I Quit Creating, Then Recovered

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So imagine it's 2019, the podcast world is going crazy and you went for it. You swung the bat, you started a podcast talking about your experience with mental illness and your diagnosis in 11th grade, 2001, for anyone who's doing the math, just to get your secret out, just to get the poison out, the lie out that, which sort of became a part of your identity that you didn't want to be.

So you thought if you started a podcast, told the world about it, it all go away.

Well, that one episode turned into 16, and I was really surprised by something. People weren't supposed to actually listen, but they did. Quite a few of them. I got phone calls, people would stop me in public, and they would thank me for putting these episodes out there.

And I did not expect that. It scared the crap out of me, so much so, that I stopped. Why would you stop if something's working?

Well, I determined that I didn't want to be the mental illness guy. I didn't want to have the flag in the ground, looking for, chasing, seeking conversations just about mental illness or mental health or all things associated with it.

Here I was getting this diagnosis out in public to get the monkey off my back. I didn't want it to become my cape, my flag, my, you know, I already said it. I didn't want it to become it. I wanted to grow beyond it. So that's why I felt stuck. Uh, and I felt afraid. I felt afraid that people were listening to me and I was afraid of the responsibility That comes with that. Because what if I had a bad day?

What if I had this weird crazy maybe twisted dark opinion? And I shared it and I felt justified in that Under the guise and the mission to lift the stigma on mental health mental illness, I should say. But what if that strange opinion went out there and affected somebody and it made them think something different?

Well, that's sort of what it's all about really. Not "strange" opinions, but true opinions. I've learned a lot since then i've grown and matured In many ways and realize it is about speaking those truths that cause people to; question, to fracture the absoluteness of their narratives that they think they're stuck with. That They think they're born with not realizing that they've created those whether unconsciously or consciously.

Anyway, i'm here to break shit Welcome to season two of the My Niche is Human Podcast. Let's dive in.

All right. So I want to play with the idea of perspective. I found it interesting when I was sitting down to write this episode or at least plan it. What is it about me feeling the need to catch people up? It's a fun idea to think about because who am I to think that anyone's out there tapping their finger, waiting for me to put out another episode.

I also find it a little funny. People talk about it in the podcasting world, or at least used to Is that you never say, Oh man, I've been gone for so long. Welcoming myself back and here I'm doing it. I'm dedicating a whole episode essentially to welcome myself back. Call it a selfish episode.

That's okay because what I have lined up for this season is going to be awesome.

I've discovered a new format. It's a four part series to break down each topic. You're going to learn, get multiple perspectives and then find ways to apply these strategies, to different topics within your own life.

So to catch you up or to introduce you to me, if we've not yet connected, I'm Steven Fage. I was formerly a robotics engineer turned entrepreneur. Uh, my background's in electrical engineering and then I built robots and automation for manufacturing. I then started a business about 12, just over 12 years ago. And since then, I've sold about 14 million worth of "capital equipment". What that means is it's big equipment that manufacturing companies use to then make stuff.

So think of a machine that makes iPhone cases or medical devices, and then the robots that go in and pull those parts out of the machine and put them in the boxes and send them to Amazon. There's also another side to me where I grew up dancing. I did jazz, tap, and ballet. Always wanted

to be Robin Williams, watching standup, all the things.

I love improv. I love acting and I love performing on stage. And I say that because it's fun to imagine all the ways that we can explore different topics from both an engineering sort of analytical brain, and then a performative, creative human behavior, analog brain.

So then where does this all come from? Uh, growing up, I was surrounded by the stigma and the weight of mental illness. All of my grandparents struggled with alcoholism and you know, they all smoked cigarettes the Last grandparent I had died when I was 18. They all died very young. So the weight of it was very heavy and it was very present. Uh, so when I was 18 - So back up a year and a half before that or two years, was when I was diagnosed with a mental illness, I was put on medication.

I was since medicated for 17 years. But I was lucky enough to, to have the drive to say "listen, I'm going to figure this thing out". I don't believe this is a "death sentence". I do not believe this is a "life sentence". I'm going to somehow figure out what this thing is.

so the, the diagnosis was bipolar type 2. Everyone's heard bipolar. Oh, "so bipolar". It's used as a slang almost, but it's a very serious thing and it can be a very manageable thing. Bipolar type one is a little more extreme. Uh, you might hallucinate and you might actually want to harm yourself or maybe harm yourself when you're down.

So it's very ups and downs. And mind you, I don't have a license. I'm just telling him my opinion and what I've learned in the meantime, So bipolar type two is what they said I had. We'll get into that later. Uh, so it's more mild up and downs, uh, anxiety, angstiness, Sometimes you feel euphoric, sometimes you don't want to sleep, and sometimes you don't want to get out of bed.

You know, just think of a wider spectrum of moods, essentially. But I do remember on my 18th birthday, I gave a card to my parents and I said, "Thank you for being the parents that you are". Thank you for sending me to therapy. and I've decided that this "bipolar thing" isn't going to be a curse, it's going to be my gift.

Because if you think of like sine waves and if your brain waves are sine waves, up and down, just like music, any kind of frequency. If someone is bipolar, they say you might go too high, manic, or too low, depressed. To me, that is a wider spectrum of life. If the, if the signal is wider, can you not perceive a wider view?

Anyway. I decided it was going to be my superpower. I decided that being able to feel higher and feel lower would educate me and inform me on more emotional ways to experience life. Uh, but as I say that it sounds a little ironic because the medication that I was on essentially sedated me. Uh, there are many forms, I won't get into that, but the medication that I was on the whole time, It's for people with epilepsy which will prevent them or aid in preventing them from having a seizure.

It's also co prescribed to people with bipolar type 2. Because if you think of the sine wave and if you can go too high or too low. The medication will kind of buffer it to prevent it from going too high or going too low. So you're essentially sedated. You're essentially in my personal experience inhibited from experiencing great joy and deep sorrow.

I couldn't really feel "sad" though. Anyway, we'll get into that later as well. But it's this journey that has sparked the interest that I've had in psychology, human behavior, human nature, plus all the engineering stuff, because that was fun and it gave me a sense of control.

Uh, and now I want to talk about season two. Season one was about telling the world about this diagnosis. And then I stopped because I didn't want that to be my flag. So here I am opening this episode, telling you all about it, because I'm telling you about the chapter that has passed. I've grown beyond it.

It is no longer my flag. It will probably not be mentioned, not as a main topic anymore, because. Frankly, I don't want to talk about it. Not in the way that it gets me in the door, not in the way that it is the subtitle of my show. in the way that it drove me to learn, to strive, to work harder, to be understanding, to try to make sense of the ways that I am in the ways that people are with their thoughts, their trauma, their programming, their culture, their nature, their nurture.

It drove me to swim through this sea and try to make sense of things. And with all that swimming, I feel that I've learned a lot and I'm really excited to take some of these strategies, these thought processes, and ways of looking at things differently through different topics that I'll be sharing on this show.

so the first topic of this episode is death. Reflecting on death. The Stoics have made this sort of normal. Ryan Holiday has made Stoicism more accessible and reflecting on your mortality, or as the saying goes, "memento mori", remember you will die. I think is a really important thing to do. Because it's not just about your mortality or thinking morbidly about the organic physical plane in which we live.

I think it's important to think about death in a spiritual way, in an emotional way. In any way, really, think of your identities. How many of us are not growing because we won't allow an old self to die?

So death is a really important part of growth and life. You know, sometimes; I feel a little funny sharing this, Sometimes I think the logic of say, Thanos. Thanos was in Marvel, he's the big bad guy for anyone who hasn't seen it. And his logic is, he must cut the universe in half in order for it to survive.

So it's just that idea alone. How he goes about it, that universe, those heroes don't agree with it. They say he's the villain. However, He is the hero of his own story. He is performing a rational act. He thinks he's doing the right thing. For the same reason that farmers, for years, have burned the field in order to refresh the soil.

So there must be burning, there must be death in order to create life. So that's as far as I'm going with that logic. I think it's important to talk about because there are a lot of part, there are a lot of parts, there are many parts of me that that I've had to let die in order to get my ass in this seat.

And also think about how you can journey through your own stuff, your own topics, your own learning process. Because we're not going to have a lot of time. And I could never have imagined that I'd be one of these cheesy people saying, don't waste time. But if I've learned anything from 2019 until now, is that time is going to go by anyway.

And I try not to say, imagine if you kept the podcast going, if you had done an episode a week, an episode a month, where would you be right now? It doesn't matter, but that's how fast it goes.

And speaking of old things dying, I thought it'd be kind of fun to share with you where I got started.

So for anyone who's thinking about starting a podcast or doing your own creative endeavor,

Here's like a little mind map that I put together when I was so excited and had no idea what I was doing to get this podcast started.

I started it, I thought, what are all the things that I do not like about current podcasts or current shows? The few reasons were, one, humble bragging. Uh, when hosts would share more about themselves than they would about their guests. And then I thought, well, how do I share my magic without making the show necessarily about me or injecting myself in front of my guests?

And that's when I came to the idea of story. I think it's more important to share stories personally or otherwise to glean the message within that. Because it's the opposite of what I call prescriptive content. Think of all the content that you consume now where someone hops on there and says. "Follow my five point plan to curb your anxiety". 1 wake up at 5 AM.

2 drink a gallon of water. 3 stick your feet in bubble shoes. Like I don't it's crazy. And I think while that can help and it can help for some. The problem is is I think it sets people up for failure. Because one individual found a ritual, a habit, a routine, that works for them. And we're so individual based on where we're born, how we're born, how we grew up, our values, the way that we learn, are we auditory or visual and so on?

There's so many parameters that determine what is a best fit for us that I think when people try to follow these five point plans. And it doesn't necessarily work or they can't keep up with it. You feel like you failed because you couldn't follow it. So are we not getting set up for failure? So, I found that instead of prescribing content, sharing prescriptive content, to share a story.

Because when you share a story and, or thinking out loud, you share a thought process. And if people can see how to approach a problem, how to troubleshoot a problem, i. e. root cause analysis, there's a little principle from engineering. If you can develop your own strategy for navigating your own thoughts, your limiting beliefs, your blocks, whatever it might be.

Because it's so ultimately subjective, you are going to find the strategy that works for you instead of trying to follow a strategy that I specifically share and then maybe it doesn't work and then you're like, It didn't help. So the point of all this is to share stories, share thought processes, and try not to be prescriptive as possible.

So why season two? I think it's really important to share the unsexy topics, the unsexy stories, because it's real life because how many of you are scrolling through and you only see people who celebrate their wins.

I think there's a difference between sharing from a wound and sharing from a scar.

Now, if your wound is open and you're like, "Hey, look at my wound". No one actually wants to look at that. The value is having a wound, letting it heal over, becoming the person who let it heal over, looking at that now scar and saying, damn, that taught me a lesson. We want to hear the lesson. So it's not just, Hey, I crushed it.

I made a ton of money. Dark times. Here I am overnight success. We've all heard that. We want to hear the, wow. You know what? I really screwed up. I got this deep ass wound. It made me do X, Y, Z. It helped me understand ABC. And then I started to put the pieces together. And when I put those pieces together, that's when I elevated, that's when I became, , who I am that you see today, today, today, today, you know, this "overnight success".

So it's about revealing what's behind said overnight successes. So. Success, essentially, whatever that means to you can feel more accessible.

So that's it. That's the intro. That's the, Hey, this is where I've been. Hey, this is a selfish episode. I want to talk about myself without a specific topic. Uh, you got to knock the rust off. You got to hit publish and get it done. So I'm really glad you're here. I'm excited to show you all the series that are going to come out this season.

If you want to keep in touch, subscribe to the newsletter. It'll let you know every time a new episode is out, or obviously subscribe on Apple or Spotify, and we'll see you soon.