this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore keys technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers welcome to the art of network engineering podcast i am one of your illustrious hosts my name is aaron weiler with me i have dan richards hello dan howdy how's it going it's going well thank you so much for asking um and fresh from the eye doctor andy laptop how are you sir hi great you guys all look wonderful you look scared last certainly not least aj murray how are you sir pretty good how are you man i'm well thank you um let's uh let's start this episode off on an extremely light note aj you we got some wins from the discord channel to lay on us what do we got man we got some big w's this week uh luke skymaster and mikey their discord johns both scored the ccna this week yes those aren't two ccnas in one week two ccnas in one week um also uh it guy blake got a new job nice i believe i read it correctly he's uh it's his first it job uh and he's gonna be working for msp isp working in the data center oh that's funny lots of experience cool stuff yeah man ah good for him that's a good that's a good first job in the in the it world right yeah you get exposed to just about everything virtualization i mean wow sky's the limit that's cool man that's good to hear so and a win for us oh we hit 40 000 downloads today um all golf all golf club us you know what i will update come on yeah yeah yeah actually you know what that's not us that's if you're hearing this it's you so that's right thank you thank you thank you we thank you very much yes thank you so you know this past year has been a little rough right and everybody handles everything different and yes i'm talking about kovid 19. um it's affected a lot of people some more than others but i think one of the most glaring things that popped out to me was the effect that it has on people mentally because i personally struggle with stuff uh like anxiety and depression i have had adhd since god knows when you know i'm like an og diagnosed guy like andy like mid 80s type thing you know but wait you didn't get diagnosed back in the day see no you didn't you were just the annoying kid in class i couldn't sit still like couldn't shut up right it's very difficult though you know it's like it's interesting because i've actually been kind of diving into we talked about like make it stick and all these things like the science behind like why we remember stuff and all that stuff it to me it's equally as interesting like even from an evolutionary standpoint why i even do the things i i do right and adhd is one of them um i think it's an overused term personally but it is a real thing right you could you can brain scan and oftentimes like people with extreme adhd will have uh different brain waves and stuff so it's it's very like seeable right it's a proven fact so it's just an overused thing so i've never really liked saying it like hey i have adhd because it often times sounds like an excuse so that being said i mean everybody kind of has their own things to go i think that what covett has done to a lot of folks is maybe exacerbated some of those things if they were lying previously i'm one of those people actually and you know sometimes when when things get like too much and and they get to a point where you can't take it anymore sometimes you just break right uh and i've been there and it's rough right i i know other folks that have been there i'm not gonna speak for anybody on here that's that's i'll let anybody here speak to their own journey but i i just want to make sure that everybody out there knows that the if you are doing and if you're feeling any of those emotions number one it's normal but number two it's very very helpable you you can't help it you could fix it you don't have to feel that way all the time um and it's probably easier than you think to fix it uh i can't speak to every case but 99 of the work is is realizing that you can fix it not fixing it just realizing that you can fix it that's the that's one of the most important things and i'm just going to tell you straight up i have a therapist right i see her every other week uh she has explicit instructions to quote unquote bust my balls because you guys know me you hear me all the time i talk a lot i tend to like wander sometimes when i'm explaining things and and that's not what i need you know what i mean like like sometimes i need someone to be like hey dude when you're doing that that's not okay that's how the how do you think that affects someone else right so not only my own internal self but being more conscious of how i'm talking to other folks and how they could take maybe what i'm saying or how i'm reacting to what they're saying and you know how that can all be like i don't know affected just in a big messy sticky emotional mess right so if you're having any struggles out there we just wanted to make sure that you know we would talk about you know how how it's affected us so that maybe it might be easier for you to maybe talk about it right so and and maybe it's not necessarily you that's being effective maybe it's a loved one too that you could help and and in that regard too so i don't want to speak all by myself um i'll i'll let anybody else i'll open the floor for everybody else so we can kind of get the conversation going but just right off the top of the bat it's it's it's it's covered right like we're all locked in i mean who here is not feeling just like completely cooped up at this point oh yeah yeah like i mean when you think about it like this is a form of torture i mean you send people to prison right like that is a punishment and that's kind of what this feels like and we're just such social beings and like okay social media twitter zoom meetings it's not the same we know that something right so how how are we dealing with that oh i'll i'll hop it i'll go ahead aj no no no i i well all i was going to say was um you know prior to covet 19 i had to travel a lot for work like yeah weekly in in my vehicle on the road occasionally on a plane i think at one point last year or in 2019 so pre-cop at 19. uh i was on a plane every week for almost two months straight and i was gone like two or three days a week um come cover 19 i don't get on a plane for like a year i i had to fly last week for the first time like in literally a year and uh you know it was something that i used to be totally completely cool with would do it very frequently i had like status on on a couple of airlines that's how often i flew uh i used to make regular trips over to the uk so long time on an airplane with a bunch of people surrounded around me uh last week i flew down to uh dulles to get a connecting flight and i'm sitting in the terminal and there is this gigantic mob of people coming through the airport and i about like lost it like really i'm like because i have not seen that many people in one place at one time for a very long time we've been trained every single year to stay away from crowds of people right yeah and here we are being approached by a crowd of people at work like yeah and like there's this huge mob of people coming and i'm like i just want to like get away from this but then like i turn around and there's like a completely full terminal of people like all sitting down around and it's just like i can't escape this yeah so did you start did you have your your lysol on your right so so so i mean this is going to sound silly but like so how did it feel were you getting like hit with some fear some anxiety like did you feel like you had to get out of there yeah yeah totally yeah a lot of like a lot of anxiety because you know again like this kind of goes against the stuff that we're we're kind of taught to do if we want to like avoid exposure or spreading it or anything like that and so like up here in vermont like for the most part everybody kind of follows the rules we all mask up we social distance like um you know i visit with friends friends visit here but there's seriously only like two people that we really trust enough to let into our circle right like yeah or two two groups of friends two different couples like and that's it like if anybody else calls us and like hey you wanna hang out we're like yeah no so so what did you do in that situation like you couldn't leave i guess you had to wait for your plane yeah did you take a deep breath did you try to get re-centered like did it pass how do you how do you co how do you cope when you freak out like that yeah it was just kind of like you know i i can't get out of this this is gonna change um and i just kind of had to sit there and think to myself like well i'm i'm massed up right i wash my hands i i do everything i should do uh and i just kind of like like like did you get to the point where like you were having like a physical response like was your heart racing where your hands sweating yeah oh that's see that's terrifying man and then it didn't help because my my next flight i had to go to cleveland ohio uh for a job i did last week and and my next flight coach was completely full like that whole thing about you know blocked out seating rose like not not a thing on the airline i was on and uh the entire coach section was like shoulder to shoulder terrifying dude yeah wow yeah i'm trying to avoid that as much as possible um my wife is actually has the vaccine because she's in health care oh yeah but you know with all these new strains and stuff like you know i don't know like i it's still it's you still have to you know play that card but dude i mean that's awful i i've i've totally been there with the anxiety it's something that we don't think about because right now we're thinking about like what's what it's like to be cooped up and how we're how we're coping with that but what happens like what you just described when all of a sudden we all just break out into the wild together like we're not gonna know how to act right like like that's gonna be just as difficult like and i haven't even given a single thought to that and that's giving me anxiety so sorry thank you thank you for that today was my therapist day already so now i gotta wait so uh but yeah i i there's i guess maybe going forward it would be my question so we know that's gonna happen to you going forward have you thought about how you can like maybe mitigate that or some sort of like trick you could use to almost like calm yourself down i hate saying calm yourself down because it's not what it is it's like just center yourself right like have you thought about that no honestly not really it's just like a you know when i get into a situation like that just just try to breathe uh and then just try to remember like i do other things to to take care of myself in this situation and hopefully that's enough yep yeah what about you andy um you know i i i guess we could start with covid like so you you know you had framed it in the beginning how you've you know struggled with some anxiety and depression over the years yeah and i have too often on through different things but just to i guess to start present time and work backward if we want um kovid really um took a toll you know on on my mental health and my well-being and you know i don't want to frame this episode as like hey you know if you have pre-existing conditions cove would really kick them in because you could probably never have had you know you could just be walking around dumb and happy and this past year i think would give anybody total you know you know so some challenges um i mean i'll just tell you today as an example we've been home you know 320 something days yeah here it started it's counting yeah it starts right it started march of last year the daycare's closed down the kids have been home we don't see anybody blah blah blah and we're doing everything that the cdc and who said and you know i know there's different feelings and all that but i'm i'm a science guy i listen to the scientists and the people smarter than me and i'm doing what they say to do and and it's been a long hard year and so you know my six-year-old as an example has has mentally suffered through this all of his teachers went away all of his friends went away all of his cousins went away all of his grandparents went away like his we we had prior to this a pretty big life a pretty big world we were connected to a lot of people and it was great and it all contracted when when cove had happened so i you know without getting a specifics i can tell you that my son had a couple challenges over this past year and so just today he returned to in person uh kindergarten for the first time since before covid right now you know i know it's what he needs and to echo what you said aaron i've been in therapy for a long time i'm a big advocate of it it's same really really helped me huge huge if you're somebody who's never had a negative thought in your life you could still benefit from having a third person like you know it's not just for people that you know struggle with stuff but but the reason i bring that up is you know i've been talking to her this whole time because you know i'm trying not to so personally for me in the beginning of cove but i was still trying to maintain my level of productivity at work and i won't bore you with the details but i've never been busier in my career my where i work is trying to do all the new things all at once with a skeleton crew and i also felt i had to prove myself because we had a re-org and i'm now on the super team so long and short of it i was just working myself to death and i pretty much had a meltdown i freaked out on my boss like just because i was irritable i was getting depressed i was i wasn't sleeping right i wasn't taking care of myself um and that came to a head i kind of fell apart and i you know we were able to do some redirection there so it really screwed me up in the beginning with trying to balance because i got a three-year-old a six-year-old at home they're in here every five minutes somebody needs this somebody does somebody has to wipe somebody's crying somebody's going to the bathroom like it's just that's not you know my job i need to be left alone for hours right it wasn't it wasn't possible and then i'm snipping at the kids and i'm short with my wife it just it wasn't good so um that was really hard and through working with my therapist honestly we were able to come to um you know a series of things that i can do to not feel like i need to quit my job feel like my wife and my kids are in my way feel like i'm going to lose my job because i can't do it like i used to like i was really falling apart and so that's been really good um but like so today you know we sent my son to school now all of us on this panel are not going to offices because it's not safe and i'm sending my kid to school like so right yeah that's a little it's just how does that make you feel torn man torn right right i got to keep my family safe and i'm sending my kid to the front lines when i'm hiding in my house now we're doing that because he's been suffering at home and with the remote learning and you know without getting into specifics he's he's really had some struggles and sure he went in today and it's the happiest they've seen him in 320 oh that's good he can't wait to go now we laid low because like aj and vermont you know they have maybe 10 20 100 cases a day we we've been anywhere from 4 000 to 8 000 cases a day since march where we're at we're like that's mind-blowing to me andy like we were panicking right it was last march and we have like 100 cases a day and this this is the worst it's ever been in vermont like oh when when covert had first started it like we thought 10 or 11 cases a day was bad right i live 80 miles from the episode from manhattan so it's just been bad here you know from the beginning but i just say all that to say that our world was rocked i mean we have family members who are sick that we can't see which kind of stinks because you don't know how long people are going to be around and people are struggling with real like it just it touches so many like you said aaron like we're social creatures i could tell you we went to a playground we thought it was going to be empty and we wound up running into a couple dads i know and their kids and we were all messed up when we all kept our distance but like the kids have never been happier seeing each other and i played wall ball with my two buddies that which i haven't done since like seventh grade and i can tell you when we left i just felt like there's something about that social connection that just yeah the zoom call like it just doesn't yeah it just doesn't cut it right yeah like it there's something like it's almost like our brains know like like nice try buddy you know like like that's right that's a it's the same thing as the tv and and when you watch tv you're not a part of that either so so good try though yeah right like it's like listening to a podcast right yeah like like every other podcast that isn't ours i could see how somebody would totally totally feel that way watching a sunset on your tv or sunrise on your tv is much much different than going outside 100 feeling the light on your face hearing the birds chirping these are so right so anyway i don't know if that's making any sense but i have hundreds of examples of just how covid has been really difficult mentally on on my family and i and you know i can share some solutions a little later on what i've been doing to help because yeah that might help people but it's it's been tough what's up aj you're gonna say i i just want to play devil's advocate for a second right like as as um not as fun as video has been could you imagine trying to do this pandemic without right oh man like like this was like the like let's say this was the 1926 or whatever that was yeah yeah like like there's there's not even in 26 there's not even tv to watch to occupy you right right you're locked inside and you're you're almost like your country is at war right like that's what they tell you like like in world war ii you know people are like locked in their houses like not necessarily like hiding but just protecting themselves and trying not to die because there's just explosions and stuff going on everywhere it's the same thing you know it's like they didn't have anything right so the i think i love the devil's advocate thing but i've learned very recently because i i'm i'm that i took that personality test thing and i got the entp it's the it's the debater if you guys haven't noticed by the way i i tried it i'm shocked that doesn't seem yeah right surprise well well well well so but the reason i bring that up is because uh i feel like it's i feel like it's important i don't i don't want to be the devil's advocate in this situation because i i don't think i think one of the worst things that you can do to yourself if you're struggling with anything is compare yourself to someone else and and let me give you an example because it's very very true because perspective is everything and you know i'll talk about my childhood right i had a really really rough time with my childhood but i could i can pinpoint like it's like when you wouldn't finish your meal and your parents would be like you know they're starving kids in africa it's like yeah that became like kind of like a joking thing oddly enough but it's it's true there were starving people in africa and it's like dude put it in perspective i mean they're starving people all over the world i live in downtown san diego we have a very large homeless population i cannot take 20 steps without seeing a homeless person who is starving right so to me if i compare how bad my childhood was to someone living on the street it's gonna it's gonna make it seem like i'm just trying to dampen my feelings that that it's actually okay to feel just as bad as that person does do you know what i mean so it's like i don't have to have had lost a limb to be better off than that guy you know what i mean it's not it's not a it's not a contest it's not like who had a worse life and then the person the only person with the worst life is the only one that can say uh well nope that's just me i'm the only one that can complain because uh compared to me the rest y'all have had it pretty freaking sweet right so so i mean if you think about it like that it's like you're you're never gonna be happy so if you're comparing yourself to someone else right now and and this goes with your career as well if you're looking at somebody's career right now and you're on twitter and you're following you know all these ccie like four x ccies it's the same thing you know that their journal their journey is completely different right um maybe maybe that person was born into a rich family or maybe that person was a homeless person and became as we just don't know right but it doesn't make one better or worse than the other and it doesn't make because you struggle everybody likes to hear those those cinderella stories right like especially in sports it's like oh this person came from underprivileged you know divorced parents or you know what i mean some tragedy and that's supposed to make what they did seem better and i think that's probably the problem it's because we love to hear a good underdog story but we're so afraid to consider ourselves underdogs you know what i mean uh my child my parents are still together that's miraculous right my parents are married right they've been married for 40 something years right that's atypical so if you look at it in that regard i had a pretty sweet life but i moved 10 different times before i even got to high school do you know what i mean like different states you know i mean it's like that that affected me uh as a person and it created even who i am today uh with all the baggage that that carries right so maybe kovid triggered me it was the straw that broke the camel's back and you know you get to the point where there's just so many things happening at once i'm like you andy i didn't snap on anybody i personally i spent about a day and a half in the bathroom with a blanket over my head crying like i can't even describe the sound of my cry because i ha i'm one of these dudes that uh is a victim of what i'll call a toxic i say victim a victim of toxic masculinity where my dad was gay bro suck it up so guess what hey bro suck it up that's just the way i feel and when i get my see myself in those situations i i've never cried in front of anyone like other than my parents right i'm glad you're saying that because as soon as ever since i've said that i'm in therapy yeah i now have this voice in my head saying i shouldn't have shared that now part of that is because there's a stigma right like yep absolutely we're assumed that we're all perfectly healthy people and we have no problems and everything's good for some reason and oh if you're in therapy like you must be messed up and and and you reminded me with the toxic masculinity kind of thing i mean i can remember being little like you know suck it up be a man like right so why are you crying right so every single time you cried why stop crying and i'm not making this a gender thing but there's four guys on this podcast so i know for me i was raised to like not talk about my feelings and and suck it up and just and you know you go through life that way and i think that's partly how you wind up depressed and you know crying in a bathroom or you know i've had different episodes of my life are just being overwhelmed like so just this conversation we're having now is important and the conversations i have with my support system are important like if i'm not talking to people about how i'm doing that's a problem and if we're raising an entire you know if we're raising all men young men to think that they can't talk about how they feel and what they're going through and suck it up and be tough it's it's not mentally healthy if i don't know if that's where going with toxic masculinity but absolutely that was my experience you know growing up it's it wasn't really you know nobody wanted to listen to the kid whine and cry i guess you know what i mean i don't know where no and and i don't think it's the i don't think it's even my dad's fault it's that's how he grew up um my dad actually has a very similar journey to aj i'm not even gonna spill your beans at all aj but my dad has a very similar similar story to you and but he was much younger and i don't even think he knows what it is to because he never had that you know and so like for me to think that you know he was going to pass that on to me it's like i don't i'm certainly not out here to blame anything you know and and i said i'm a victim of talks about that is the wrong word for me to say right there that's not it at all i like it's just how i was brought up and i was ignorant to other ways uh up until most recently and unfortunately part of the reason why i'm even we're even having this conversation we're having this topic came up is because i think andy and i specifically um felt the need to bring this to light because of everything we just named off if we have the opportunity right now to write the ship like because no one ever told us like it was cool you can have a therapist it's completely normal to have a therapist that's cool it's completely normal to cry you can do that too it's normal like that's part of your emotions in fact it's healthy you got to do you got to let that stuff out if if if we could just get that message out there like i'll at least feel like i've done my part to break the cycle you know what i mean and maybe even in it in general like you know the like we only talk about certain things right like you know we tiptoe around a lot of different things which i mean that's that's okay you know especially in the workplace it's like you only talk about so much but but i think it's okay like if you're if you're struggling and you need to tell someone and maybe that person is your boss because that person is you know uh you're gonna you're gonna be affected the way you the way you act and the way you are like you're bringing that to work because andy like your example like you you popped off at your boss was it his fault absolutely not right like and i'm sure you'd be the first one to say like yeah i probably shouldn't have done that i wasn't communicating how i was struggling yeah over a period of time until the pressure relief valve popped like yeah i mean that's just yeah it's a perfect example of what we're talking about if if you're not communicating and trying to get relief from some type of suffering it boils over and gets directed at someone it shouldn't your wife your dog your kid your boss totally and that's usually not productive right it comes out sideways and to the wrong person and you know i mean i could i could have lost my job if if he wasn't you could outstand you could have you know it's it's it's interesting to say that this time of like this environment that we're in it's like i'm sure your boss would is a little bit more tolerant especially you know what i mean it's a you know kind of sucks to say that but but it is what it is and i you know i'm glad that that he was cool with that and he saw that for what it was you know what i mean um because i you know going forward i you know i know you you're you know that's not gonna happen again right you're gonna find uh but that takes some emotional intelligence on his part to not take it personally and be like yo bro i'm in charge who the hell are you giving a hard time to like he was able to take conflict yeah how can i help this guy you know what i mean which and they have in their defense i mean they've they've really helped me navigate this and you know and i was apparently here's what's funny like so we all have these things called core beliefs right and like for me i'm always trying to prove myself and i could we could spend days talking about why but who cares but so on this new team i was trying to prove myself because i was surrounded by brilliant architects and i'm just trying to show them i can do it and i'm smart and but i went from having nine hours a day of uninterrupted conversation concentration to five minute increments so i'm trying to maintain this proving myself super productive guy in an impossible environment and it was just a recipe for like you know i i it just breaks down yeah it just couldn't be maintained but i tell you for me and and it's always been this way you know it's funny like people always talk about physical health oh i got my run in today i rode my bike i lifted weights you know maybe like guys too when do you ever hear anybody like hey i meditated today or hey i you know i went for that walk outside or you know i talked to my therapist like for some reason mental health is just kind of like it's not talked about like oh you're a hero because you ran for the 32nd day in a row right right so it's a shame just culturally even that you know i could tell you for me so my my biggest challenge seems to be irritability and i know that'll come as a big surprise to this panel right yeah i'm not laughing at you i would have never thought you popped off you guys this is a very serious conversation and i'm not laughing at you i know i know it's okay but that's why i'm bringing him over here but it's i mean we were probably arguing 10 minutes ago with each other before we started yeah but but so it's a personal challenge of mine and and aaron i mean i went to sixth grade schools my nose got broken in fourth grade from some kid at a new school because i was the nerd i had a traumatic childhood it wasn't fun it kind of set up for some you know fear of the world and anxiety type stuff so like yep so for me the key is i have to keep kind of my baseline level of uh what would you call it like i'm trying kind of yeah because or let's say it's like an anxiety scale i mean i'm not just like okay anxiety defect but you know i pre there's different personality types right i'm spun up i'm a type i want to succeed blah blah blah blah i'm up till midnight every night doing videos doing podcasts studying i want to be an architect that's kind of ridiculous right so all that kind of keys me up and then i'm tired so i need some caffeine and like so i probably exist that i scaled it with 10 like if i'm full blow a panic attack at ten right i probably exist at a three or four like i'm i'm i don't wake up relaxed like i just i'm kind of zung up like it's just it's who i am it's genetics whatever so i have this whole litany of things i got to do sleep exercise meditation eating well getting outside hobbies therapy i love it all those things keep my baseline down because what will happen is if i wake up at a three and then i get a headache from the kids screaming i'm at a five and then my wife gives me a hard time about something i'm at a six and then something breaks at work and i was supposed like so all day that it just goes up and up to where by the time i'm at a seven or eight i'm gone now i can't be reeled back in and it's a matter of time before i pop off at dan or i say something stupid to my boss or i piss off my wife i'm incapable of reeling myself in by then because i'm i haven't done what i need to do to keep myself calm and take care of myself so i'm just sharing that because to me it's been key when i'm doing all those things or at least 50 of those things on a regular basis i'm much calmer i'm not yelling at people i'm chill i'm not so irritable you mean the the meditating and stuff like that is that what you're talking about like all the self-care things like so for okay for me the mental health episode and how i take care of mine is really just what do i need to do to feel good and i have a list of things and if i can get to like half of them each day each one of those things kind of just you know i take a deep breath i calm down i spend five minutes meditating i calm down like i love creating content with you guys that brings me joy like same same being with my kids so there's all these different things that i but i've had to build those in my life like they weren't always there and i did i was i used to be you know a pretty spun up goofball as a younger guy because i didn't have any tools and i wasn't in therapy and i didn't know what to do and i thought the harder i worked and the crazier i was the more successful i'd be which is nuts but you know mental health is is a whole thing but i can just tell you for me every day i got to work at it it's it's just like working out totally you're working your muscles you're getting cardio you're lifting weights for me i got to expend effort and do stuff to feel good it's a pain in the ass i'd rather not have to do all that stuff well well i think you bring up like you've inadvertently brought up a really good point i think which is that you don't need to be in a situation like myself or andy or like even aj in the airport you know like you don't need to be there to have to to benefit from all the things you just named off right in fact if you can learn to meditate because it's an acquired skill for sure and once you get it like holy man you you can literally stop anyone dude yes anyone can do it and i'm talking folks like if you don't believe me i really don't care you could google it and you can believe that science yeah like like look you get good at it you can make yourself fall asleep within seconds uh you can also um calm yourself down with this calm yourself down you can get into the moment and feel present at any moment the trick is that if you're only doing it when you need it then you probably won't get as good at it as you would like to be so if you're if you're not feeling anything right now i would highly suggest just giving it a shot uh everybody has three minutes somewhere um even the apple watch did a thing like the breathe app you know for a while that that's basically the same thing you know focus on your breath and that type of stuff but there's tons of free apps out there uh there's one called headspace that has you know most of them are like you know you could pay for a subscription but there's a couple of like the lessons that are free that's all you need you just need one little five minute guided lesson of someone telling you to breathe and focus and and and i promise you if you get good at that you'll be able to escape any situation that you need to that you feel yourself getting out of control in uh i say escape because that it was not somewhere you meant to be so you need to escape from that because that that that was not your intent to go there your body's making yourself go there based on like you know how you've grown up and all your different you know environmental triggers and things like that so uh please try it and i did actually tweet earlier hey you guys should try meditating i love it i i i felt the need to tweet it earlier like okay i can try meditating i could tell you i've used headspace which is fantastic that's what i have i've been using 10 happier for the past two years and love it now what i will tell you is that the better ones i found do charge about 70 to 100 bucks a year so i'm going to give a free plug to my boy sam harris there's a there's an app called waking up he's a he's a neuroscientist guy he's brilliant this guy's sam harris but i already like him he has an app called he's got a podcast too by the same name but he has an app that costs 100 a year if you cannot afford it you can send them an email and they'll give you a free subscription ah dude that's a hookup and it's a brilliant he's got all these talks with meditation masters he's got hundreds and hundreds of meditations in there his wife annika harris does this child uh kids meditation and there's a 15 part child meditation in that app as well so you know there's access there it's free and you can try it you know for whatever that's worth but i'm a big meditation gives me now what as a younger man i used to do chemically i'll just put it that way i used to find other ways to chill out and i have gotten the same amount of relief without getting loaded and that is a freaking miracle same for me same so take that for what it's worth it's almost i am so interested in what you guys are talking about right now like like i have tried to explore meditation and for whatever reason on my own i can't quite figure it out so i am like supremely interested in in like your guys experience yeah you need the guided thing i was with you i was i was in that spot as well like i was like i don't understand it because when you're reading it basically what they're telling you is like think about nothing i'm like come on if i could do that like and that's and that's not even and that's unfortunate because that's what that's the misconception of it and that's not even you know what it is but there's this guy dan harris he's a he's a national nbc i think anchorman and he had a full-blown panic attack on the world news tonight wow so through that experience and through a year or two of investigating what happened through therapy he now runs and owns the 10 happier app and podcasts of the same name and so i mean here's a guy like we're talking about he was an achiever he was an a-type he was going after it he's probably working too hard he might have been partying a little too hard whatever and he wound up having i mean you can go you can go on youtube and google dan harris panic attack you'll see the man have one on national tv that's the way fortunate but but he used that experience and now he's helping millions of people and and i love his app because it's got video they'll have like a three-minute video explaining what they're gonna do and then you'll go into like it's and the podcast is really great too so anyway it's you know meditation is phenomenal and it's a way to get relief from all that crap that like when that crowd came at you aj if you had been meditating five minutes you know every day or a couple days a week when you could when if you yeah you're in touch with your body you know your physical triggers you realize what's happening and like oh okay i know what this is because there's some i forget what it's called there's like a lizard brain your fight or flight thing it just takes over yeah it shuts down yeah it shuts down your prefrontal cortex which is how you make decisions and then you're just in fight-or-flight mode and adrenaline adrenaline adrenaline yeah and then you're helpless so this is just one of those tools that you can try to navigate that because you know if your if your brain center if your ability to think shuts down that's that's a problem right so yeah these are so anytime your body has that that physical response which is why i asked aj like like did your heart start racing like you you did it it hit you like your hands sweat but they're cold your feet sweat but they're cold you know i've spent days like that you know what i mean and i could tell you that not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel like when when those when those physical things are happening to you and you and you can't control them it's like a it's like a disease that doesn't exist it has no cure in your head right it's like like why is my body doing this it's not because i ate something bad or because you know what i mean like it like like i didn't catch a virus you know what i mean it's just it came from me i created it but my body's having a physical i'm not hungry i can't sleep i mean guys i annie and i have talked about this which is why we've probably been talking about so much you know we're not trying to hide dan and aj here but should we shut up now let's die well we we we just wanted to bring it up because and we've been talking so much because we casually kind of mentioned it to each other before and i was like man i would have never known that you were like that and he probably felt the same way i did and so you know a little light bulb went off in my head it's like well if i didn't know that about him then clearly nobody else will and vice versa no one will know that about me especially because you know maybe i give this air of like everything's okay you know that's that's part of the deal right it's like why would i want to depress anyone right like i don't want to bring anybody else down again these are toxic thoughts right why would i want to bring so i don't want here i am pretending to be someone else i'm not saying i'm like not authentic guys but it's not something but it's something people don't talk about it's yeah and i think it's a common misconception when you look at people on social media right like when you're you're flipping through your instagram your facebook whatever you you're seeing the tip of the iceberg you're seeing this one part of their life and and typically it's like the nice part that people like to share they don't like to no one's going to share or typically people don't share pictures of themselves like crying crying right yeah going through the bad stuff like so everyone has this perception that oh they must have a great life you know how brave you have to be to be vulnerable and announce to the world you're suffering like like tony e was my hero when he went out on twitter and shared that like covet screwed him up he was depressed he went to a doctor he got meds and now he feels better like that is brave as hell because for me in my head the reason aaron and nobody else knew that is because like i may have to interview for a job someday and i don't want i don't know if you know i'm trying to cultivate this brand that we talked about in earlier episodes of like who i am to the world so that i can get a job somewhere and i don't want to be you know oh he's the guy in therapy or the weirdo who meditates so it's unfortunate but you don't talk about it you keep it down because you know i want to be perceived as this great person to hire and give a good job who will do a great job and i do but being vulnerable and talking about struggles many times isn't part of that conversation so i love when like as we're talking about it tony came out and i mean you look at the science and i was gonna pull it up but it's too depressing but like if you look at just suicide rates in the past 11 months it's freaking terrifying it's absolutely like there's just so much suffering as a result of of what covets done to our lives so you know not to get too far off the rails with mental health and all that but covet itself has just really really caused a lot of suffering and and if you're not talking about it and people are just suffering in silence you will get no relief suffering in silence it's almost going to feed on itself and get worse you know you know and i want to apologize a little bit for for all of us like to everyone that listens to this because looking back you know our intent when when we're always like all four of us when we're telling people or trying to encourage people to you know all you got to do is just do it you know just just put your mind to it and study and then you know you'll be good look just dedicate five minutes a day i'm the worst person when it comes to that right because i am i'm the i'm the pusher right i'm like come on you can do it because i could do it right and but that comes from a good place like you need motivation it does it does but but but i know i just want uh yeah i want to acknowledge though that that to some folks that can be very insensitive because i don't understand what you're going through okay you remember when i was asking all those people how they did it yeah at the time i was in a month-long migraine it was right before i exploded and fell apart so part of why i couldn't understand how all these people are achieving is because yeah it was it was untenable here like i was under so much stress that my body was screaming out i was on my gray medicine that wasn't working i was like three weeks into him if you've ever had a migraine for a day it's hell i won every day for a month and i remember toward the end of that month thinking you know i don't know how much longer i can do this and that's a scary freaking thought now i have support systems i talk to people i i was getting ready to take like a couple months off of work and just dial back right just stop everything and try to get my my health back because it was going so bad but that's it's very important because if you need to do that you need to do that but at the time i was pushing and pushing like i got to study harder all these people are like there is that thing of you know like i got to achieve i everybody's getting certs and i'm not but i was ignoring what was happening in my immediate you know circle and in my life and sometimes you just gotta like who said it knocks like maybe this year isn't my year to you know knock it out of the park maybe i just you know do the best they can focus on something else right yeah yeah yeah like instead of studying for a ccna you know it it's perfectly okay because we talked about the goals episode i'll be perfectly honest with everybody i haven't touched a card and i haven't touched a book i haven't opened a single thing or learned a single thing in 2021 and that's because i made the conscious decision dude you have a problem you know my wife can't come home from helping her family like being their support system and then come home to me and find me like that no that's not fair to her because it's a direct result of me not taking care of myself right like i ultimately did cause that so so i i i didn't have the tools what i could do to fix that is the same approach i'm taking to how am i gonna how am i gonna fix this if i fail my ccna attempt you know what i mean it's the same approach so so how do you take care of yourself like i don't think we can end this episode i'm sorry i just cut you off but i want to make sure before we're over that we all talk about because maybe we can give some people ideas on like you know this is how i'm getting through kova this is how i'm you know how are we taking care of ourselves you know admitting to therapy is one right like that's kind of brave and maybe i won't get hired at google or facebook someday because of it i don't think that was gonna happen anyway you know what they say you know what they say i wouldn't want to be a part of any club but it would have me yeah because because look if the price of a mission is free everybody's going to be there you know what i mean like hey if you don't like me in my worst uh guess what it's actually not my worst it does get worse than this so um i i i want to hear from dan because i don't want to talk over dan yeah dan dan have you have you had a situation dude or if not have you learned anything as your mental health what's going on uh so for me um i going back to kind of what you were talking about earlier um i i was also diagnosed with adhd at like i don't know age six or something like that very very young um and i went through the whole process of getting on medication and that medication not working and just making me more depressed i guess yes um so i think you know don't i don't know how to say this i wouldn't say just run straight to medicine right um medicine definitely can help but it can also hurt too uh yeah and there is there is a a trial period there you know like kind of how much do you need to take which one you need to take like the only way you're going to figure that out is by doing it right so um but i wouldn't don't don't just give up on it either like if you if you are trying to take medication to fix something like that or help with that um if one doesn't work don't just be like nope that's it you know try to try to figure out because once i finally got the right medication it it definitely helped me right and uh but that i know that was kind of like way back at the beginning no no no no but but you've just been listening i've been it's funny about coming over here and listening about you guys what a coincidence though right it's like oh gee like how many of us have adhd like you know i and i you're probably a lot like annie and myself where it's like you know i i don't even like telling people i have it because i don't want i don't want it to seem like i'm saying it's an excuse to anything so i have personally been suppressing the fact that i have it like i i just even if i like i know i have it and i'm like oh man in my head i'm like come on aaron get a hold of yourself like why did i just walk out the door with one sock on you know what i mean we you know we've all done it um but like it's it's a time like that where now i'm able to identify what's causing me to do that right so so to to go back to like that because i think that was a good way to bring this up so like the coping mechanism so number one i would say this if you do anything obviously we suggest like the apps you know meditating meditating is super free a lot of you'd be surprised a lot of benefits include free therapy like counseling like employers are huge with that kind of stuff like because they want you to be okay but i would say that the biggest thing that you could do for yourself is just learn how to acknowledge when you're having a feeling that you don't want to be there and and try to identify what's causing you to feel that way if you could just have a just a little bit of like in the moment wherewithal that that's that's my two cents but i'll let aj i'll let you chime in as well uh the emotional intelligence piece is huge like like you say recognizing when there's a problem and um knowing that it's okay to deal with it like i have spent so much time in therapy throughout my entire life uh it's never been like a steady um ongoing thing but there have certainly been things in my life that i realized at a certain point like i do not have the tools to deal with yes uh and i need to get help uh and it's been for for various things like you know growing up i you know my father and i didn't have the best relationship when i was a kid we had to have some therapy like i had a lot of challenges in my 20s and i had to have some therapy and i've had some recent challenges and i've had to have some therapy and it is the most helpful thing in the entire world uh and i can't say enough good things about it so i've heard somebody say that the the mind who created the problem can't solve the problem right so you're not just going to sit there and figure out like what you said aaron like you need you need somebody to help you develop skills and tools tools that you that you don't have and yeah and you know what really is is tough and this is beyond probably the scope of this but you know therapy's not free to my knowledge and a lot of times it could be expensive and everybody might not have access to it and that really sucks like it'd be you know i don't know if we can ever yeah again this is going to sound goofy but you see all these like underlying problems that that we have as a culture and to not address the mental health aspect of that like in my mind there should be like nationalized mental health care that just sure you want to go talk to a therapist you get a therapist like you know you get there but you get a therapist because a lot of the a lot of the stuff that i see just seems to be symptoms of mental suffering manifestations yeah so like like how much the healthcare companies would actually like save if it was like like like maybe the preventative medicine is is all mental health right because you can have heart attacks you can have stomach problems you can have you know head problems you know your muscles can start to ache because of all this stuff you know it's like this is serious stuff like your brain your brain is controlling everything so so if that's kind of getting off the rails a little bit and you need to get it back on the rails a lot of stuff will fall back into place like like it and it will get better like i mean in my darkest moments like you know sitting under a blanket with lights off like doing my emergency like some of these apps have like like an emergency anxiety button basically where you can just get some immediate uh meditation which is fantastic but like you know to prevent myself from getting there anymore you know i just think that doing all the stuff that that we talked about like it's hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel and it's hard to think of all the stuff all the stuff that we talked about when you're in the bathroom with the blanket of your head and you've been crying for two days it's very hard to see that light at the end of tunnel and it's very logical to think well okay let's go find some tools to fix that but that's just not how it works that is it when you when you start the spiral you spiral and you don't stop spiraling most of the time until you hit the bottom it's too late that's and that's too late and that's when and i mean thank goodness i have a support system which is my wife i'd be completely hosed without her uh like not even just like oh no it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay she's like just having somebody there you know like and and i've been at fault like this for a lot of my relationships and i'll just shut it down with with this and i'll let annie i'll share your coping tools here but i'm just gonna shut up after this like i i feel like i've been doing a disservice to everybody that i've been in contact with my entire life like friends or otherwise because i feel like i could have been such a better person and so knowing that i can't change the past and i'm cool with that like all i can do now is go forward and try to do as much as i can so if you see me tweet something like you should probably go and meditate just know that i mean that stuff and i'm just trying to help because it helped me and i'm just trying to pass that on yeah and sorry and it's all i mean uh you know it's all survival instinct and like right you know i mean i i i had somebody once tell me i was an egomaniac with low self-esteem and i had to think about that for a second like wait what but you know i've spent my whole life trying to prove that i'm worthy and deserving of like love and success and like and i know that sounds sappy but like i you know i feel like i've been working my butt off to try to like make a a good life and and have good things because you know deep down sometimes i'm not not so much anymore but for a lot of my life like i didn't feel all that great about myself and i know where it comes from i know so if if you don't feel you know worthy of a good life you're going to sabotage you're going to put on an air of confidence that you don't really have to try to shield your it's all this smoke and mirror defense mechanism survival instinct stuff that unfortunately doesn't make for a happier yeah it's doing more bad than good right but but yeah but it's your brain short circuiting and doing what it knows to protect you and unfortunately you know a lot of that defense mechanism stuff it's good in the short term you know get me away from the tiger get me away from whatever but it becomes a way for me it became a way of life and i just really screwed up a lot of relationships you know over the years with that but yeah i i i don't know man it's yeah look i i just want to say like if you've made it this far in the podcast thank you so much for listening like this is a heavy it's a heavy one so like but it's something that's got to be talked about right i mean that's got to be talked about you know what and honestly this is selfish this is selfish as heck for me for me i'm just going to say it because i want everyone to know what happened because to me because i don't think that i'm not doing anybody any service by holding in it like me hiding that doesn't doesn't do good or bad so if i could do good by letting it out then why wouldn't i do you know how many listeners you have that have been suffering this year right yes i would imagine a lot of people all of them and week in and week out they're listening to us and not once and here we are saying stuff like which is why i apologize hey just go out and do it man it's super easy man just pick up the yankee card and start studying you know just do it when you're not doing anything else you know like hey just pick up the yankee cards when you're crying in the bathroom for two days and you haven't slept and you're not on any sort of drugs or alcohol or anything you just are 100 just spiraling yeah pull out your yankee cards then see what happens but i think that's what this is about right it's that absolutely it's that reality check of like okay for 28 29 episodes you know we've been sharing our journeys everybody else's journey all our tips tricks tools and you know whatever that that intro says this is part of the it's part of the quiver right but this is where we're at where you know we're coming up on almost a year of coven and we've all been affected by it and to not talk about it you know beyond hey we're all at home and thank goodness for digital tools like to not talk about the real stuff going on i think is a disservice i'm glad that i'm glad that we're bringing up dan how's covid like has it taken a toll on you because you again from the outside you seem pretty chill and like ah you know things are good and like has has covered kind of kicked your butt at all or um yeah it's fine if it has it like it's not a competition but i'm just curious i got you i well so for me one thing i wanted to bring up you know you guys were talking about meditate uh meditation and stuff like that oh yeah um i think there's different ways to meditate right and for me having hobbies like i do woodworking you know i like to be outside and in the nature and stuff like that and uh um to me that's kind of like my version of meditating right because like when i'm woodworking or something like that i'm completely focused in on what i'm doing there i've got you know i'm using my hands to do you know do the work and everything like that and i don't think about work i don't think about you know ip addresses and that kind of stuff i don't i don't think about like my brain goes somewhere else right right and another one which just is kind of crazy but um like doing photography and stuff like that it's kind of like a creative escape as well and uh which wedding photography is kind of insane and crazy so that's not really a good example of that but uh it does get my mind off of stuff just uh but i i think i think having a hobby and sticking to practicing it um can be helpful mentally right and because i see a lot of people in the i.t world and especially like with what we're doing here and everything like that there are a lot of people that are super driven towards you know like the certs studying and all that and it's like the best thing advice i think i can give to someone like that is it's it's cool it's great that you're you're driven like that but you gotta take breaks you gotta take breaks you gotta you gotta get your mind off the studying and memorizing everything and um and i think that's kind of how i've been this past year maybe that's how kobet's affected me i haven't really liked studying at all it it i don't know it's just uh we're taking the the knox approach right where it's like well maybe it's just not my time right kind of yeah the advice he was giving andy was like well maybe it's just not your time to do that have you been dubbing in your creative stuff dan like have you been doing like woodworking and getting outside yeah yeah that stuff's super meditative man there's creative yeah just shut your i mean i'm glad you brought that up because we haven't talked about that like having like it's not an escape right i want to be clear about that it's it's just something that almost gives you a like that's your purpose right mm-hmm yeah and it's just something about i know you guys give me a hard time about it sometimes but it it there's something about like not having sell signal yeah you know just being out there no no we we we're only teasing you because we're jealous like none of us can disconnect you know and i think i think uh you guys are kind of hitting around it earlier too in that's uh social media so like for me i try to stay off social media as much as possible i the the part of social media that i absolutely love is when you can share projects and stuff like that things that you're working on you know the part about social media that i absolutely hate is everybody seeming like they're the best thing out there like they have no flaws or anything like that so for me i wish i could have a a uh social media where take the social part out of it i guess and uh we we work on projects and stuff like that together uh share working on that kind of stuff you know like so you just subscribe to reddit yeah there you go it's not so much about like hey i did this today or or uh well well i mean sort of but i get what you mean it's less cold yeah yeah yeah i mean though it's it's not like hey i'm at the beach or whatever you know that that kind of stuff it's it's dan hates the beach hey i know i'm not i'm not is that's the kind of like i don't know some people love it some people hate it i'm just one of those that no there's nothing wrong with that dude hey look everybody knows that you're not there we we we were all there picking your twitter name out for you you know yeah exactly have you guys that it's genius though but i'm glad you brought that up because i think that's a huge part like having the hobbies and stuff like that is gives you a purpose not saying you don't have one otherwise but like as a sole person like you need an you need a creative outlet right like we all have that right i think for most of us this is podcast hopefully if you're listening to this maybe this is your outlet maybe we're your outlet maybe we're your weekly break you know that's some heavy crap to talk about there but hey at least i hope that you know we're bringing joy to a lot of people's lives here and and we want to just keep doing that but we also want to you know pull back the wizard of oz curtain just a little bit and let you see what's going on behind there and and just know that like what dan just described like that's the tip of the iceberg as aj mentioned that's all you're gonna see is like us you know telling you to do this and that and that so i hope that if anything that you got out of this is that you understand that you're you're you're just as abnormal as all of us if you're listening to this we are all diversely abnormal and celebrate it man you gotta just just figure out who you are and even if you're doing fine right now try it and and if you get find yourself in a situation where you need it you'd rather have it when you need it than not have it you know what i mean so build that skill set now and uh we again we appreciate it if you made it this long in the in the episode uh we we laid some whoa that was pretty heavy bro we want to be authentic right we don't want to posture like dan just said we don't want to be the social media like curated hey everything's great everything's wonderful get your flash cards let's go like you know this is how's that on man this is what we're going through and i think that's and i think that's one thing i like about like in the discord we have the the failure plaque channel you know so people talk about their failures like that's amazing i mean and we're not saying hey go talk about your your mental health like if you're not comfortable doing that like this is not a prerequisite to making yourself better if you want to share share if you don't don't but just know that like hey like somebody will listen you know it's like that somebody will listen i'm just going to leave it at that so theme of the day somebody will listen um again thank you for lasting this long with us we appreciate you bringing us into your living room or your car or your plane ride if you're back on the planes like aj or any other scenario where who knows maybe you're sitting around on a saturday night with the fire going and the whole family's listening to this podcast because you know why wouldn't they why wouldn't your seven-year-old enjoy this podcast you know my favorite thing to do is to speak for all of us and i do speak for all of us thank you for listening and we'll see you next time see ya hey everyone this is aj if you like what you heard today then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes also follow us on twitter and instagram we are at art of netenge that's art of n-e-t-e-n-g you can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.com where we post all of our show notes you can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world thanks for listening you