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Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:20] And as they say every day at the #PirateBroadcast™ , it's a good day to have a great day. And today is no different because we have another amazing pirate in the room, Manuel, how you doing?

Manuel Astruc: [00:00:34] I'm doing awesome. I've always wanted to be a pirate.

Russ Johns: [00:00:37] Now is your day now is your time. So let's set sail and see what we can have a conversation about. A lot of people that watch the show and participate in the show. The theme is #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings, and there's a broad range of that. However, there's a lot of people that are entrepreneurs working on their own thing, discovering their own path and journey. And along that journey a lot of times, and it has been for me is that there's a lot of things that become challenges along this journey. There's a lot of hustle and grind and the idea that I have to be Instagram famous and all of these conditions are set upon us. And it's only the tip of the iceberg because the success that we see is only a piece of what actually takes place along a lot of people's journey. And along that journey, there's a lot of frustration, a lot of fear. A little bit of discovery, some addiction, personalities, and stress and everything else that goes along with it. And I want to talk to you about that because you're a psychiatrist, you're a coach. You're helping people through this process. So give us a snapshot of how you got into coaching about helping entrepreneurs along your journey, because I think it's important for us to understand.

Manuel Astruc: [00:01:59] This is where I'm going to take off my psychiatry hat and I put on my coaching hat. In psychiatry, for very good reasons, we don't self-disclose when I'm coming in and talking from the coaching perspective, I think sharing personal experiences is helpful and important. Part of what I like to do then is to be able to talk about the fact that I've had problems in my life, even though I'm the one that's supposed to be helping people with alcoholism and depression. And most recently, 12 years ago, I hit a bottom with burnout. I had a very successful private practice in psychiatry. This was September, 2008. Full practice from the outside. It looked like I was doing just fine, but the grind of every day, just working and everyday looked like the last day and looking forward, there was no end in sight and the month before. So in August, 2008, my twin sister Magdalena had passed away from a brain cancer that she battled for three years. And literally one day in September, there was a Saturday. I was sitting in the room, it was getting dark. And I was looking at a picture of Magdalena. She's smiling, she's beaming. It was just so striking to me how courageously and with so much grace and love she'd lived her last days. And here I was healthy and a successful practice and I was so miserable and I made a decision at that point, enjoy the ride, no matter what. It was a moment of truth, the line in the sand, and really with looking at Magdalena, that's what I was going to do. And I did. So I started to make changes, small changes that built into bigger changes, but really pursuing this idea of enjoying the ride is what's led me to coaching in the last three years. So I still have my full-time private practice. The hours are pretty much the same as they were back then. I still work a lot and I've added coaching, but I've figured out for myself how to enjoy things. And part of what I do now is help people who are successful. And they're experiencing that other side of success where there's addiction, there's trauma, there's burnout, there's depression, that to figure out how to integrate happiness into their lives. And also the big shout out for anyone who's struggling with big stuff, significant depressions, the message for you, or for people around you. Three things to keep in mind. You don't have to be alone. Change is possible, and there's always hope. So we start there and then we can get into the ability to choose as the human superpower.

Russ Johns: [00:04:45] Well, a lot of what I talk about on this show is the choice, how we perceive our challenges. I talk a lot about the idea that experience is just experience whether it's perceived as being good or perceived as being bad. There's always a lesson in it. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people that see the magic of entrepreneurism and the end result of entrepreneurism, there's this idea that's planted in our seed and our thoughts and our ideas that this is just the way of life. And there's a lot of downside in if you're not, I think Elon Musk said it's like walking, it's like chewing on glass, walking into the abyss. And there's a lot of truth to that because you don't know what's going to come next. You don't know what is going to take place in the future with what you're doing, your ideas and concepts. And I think it's a really powerful tool to understand it. We have to design happiness. We have to design a way that we enjoy the day. So how do you find joy in your day? How do you find that slice and design your ideal day? That actually produces growth revenue and happiness.

Manuel Astruc: [00:06:12] The formula that looking backwards, I've connected the dots and...

Russ Johns: [00:06:18] the dots looking backwards

Manuel Astruc: [00:06:20] and the things that I was fortunate to discover and defined and I did a lot of reading and looking at ancient philosophies and new age stuff. And the reality is that wisdom is wisdom, right? There's only so much wisdom. And then when you get down to like first principles, like we're not making new stuff up and a lot of the lessons are repeated. So what I talk about and the way that I package it and think about it is interesting in that there's lots of people who talk about this stuff from many generations. So the on-ramp. Is really recognizing that we have the ability to choose, like you said, what paths we're going to be taking, what our attitudes are going to be, what we believe, what we think, how we interact with the world, the spirit of generosity that we have so much is open to us to choose and starting from there so that we're not a victim is part of the on-ramp. The next piece of the on-ramp is we got to focus on having energy. So I'm a doctor and I like to talk first about you choose now, you're going to get your energy down. Gotta be moving. Yeah, that'd be eaten. Well, gotta be focusing on your sleep. A meditation practice, a prayer practice, something that gets you in touch with mindfulnessand something bigger than ourselves is incredibly helpful. But when we start to do that, It helps us to have more, to put into our happiness. And there's a by-product that when you're doing this, it's going to help you down the road to be able to move and to think as 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the road, it's the best investment that we can make is start to choose to focus on the energy component.

Russ Johns: [00:08:08] Yeah, there's an element I want to dive in a little deeper there because in this process, we all have the ability and the opportunity to have a little gratitude for everything that we have. And I think that to me has always been a bigger lever than some of the things that I actually, you know, meditation, mindfulness reflection, and thinking about and putting it into place with #gratitude, because when you're thankful for what you have, it seems like more things that you have #gratitude for show up. Is that your experience?

Manuel Astruc: [00:08:45] Yeah. And #gratitude is a very easy to access tool. And when you put that in place on a daily basis, you find that you're looking for it. Like if the moral I've got to do a #gratitude last, I better be looking for my gratitudes today, so that are scrambling to figure out what my gratitudes are in the morning at seven o'clock it has you more tuned to the little things, the smell of coffee in the morning. That's awesome. You see a beautiful cloud, like the #gratitude does not have to be  something that comes in with a neon sign and announces itself as here I am, this is what you're going to be grateful for. It's hard to miss it. It's the little things that we can pay attention to every morning. I have a on Facebook Manuel Astruc Coaching, I do a morning musing before I start seeing patients two or three minutes talking about happiness or success or leadership. And I always start with a morning #gratitude.

Russ Johns: [00:09:49] We better put that in the show links.

Manuel Astruc: [00:09:51] Yeah. But the #gratitude is a super easy access to that energy place.

Russ Johns: [00:10:00] Absolutely. So what brings you joy personally? How do you design your day where you fill out, if you had all of the components that could be an ideal day in your scenario, what components would you want to include? Or what components would you want to suggest other people think about or consider if they're bordering on burnout, fatigue, stress, all of these factors. What's to get us back on the road?

Manuel Astruc: [00:10:31] So everybody's going to be different with what juices them up. So for me, learning about stuff, getting new ideas. In today's day and age, like podcasts and things like this, it makes it so easy to have access to really smart people who have been thinking about things a long time. So learning new things is just a pleasure to me. And then I like the hook, those new things with ideas that I already have, or that are bubbling in my head. And then I love to share them with people. So it's that learning and then sharing the ideas into the world that I just love when I have days that I'm taking off from work and producing things. I also love to read fiction science fiction is one of the things that juices me up. What we find with burnout is a couple of things, but if you can add to your day, that is a grind, 10% an hour and a half of things that you are intentionally enjoying as part of your day or your job, the rest of it can be a grind, but just a little bit of intentional enjoyment of things that you are already doing can really help them mitigate the burnout.

Russ Johns: [00:11:48] That's probably why I like starting my day with the #PirateBroadcast meeting new people. Interesting people like yourself.

Manuel Astruc: [00:11:56] Right, you just start off right off the bat with a win.

Russ Johns: [00:11:59] Yeah. And the thing that I really want to push back on is that a lot of people don't believe they have choice. They just have to go for the grind. If I don't get this done something bad is going to happen and I think for myself, it's taken me years to learn this from many failures is the idea that if I stop and enjoy and smell the roses and have #gratitude for a little thing, just for a break, a small break, the sky is gonna fall. And I think that there's a lot of people that feel that way. And you almost have to give yourself permission to actually step back, release and relax and feel like it's okay. It's all right to do that. So it's really important for us to take that break and take that pause. I want to give a shout out to some of the individuals that are in the room here. Michael Baker, always there. Good morning. Pirates. Hope everyone is doing well this morning. Jenny Gold is in the room. Good morning  Russ and Manual. Tracie is in the room. She's the producer of the show. Thank you, Tracie for being here. Love you. Foley Hart uh, she's a dear. Foley says Russ you always have the most wonderful guests. Thank you for providing a place to showcase these beautiful, strong souls. So we have fans. If you're not connected, go out and get connected. Where do you like to be? Where do you like people to reach out and connect with you?

Manuel Astruc: [00:13:36] The place that I'm currently most active on is on the Facebook live that page that I have Manuel Astruc coaching, and you can catch my live morning musings there five days a week.

Russ Johns: [00:13:50] Five days a week. Awesome. So Darleen, morning pirates family. Silverfox Talks is there. So thank you. Russ Hedge in from Oregon. Absolutely. How we perceive things. Our attitude and mindset is so important. We must choose joy. I really agree with that. And Michael Baker says wisdom comes from not when knowledge becomes experience. I like that. Good morning pirates. Angie hope you're doing well, having a great week. Thank you so much. Love you. And Angie says when you look for things to be #grateful for you see more things to be #grateful for. That's absolutely true. Search it out. And then Darleen says, yes, smell of coffee. #Grateful. Sheila Chamberlain is in the attitudes of gratitudes. And then Angie says write five to 10 things you're #grateful for every day, Sheila says, be #grateful for little things that matter. There's so many things, so many comments Angie says burnout, fatigue, stress. Are you talking about me again? We all have a common theme in our lives. If we're doing things, if we're doing anything worthwhile, it seems like there's this path of where we have to test and adjust and test and adjust and expand. And when we're reaching that comfort zone. And just beyond when we're reaching the uncomfortable zone is when we really start to grow, learning something everyday like you're doing is really important for our growth, our mindset, our attitude, and it's something that we can all achieve results in, in our own way. So what's in the future of this process for you and how are you? How did you recover? How did you pivot and what steps did you take to find this moment for you?

Manuel Astruc: [00:16:00] The big thing that I did first was start on the energy component, started to have just a little bit of movement and a little bit like one meal at a time, getting better with my eating. And then I tried different things. First I was chasing after money and I found that was a terrible motivator for me. I was thinking of how I could scale my....have a practice and do something that would generate more money, terrible motivator. But I learned some things doing that. So I put on some workshops about bipolar disorder in the community, and I found I didn't really want to be talking about illness anymore, but I found that I loved getting in front of people and talking. So along the way, many things that I've tried. And the happiness of the on-ramp choose energy and then four pillars that have just a bunch of stuff that can be impacting. And I think you're singing my songs with these four pillars. So first is recognize we're never finished products. There's always room for us to continue to learn and to grow and to be curious, Second is connection. There is so much evidence that one of the predictors of our overall physical and emotional health down the road as we age, is going to be the level of our connections, the tribe, the communities that we're in. Third is blaze your own trail. When I became a psychiatrist, that trail had been blazed before me and it was pretty well-worn all you had to do was work hard. And that's what I learned how to do is work hard. What I'm doing now, giving out and doing coaching and speaking and talking and putting ideas together like this and pushing them out into the world to see what the world thinks that trail is not. So well-worn, there's people that do that. But for me, this is really very new and different. So blaze your own trail is the third one. And then lastly is where I started commit to enjoy the ride. No matter what. We can't control our thoughts or thoughts think themselves, they come up and my negative thoughts come up and so on and so forth, but I can put blinders up to them. I don't have to give them that much energy. I can absolutely choose what I'm going to be focusing on. And part of what helps with that is really the environment that we put ourselves in. When I committed to enjoying the ride and I started to listen to the podcast, it was a tribe of virtual mentors that were positive and inspiring. And there is no doubt that our brain is primed in our attitude. And our choice, ability to choose is primed by the environment and the people that we listen to and where we hang out. And there's a lot of choice that we have, and that input that we're giving ourselves these days.

Russ Johns: [00:18:50] I'm curious with this attitude that you're sharing today. How did you make the choice years ago when you decided I'm going to become a psychiatrist? What was the thought process for Manuel back then?

Manuel Astruc: [00:19:07] It was first by default. So in school I was good at math, good at science and a decent student, my family valued and it was understood that we would be professionals. My family, I was born in Spain. And my sister and I Magdalena were the oldest of what ended up being seven kids. But when I was five, my father and mother and the rest of the kids, we all moved to Richmond, Virginia. And the work ethic and the become a professional and self-sufficient was very much a family value. So we were all going to do something and because I was good in math and science and you'll be a good doctor and I'm like, sign me up like that. I don't have to think. So pre-med and then medical school as you're going through medical school. So four years of college, four years of med school. You have to decide what specialty you're going to go into. And I'd like all of medicine, I was thinking family practice, but I was procrastinating and putting in my applications and I was like, what's going on with me? This is not a time to procrastinate. And what I came to understand through some introspection was that what I had enjoyed the most was spending time with patients. I would take opportunities when my work was done for the day and my studying was done and we were working in the hospital. We'll take the opportunity to go find my patients who didn't have any visitors. And I would just sit with them and I said, tell me about your life. What's your going? Who are you? Where are you from?And it was fascinating. I just loved that. And I, the idea of psychiatry had not been on my radar. Because psychiatrists don't thump on chests and don't give life-saving drugs and we don't do the emergency treatments. So there was a little bit of a...

Russ Johns: [00:21:03] save in a different way.

Manuel Astruc: [00:21:05] Exactly. And that's what I came to understand later is that we are definitely saving lives in different ways. And again, just the platform that you have here, just to remind people for you or for someone else, if you ever need to support anyone, you don't have to be alone. There is hope and change is possible, right? That's how we start to save lives is to support one another and help more people.

Russ Johns: [00:21:31] Sometimes just listening is the best thing you can do for a friend. You don't have to solve a problem. You don't have to do anything except be there for them.

Manuel Astruc: [00:21:42] Oh, that's such a wise statement. There was a poem and I forget the woman's name. It might've been the Orion mountain singer. She was someone who had disconnected from the hustle and bustle of New York city and went to the Appalachian mountains and became a poet. But in one of her poems, she says, I want a friend who can sit by the fire with me when I'm going through a hard time, rather than try to fix things for me. And it's one of the hardest things to do is to sit with someone without trying to fix or make them feel better.

Russ Johns: [00:22:20] Yeah. Yeah. Asking great questions. So what's the most difficult choice you've had to make in your journey,

Manuel Astruc: [00:22:29] They all seem difficult at the time that you're making them.

Russ Johns: [00:22:35] They're all difficult when you're making them.

Manuel Astruc: [00:22:38] Then you look back and you're like, I should have done that 10 years ago.

Russ Johns: [00:22:41] Why was there so much resistance to the decisions I made?

Manuel Astruc: [00:22:45] So two things that come to mind. So the first one is I was in private practice for such a long time by myself, and I didn't want the hassle of bringing in other associates. I had a really good front office staff and everything was good, but it became clear that I was going to do coaching. If I was going to commit to coaching, I needed to bring in some other associates and my mindset was this is going to be nothing but hassles. I changed the mindset and said there's probably some pretty good people out there. And I ended up with the two most amazing psychiatric nurse practitioners. I am just so blessed and #grateful that they've entered into my orbit around here. Just a great addition, but initially it was like, it's nothing but a hassle to bring it up.

Russ Johns: [00:23:32] That's fear talking typically.

Manuel Astruc: [00:23:35] That's fear and it's self limiting stuff. The other piece that I needed to really figure out was making the transition from a professional psychiatrist to get into coaching, I had so much fear around what people would say. You're a psychiatrist and you becoming a coach. That's like the wild West. You're a professional. And what helped me ultimately with that was reading through Bernay Brown's book where she talks about the man in the arena, daring greatly. And the man in the arena is going to get in there and get his butt kicked and people are going to...they don't count. They don't count it. It's the people who are in the arena or trying to make a difference who are fine. Yup. Those are the people that, you know, but I was really daunted by moving into the arena because of the fear of what others would think. Until I wasn't and then it was like, I should have.

Russ Johns: [00:24:32] The other challenging part is removing toxic people from your lives. And that's a difficult choice at times, and we all have choice and it's resistance to change that often limits our beliefs and our ideas that we can do something greater than we're doing today. And I really appreciate you coming on and talking about these things. I could talk for another few hours about this subject, and I'm really passionate about helping as many people as possible. So thank you so much for being here.

Manuel Astruc: [00:25:06] So that's a pleasure. There's so much alignment with what you're saying. So part of my mission is help more people to help more people. So exactly what you just said. Perfect.

Russ Johns: [00:25:19] And everyone here and everyone that's listening in the future, or if you're thinking that you don't matter, you do, there's somebody that depends on you. You are a hero to somebody in your life, in your circle of friends, your influence. And sometimes when you don't know what to do, just be there for someone. And it's a, it's a very powerful tool that we can all use and we don't have to solve the problems. We just have to be there to support the people that are trying to solve their problems with that. I really want to let people know. You mentioned Facebook. You do the morning. What is it? The morning

Manuel Astruc: [00:26:02] musings. That's it. Morning musings.

Russ Johns: [00:26:05] I used to do the two minute tips in 10 minutes or less kind of thing. I was like, yeah. End of the day conversation with myself and these things are very powerful tools and they don't necessarily have to have a result and an outcome, but we don't need to chase the money. We don't need to chase the fame. If you help more people, it always seems to come back to you. Has that been your experience?

Manuel Astruc: [00:26:32] Absolutely without a doubt, the, and you don't know who you're touching, so it could be several. It's a very common thing for me, that in my work with patients, someone will come back to me and they'll say, I've given them so many wonderful ideas and they'll come back and they'll say what really helped me. And then they'll say something that I don't even remember saying.

Russ Johns: [00:26:53] You don't even remember saying.

Manuel Astruc: [00:26:55] Right. But that was the thing that kind of turned things around for them, but that whatever it is, that the relationship and the time spent is really where the investment goes. And the change happens.

Russ Johns: [00:27:08] I look forward to future conversations Manuel. It's been a pleasure being here and it's been pleasure sharing some of these ideas and thoughts. And I know that it's difficult to challenge you on some of these things when I believe in myself. Thank you Justin Breen for the introduction. And he's a pirate as well. There's so many amazing people that I've met along this journey. And we're now at over 350 episodes. And if you're out there, and this is something that you've found valuable and useful, please share it with somebody that needs to hear it. I'm sure that along your journey you've learned a few things. I've learned a few things and it's been from experience and it's not always been an experience that has been positive, but anything we can learn and share and put out in the world where somebody else can achieve results is I think it's a good day when that takes place. So it's really amazing.

Manuel Astruc: [00:28:09] Well-spoken.

Russ Johns: [00:28:11] Thank you so much for everybody being here as #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree so you go out and you #enjoytheday. Don't go away.

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