 15 minute chunks from the start of the day all the way until 6 p.m. with child care or whatever had to be done integrated into there. They're just like...

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there's too much to be done, we gotta go. And we were hoping the pandemic would somehow magically start to dissipate. I had this fear of like, will this just keep going on indefinitely? And so we were at my vice president's team meeting and we're all in our little video thumbnails for some background.

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The weeks leading up to that team meeting, we'd really been working on our team dynamic. Everyone wears their mask at work, and we had been trying to be more and more open. And we kicked off every meeting with a check-in of just how are you doing to keep building that dynamic? And before it got to me, one of my friends sent me a chat message and nudged me, she's like, hey, like we...

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Like, we gotta keep working on this. Try to say something real. I'm like, okay. So I'm trying to keep that in mind. It gets to me and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna say something real. And I didn't know where I'd go with this, but I'm not sure what happened, but in the moment I started to cry. And like I could feel like the tears just start welling up in my eyes. And I said, right now I'm struggling.

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because the number of days that I'm proud of how I'm showing up as a father is going down and I don't know how to turn that around. And like the instant feeling there was, it was two things, like one was like this horrifying shame because as a, you know, I'm a straight man who grew up in West Central Illinois, like culturally, the way I was raised, like, yeah, we don't do that. Boys don't cry.

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as an Asian American male. Same thing. And so I violated all that in front of my coworkers. So I was horrified. But you know, it was there. Everyone saw it. So that's one thing. The other thing was, once I said those words, I'd never said that so clearly, even to myself. I heard it and I knew it was true. I could see like

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I'm showing it as a father, it's going down the tubes and I don't have a plan to turn that around and this is hurting the people I love most and it's now it's just sitting there in front of me and in front of all my co-workers and I can't unsee it and it just hurt and so that's that was my moment. I'm like it's there. That was just shattering.

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that was your, you protecting yourself by breaking everything, right? By breaking yourself open to show that. How did people respond to that? Was there any noticeable response or was it very typical corporate response? My team is great. So I think there was a, you know, there were a lot of heart emojis because that's what we had to work with. And then there were a lot of.

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I think in terms of decorum of how do you do that during a meeting, like, you know, no one can run up and hug you. So I think there was awkwardness there, but then there were a lot of people who were just suddenly the chat messages started coming of like, Hey, I'm here if you need me, are you okay? Is there anything I can do to support? And so while, you know, there, I didn't expect anyone to have a silver bullet. I felt love. I felt support. It changed the tone of the meeting. So others started to put.

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some of their struggles on the table too. So I didn't feel so alone in the moment even though I felt daunted by the struggle of mine. So yeah, it brought us closer together. The reason I asked that is I think on the, you mentioned your upbringing, your culture, where you lived, you, the fact that you're a male, all that played into like, you didn't,

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You're not supposed to say all these things. We've been trained that guys don't have feelings. You're just not, well, you have feelings. You can be angry or you can be awesome. You know, like there's no other ones that you can have. And the reason I asked that question of how people responded is because I think on the other side, wherever you're from, I don't think that Americans at least are trained or comfortable in hearing that.

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Right, because normally the conversation goes, how are you today? And the answer is good, how are you? Fine, how are you? You know, it's just very like, there's no actual conversation there, it's just the words that we say back to each other. And so it's interesting to see, it's almost like a experiment in a way of like, I do it now when someone asks me that, not to like trick anyone, but like I just tell them how I am, you know, and that's just, it is what it is. And...

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Some people don't know how to respond to that. And so I'm glad to hear that people in corporate space, I know we were in a different time, right? People were a lot more sensitive, maybe. But I'm glad to hear that people were supportive and not dismissive, because your whole upbringing you just described, what you just did, I can imagine the fear how that might make you not good enough anymore.

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Right? This fear of like, I shared my vulnerability. Now am I gonna be good to people? Am I good enough? Yeah. Yeah, the questions of, did this hurt my reputation? That came up. It meant, you know, did I just admit to myself I'm a shitty father? Am I a shitty husband? Cause that's how I feel right now. While I think logically, I could rationalize my way out of that.

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You know the struggles I have I I I study relationships and Mental health and all this stuff enough that I know that my struggles are not weird Like they're pretty common but I feel like shit right now We can swear on this podcast, right? Well, we you just did. Okay. So here it is. All right I enjoy no, I yeah, I mean as long as you're not a sailor we're good. Okay

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And you're not a sailor, you work at a small company called Google, so we're okay. We sell pants. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's important. I would say nowadays, 2022, 2023, people are a little bit more comfortable sharing their truth in a sense that like, if it's not a good day, then I'm going to tell people it's not a good day and it's not as performative.

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maybe as it was pre-pandemic, at least in my circles. I don't know, are you seeing the same thing that people are a little bit less performative and more open? Yes, I'll break it down a little bit. I think across the board, it's a yes. Like let's say things have, I'm gonna make up a stat. Things have gotten 10% better. What I see is huge intergenerational differences where...

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A few months ago, I was talking with our our nanny and the nanny was working with us at the time I think she's in her early 20s and We got on the topic of mental health and I asked her out of curiosity When did you first start thinking about and talking about your mental health? She very quickly answered. She's like about age 12 Like oh, okay. So you're 10 years into this Me i'm

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probably less than that and you know much older than you. And so the clear generational difference there, so I am somewhere between like the edge of millennial and gen X. If I, yeah, if I start talking to some of my colleagues who are baby boomers, they're talking about mental health in still like this very academic clinical way. They will very rarely reference their own mental health.

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in more than an acknowledging way that it exists versus what's going on with it or what is going on with them as a person. And so you kind of see like the ability and even just the comfort of going there, it varies vastly across generational differences. And that's the biggest divide I see. How about in your own family? Do you see that same generational talk or is it different in your culture?

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It is, I think across the board, there is less talk about it, but same generational divide, definitely. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a product of society and what everyone else is kind of doing. I remember until the day that she died, my grandmother would not talk about her grief of when my mom died, which wasn't even her daughter, it was her daughter-in-law. But...

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she wouldn't talk about it even to the moment that she died because I think she wasn't brought up to talk about that stuff. She was brought up to stuff everything down, push everything down, be the person or the role that you're supposed to fill and just continue that on and didn't ever broke open in the sense of like your story where maybe you would have always done that, but that moment in time.

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was just like the right moment to kind of break things down. Yeah, so I recently came across this term and I don't want to nerd out too hard on your podcast, but I think it's called evolutionary mismatch, where I often thought like, hey, if I wanted to go back to academia, I think I'd study like, how did we decide as a society that when we get, especially into the workplace, we're gonna put...

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feelings aside, like we are gonna lop off part of our humanity and hide it. Like the question I like to ask people sometimes just, the conversation sometimes goes nowhere, but I like to just put it out there to kind of see where, how people react is how is it that if we are having a beer at a bar and I say like, do you agree love makes the world go round? Some people, some people might say and money.

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But they largely agree, like we all agree, like yeah, we all need love. Why is it the moment I cross the threshold of the front door of my company, we can't even say the L word, but we're still expected to perform at our best. Like how, how did we decide you have to lop off that part of your humanity? So that's something I'd want to study. Now, evolutionary mismatch theory says that the issue is that

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Over time, we developed these norms, like the decision to leave that part of our humanity outside the workplace. But then culture and our context evolved too fast. And so we have norms that no longer serve the current context, such as, you know, if Microsoft is right, one out of two of us are reporting we're burned out in the workplace. Like, seems like a time where it would be very, very helpful for us to talk richly about our needs at work, but we can't.

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Yeah, so that's where we're at now. It's funny, though, because I think about this as that when I was saying that society's checklist, they also think, are there rules? Are there hard and fast rules that tell us that we can't do that? I don't know. I haven't read all the company's employee handbooks. But are we just assuming that that's what we should not be doing or talking about, because it's business, business, business? Are we looking back to the Mad Men days?

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And like going that's what we should be doing. Yeah, you know, I'll give this like really stark example Just to get back into a story format that that was like an aha for me we Have a friend who? she's definitely in the the boomer generation and we went to visit her and so we're hanging out in her living room and She's just kind of going in and out of the bedroom over and over throughout the time we're there and then

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Eventually I asked them like hey, what's going on like everything okay, and she's like, oh, I got to just keep checking out my husband He just had stomach surgery and I said like oh is he okay and she kind of rolls her eyes and Says well, I don't think he's okay. But so he had to go get stomach surgery and In two days, he's supposed to be back at work and he's gonna go back to work as a firefighter and not telling you when He had stomach surgery

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And just get on with it because that's how he was raised and i'm telling him no take time off or at least tell people You have this going on so That other people will take up, you know, some of the heavier lifting or whatever needs to be done And he just refused And so I look at that and i'm like, okay, he was clearly Enculturated that way The behavior versus our current context is just straight up insane looking to me but I can't

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Fault him for it because it's deeply internalized and it's not like he made up those norms You like he kind of soaked them in via osmosis And so, you know, we're all doing that but that was like one of the most extreme examples I could see And now if I think about our current context, you know, it's not that we have physical injury we have mental emotional injury But from our context the things we've soaked in say like but you don't get to talk about those Because they make us look weak

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Yes. According to someone or something that tells us that. And in that case, he probably didn't want others to think he was weak because he's in a macho firefighting position. And like, oh, he's, you know, an injury is an injury, which means you're not as strong as everyone else in this. If we're going to spiral and start thinking about what this quote unquote means. I mean, it all makes sense. And I agree with you. But in that moment, when you...

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decided I'm gonna pull this curtain down a little bit and share a vulnerable part that maybe I'm not okay right now. Did that create a shift in one, I mean, I'm assuming it created a shift in your own personal life, but also in your corporate experience? It did. I think I'll talk first about like the negative and then the positive. The negative.

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And credit to my coworkers, because there was no negative from them. It was all love and support. The negative for me was just this low-level paranoia now of like, that's out there. Do they see me differently? You know, at a minimum, like, 100% yes, they see me differently. Like I revealed something about myself, both, you know, informationally and also like emotionally, they didn't know that was pretty dramatic. And so, like, absolutely they see me differently.

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I see myself differently. That was more on the negative or at least unknown side to me. On the positive side, it felt like part of me that was like a clenched fist, like it opened up just a little bit. I'm like, okay, well, not exactly the way I wanted to reveal that, but it's out there now. And so like there's, you know, if I have a backpack full of, you know, emotional weights I'm carrying.

37:14

I took one out and now it feels like, oh, the backpack's a little lighter. And so that was an aha for me of like, okay, well, yeah, yeah, that was scary. And I don't know how this is affecting my reputation. I didn't anticipate like, I'm carrying that weight around all the time. And I'm not now because it's out there.

37:40

Did you feel it sneaking up? Or did you, like, was this like, I know you said when you said it, you hadn't really put those words together or that feeling out loud. Was it a little bit of a surprise to you? Or did you feel that this was inevitable? This quote unquote outburst in a way, or sharing, this public sharing? Did you think that this was coming? Was there a feeling of that? Or was this like totally out of the blue for you? I didn't think it was inevitable.

38:09

And I didn't know it. I couldn't identify or articulate the feeling. What I could say going back to your, I really like this use of alliteration like we as men are only able to be angry or awesome. The amount of angry that was coming out, like as you know, just being really irritable or terse, especially with my family, which is, you know, just made it feel so wrong to me.

38:39

like that was going up. And so I could see the kind of like steam shooting out of the engine in really, really bad ways. And so I knew something was wrong. And that's where like I was like, I'll meditate more. I'll try to get more sleep. I'll do all the lifestyle behaviors that they say you're supposed to do because like that's my expertise. Like I know that stuff inside out, but I was doing them and it wasn't getting better.

39:11

Was anyone around you saying anything to you about noticing changes like your immediate family?

39:18

No, I think I was having more conflict with my spouse, but we were both struggling. So we could say, or at least I could frame it as like, oh, we're both struggling. It's not just me. For everyone else, I, well, actually, I was going to say I was, I think I was hiding it pretty well. The number of times that coworkers pulled me aside and would just kind of like in a very supportive way say.

39:48

Hey, are you doing okay? There were a few more of those now that I think about, and especially some who are the, we'll say the stoic male types, where I'm like, oh, this is coming from you. Like, okay, maybe I'm not showing up as rock solid as I think I am right now.

40:09

Did you internalize or what kind of pressure did you feel because of the position that you held and in the space that you were working in, the health and wellness space, what kind of pressure did you feel admitting that you didn't have it all, like we're preaching, like this whole practice what you preach, but like, look, I'm a human and there are things that I need to work on as well. Was there any pressure that came along with that? Yeah.

40:39

I think on the one hand, I preach the gospel of vulnerability and openness and admitting your flaws. And I think I did so in a way that now if I think back about it was devoid of emotional content where I could say factually like, yeah, I struggle with these things. I'm in it with all you guys who are struggling too.

41:09

What one one thing that came back once now if we go down the road I started to become much more Public about my struggles with mental health Once I started to do that A lot of messages came back Where with people who I thought I was very open and transparent with and they'd say we had no idea Like you were the superman you were doing all these things. You always had it together and I had no idea that I

41:37

I looked at that bulletproof to some people. But if I think about how I was showing up, that's exactly how I was trying to show up, even if I wasn't saying it to myself. How did your relationships at work or at home change once this moment of like, oh, yeah, I'm not doing so good. I'm going to try to make some inroads into feeling better and feeling like a more human person. How did that change your relationships?

42:05

either in the professional setting or at home.

42:11

I'd say overall, I'm trying to think if there's a negative example, but all I can say is in the long run very positively. So in a few ways, for some people it was pretty much instant change of support where they had done their own work. And so the moment I started to open up, they were able to step in with words of both support

42:39

stories that resonated with mine to say like I've been there I've I've felt like this or I have I Feel like this now and we could connect at a deeper level very very quickly for some Where maybe either they weren't willing ready to do that on their side or they hadn't done their work or or they were just giving Me space to process There was like kind of an awkwardness of like, okay. Well, it's kind of like I've

43:06

You know, I've just taken off my mask and I've now revealed this face that to me looks ugly. And I don't know what it looks like to other people. And so I'm just like, well, you can see it now. I, and I'm not clear how you feel about this. And so there was this like in liminal, liminal period of trying to figure out if this is the new face between the two of us that I'm rejected to you and you are seeing, how do we feel about this?

43:35

And so I think we would take our time to feel it out. And I might like make a bid of saying like, one thing I did because I didn't want to regress back to the relationship how it was, I said, okay, well, you know this about me. And if you want to ask about my mental health, but you're uncomfortable, instead you can ask about my bum knee. Because my mental health, it's kind of like a bum knee where some days it feels great. Some days it's inflamed.

44:05

but I still have to go out and compete. So I'm gonna hobble along. So just ask, how's the knee today? And so a lot of people started there. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine that it, I guess where I was hoping you would say is that these relationships became enhanced in a way because you were able to show up fully.

44:31

as you were, instead of bulletproof, instead of, you know, I got it all together all the time, I'm Mr. Perfect, everyone will approve of me, but now I look like some days just aren't great, but we're gonna do it, we're here, let's get in together. And I was hoping that all those relationships felt more enhanced because of that. And I know it's scary though, because like you said, we used to leave it at the door. I would say as of today, now this is, what, that was...

45:00

So March, March, 2020, then summer 2020. So wow, that's almost three years ago. Almost three years, yeah. Where we're at today, it feels greatly enhanced. So one of the things I feel now is free. Like I still wear some type of mask. I'm not free from being performative, but it's so much lighter what I do.

45:29

And so I'm, I'm trying to think about how to articulate this and turn this into like something philosophical that can be propagated through the business. Yes. T-shirts and bumper stickers or sorry, not bumper stickers, laptop stickers to propagate through the business world. But I feel like now I feel like I can pretty eloquently and integratively talk about my mental health as a leader, as a father and being open about it.

46:00

Like my backpack that was full of emotional rocks I was carrying, it's pretty empty. I'm like, no, you see all the rocks. I unloaded them. And so I walk around with a pretty light backpack now, and that is incredibly freeing and empowering as a leader. And if I can help other people do that, which is why I, you know, I'm coming on podcasts like this one to tell my story.

46:29

I absolutely want to do that. I'm 100% convinced that if we can get there, this is a better way to live and work. I agree. I would imagine, and maybe I'm guessing here, but did your performance at work improve? Did your performance in lifting improve with that lighter feeling that you had? Yes, absolutely. I think, well, let's talk about performance in lifting.

46:58

So as of yesterday, we'll dial back to when I was struggling with mental health. I had won my first world championship as a Masters Lifter, so that means 40 and over, set a bunch of records. Eventually I went on mental health leave. Coming out of the mental health leave with a new mindset, I broke all those records. As of just two days ago...

47:27

I am now eating into what's called the open category, which is the all ages. So I have managed to show up stronger and leaner in a lower weight class and I'm now the number one competitor in the US in the open category in a new weight class. So I continue to climb to higher and higher levels as a lifter. So it's like measurably a yes. As a leader, I think there's...

47:55

It depends who you ask. There's probably a mixed bag of like, I probably show up with a lot less, just like we got to get all this shit done fire at times. I think I show up with a way more expansive vision and a clear vision and a story that supports that vision and a willingness to use my voice in a way that I didn't have before as a leader.

48:22

And so it depends what you want from that leader in the position that I hold. But I would say the way I show up now, it has way higher power and leverage.

48:35

Yeah, I think it would depend on whether or not you see your leader as a leader or a manager, right? Because I think you're probably leaning even harder into this leader feeling in your position where people can gravitate to you. You become a team unit, you inspire, you do all those other pieces. Whereas maybe before you came in, you were still a leader, but maybe before it was more task driven, more like we have to hit this number. And I'm generalizing here, not you specifically. But I think

49:04

when we are able to not carry that backpack of rocks and deal with that while we're trying to perform in our position, I think everything becomes a lot more collectively working together towards things. I think people gravitate towards that feeling because they feel like, oh, he's a person. He's not like, he's not just this boss, he's a person and we can work with him.

49:33

I always did quite a good job of showing up as a full-fledged loving human being. I've always gotten good feedback on that. But I think I'm much clearer on what do I believe is our vision and what is most important and where am I really going to lean in. I think where it becomes a mixed bag is the...

49:58

Areas where I think my say my vice president who's my direct boss he would he would largely agree with me But then there are the days he's like, can you please submit that report on time? and I'm like you are absolutely right that is still part of the job and I will I will lean back in the other direction today. So message heard That's fair, I mean you still have a job to do so make sure you do that Make sure you hit all those boxes check those particular boxes that are important

50:26

Earlier we talked a little bit about Inner Child and thinking about the child version of you. How has this experience of kind of cracking open this world of yours, how has that helped you connect more to that child? I know you said you pushed him away, but now kind of embracing him as someone on the roster. You mind if I go like somewhere back into my story arc?

50:51

Go for it. All right, so let's see. So this was summer 2020. We had talked about where I opened up to my team. Fast forward about a year where I have now opened up. Eventually, I started going to the employee assistance provider to get connected with a therapist. He told me I was showing early symptoms of burnout. This is now April 2021. It's been several months where there's many mornings and I'm just struggling to get out of bed.

51:21

So he tells me you're showing early symptoms of burnout. If we don't address this, like the pattern is usually, you will burn out. And so eventually I found another therapist in the fall. He told me, okay, so we've done this assessment. You are showing major symptoms of depression and anxiety. And I said, well, what do you mean? Like I've never been diagnosed with any mental health struggles. And he's like,

51:51

well, I said isn't this just what it feels like to work hard and He said it can but we did the assessment. It's also depression and anxiety and then another one of those things that kind of just pours out of your mouth and then once you've said it and you're like, oh crap, I said But I've felt this way on and off since high school and then I thought

52:21

I thought this was all about the pandemic. I thought this was all about how complex my life has gotten. I didn't know this was just maybe an internalized pattern, like software that's been running in my brain since the 90s. It's like we still have Windows 95 installed under all this fancy software. And so once I saw that...

52:49

and now is made aware of it. And now we can start to work on it. We can start to unravel it. Now, how we get to the inner child is...

53:00

Fast forward to January 18th, 2022. I've now told people publicly that I have these struggles with mental health, and I've decided to go on mental health leave.

53:15

During that time, I reconnect with an old friend who where we were, we were friends in my early twenties. So she knew me before I had done a lot of this box checking and she said, she's, she's done a lot of her work. And so she was going through this, this framework she references. And she's like, I forget what the framework is, but she's like, you seem to be this type of archetype, which matches closely with a people pleaser.

53:42

And I'm looking at their description of the people pleaser and it, you know, talks about, you know, sacrificing your own needs for those of others out of these like feelings of loneliness. And it can often come from places of like, you grew up in an abusive situation with like, maybe there was alcoholism or like physical abuse. And I'm looking at this and I'm like, I didn't have alcoholism or physical abuse and I'm scratching my head.

54:10

And then at some point, like, but I'm looking at the description and I'm like, this is a lot of matches. Like what's going on here? And then at some point, I don't know why I was spurred to do this. Like I, I had a pretty rotten relationship with an older sibling and I decided to Google, what's the difference between sibling rivalry and abuse? And they described it.

54:40

And it's like, if you see this, this is sibling rivalry. If you see like it crosses some of these lines, that's psychological abuse. And like everything across the line, I'm like, oh, yeah, that happened to me for 10 years straight. And so I saw that and I'm like, oh, I knew a lot of that wasn't normal, but I didn't want to acknowledge, you know, like that had happened to me.

55:10

and maybe it was traumatic and you know like I had to spend a lot of time thinking about not just that that happened but can you remember what that felt like to happen to you when you were 6, 8, 10 and to have it happen to someone like you looked up to and like you know it wasn't

55:41

Like to look back at that and think about it, I was like, yeah, someone who, like they were my hero for a long time. And they, it felt like not only did they abandon me, they showed up often days like they hated me. And it would come out like, it would flip 180 and I didn't know what I was gonna get any day. And so I would just, I would be waiting at home hoping for a good day.

56:09

And the number of good days, I remember there was a period where this person got into high school and it just started to go down and down and down. And I knew there were going to be more days that I felt in danger than safe. And so at some point I flipped a switch and I said, we can't hope for this relationship to ever come back. Like you have to armor up with anger and hatred. That's how you're going to get through this is anger and hatred.

56:38

And I wore that so thick. And that's why my friend who later on said, I think you're a people pleaser. And she said, the one thing I would, you know, like if you, I know you're doing therapy, but the thing I thought you should always dig into was that relationship. And I was always like, well, you know, it's sibling rivalry. But I could now see like, yeah, that was thick armor.

57:06

You never took that off, did you?

57:10

Yeah, that's a lot. I mean, it's a lot of work. And I think that a lot of people can relate to something. And it doesn't even have to be as extreme as you describe in their childhood that is so attached and so connected to every decision. I mean, we talked about my situation and how like that eight year old was like, never wanted to be abandoned. So everything he did, he did in hopes that people would be happy about it. And that would

57:38

see it as okay and approve. And it sounds very similar to your situation in which all the check boxes that you were doing, all the successes you were having, perhaps that little kid before you got angry and hatred in there, that little kid just wanted to be liked and loved and approved of in a way. And it all kind of, once you uncover that, everything is weirdly unravels, right? Like, I don't know if you had that experience where you're like, hold on a second.

58:07

these decisions that I made, can they really be from back then? Yeah. You know, if I think back about some of the stories, like I had, I even found ways to reframe them as humorous stories. Like what, what they would do is they would get very angry if I would lock myself in a room where they would pick the lock. And so I would barricade the door, but they were stronger than me. So they would force the door open. So there was one time I actually locked the door.

58:34

barricaded with enough stuff that would take them some time to get in and I climbed out a window and I ran to a friend's house and I had framed that in a humorous way for years of like yeah, you know, like once I had to climb out the window and At some point someone's like that's fucked up and I I was like now it's not like sibling rivalry. There was another time I remember I

59:04

I think I don't know the method via which I had escaped the house this time, but I didn't have a friend nearby to go to and it's a hot Illinois summer. So let's say it's 100 degrees. I don't have any protection from the sun. And so I think of the nearest friend. So I walk several miles in the hot Illinois sun, show up all sweaty and sunburned. And like I didn't know what to say to my friend's mom when she opened the door. And I'm like, hey.

59:34

Said blow off some steam so went for a walk, you know, like is Johnny home? So she's you know now very confused and goes to Johnny and it's like Yeah, newton's here. He said he had to blow off some steam and so they let me hang out Yeah, there was there was a lot of that that had happened and I had reframed as Yeah, this is normal Like well, it's protection, right? Yeah, I mean I think you were just protecting yourself in that child version of you and

01:00:04

You know, it's hard to uncover all that and realize something like that can affect everything that we do. And looking back on it, you're like, oh my God, I didn't even realize this. But you know, it's wonderful that you're in this space, right, because maybe three years ago version of you would continue making those stories, making them humorous stories, but now you're actively doing the work.

01:00:30

by whatever modalities you're finding work for you in this discovering and uncovering and becoming the best version of you. Not that you weren't the best version of you before, but even better, even more enhanced. And I think that's what people can take away from your story is that like, being comfortable enough in your space to share something in a vulnerable moment and not running away from it is probably like.

01:00:59

the best advice I could give from hearing your story is to like lean into that even though it's so uncomfortable and scary based on what your experiences are. Would you say that that moment as scary and vulnerable and everything, do you look at that with being grateful for that moment where someone was like, just be real? I do. Yeah.

01:01:26

I've gone back to that friend and told her about all this. So even after I had that aha, and it was pretty traumatic, and I had to process it, and I journaled about it, and I just kind of sat with it for several days while on mental health leave. And then eventually, I remember I was just lying in bed trying to think about it, and I just started sobbing. And like the sobbing just...

01:01:56

it probably went on for a good 45 minutes. I'm like, I don't know where all this is coming from. But you know, I'd heard about like people going through this type of catharsis where they start sobbing uncontrollably, it won't stop. And so you know, like, I can't remember if I was like timing it. I'm like, holy crap, it's 23 minutes in like, the sobbing is still going. You know, there's probably part of me laughing while also sobbing. And then

01:02:25

Once I had processed through that, you know, and then I talked it through with my therapist and there was more sobbing It came out I came out feeling really light and I could now see the you know, the wounded child like there you are. Okay You've always been here and I have been You've been wearing this armor a really heavy armor suit and I have been flogging you for years

01:02:54

saying you must achieve or we are not safe.

01:03:00

And I could now say, okay, you can take that off now.

01:03:09

It's a big moment and it's really important and I love that you wanted to, or you're doing this already in your everyday life, but now people that listen to this show can hear this journey that you've been on and how it has affected your life and how you talk about the pre-moments compared to how you talk about now and the things and the stories and how you went through this process.

01:03:38

is really inspiring. And I think that more people need to do this. I hope more people are doing this. I think, you know, we said it earlier, I think, you said 10%, that was a made up statistic, but I think we're getting there slowly where maybe we don't have to leave everything at the door when we walk into work, you know, and we can bring our whole selves and every day doesn't have to be sunshine and rainbows that some days...

01:04:08

have some clouds and that's okay because we're human and we have a range of emotions and again, that's okay. When I do powerlifting competitions, you do three lifts. You do a squat, you do a bench press and you do a deadlift. A squat, I'm very good. Bench, I'm not so good. Deadlift, I'm very, very, very good. Your total score is the sum of how well you did on each of the lifts.

01:04:36

So I always win on the deadlift because that's where most of my score comes from. And the way that I would win is on the last deadlift, I summon as much emotionality, like all the pent up feelings that I don't allow myself to express, I let them out. And that's where I break records. That's where I win world championships.

01:04:58

So there was this question of what comes out on your last deadlift. And what would happen is I would just, it's kind of like there's like, you know, the dark door in the back of your brain, you keep under locking key. I would go back there, I'd go through all the clutter and, you know, get out the key that only comes out only during competitions because this would physically burn me out. I would open it. And it was really clear what would come out. It would be that sibling.

01:05:27

would come out and the message that would come out was really clear. It was, he's coming to take it away. Like it was those words, he's coming to take it away. And I would grab that bar and I would fight him. And I would lift it and I would win. And I would do that over and over and over and I would poison myself. And while poisoning myself, I would also like, I would get a medal for it. So I'd poison myself again.

01:05:57

And so I did that over and over and over. And then as I did this work and I realized that's what was in there and I was able to see the, the wounded inner child and say, you can take off that armor now. So if you, you look behind my head, I have this poster, it says, be your own hero. This is my model. Now, when I do that third deadlift is we talk a lot about intergenerational trauma and we talk about like, you know, childhood trauma.

01:06:25

It comes with a negative connotation as it should. It's part of me though. And so I get to decide how I want to integrate this. And so I get to look at the scars. I get to look at the wounds. I'm going to choose the gifts of it too. So like, yeah, like I'm sorry to that, that child, like I, I flogged that child. I made that kid achieve and check so many boxes that kid built a super powers.

01:06:54

Like we are a superhero now. Like I know how to lead people. I have a great resume. I can win world championships. So that kid sits on my shoulders now when I do that third deadlift or when I gotta get something done because that kid gave me superpowers. So we are our own hero now. And I get to say to that kid every day, we're gonna go change the world. What do you wanna do today? And I love it.

01:07:21

And honestly, I love that. Typically, I end the episodes with a question, but I think that has a lot of power. And I think I can relate to that feeling of, I'm grateful for what my tragic experiences have given me after the fact and what I've learned about myself and had I not gone through those moments.

01:07:49

I would not be this person, I would not be where I am. And so I too bring that smaller version of me and this project is part of it, trying to bring him along to be the hero, to be part of the story now, and not just this opening piece, right? Bring him along. So thank you for sharing your story and your...

01:08:16

Moment of vulnerability that really opened up a lot for you and I'm sure the people around you. I appreciate you Where can people connect with you if they're interested in learning more and being a part of your world two places? LinkedIn that's where I share a lot of my perspectives on mental health performance in the workplace and then Instagram that's where I I've been using it as a training log, but

01:08:42

After I just did this most recent competition and I was about to write out a report about it, I said, I put a poll on my stories and I asked like, there's a lot here. Do you guys want the technical side of it? Do you want a story about my decision to cut weight even more? Or do you want my life lessons? There were no votes for the technical side of it. It was all stories and life lessons. I'm like, oh, I think you're coming to my Instagram for a different reason than I thought. Okay.

01:09:11

So on my Instagram, I'm gonna share more about my story starting this week, and I'm gonna share more the life lessons I'm learning via this journey. The last thing I wanna say is I wanna applaud you and your inner child because yeah, my inner child, my superhero, he's up on my shoulders. Your inner child is building a platform that hopefully is gonna reach thousands of people so that my inner child can be celebrated and hopefully shake hands with the inner child.

01:09:39

Our inner children of people across your audience so they can go be superheroes and they can embrace that inner child And so thank you for doing that That means so much to me and I know it's gonna mean so much to many so many of them Well, thank you for saying that I'm very bad at taking compliments so thank you and my inner child will take that compliment and walk with it I this show has been the most fulfilling project that I never knew I needed and

01:10:09

It's all about you guys. It's all about the guests and sharing these stories. So thank you again for being a part of this. If you're listening and you're enjoying this, please take the time, do a little review and rating on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Newton. Thank you.

01:10:40

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com