Mental Health Matters - Life Rarely goes according to plan...
In this informal livestream, host Brooke Cheney opens with a stark reminder that two‑thirds of gun deaths are suicides, sharing personal connections to suicide through a student’s friend, her own grandmother, and her father. She weaves this into a broader discussion about gun culture, noting that many veterans wish firearms were less accessible, while also announcing an upcoming private fully‑automatic firearms event. The conversation then shifts to the central theme of overwhelm: Brooke recounts a hectic two‑week period filled with travel to New Hampshire, a Cirque du Soleil show, and intensive work days, illustrating how her schedule spiraled. Drawing on the book Winning the Week by Demir and Carrie Bentley, she outlines concrete time‑management tactics—recognizing time as the most precious resource, using a calendar, saying “no,” triaging tasks into urgent, “someday,” and “leverage priority” lists, and ensuring weekly fun activities are scheduled for self‑care. She shares her personal leverage priority: finally writing chapters of a long‑pending book. Throughout, Brooke engages with chat participants, acknowledges community members, and emphasizes accountability, encouraging listeners to hold each other responsible for their weekly goals. The livestream blends personal anecdotes, mental‑health advocacy, practical productivity advice, and community interaction, aiming to help viewers recognize and mitigate overwhelm while staying mindful of suicide prevention.
Chapters
Hi everybody. Uh, it is Too Sober Into Saturday, and why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicides. And I am just going to jump right in right now, uh, since some of you showed up wicked early, are already here watching. I had a student yesterday— sorry, my days kind of blend together— and he lost a good friend of his to suicide. Who was a military guy who had spent tons of time helping other veterans try to put their lives back together, but he couldn't put his own life back together. And because we were talking about this special event that I'm having coming up that is a, um, machine guns— or sorry, fully automatic firearms because that can be true. Um, because everybody has other things to say about machine guns, what is and is not. So I will say I have a fully automatic firearms event coming up next month. And that, mentioning that to him reminded him of his friend who was military who committed suicide. So, um, what does that have to do with overwhelm and everything else? It doesn't. It's just my little aside so that Suicide is not very far away from any of us. My grandmother committed suicide. My father was suicidal, but he did not— he was not successful. He sort of killed himself in a slow way, though. Um, but so suicide is out there everywhere, and nobody wants to talk about it, and nobody wants to address it. And as I was talking to my student, when he was telling me about his friend And he's like, well, I don't want to get mad at me, but a lot of the military guys wish that none of these guns were ever available. And I'm like, I get it. I do. Because they had to actually go kill people with those guns. And the thing I've learned about guns and suicide are that the people who want to get rid of guns don't want to deal with the actual issue of violence in our society. And I felt bad because part of me is like, oh, I feel like I'm being so cold and calculated about it. But it's just like, it's just the conclusion that I've come up with. It's just one way of looking at it. And it's one of these things where it's just like rifles, shotguns, all and every long gun are not mowing down people in the streets in America. They are used in war for sure, and there they do cause death. But around here, for you and I, the general public, that is not it. So, um, it's little things that happen to me every week that make me come back here and say hi to everybody on a Saturday night. I was about to say Friday night. Um, like I said, it's been a really kind of busy last couple weeks, and So my opinions are just my opinions. They are not right or wrong. Well, I mean, I suppose they could be, but they're just opinions. And I just have one way of looking at stuff and you probably have another way of looking at stuff, but I'm here to share that suicide prevention is always something I will be doing. Every so often I'm absolutely tempted to be like, oh, I'm done now. And, um, but that's not really happening because 2018, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. So I will keep going. Anyway, tonight, what are we talking about? Overwhelm. Like I said, I almost said tonight was Friday. Uh, the last 2 weeks my children have been on spring break. The first week my son was on spring break, so we drove up to New Hampshire, 5 hours. On Monday we saw an eclipse and shot a.50 cal. Very exciting. Then we drove home on Tuesday, then I worked Wednesday through Sunday, and then Sunday after my last student, my daughter and I got in the car and I drove up to New Hampshire. We just hung out, had lunch on Monday, and then drove back down on Tuesday, and now I've been working since Wednesday to today. Oh, and my shirt— see this? This is Cirque du Soleil. It is here in Hartford. It is the Bazaar show. And we went, yeah, here we go. Ready? So we're driving up to New Hampshire. We're like fishies swimming, right? We're driving up to New Hampshire. We go through Hartford and my daughter on Sunday sees the big top and, oh wait, I have a picture. Do I have a picture? I don't have a picture. All right. She sees the big top and she's like, mom, we should go to Circus Life. Now this is Sunday of this week. So she's driving because she's trying to get her hours for her permitting. So I go online and I look and there are tickets for Wednesday night. So I go and get 4 tickets for myself and the kids and my husband. And so drive up Sunday, come back on Tuesday, Wednesday, get here, work all day. When we're done working, hop in the car, go to Cirque du Soleil on Wednesday night. Ah, now, On Wednesday, I called my mom and I said, hey mom, our dogs are very spoiled and they're going to be alone for like 6 hours while we go to Cirque du Soleil. You want to go visit them? And my mom says, ever so innocent, she's like, oh, you didn't invite me? And you know she did not mean it like, ah, like, but moms were good at doing that thing. So the show was so great on Wednesday night. I then got tickets for us on Thursday night. So my mom and I went on Thursday. So let's just recap the week, right? So New Hampshire 2 weeks ago, home, 5 full days of work. New Hampshire again, home. Cirque du Soleil till 10, 11 o'clock at night on Wednesday. Work a full day on Thursday. Cirque du Soleil on Thursday night, don't get home till midnight that night because I had to bring my mom home first. And worked all day yesterday and worked all day today. So y'all understand why today is the, hmm, let's talk about overwhelm and having too much stuff in our, um, on our plate sometimes. Mr. DJ, would you please play? No, I'm just kidding. I just thought of that song. Would you say hi to everybody for me?
I'd be happy to do that. Most recently in the room, uh, Misty Mrs. Wayne. We also have Vanessa Kitty. She's recent addition as well. But Mike White 2A Advocacy, he's been been out there for quite a while. Got Chris from the 740 out there too, live, dropping in. Sorry, a fan 93, and thanks for forgiving me on that 98 error there. Let's see who else we have in here. Uh, scrolling up, I see Mike Bellinger. Good to see them out there. Chris Broncato. I hope I'm getting everybody's— the pronunciation of everybody's name correct. You can always correct me phonetically in the text chat. And I do believe that's what I got for right now, at least.
All right. I know you had said hi around 7 o'clock or something crazy early. And then, oh, and Viejo jumps in at the end. I gotcha. All right. So I found, I found the big top. Oh wait, I hit the wrong button though. All right. So there is the Cirque du Soleil big top that we drove by on Sunday. All right. Overwhelm. How do we deal with it? And do we all do it to ourselves? I think the answer for that is yes. And why do we do it to ourselves? Well, quite honestly, we have so many hours in a day. We overestimate how much we can get done. We generally underestimate how much each of those things that goes onto our list is going to take. And then we're surprised when we never get to the end of our never-ending task list. So what do we have to do? We have to acknowledge the fact that we are only human. We have to recall the fact that no, we can't do it all. And I just heard the best quote today as I was listening to this book called Winning the Week, and it said, you can do anything, but you can't do everything. And I think a lot of us think we can do everything and anything. And it's not really that way because, for example, I learned how to use firearms and I became a competitive shooter. And I've had a guitar in my living room for probably 10 or 12 years at this point in time. So that's something I wanted to do, but it didn't become a priority ever. I can do Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the guitar. That is the one thing I can do. Because that's how small my kids were when I first got the guitar. But the idea that we can do everything is never true. And here's the thing that makes stuff like this, the social media makes it a big fat lie because it looks like people are doing all this stuff all of the time and you get to see the highlights versus all the struggle time. So as far as getting stuff done, How do we go about doing it? Number 1, let's talk about the fact we can do something, but we can't do it all. Number 2, time is our most precious resource, and we must pay attention to it because it is the only thing that we cannot make more of. We just have right now. You spending time with me right now, that is very precious of you to take the time to spend with me. I think that is spectacular, and I appreciate each and every one of you for doing that. Because this is our most precious resource. Always resource. Always. So once you realize that that is the most important thing you have, it does not matter how much money you have. It does not matter how many things you have or don't have. It's that our time is the one thing that is finite. In the Bible, it talks about no day is promised because, you know, people would always ask, 'Jesus, when are the end of days?' He's like, 'No day is promised.' I don't know, I'm probably getting that out of text or out of context, but, but no day is promised. And every moment right now is the most precious thing we have because A, it's never happening again, and B, we don't know when our last one is. So with that, recognize how precious each moment is. 2, look at your calendar. If you don't have a calendar, that's another reason that you might have some challenges. As far as I know, most of us have some form of calendar, whether it is just a simple wall calendar, which of course you can't see my wall calendar, but it's been a day or two since I've actually marked it off. I'm like a week behind because it's been that crazy week. Um, if we don't pay attention to all the things we have to do— now we all are different, right? You've got retired people on here, you've got parents, you've got kids, um, all sorts of different varieties of stuff. But we still all have responsibilities beyond ourselves. DJ, for example, um, I know he goes and spends time with his mom. Or does mom always come to you? Now that I said that, I'm like, now I'm not so sure. Um, but most of us—
yeah, it's kind of, uh, she usually rolls into the city rather than by going out to the country. And as a matter of fact, in the pre-show, she called And often that will happen when I'm in a show. I get this— it pops up private number, and it's the only one that pops up that way because she's been unlisted since the '70s. And so I always know that's going to be my mother. And she, she now is able to deal with the fact that I don't answer every time. She does understand on Saturday evenings that I also have important things to do and I may call her later.
Yeah, so, um, sorry, I stopped for a moment and I looked at the, um the chat and I saw, I'm, I soaked the bone. And just, just for those of you who know, I was reading Chasing Ghosts. She's like, sorry, I might, I, I am soaked to the bone. But I was like, because she has her other channel, which is Tara Smith's Kitchen, I'm thinking that she was soaking bones to make stock. So, and riding home 3 hours in the pouring rain, for those who don't know, check out Chasing Ghosts. You've got, if you, if you want to be a motorcycle rider and you're not, you can live vicariously through her channel because you can get lots of bike rides. So anyway, you know me, guys. You've been here long enough to know that I'm like, oh, look, Sparkly Squirrel.
Yay.
So I found the Big Top. Did I show you guys the Big Top? I can't even remember. So here's the Big Top. Went there twice this week on top of driving to and from New York and New Hampshire. I'm sure that Tara is sort of laughing at me. Because she just drives all the time. So 10 hours in the car, what a big deal. But it is for some people, not for others. So sorry, sorry, sorry. So then DJ went and starred stuff for me. So G Web said the presence of those items throughout society deter widespread violence and crimes. And when he says those things, I'm going to go with he is talking about when I was saying about rifles. And how many people want to ban them because they feel as though a thing is causing the violence. It's like, ready, here's a piece of plastic. If I smash somebody over the head with it, it becomes a weapon. However, if all I do is use it to show how to handle this thing safely, it is just a piece of plastic. So yes, present, um, there is truth in the armed society is a polite society. It is also true that when countries have been disarmed in the past, it has not ended well. And oh yeah, and then when I was talking about taking the fully automatic firearms, since I got corrected earlier when I said machine guns, they are, they are fun. I am bringing them here to the range on May 5th. And it's a private event in that you have to sign up ahead of time. You can't just show up. And so it'll be fun. It will be lots of fun. So, all right, back on track. Overwhelming stuff. Now, Chris was out here earlier talking about a, you know, overwhelm, too much stuff on your calendar. Most of us have calendars or some way that we're tracking stuff. Most of us have a to-do list. And one of the things that I've been studying this past month, honestly, is a way to be more effective with your time. Obviously, based on the last 2 weeks that I just told you about, not as effective as I could be, probably, or putting a little too much on there. So number 1, saying no. That little tiny word, N-O, uh, That is number one, because we can't do it all. We can always do something, but we can't do it all. So say no. Then look at your task list. Actually look at it and see what things on your task list do you actually have to do? What things are actually time sensitive that are going to make a difference in your life or in the other person that you're doing the task for? And if it's not urgent and it doesn't have a timeline take it off your task list, put it on a someday list, and have a someday list. So those little things that you think about in your head that you need to get done, like, I don't know, learning how to play guitar, something like that, um, then you can go to the someday list when you have free time or when you decide something has to come off of your someday, someday list. Then If we look at our stuff for— so first we realize time is the most important thing in our life. B, we can do something but we can't do everything. We can do anything but we can't do everything. Now you look at your task list and see what is actually important, what helps, what we call move the needle is one of the things is like what makes your life better when that thing is done. And then the hardest part of all of this is coming up with a priority. What's your one thing you can focus on that if you accomplish it, it's actually going to make your life better going forward? That significant, right? So for me, one of my things is writing my stinking book. And I don't mean the book is going to stink. I mean, it's been probably 5 years that I've been working on this book and I have not got it done, but I'll be so excited when the book is done. So that I have something to give out to y'all because I've been telling people about this book I'm going to write and all that. So if that's my— that we call it a leverage priority. And I'm learning all of this stuff from a book called Winning the Week. And I just want to share it with you guys because I had such an overwhelming last 2 weeks because things were a little bit on the wonky side. And I'm guessing you guys can, like, I don't know, maybe relate. Have you had those weeks where you're super productive? You're like, I can take over the world now. And then you have those other weeks where it's like the world is totally crushing me. And, um, yeah, that's kind of like my thought process here. So my question to you guys is, how many times do you think you're winning the week versus how many times do you feel like the week is crushing you? And do you even look at your time slices in days, weeks, or months anyway? Um, So, DJ, since I got you live and in person while everybody else is thinking about that, what do you think?
Let's see. Well, someday made me think of the band OneRepublic. I'm not sure I should have been thinking that. Does the week do me in or do I do the week? I like to think that I crush every week rather than having it crush me. But there are certainly moments, minutes, or sometimes all day Monday where, oh yeah, it's just kicking my ass. And because I have that odd sleep schedule as well, sometimes I'll run, you know, a dawn to dawn sort of thing and not get the sleep that I need. And I put myself— I stack the odds against myself. And coming out of the weekend, that's that busy, busy, busy time. Because Monday, yeah, it's kind of blah. Tuesday, Wednesday's picking up speed. Thursday, you better have your stuff together. Friday, that's when you start the party. By the time you're in church on Sunday or cleaning up the mess afterwards in the evening, Yeah, you got Monday to report for, and not all of us are on that Monday through Friday thing. I totally get that. But we still feel that sort of thing, especially in our culture. It's reinforced. Absolutely. So Monday through Friday in the daytime lifestyle is not for all of us, but for those of us who decide to run, I don't know, a little bit different schedule, we kind of get to make our own Mondays out of things. And so I don't know, I don't try to concentrate everything into one day, but it certainly is nice when it just happens to be that way. And as long as I can park it in that one day and there isn't too much bleed-through from, you know, prior events or anything like that, yeah, I still feel like I can crush a week. What about you though?
Oh, well, like I said, I am definitely in the— I'm getting excited. Oh, sorry, you hit the button, I hit the button. We'll figure it out. Um, I'm definitely noticing a difference. I've been working on this project for like 4 weeks I've made it to weekly planning sessions. And this is the other thing that I really love about this is that it's— you take 1 hour on a Friday night and you sit there with your calendar and whatever your tasks are and everything else that's actually on your calendar, and you're actually allocating time to everything. Um, and here's the coolest part, and this is the part where I'm like, this is totally a mental health thing because Once you look at your calendar and take anything off that shouldn't be there and make sure the things that are supposed to be there are there, then if you're going to add to it, the first thing you add and make sure is there is fun stuff. So hanging out with your buddies, spending time with family, going for a walk in the woods, you know, getting a massage, pedicure, whatever it is that, you know, going for a bike ride, Right? So I love the fact that they start off with make sure you're putting something on your calendar that is just for you. And that builds you up because I think that's another thing we as Americans in general tend to mess up. It's like we fill all of our time with stuff, but we are not always putting ourselves first to make sure we're doing something fun. So, um, I like it. That's what I am enjoying it. That's why I want to share with you guys, um, and I'm going to show it to you. Uh, so Winning the Week from Demir Bentley and Carrie Bentley, um, is a really cool story because, um, the guy was literally— Demir was literally dying and the, uh, what do you call it, in the docs. He was working— he was a New Yorker working 80 hours a week, and the doc finally said to him, like, dude, you're literally working yourself to death. You have to stop. You have to cut your work time in half. And at the time, he was a finance guy, and he couldn't even imagine cutting his work life in half. And that's kind of how he came across this whole thing. And it was this whole like slam the brakes on, reorganize his life literally in a week. Now, did he figure all this stuff out in a day or anything? No. Did he understand all the steps that he was doing to create the winning the week stuff? No. But it was totally a mental health break as far as we really can get a lot more done by saying no, guarding our time, realizing that is the most important thing. Make sure that we're putting stuff on the calendar every week that is something fun and good for us and that we're going to enjoy. Um, taking our task list and doing the triage thing, which is what things can be left to die and just take off the list, what things are critical, have a timeline and need to get done, And most importantly, what things are going to move us closer to goals that will make us do better? And like I said, my current thing is really to this coming week at least get a chapter done, or maybe two, of my new book, because I'm tired of having all my notes hanging out that I've written over the last decade— or, well, feels like a decade, um, last 5 or 6 years. So It's kind of fun to start having that clarity. Now, if you're like, but Brooke, you're a business owner, you're a mom, you're a daughter, you're taking care of your mom, you're taking care of your kids, your husband, the business, all of that. It's like, yes, all of us have that. It may be different family members, it may be different situations, but none of us have a single thing that we can do all the time. But the idea behind this is Pick one. Number one, you're number one. Make sure there's something fun you do that week. Number two, what do you think that's going to be? Precious time, all those things. But just pick one thing each week to work on. So this coming week, I'm, I'm sharing it with you guys. So next week, if you guys want to, you know, hold my feet to the fire next week, just ask, so how many chapters you get done? We'll see what happens, because accountability also helps. All right, so overwhelm, let's do our best to avoid it. And the best way to avoid the overwhelm is to plan stuff out. And the best way to plan stuff out is chunk stuff up, just like everything else in life. Mr. DJ, anyone else that we have not said hi to before we go?
Well, I'm going to catch everybody on the way out the door if we haven't caught them already, but I'm going to tell Barbecue on you. I'm definitely gonna let that— I'm gonna let that boy know that he needs to head check you on reading chapters. And though he isn't here tonight, he's always in spirit. I'm gonna give him a direct pipe. I'm gonna let him know exactly what's going on with you. So you best bet, you best bet he will call me on that.
I'm confident. All right, so like, having buddies definitely helps because, uh, my mom and I were just having this conversation tonight actually, is that You can yes yourself to death and you should yourself to death. I should go for a walk. I should go to the gym. I should do my dry fire. I should write my book. And Tony Robbins calls that shoulding all over yourself. But if you tell people about it and they call you out on it, it puts a little different spin on it.
No doubt. I think that oftentimes there are unrealistic expectations. Our culture, workplaces, online even, people think that because an online resource is there in the form of a channel that they can gather that person's attention. And if they don't get it, then they think that, you know, some people will take that as a slight. I think they're being snubbed. And it's just like when you sit and think about the number of hours that go behind any one project that you do on your own, like in your own home or garage or whatever, that's a lot of hours that you put in on something. And sometimes that last 5 minutes is where you really just need to put your feet up. And I'm sure that, you know, I certainly know for channels like this and many others, That's no disrespect. Sometimes it just is on that "I should have gotten that done today" list. Hopefully, it appears later on, you know. And, you know, when you were talking about the motivation and making sure that it's the schedule fun part, I made a note of that really quick. And something that popped into my head was get up, get out, and get on. Like, I think that can apply to a whole bunch of stuff. You know, first you got to get up. That's, you know, the motivation or whatever, you know, or actually the physical process of getting up. Getting out is like attack it. Go out to that world, that new thing that you're trying to pursue, and get on with it. You know, no time like the present. Schedule your fun, but make sure you have those goals as you've been talking about. Set them for yourself and take steps toward them. That's what I got.
All right, well, you want to say hi and bye to everybody?
I do. Uh, most recently in the room, hello and goodbye to the Scottish American. Tonight we've had Chasing Ghosts, Sariafan93 looking for some ocarina lessons. Keith Gregory was out there, so was Chris from the 740. Misty Mrs. Wayne. Chris Brancato is out there as well. I like that. Viejo Vanessa Kitty. Mike White. 2 Live Moo. Michael Bellinger. Gun Websites needs an extra mention because I think I missed him on the initial, uh, shoutouts.
That's right, I, I said I did it, so we didn't— we together, we did not miss. Hence then, back to the Having partners in crime is always good.
Absolutely. So we got, uh, what, uh, you're gonna— you're probably gonna go, uh, over to Hillbilly's Hillbilly Up channel because he's got a chat coming up.
I am not going to Hillbilly Ups, uh, because like that 2 weeks I just had, I'd like to try to get some sleep tonight. Although I do have to, um, for those of you who do go to Hillbilly Up y'all can just tell him that I showed off my VIP pink hat here. And I'm like, can I get it to— I don't know, it's really not gonna— oh, there it is. It is for a moment. Yes, there you go. So I am the only owner of the Hillbilly Up VIP Hat Club at this point in time. So, um, so yeah, I am not headed over there, but y'all can go over there because like people like me who are on the other side the country, and it's early there still, where I'm gonna go wash my face and go to sleep because I have, I don't know, 8 or 9 people I get to see tomorrow and teach them about gun safety. And, um, I have some homeschooling kids and all sorts of stuff, so it's gonna be a long Sunday. So yes, by all means, y'all, um, say hi to Hillbilly for me. Tell them that I was showing off my VIP hat and, um, We'll be back next week. The other thing that I want to try to do for you guys, and it's not just for DJ, so it's for everybody, is get these to be scheduled again before the day so y'all can hit the notification and leave notes and all that sort of stuff. And I seem to maybe have fixed the Facebook side of things, so these are back over there as well. All right, thank you all for popping in. Thanks for saying hi in the chat. Those who are quiet and didn't say anything, thanks for being here if we didn't call your name out. And that's all I got, dude. I will let you bring it out because you're good like that.
All right, want everybody to be safe, have fun, take care of your crew, rock, and happy holidays.
