Mark Henick

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What is the roadmap to defeat self sabotage, negative thinking and learned helplessness in these unprecedented times? You must get connected, get Growing, Get Certain and Get Attitude the Get Attitude Podcast. And welcome to the Gap the Get Attitude Podcast. And today we have an exceptional guest. Mr. Mark Henn is with us and Mark is the host of the so Called Normal podcast as well as the Living well podcast. He is also an accomplished author as well as a keynote speaker. His book was A Memoir of Family Depression and Resilience and gappers. I know that, hey, a lot of us have been down. A lot of us are battling this thing called depression. A lot of us are trying to bridge the gap from how do we become, I don't want to say a coward, how do we become weak? To how do we become strong? How do we bounce back? What are the answers to that? And I just thought through our feedback with you guys, this is a topic that you guys all wanted. And so I searched out somebody that I think has the expertise that has the real life knowledge that can speak to the challenges and attitude that it takes for us to become more resilient, for us to overcome this thing called depression and to overcome the absolute insanity that our world is in right now. So let's bring up my good friend Mark Hennick. Mark, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Hi Glenn, thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, it's my pleasure. Mark is also has one of the very top TEDx speeches ever, which involves a stranger who actually saved your life. Maybe that might be a fun way to start the podcast to tell us a little bit about that talk and tell us a little bit about how that chance encounter changed your attitude.

Sure, I'd be happy to. You know, for me, I think the start really starts at the end. Or at least it felt like the end to me at the time. I was a teenager growing up in a small town on the east coast. I'd been struggling with my mental health for several years by that point. I'd been in and out of hospital with increasingly dangerous suicide attempts over the course of about three years until eventually I found myself one night unable to carry that load any further. I had climbed up over the railing of a bridge, and I was prepared to die, to end my life. And if it wasn't for a stranger who came up behind me, who stopped, he approached me a good distance away and talked to me, if it wasn't for that man, I wouldn't be here today. And really, that's the story that I wanted to. One of the stories that I wanted to communicate in the TED talk, because there's. There are so many people out there who have been, if not in that exact same kind of position, in very similar positions where they've been on that either literal or metaphorical edge between life and death, between being here and not being here, that I knew I needed to tell that story. So that's what I told. And I told about how that stranger quite literally saved my life and pulled me off that bridge that fateful night so many years ago.

Wow. Where was the bridge?

I grew up in a small town called Sydney, Nova Scotia. That's on the east coast of Canada.

Wow. And so was there a name for the bridge? Like, is it a town bridge, or.

Was it just another nondescript. Another nation in a small town? But what was unique about it, though it's interesting you ask that, is that my hometown was a manufacturing town during both World Wars. They had a large steel plant that was there, and they provided steel for the war effort for most of the eastern seaboard. Actually. It was such a. At that, during that generation, a prosperous, successful town. Everybody there worked in the steel industry and. Or the related industries in some way. But by the time I was growing up, the plant, it was still there, but it was mostly closed down. Everybody had lost their jobs. And I think I went to that place, to that bridge that stretched over the steel plant connecting my community to the rest of the city, because it represented for me everything that I felt inside when I looked out over this abandoned steel plant, this toxic waste site. That's how I felt inside. And I felt like no person could really understand that abandonedness, that emptiness that I felt inside. But this place did. So I think that's why I went there. And like many suicide hotspots, as they're known, or places where people go disproportionately to end their lives, there's something significant, emotionally significant about it, and that was the place for me.

Yeah, that's correct. I mean, it's just weird that, you know, our whole metaphor here is bridging the gap. Right. And getting across the bridge from one side to the Next. And hopefully none of our gappers and our listeners are desiring to jump off the bridge, but to actually cross the bridge, what happens? I mean, what goes through your mind or somebody that's looking to end it? All right, is there, and I know you've studied this, this is why I'm asking you, is it sometimes an immediate reaction and it's like I'm just doing this, or is sometimes it been thought out for a month? Maybe it's both. Like, what's the attitude of somebody that's suicidal?

Yeah, suicide is absolutely a combination of a number of factors. I'm of the theoretical and academic view, and personal view for that matter, having been there myself, that there has to be something that sets the groundwork, that there, there's a struggle, there's a pre existing kind of training process almost that goes into it. You're not born knowing how to kill yourself. This is something that people learn how to do. They cognitively rehearse. We practice it out in our minds. We often plan. There's a misconception that everybody will write a note or things of that nature. That's not always the case. But there is some cognitive process that goes into it in advance. There's also well known risk factors. For example, having a mental illness diagnosed or not, specifically depression, and specifically people who use substances are at higher risk, or I should say misused substances, they're at higher risk of dying by suicide. So there's all those kind of predisposing factors that elevate your risk. But then there's a trigger, there's something that sets that in motion. And I really wanted to explore both of these factors in my TED talk and in the book, in the TED talk, I look at the idea of cognitive rigidity, this collapse, I call it a perceptual collapse that happens where you don't see any other option. You don't see either side of the bridge. You only see over the bridge as your escape from the pain that you're feeling. You think that's your only option. And depression is a very convincing liar because it lies to you in your own voice. You think it's you, but it's not. So you know, there's this cognitive rigidity that sets in and then there's a trigger that sets this almost automatic process in motion. So I think it's that combination of factors. The hopelessness, the helplessness, but then the impulse that leads people to die.

What did the stranger say to you to help you back off? Did he ask a certain question? What's the most memorable thing that he said. Did he talk to you first, then grab you, or did he grab you first and then talk to you initially?

Actually, Glenn, it was what he didn't say that stuck with me the most. Because as I was on the wrong side of the railing of the bridge, I was standing on about an inch and a half or so of concrete looking down at the ground and out at the horizon that I thought was unreachable to somebody like me with a long standing history, by that point, of a mental illness. He approached. I didn't even hear him arrive initially, but he came up a good distance behind me, approached the railing, certainly out of grabbing distance. He was a bit of a distance away and he allowed the space in our conversation. He introduced himself. I don't think I answered. He asked me some questions. I didn't say very much in return. But he also didn't. He wasn't overly prescriptive about it either. He didn't tell me all the silly or seemed silly to me things that people think in these kinds of situations. You know, tomorrow's another day. Well, of course, you know, that's part of the problem, that tomorrow's another day of this same stuff that I'm dealing with. I didn't want to die for the sake of dying. I wanted to die because I didn't think I could live that way anymore. I didn't have the skills, the tools to manage the emotional storm that was inside me all the time. So I thought this was my only option. You know, he didn't come in and ask me about my diagnoses. I had had a lot by that point. He didn't ask me about my hospitalizations. I'd been in and out of hospital more than half a dozen times, or my medications or which therapies I tried. And he didn't sound like a doctor, which was so important to me at that time because I felt like I had talked to so many doctors, so many psychologists and psychiatrists and, you know, guidance counselors and social workers, and they all seem to have a very similar kind of approach to my problem, which was that I was the problem. That I was like a broken down car on the side of the road that everybody else was just trying to figure out the problem. That was Mark. I felt objectified by the system and by him allowing that space for me to just be. It allowed that subjectivity to come into it, that relationship building. So as that started to happen, you know, I felt so connected to this complete stranger. I couldn't even really fully see him. I could only see he was wearing a light brown jacket at the time. You know, I had long. I didn't even hear his name. There was so little getting into my mind at that time. But what kind of pulled me out of that circumstance in some ways was when I realized the crowds had started to gather. Now, this was, you know, almost midnight on a Sunday night in March in a small town at that where. And everything still was closed on Sundays for the most part at that time. But these crowds had gathered because in small towns, people listen to the chatter on the police scanners to see if there's any action happening, you know, see if there's anybody they can talk about or what the rumors are. So people had gathered and the police had arrived. They set up sawhorse wooden barricades on either side of the bridge. And there was a group of young men. And I remember one of them. I could swear I remember one of them shouting out to me to jump. And he called me a coward. And when he said that, that guy on the sidelines, it just made me forget about this stranger who in the light brown jacket who was there with me and creating space with me. When the stranger on the sidelines said that, I let go of the railing and I started to fall. And that's when the stranger who was over my shoulder grabbed me and physically pulled me back into life and into the world. And, you know, it ended up being the last time I ever tried to kill myself. And I think the realization for me was reflecting on those two strangers that night. The one who chose to stand on the sidelines and shout out to me and call me a coward. And the stranger who chose to have my back and to save my life, to literally reach out and I chose to be like that stranger. That's what changed everything for me.

Yeah. How beautiful is that? So there wasn't water below. It was a concrete pad or what?

Yeah, it's just a toxic, scraggy ground below. There was a. I tell in my TED talk how there was a rusted chain link fence stretching the distance. And all I could think about was how I didn't want to land on the fence. This is how skewed my perception was at the time, that I just didn't want to hurt anymore. That was the whole point. And I didn't know how to not hurt. So that's why I'm so grateful to that stranger who, even though he was scared, approached me in that most vulnerable moment and really showed me what I could be like someday. That's what I needed. I needed to know that I could be like somebody who reaches out and helps others.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know, sadly enough, I coached football for 25 years and one of my former players, Lamonte Gwyn, I'm gonna dedicate this show to him, took his life about 10 days ago. And what do you advise those that are left behind after a suicide?

Well, I think, you know, first of all, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss and the loss of that family. Suicide is always a tragedy. And I think it's important for people to remember who are left behind, that that person was probably struggling with their mental health at the time. They probably, whether diagnosed or not, had some kind of a mental health challenge at the time. And when you're in this place, this was really my whole objective with the TED Talk and later with my book, to communicate that your perception is so skewed and collapsed that you think you're doing the right thing. When I was on that bridge, I thought that I'd be doing my friends and family and loved ones a favor. I thought I'd be sparing them the trouble. That was me. I was wrong, of course. It would have absolutely devastated them as I'm sure the family members of this poor young man are devastated. But I didn't know that at the time. So I didn't do it to hurt anybody. I thought I was helping. And I think that, that I hope can provide some comfort to people who have lost a loved one to know that their loved one was not thinking clearly in that moment and that they didn't do this to hurt them.

Yeah, that's beautiful. That's cool. You know, Tony Robbins, the great motivational speaker, people say positives, negatives about him. He always said that suicide is the most. That suicide is the most self absorbing sickness there is. In other words, there's nothing more selfish than being suicidal. I'm curious to know what you think of that characterization.

Suicide in the traditional sense of the word. Suicide is not selfish. Suicide is an illness. Suicide is the tragic, fatal outcome. Often, almost always, I would argue preventable, tragic and fatal outcome of severe and persistent mental illnesses. Very often there are some exceptions, of course, but that's true generally the case. Now that said, this is not easy to communicate in a kind of populist way, but when you look at the clinical aspects of it, there is a certain self focus that comes when you're suicidal. Now I would clarify though that that comes with a need for self preservation. That when you're suicidal, you are collapsing in on yourself when you're feeling threatened, when you're feeling afraid and alone, you're feel like you're struggling and you just can't make it anymore. It's an evolutionary imperative. What your brain is supposed to do is lock in and try to focus in as much as you possibly can just to get through that struggle. That's what you're. Your brain's only evolutionary imperative is to keep itself alive. So that's what it tries to do as a result. However, this is, I think, at the core of that cognitive collapse that I mentioned. You're so hyper focused on just getting through, they actually block out some of the stuff that can drag you out of yourself and grow and change and not get locked into that place. So I think, you know, it's often not helpful to say something like, suicide is selfish. It makes people feel badly, it makes them feel guilty. But there is something profoundly internally focused in a pathological way, I think at the core of suicide.

Yeah, I think his point was, is that suicide, the attitude of a person that contemplating or committing a suicide, is that all the focus is on them? It's on no one else? I think that's what he was trying to communicate.

Sure. I mean, I would even push back a bit on that when I was on that bridge. And I've learned this as a counselor as well. You do think about other people. Like I say, you think you're doing them a favor. You think they wouldn't miss you if you're gone. You're wrong on all counts, of course, but you do focus on others, and in some ways you focus too much on others. Instead. I think if you were able to focus more, if you're able to focus differently and sometimes more intensely on your own agency, what you can do, irrespective of what other people say about you or what they will do or how they'll react or treat you. If you focus in more intensely on your own agency, your own ability to change your situation, that in fact can be a protective mechanism that can be helpful. And I think that was very helpful from me.

So there are people, certainly there's folks that everybody who's listening to this podcast might know in their life that they go, damn, man, that person is down. Maybe a little suicidal, but we don't know. I think obviously the man in the brown jacket and that antidote and what you just said about how he gave you space and he wasn't a doctor and said all the cliche things, what's your advice to the people listening right now who are concerned about a friend, family or business associate that they think could ultimately do the worst harm to themselves and commit suicide? What would you say are the two or three best things they could do to either help that person or to gain more clarity on if that person is suicidal?

If you're concerned that somebody might be suicidal, ask them. You will not give them the idea as though they had never thought of it before. That's a common misconception. Much too common of a misconception. One of the most effective ways to prevent suicide is to talk openly about it. So you may not give them, you won't give them the idea to do it, but you will ideally give them permission to admit it, which is key. So ask them if they're suicidal, ask them directly too. Don't. Just don't hedge around it. And definitely don't insert either explicit or implicit judgments in your question. Don't say, are you thinking about doing something stupid? Are you gonna do something bad? Are you gonna do something awful to yourself? This is by saying stuff like that, well intentioned maybe, but you're reflecting your own fear, of course, your own understandable fear, your own biases. But you're telling them, you're telegraphing to them that you're already judgin thinking if they're thinking it. So just very directly, are you thinking about killing yourself? Are you thinking about hurting yourself? If that's a concern now, there is a fine distinction there. They might not be thinking about hurting themselves. They might be thinking about killing themselves. And that is a difference. But have that open, honest, direct, nonjudgmental conversation. One of two things can happen, or I should say, one of three things could happen. They admit it. They say, yes, they are. They deny it, but they really are. Or they deny it and they're not. So starting working back. They deny it and they're not. Okay, at least you asked and now they know that you care. And maybe it's a great opportunity to have a bit of a conversation about mental health, which is great. The next possibility, they deny it, but they really are. This, I would argue, is the most common response. We as a society tell people every day that they shouldn't talk about suicide, even in terms of how we help them. People are afraid to admit that they're suicidal because they don't want to be hospitalized. They don't want to be thought of as different or crazy or weird. They don't want to put people out. They don't want to inconvenience other people, they already feel like an inconvenience. They don't want to make it any harder. So instead, just because they say they're not, they might actually be. There might be some risk. So then you need to give a little bit more thought to what it actually is you're observing. Are they talking about suicide more, which could be a risk factor? Are they giving away belongings, for example, or doing other things that might indicate they think the end is coming? Do they have a diagnosis or even just an obvious experience of depression, of anxiety, particularly of substance related disorders as well?

Means.

Do they have means at home to end their life? Do they own a gun, for example, or are you aware of other means? Because that increases the potential risk of impulsive action? So navigating all of those issues, and if they won't admit it, but you're absolutely convinced there's a risk, then sometimes, unfortunately, I think you have no choice but to call 911, to intervene in some other way. I would much rather have somebody be mad at me than be dead.

Yeah.

So that's a very real risk that they might be mad at you for that. And ideally there's other ways to deal with this kind of situation, but that is one. So then the last of those three options that I presented to you, you ask them and they admit it. They say that they are. That's one of the biggest fears that people have about these conversations. Because then they think, well, then what do I do? I don't know how to stop them. You don't have to. What you have to do is to be in their corner, to be on their side, to say, wow, I don't know what to tell you right now, but I'm willing to help you find out. I'm willing to help you get connected with professionals who can help you. I'm willing to walk with you on this journey. People want, want a teammate. They don't want somebody to fix all their problems.

Wow, that's so powerful. So do 100% of the people fantasize, think about, have it cross their mind about? I mean, I've thought about killing myself. Right. Does everybody think about killing themselves?

I think far more people than we realize for sure. You know, there's always a spectrum of people. I think that the majority of people probably have, in fact, just like you, certainly just like me, have had thoughts of this nature. Not everybody either fantasizes or idealizes suicide. Certainly not everybody plans. But even in that bracket of people, far more than we think there is even Far more people than we think who have had explicit suicide attempts. So I think that we need to have these kinds of conversations, because what stops people from opening up and therefore getting help? What stops people from seeking help is this idea that they're weird, that they're different. You know, when I was in the depth of my struggle, I didn't want to open up for that reason. I thought I'd be excluded even further, and I thought that I was already alone enough as it was. So we need to have these kinds of conversations because they open the doors for people to admit what they're already thinking and feeling. And then the next part of that, too, is to help them realize that hope is possible. Not only possible, but likely recovery is likely and expected for the vast majority of issues that lead to suicide. The problem is that we're not getting access to people early enough, and that's because of stigma.

Sure. And so were you born a suicidal person or did you become a suicidal person? And if you did become it, like, when did you. What age were you when you tried to kill yourself? But then, like, when. What was the progression there? Where, like, was it three years, Was it five years, Was it six months? Talk to us a little bit about your history and how you ended up standing on the bridge.

I think something that any good geneticist would tell you with respect to mental illness is that there's no single gene that leads to mental illnesses, that it implicates a wild array of genes. And even if you have a genetic predisposition, such as through family history, that is a risk factor, no question. And I very strongly believe that I do, that I do have that genetic predisposition. There's no indication whatsoever that you'll actually struggle with any of those issues. So you could be genetically at risk but never experience any of these issues. So what turns those genes on then is your environment, your circumstance. It's almost the perfect storm, in a way, of somebody who is, whether it be through temperament, the way they're born and the way that they deal with their emotions or through their genetic makeup, somebody who's already at risk, who then finds themselves in a situation that triggers that risk. And that was very much the case for me. You know, I grew up in a broken home. My father left when I was very young. My mother worked very long hours. We never really talked about our emotions or how to manage them or what to do. I grew up in a poor. Grew up poor, in a poor community. So, you know, there were a lot of other compounding risk factors. There that eventually, I think, gradually led to my struggle. I was 12 when I first openly expressed my suicidality. I think I'd been experiencing it for years before that. At least nine or ten years old, I would say. But suicide doesn't come out of nowhere. Suicidal ideation completed suicide. It doesn't just come out of nowhere. Despite the fact that many people, I think, will say that they didn't see it coming. There's often a slow build of men. Any overlapping risk factors that get to that point. And that was certainly the case for me.

Yeah, I would have to think that. I always talk about your two attitude coaches. You don't really get to. Or you're one if you're from a single family. Right. I always ask people when I'm speaking, hey, you were. Well, I'll just ask you who was your first attitude coach? And what does attitude mean to you? You.

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, for me, I had a junior high school counselor, a guidance counselor, who was one of the first people to intervene in these struggles. He was just as stuck by the system as I was and everybody else, and that his only real option was to take me to the hospital, as he did several times. But he was one of the first people who really started to notice that I was struggling and to have really honest conversations about my struggle. He wasn't a therapist to that degree, but at least he was willing to talk to me about my approach to certain issues. I remember distinctly I wrote about this in my book as well, Telling him very matter of factly, when I was initially suicidal, he was one of the first people who found out. And I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. I thought it was normal, or so called normal, as the case may be, because it's just the way that I had so gradually grown up learning how to think. And he made clear to me, you know, mark, not everybody thinks about killing themselves when they fail a test or when they're struggling with something. But that's a pretty extreme reaction to what I came to think of as trivial triggers when they're really not all that trivial for me because my threshold was so low. So, you know, he was the first person that gave me that kind of insight. And then fortunately, I've had many virgils along the way, Many guys along the way who have added something else to my view of my mindset, my attitude, that really, you know, it's not your emotions themselves that are the problem. People have strong emotions. Your feelings are not facts. Your feelings are Data points. It's what then you do with that data, what you do with those feelings that makes all of the difference. And for me, when I started to learn that I could use my struggle for good, it made me feel like I could. I had a purpose. Maybe I wasn't a victim to my circumstance. Maybe my life was happening for me rather than to me. And that. That reversal, I think, was what gave me back my agency. It's what made me feel like I could actually do something meaningful with my life.

Yeah, I always. When. Again, when. When I speak and all that, you know, one of my favorite slides is, are you living in your circumstances or in your vision? And, boy, living in your circumstances can be a rough. But when you have no vision, what else are you going to see? What's your definition of attitude?

For me, you know, it's. Having a resilient attitude is always about what you can do with the material that you're given. You know, Anne Lamont, the writer, she was a wonderful inspiration for me in writing. My own memoir, has famously said, you own everything that has happened to you. And I love that because David Sedaris, the writer, has written about this, too. That he can sit back in a situation, whatever it might be, positive, negative, or neutral, and any variation in between, and you can look at it somewhat objectively and say, this is great stuff. This is good material. There's something raw here. There's something interesting here. I can work with this. It's your clay that you can mold. So for me, that's a difference in attitude. If something negative or challenging, and that's a subjective definition, but if something is subjectively challenging to you, not saying, this sucks. This is the worst thing ever, but rather, this sucks, what do I do now? I think that's a fundamental attitude shift.

And the two authors you just said were who?

Anne Lamott. She's a wonderful memoirist. And who was the other person I mentioned?

I don't know. You mentioned. I thought it was a guy. I thought it was a guy about molding.

I could give you a long. I could give you a long list of other David Sedaris, certainly.

Yeah, David Sedaris, that's what it was.

Has been a wonderful influence as well.

So many of our gaffers go, hey, they gave us a book. I'm like, well, you can hit rewind on the podcast, guys. So just so you know, you can do that. So your suicide journey began at 12. And then how old were you when you were sitting on the other side of the bridge or on top of the bridge. How old were you?

I was 15 when I was on the other side of the bridge. Now I'm also very clear with people too, that I was sent back to the hospital that night after the stranger in the light brown jacket saved my life. And when I walked out of the hospital a few days later, the next day, I should say, actually, they only kept me for 24 hours. A couple of things happened. One, it was the first day of spring. And for me that was symbolically, I later realized, symbolically, very powerful for me, this idea of rebirth, that I have another chance. But also I was fixated on this image of, this duality of the stranger in the light brown jacket who reached out and saved my life, and the stranger on the sidelines who didn't. And it's not like everything changed for me, me that day. It's not like suddenly, hallelujah, everything got better. Recovery is a weird road. Recovery is up and down and back and forth and there's relapses and there's. There's times when you feel, not this again. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep going back here because I relapse lots of times in the intervening years. But what I think happens is that when I got to a point, particularly around the TED Talk, more than a dozen years later, when I look back at my life and I realized how far I had, that I didn't see the small increments of recovery along the way until I actually saw how far I had come. And that's when I became motivated to find that stranger who saved my life all those years earlier. So I set off on a social media campaign. It ended up going viral all around the world. And I actually finally, more than a dozen years later, found the stranger who saved my life. And I finally got to thank him for everything that he had done for me.

Wow. Can you say his name or is that not appropriate?

No, his name is Mike. I splashed him all over tv, national and international television. He was very gracious about it because Mike did for me. He didn't just save my life in that moment by pulling me off that bridge. He gave me my whole life ever since. So, you know, the gratitude that I carry into my life every single day for Mike was for that broader gift that he gave me, for giving me my whole life. So, you know, the best thing that I could do was to show him the life that he gave me. And he's my. He met my two year old little boy at the time and my Wife. He's now my second little boy's godfather. He hasn't met my little girl yet, but he hopefully will someday soon. You know, none of this stuff would have been possible. My beautiful family that I love, my job, my career, my passion, none of this would have been possible had he not created. Created that brave space between us in that moment where it didn't matter that I spoke, that I didn't need to, because he was there at my side anyway.

So what was Mike doing earlier that day? And what's Mike's attitude and what's the lesson? You've already told us one lesson. But as a person, now that you know him, what's his attitude? What's he like? And did you ever talk about when he was woke up to think about the incredible thing, what happened, how his day ended that day? Was it a normal day for him? Did he feel like something might be different? Be curious about that, and I'd like to just know what's his overall general attitude.

Mike had just started working at a group home for young people. He was there, I think, less than a year. He had no training on suicide intervention. He wasn't a mental health professional. If anything, it was his role prior to. Prior to that had been similar to a big brother's big sister's kind of mentor that he had been doing before that. So I think actually he brought that relationship building skill into it, and that's what made the difference for me, was that effort to connect. He told me many years later when we finally reconnected. In fact, he had actually written me a letter shortly before I went on national television to try to find him. And when he found out I was looking for him, he sent me the letter. And in it he told me about how afraid he was when he approached me on that railing that night, that he was no expert. He didn't know what to do. And then even afterward, even after he saved my life, he talked about how traumatic it was for him to not know if I had just gone back the next day and finished what I had started. But he also told me about how when he saw my TED Talk, what it was like for him to see somebody who was so vulnerable, who had been so victimized to be standing on that famous red dot. And as he said, so confident despite how I felt inside, you know, delivering a talk of that nature, and how proud. He didn't know he could feel so proud about somebody who he had spent so little time with. So, you know, when we finally got to meet in person again, as we have quite a few times since that time. He's the same person I think now that he was then, which was somebody incredibly empathetic, somebody who has committed. Committed to understanding or at least creating space for others. And, you know, it turns out I've been working in mental health ever since that night we first met, but so has he. He's continued to work in crisis intervention with young boys primarily ever since. So he's probably saved until some countless more lives. He's very modest about it, though, than just mine. And I think he. That's just the type of person that he is and that so many other youth workers and so many others out there doing this work every day are just like him.

Yeah, God bless all those workers. And if you're a gapper and you're in the mental health space, my brother's in the mental health space. He was actually on our podcast last season. You guys just do so many great things. And boy, the need now is more than ever. I want to transition as we're going to get you off. I want to respect your time. And this isn't memory. This is kind of off the cuff. Mark, let's see what you can come up with. We're highly edited, so if you don't say something great, don't worry, we'll edit it out. But my guess is, Mark, you got good stuff. So we do this thing called knowledge through the decades where we walk through the decades of your life and ask you about the attitude lessons that you've learned or what's the attitude lesson that you would garner from being that age. And we always start with childbirth and you've hit on rebirth and birth. I'm sure you probably don't remember being born, but do you have an attitude lesson when it comes to rebirth or the beginning of life?

To stay curious, to always approach your life, whether it's a challenge or otherwise, with that childlike mind. I wonder what this will be like today. I think that's a wonderful and exciting way to be.

Yeah. Great way to start your day for sure. Just to ask about the day. 10 years old, you're in third or fourth grade. Do you remember being 10? Do you remember your teacher? Love to know who your teacher is. Always like to give our teachers. What was the attitude lesson you learned at 10? What were you going through in your life? What's the thing that maybe helped frame your attitude at 10?

Well, I think if I were to frame it positively now, because that's right when I started to go through a number of my struggles, it would be that not everybody is going to understand you and that's okay, they don't have to. Your journey is to understand yourself.

Love it, Love it. And I think young kids, especially at that 10 year old, feel that, you know, that's like when kids get ostracized in school, when bullying begins. There's just a lot of stuff that goes on with that. So I think that's beautiful. All right, so now you're 20 years old, right? What were you doing at 20? Were you in college at 20? And what was your attitude lesson at 20?

Lean toward the discomfort. I was the first of my immediate family to go off to college. In college I never quite fit into any one box. I wanted to study psychology and I did all of those courses, but it just, I wasn't fitting in the field of psychology. So I studied philosophy and then I did all of the courses for honors in philosophy too. And I just wasn't fitting in the big P philosophy or the big psychology. So I ended up finding my own way, doing interdisciplinary degree and then likewise. That's what I've done ever since has been to straddle the boundaries between fields, between ideas, to push those boundaries. So I think that only comes with a certain appetite to forge your own way.

And so now I know you're in your 30s. Do you remember your 30th birthday? Where were you and what's your attitude lesson at 30?

Something changes, I think, when you get to your 30s. I don't know, maybe this is just me, but I've heard it from others as well, which is that you strive less and that's a good thing. I spent so much of my early life being ambitious and striving for more, more, more, more, more. And now in my 30s, I think I'm good. I like who I am, I like what I have. I can have more and I'll certainly continue to strive to, but if this is it, I'd be okay with that. So I think that there's a certain contentment that can come whether it's in your 30s or your 40s or hopefully at some point in your life that I'm very fortunate to have achieved.

That's cool. So when we think about the 15 year old kid on the bridge and we think about the 30 something gentleman that is on the other side of the bridge, right, You've bridged the gap from where you, you were standing there looking down to hopefully where you want to be. And I'm sure you got more bridges that you're going to cross? What was your attitude lesson or what are the two or three things when you think about how you were able to bridge the gap from that time till now? What are the most important either mindsets, what are the tricks? What are the antidotes? Our gappers want to know what's the secret side sauce to bridge the gap for you?

Getting, getting comfortable with the idea that change is the only constant that I would have told myself, my 15 year old self that it's not always going to be this way. It won't always be this hard. But I also tell my 30 or 30 plus year old self now, even in my happiest best moments, it's not always going to be this way, it won't always be this great. And that's not a fake fatalism, that's a gratitude. It teaches you to hold your past, to hold your struggles lightly, but to hold your positive moments with such esteem, with such gratitude and fulfillment that you know that they're not going to last forever. So don't cling. You can't cling to your past or your future. We can only be here now.

Yeah, cool. Dance with it. Have you ever saved anybody's life? Like right now, like the man in the brown coat? Has that ever happened to you? Or is it more your working with people prior to the worst hour?

I've never pulled anybody off a bridge, I will say that. And I would be the first to minimize my own role in somebody else's recovery journey. That said, ever since doing the TED Talk and the media stuff, the book, all of this work, since I'm so grateful to have been contacted, to be contacted regularly by people all over the world, especially young people. And I've been been told countless times that I was their stranger in the light brown jacket, that they had gone on to Google, they googled how do I kill myself? My video came up and it stopped them. You know, dozens of people have told me some version of that story that for me is incomprehensible but also a source of such incredible gratitude that I could give back to the world what Mike gave to me.

Yeah, that's cool. And if you guys want to find out it's markhennick.com just go to markhennick.com obviously he is all over social media. He is pretty easy to find. And I can just tell by talking to you, the guy's got a giving heart. He's here to help. If you're considering killing yourself, if you're considering or thinking way too much about Suicide. Where's the best place to go? Help? There's got to be suicideprevention.com or what would you recommend to somebody who's maybe sitting in their car right now thinking about it? Where should they go? Who should they.

Well, the first thing you should know is about the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and maybe you can provide that number to folks in your social media or around posting of this episode. Yes, there's also community mental health organizations like Mental Health America and the national alliance for Mental Illness. There's your emergency room, your family doctor, your friends. Tell somebody. That is the key. And if that person either doesn't respond or doesn't know how to respond the way that you need, tell somebody else. Never, ever, ever, ever give up.

I love it. So to finish last question, mark, what is in your future? What's going on? What's your next adventure? If there is, and if there's none, that's cool because you're cool with yourself. And lastly, how about just a message of hope or something from your heart for our people to listen to that will change their attitude? After you're done, we'd love to just hear anything.

Final thought so I'm exploring ideas for my second book. It'll be a little bit different than the first. My first was memoir. This one will be unpacking how we learn neurologically, psychologically and socially, how we learn to be depressed and everything that that means. So I've been working on that. That's a, that's a long term project. And you know, I would just tell anybody who's watching or listening to this that if they're struggling, if they find themselves unmoored in the ocean of life, to remain open to the possibilities to come. You don't know what your life will be tomorrow or in 10 years or longer. So why not just enjoy the ride? And if it's hard right now, that's okay. Let it be hard. But everything passes, including the difficulty. So hang in there.

All right, buddy. Well, this was an awesome Get Attitude podcast with the one and only Mark, Mark Hennick. Mark, thank you so much for sharing with us your story, sharing with us your attitude. And I really believe that the attitude of everybody that listens to this, not only for them, but for the people in their lives, will help. So thank you so much, Mark Hennick. God bless you. And go check out mark hennick@markhannock.com. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c suiteradio.com.