WMH Season 3 Ep 12: Finding Joy in the Hustle

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 3, Episode 12 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Watching Mental Health. And I'm so excited because today I have a really dear friend on, and we have known each other for a few years for, I don't know, at least five, six years, I think way longer than that. Actually, I'm terrible with the pandemic timing. So we've known each other for a long time, and when we met, we instantly connected because we both really have a passion for healthcare, for mental health, for helping businesses in this space. And so I'm just so excited to talk a little bit more and to talk with Ginger Allen, and she's the Chief Joy officer and founder of your marketing liaison. And when we connected, we connected over these items over marketing and really helping out businesses in mental health and healthcare.

And Your Marketing Liaison is a full service marketing agency and they have offices across the country in Las Vegas and Miami. And she's got over 25 years of experience with helping practices grow through joyful and strategic marketing. And that's what I really love about what she brings. She's the president and of the Florida Medical Association Alliance and also the host of the Functional and Integrative Medicine podcast for providers. So she's also making a big difference out here, and she also co-authored the Bestselling Everyday Women's Guide to Doing What You Love. And on this episode, we're going to be talking about all of these things. We're going to go into her journey as a female entrepreneur, the mental health challenges that she's worked through, and why it's so important to continue to do what you love and to find joy in both your business and your life. And so with that, I'm going to bring Ginger to the show. Ginger, thank you so much for joining me.

Ginger: Hi Katie. Thank you for having me on the show. I feel honored.

Katie: Yeah. Well, I've been wanting to do this for a long time. You've always been in the back of my mind as a good guest, and we've gotten together and spoken about our mental health problems, our challenges, our history, why it matters to us personally. I know I've cried in front of you. We've been vulnerable together, and you're just somebody that I always look up to. You're really just a light in my life is somebody who I kind of aspire to continue to grow and to be similar. And so with that, I want to ask you a little bit more about, just tell us about yourself, about your journey and why mental health matters to you.

Ginger: Sure. Well, before I want to go in that into that, I do want to say thank you, Katie. One of the things I remember about you is when I was raising money for mental health first aid programs in Clark County with the Clark County Medical Society Alliance, and we were working with Lady Gagas Born this Way Foundation with the Be Kind mission. You were one of my friends that signed up and cheered me on and helped me raise money and attended the events. And so you've just been an amazing mental health advocate, not just to me, but to a lot of people in Las Vegas. I just want to thank you for that. But that's one of the things. I remember our picture together. We both had the be kind hats on and we were so proud of supporting mental health in Las Vegas. So that's one of my so special memories of you.

Katie: Thank you. I love that. I still wear that hat all the time. I do too. I love that!

Ginger: Yeah. And I'm sorry. Yeah, so I have my companies your marketing liaison, and now I also have your medical liaison. I've always worked in the medical space, but now I'm really focusing more on the medical space and I'm working more with functional and integrative medicine providers as well as the traditional MDs. And of course, I still work with therapists and addiction centers and anybody else in that field. My journey, I am a recovering alcoholic, and so I'm coming up, I think on 17 years in September, and it's been one day at a time, 17 years later. So I always like to tell people, this is the face of addiction. Look at me. I am an addict. And the reason why I say that is because I think sometimes we and I in the past had a judgment or a thought about what an addict looked like.

I thought all alcoholics lived under the bridge. That's what I thought until I went to AA and found that there were other people that actually are productive members of society that are just struggling with addiction. And so I'm blessed in that I have my own business and I'm able to share with the world that I am a recovering alcoholic, and this is what addiction looks like because I have many friends that still to this day are in the corporate world and they can't feel safe or be able to share that with people. And so I have to be the voice for all the people out there that are not able to share that they are addicts in recovery, and we do recover. And there is hope. And I always like to say that to the families because I know how painful it is. I struggle too.

I have a sister that's in addiction, active addiction now, and it's so painful and it's so hard for the families, but there is hope and lean on Al-Anon, lean on the programs. They're there for you. They'll get you through those hard times. And so yeah, I'm a walking miracle. And so every day above ground is a great day. I always say I should have been dead many times. And it's funny because when we were doing that mental health first aid training in Las Vegas, I actually took the course and when the instructor was giving the course on what is depression, what is bipolar? And then they had all of these things that were listed under mental illness, and one of them was substance abuse.

I think that's the correct term, substance abuse. And I was like, what? And I raised my hand. I was like, excuse me, excuse me. And the lady's like, yes. And I said, addiction is a mental illness. And she said, yeah, you didn't know that. I said, no, I've been in recovery for 10 years. At that point, I never knew that that was a mental illness. And it made me feel really good in some ways to know that there was a clause for this other than me just being an idiot and drinking too much when I wasn't supposed to. But there was an underlying issue. And so that really, I've always been passionate about mental health because I know there are a lot of times addiction and mental health is a co-occurring thing. So I seen a lot of that in my work with working with the treatment centers, but I never identified it in myself. And so when I did, then that really was like, okay, well now I'm going to be super passionate about mental health and addiction.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. I remember when you told me that about just it being an eyeopening experience that mental health is, or that addiction is a mental health condition and that there is treatment that goes along with that. And I think that it's interesting because I wanted to ask you to touch back on this idea of functional alcoholics, of functional addicts. And I think that in many ways people don't realize their addictions because they think that, oh, well, I'm still getting up every day. I'm paying my bills, I'm going to work. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. But they're not understanding that there is an underlining struggle there and potentially an addiction that's creeping up on them. So talk to me more about that, about how you maybe figured that out because it seems like a lot of people struggle to reach that step, and then from there, they're not really sure where to go.

Ginger: So I was a proud functional alcoholic. I was a card carrying member, and I was like, I'm a functional alcoholic and I'm proud of it, meaning I went to work every day. I paid my bills, I paid my taxes. We were never what we called a low bottom, which is where you lost your everything and you lived under the bridge. I was very functional. What happened for me was, and a lot of us is I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I actually had another person who was a drug addict that was working for me, and I was trying to get her to get help. And when I confronted her about it at the time, I had a real estate company. When I confronted her about her addiction and getting help, she basically told me to look in the mirror

And that I was an alcoholic. And so it was the first time that anybody had actually called me out on it other than my mother. I will admit, mom had, even at 22 years old, I was exhibiting some behaviors over excessive drinking and stuff. And she didn't quite say I was an alcoholic then, but she would tell me, you need to be careful. You need to slow down. But that fast forward because it is a progressive disease, so for the people that don't understand it is alcoholism is a progressive disease. And what that means is that the two drinks that I had at yesterday that got me the buzz that I wanted to get aren't going to get me the buzz I want tomorrow. So tomorrow I need to drink three drinks to get the same effect. So you start building tolerance to it. And so that's why it becomes a progressive disease and you start drinking more and more and more and more.

And then my mom had talked to me about it, but we don't listen to our mothers, so I just ignored what she said, but when I had this person that really wasn't involved in my life or didn't know me that well, that call me out and say, you're an alcoholic, I was like, okay, maybe I need to really take a look at this. And that's when I thought, well, I'll go just check out this AA thing. It's probably not for me because I'm better than that. Again, I have the business, I've got the fancy car, I've got all of the exterior look of, everything's fine.

Katie: Yeah, you look great from the outside,

Ginger: Right? And so when I went to this, because I had asked somebody that I knew that worked for me also that was in recovery where those meetings were, and she's like, you mean aa? And I was like, sh, don't say it. And so she said, yeah. She goes, go to a lunch meeting. And I was like, why? And she's like, you'll explain later. You'll understand later, or I'll explain later. And I said, okay. So I go to this lunch meeting and I walk in and the guy at the podium was actually a retired judge and he was in a suit and everybody else was in business clothes. And I was like, oh, okay. Maybe there are other people like me that are not fall down, lost everything that are addicts. And that's what I found that day. And then what I found out later when I would go to late night meetings, for example, so sometimes I would work late and I would be like, I'm going to hit that 10 o'clock meeting, and boy, it's a different, had I gone to that, maybe I wouldn't have identified.

That's a different crowd. That's the crowd that has just come out of jail, or it tends to be a little bit more of a lower bottom people that have lost everything kind of crowd. But what was interesting about that crowd was that I really learned something. And it happened from a guy that had just gotten out of jail for manslaughter, and he got up to share about how he had killed somebody while he was drinking and driving, and he had just gotten out of prison. And I am thinking to myself, well, I'm not that guy. I'm better than that guy. I never did anything that bad. By the time he was done talking, I was like, I am that guy. I am that guy. I'm just another drunk on the bus. Just because I didn't kill somebody by the grace of God does not mean that I am any better than that man that's at that podium right now.

How many times did I drive drunk on the highway trying to cover with the one eye covered? Because we do that when we're really drunk because we're seeing double and triple. So that helps stabilize our vision. I can't even tell you how many times it did that. So it really just really made it real for me and let me know that we're all human beings. We all are equal. Nobody's better than anybody. I always say that desperate people do desperate things. We all have the capacity to do anything that any other human being on this earth does. And to remind myself always that I'm never better than anybody else. I'm just another drunk on the bus. So that was a really cool meeting. And the other thing I like to remind people when it comes to mental health is, and people aren't going to like this when I say it, Katie, but I'm going to say it,

Katie: Say it

Ginger: Everyone. And I'm talking to you, everyone that's listening and everyone that ever watches this episode, everyone at some point in their life is going to have a mental health crisis. And what I mean by that is you could lose your dog, you could lose your spouse, you could lose a parent, you could have a traumatic event happen, a lot of things that you would never think that could happen that would affect your mental health could happen. And at some point in your life, that is going to happen. So I encourage everyone to really be open to working on their mental health, having a therapist, working on any issues that you have. And even if you don't have issues, you should still have a therapist. Because to me, mental health is no different than physical health. We get a broken leg or we get a cold, we go to the doctor, but if we get depressed or we get anxiety or we get stressed, we're like, oh,

I can't do anything. Keep it in know this. Keep it in. Oh my God, just keep going. Just keep going. Don't tell anybody. Yeah. The shame that comes from it, that's 1999 people. We are not living in shame of our mental health anymore. We are in mental wellness. We support mental wellness. And so I have a therapist now and I'm in recovery and life is pretty good. And I don't have anything that I can say, oh my gosh, hang my hat. I'm seeing her and I'm working on this main issue that I'm this trauma from my underlying childhood trauma. No, I'm just talking to her about life. And I used to tell people all the time, it's easy not to pick up a drink. All you do is not pick up the drink. Just don't reach out and pick it up. That's the easy part. You know what the hard part is? People, places and things. People places and things will drive you insane. And I have been through in sobriety, and even not too long ago with some family stuff that I was dealing with and just the pressures of owning a business and everything that I was going under, I was like, I can see how some people lose it

Seriously. And we always are like, oh my God, I can't believe he went postal well, until you've ever been on the verge of feeling like, man, I could really lose it. You can't identify. You can't have compassion for those people. But I'm here to tell you, we can all lose it. And that's why it's so important that we keep talking about mental health and mental wellness and why we need to preemptively put people and doctors in place. Think of your therapist as a doctor. You go to see your doctor every year. You should be checking in with the therapist a couple times a year too. Just so when you do have a crisis, and I'm here to tell you, everyone's, when you do have a crisis, you've got that person in place. They know you. They know your family history. They know what you've been through. They know you're okay too. But when the crisis comes, they're like, I got.

Katie: That's right. Yeah. That is so powerful. A lot of people come on the show and they talk about they had the crisis and then they went to therapy or they experienced the burnout, and then they sought out help when they hit the wall, when they hit the ground. But life happens, and we should all be taking care of our mental health, practicing mental wellness before the crisis happens. Because you're right, life can be hard and crises will happen. That person who's just went off the rails and we don't understand them, maybe that person just lost their job, just got a divorce, lost their family, people that they love died in a very tragic way. We just don't know until we get into that place and then it's like, oh, now I can see. But it's so much better if we don't wait until we get into that burnout place if we don't wait until we have to pick up the drink. Right? Because yeah, life can be frustrating. People can be very frustrating, and depending on the day, you just want to take the edge off. But that's not what it's about when you're practicing mental wellness. And so you mentioned therapy. What are some other things that you do to practice self-care when you have a tough day, when life does get really hard?

Ginger: So first I'd like to touch on preventative mental health. So I think what we're talking about, and everybody knows about preventative medicine. So preventative medicine is working out, not smoking, going to the gym, taking your supplements, eating well, we all practice to the best of our day. We try. We don't all do it. Nobody does it perfect. I don't do it perfect. I'm like, I hate working out. I have to have a trainer. It'll never happen because I would rather work. I'm a total workaholic. So I went from being an alcoholic to a workaholic. At least this one is not as bad, but I definitely struggle with working out. So we all have our stuff that we struggle with, but we understand preventative health. Preventative mental health is no different.

And so some of the other things that I do, I go to nature every weekend, and that for me is very, very important. Whether it's the beach, the mountains, the desert, the lake, something where I am and I have my phone. So I'm not going to say I'm totally detoxed from digital because I have a business, so I can't totally go off the rails unless I tell my right hand, Amanda, who's my director of operations, I'm going into the middle of the jungle, so you have to handle, but I get out of the house, I get out of, I'm not going to be watching tv. I'm going to go to nature, and I'm just going to enjoy myself. Whether that's read a book, sometimes I'll listen to music, sometimes I walk, depends on how I'm feeling that day. But grounding yourself, putting your feet, there's a lot of science now that's coming out about grounding, taking your feet, putting it in the dirt, putting it in the sand, putting it in the grass, getting you grounded back to earth is very, very important for your health. Getting away from the blue light, which is the lights in our home, getting away from the tv, the videos, the phones, the computers, the phones get away from all of the blue light and the EMF and get to nature. And that for me is so important. And just in fact, I remember my husband one time, he's like, yeah, you need a reset. And I'm like, yeah, what does that mean? He's like, I think you need to go to the beach. I'm like,

Katie: Yeah,

Ginger: Right. So whatever your reset is, some people, it's going to the gym, some people it's walking their dog, some people it's volunteering their time at an animal shelter, whatever it is. The way I look at it, Katie, is whatever it is that brings you joy, whatever it is that makes you feel like, okay, in this moment everything around me is going crazy, but in this moment, I'm okay.

That to me is part of, I'm not big on meditation. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I sit and meditate every morning. I should. I would like to be that person. I'm not that person, right? I'm like, I can't wait to get to my email and get working. Right? I do try to listen to a little book. I got the Headway app, so I try to do 20 minutes of reading every morning while I'm getting ready and I put my headphones on. But yeah, nobody does it perfect. I think it's just whatever works for you.

Katie: That's right. It's real. You're real. And I mean, people say, oh, meditation all the time. And if you struggle with that, then there's got to be other ways. And so I love what you said about joy, and really this is preventative mental health, doing these things, taking this time for self-care, going on the vacation, stepping away is so important for preventative mental health and mental wellness in general. And you mentioned you are a workaholic. You're a business owner, but you're also the chief Joy, what was it?

Ginger: Chief Joy Officer.

Katie: I love it. You're the Chief Joy officer. So tell me more about why you went into this role of being the Chief Joy Officer just versus just the C. Why is Joy so important?

Ginger: Yeah, so I've always been kind of a joyful person by nature, so I just have a very Pollyanna, I haven't watched the news in 30 years. I try to avoid negativity like the plague. I just really enjoy being in a joyful state. So that's part of it. Then I read probably six months ago the Chief Joy Officer, which is a book about a guy that owns a very successful software company in California. And he learned through trial and error of trying to get a company to work really well, that being joyful and having joy and allowing kids into the office and not having such strict standards and all of that, really, people would go to other corporations for more money and they would come back to him even for less money because they loved working with his company so much. And so I have always told my team that I've about 20 people on my team, and they're all independent contractors, but I do tell them when we onboard that I have two policies and company policies and company policy number one is family first. What does that mean? It means that if you have anything in regards to a crisis with your family or one of your kids or mom or dad or anybody, and you need to go take care of that, there's no questions asked. We've got your back. Go do it. You got a kid home from school and we're on a Zoom and a work meeting, and that kid comes in the room, that's okay.

Family first, and then the second company policy is mental health first. And what that means is if you're having a bad day, you're feeling better out, you're depressed, you're having anxiety, whatever the mental health issue that you might be dealing with, a gazillion of them, Katie, right? I mean, I don't even think we've named them all yet.

If you're feeling any of those things, take a mental health day, no questions asked, you're not going to get in trouble. You're not going to get reprimanded. In fact, we will rally around you to support you and make sure that we have your back. And the rest is just do your job and be honest and the things that normal company policies are. But those are, and most of my people have been with me. I mean, Petra Petra's been with me for I think five years. Most of my team has been with me many, many years, and they will often say, it's not for the money. They could probably go and make more money working for somebody else. Let's be real. They stay because of the company policy of family first, mental health first. And so after I read that book, I'm like, you know what? I am no longer the CEO of this company. I am the Chief Joy officer, and my job is to make sure that everybody loves working here. And everybody was like, okay, she's gone off the rails. And I'm like, no, I haven't gone off the rails. I want to have fun. My husband's a physician. Okay, that's a very stressful job. And I told my team this, when he makes mistakes, people die. He can't make mistakes.

I'm a marketing company. If the logo didn't get done today, yeah, the client's going to be upset, but nobody died. I want to have fun. I want to enjoy what I do, and this is why I built this company.

Katie: I say that all the time. If I'm really stressed out, it's okay. If the social media post doesn't come out this afternoon, no one's going to die. We'll get it out tomorrow morning. It'll be okay. And you have to tell yourself that sometimes. And it can be hard as a female entrepreneur myself, owning a business, putting myself out there, that balance between work and life, between your mental health and your hustle, it can be a challenge. And I know that you've been in this a long time. You've been doing this 13 years, you've been doing business for so long. Yeah. So tell us more. Just as a woman, as an entrepreneur, why is it, what do we need to keep in our mind in order to keep going? Because in order to keep going, you need grit. You need to be able to stick it out, but you need to have that mental health. You need to have that joy. And I found that when I was doing work that I wasn't as joyful about then. It was harder to do, right? It was harder to get it out there. It was harder to trudge through it until I found my lane. And so talk to me more about that. Why is it so important to find your lane and as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, to really make sure you're still taking care of yourself?

Ginger: I would just say it doesn't really matter, in my opinion, whether you're an entrepreneur or you work for somebody else, the most important thing is to try to find something that you love, that you love doing, because then it's not work. And life is short. And I'm 54 and I'm like, okay, I look at my mom, she's 84. It goes so quick. In your twenties, you think, oh, I'm going to live forever. Yeah, no, you're not. So don't take life so seriously. Nobody gets out alive and find something that you enjoy because long-term, that's going to be the most important thing. And sometimes you're stuck in a situation where you got an education and you're stuck in something that you don't love, then just set up a plan to get yourself out of that. Save enough money so that you can get out of that job and go do something that you love. Go work at Home Depot. That's what my husband wants to do one day he's like, I want to work in the wood department. I'm like, that would be great for you, honey.

Katie: I love that!

Ginger: When you're done being a doctor.

Katie: Right, right. But yeah, I mean, success isn't always about what is on your business card. And if you're more happy working with your hands, getting out there in nature, doing something that maybe society doesn't deem as worthy, that it is worthy, every job matters, and your happiness I think is so important. And so I really wanted to touch on that because you mentioned, or I mentioned in your bio that you had that you co-authored a book Everyday Women's Guide to Doing What You Love. And so tell me more about that book and how can people find that book? And so we and your group, just so we can keep getting life advice from you.

Ginger: Oh, sure, sure, sure. So you can find me@ymlteam.com and Follow Your Medical Liaison is the company that I'm doing everything under now. But yeah, it's just doing what you love is so important. And you're right, it doesn't matter what you do. And the most joyful people that I have met recently are functional and integrative medicine doctors. I work in the medical space and they're having so much fun. And even one of the doctors, I was like, but you're not making as much money as you were as an OB GYN. And she's like, no. But the joy that I get from seeing people actually heal is mind blowing and life altering. She's like, I'm so much happier now. My patients are so doing so much better. So yeah, I find that no matter what you're doing, find something even in your niche that you can do that you love. So important.

Katie: Absolutely. Yeah. And can we find your book on Amazon or

Ginger: Yes. Yes. I think it's Glee Rosen is the main author, so we co-authored that book. So Everyday Woman's Guide to Doing What You Love. I also have a podcast, the Functional and Integrative Medicine podcast, if you want to learn about functional medicine. Awesome stuff. It's all natural, no prescriptions attached, and it's just really a fun podcast.

Katie: Cool. How can people see the podcast?

Ginger: They can just go to Spotify and look for the Functional and Integrative Medicine podcast. I think it's the Functional Integrative Medicine podcast for providers. So I have mostly clinicians coming on and talking about how they're practicing this medicine and how it's helping people.

Katie: Awesome. And I think that's so valuable, and we are about at time, but I did just want to touch on this is functional medicine. When I really was learning about it, I just really thought it was so valuable for people because they oftentimes will wind up in these spaces when they're really struggling. Perhaps their autoimmune disorder has really tanked them and their mental health. And so a lot of times they'll wind up in these spaces after going through so much medication, so many other doctors not being listened to, not getting their voices heard, not having the right diagnosis because oftentimes an autoimmune can be misdiagnosed until they finally land in this space of functional medicine. And so,

Ginger: Or integrative medicine... Functional and integrative medicine both help people. And I just want people to understand too, yes, those medicines treat the underlying cause of the disease and people get frustrated. But I always like to say it's not the doctor's fault. And why I like to say that is doctors like endocrinologists that typically work with autoimmune diseases and stuff like that, they did not have any training on underlying cause. They didn't go to school and learn about nutrition and supplements. They went up to school and learned how to get the symptom under control and get it to stop doing what it's doing, treating the symptoms. And we still need our doctors. If your arm is cut off, you're not going to go to a functional medicine doctor. We need our doctors. And so don't be so hard on your doctors. If you're frustrated that you didn't get the answers you need, reach out to a functional integrative doctor, see if they can help you find the answers, because the traditional doctors just didn't study that way. 

Katie:

Yeah, thank you again and I appreciate it and appreciate your time and just that little note on functional integrated medicine I think was valuable. So thank you so much.  Alright. Alright, that is it everyone for this episode, and we will see you next time. We are live every first and third Wednesday of the month, and we'll see you at 3:00 PM Pacific time. But then catch all episodes at katierosewaechter.com. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a good one!