Overcome - A Mental Health Podcast

Cope & Conquer: Turning Pain into Power With Josh Copeland

• Travis White • Episode 10

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In this episode of Overcome a Mental Health Podcast, host Travis White speaks with motivational speaker Josh Copeland about his journey through anxiety, depression, and addiction. Josh shares his experiences growing up in a large family, excelling in sports, and how his identity became intertwined with athletics. After graduating college, he faced a crisis of identity and turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism, leading to a series of challenges including a DUI and a panic attack. Ultimately, he found healing through therapy and motivational speaking, emphasizing the importance of self-care and managing mental health in daily life. In this conversation, Travis White and Josh Copeland explore the complexities of anxiety, mental health, and the importance of self-care. They discuss the challenges of parenting, the significance of controlling what one can, and the necessity of embracing human emotions. Josh shares his journey towards self-forgiveness and the understanding that mental health issues do not discriminate. The conversation emphasizes the importance of taking time for oneself and the mission of Learning2Cope, which aims to provide mental health resources and support.

Learn more about Josh Copeland:

Instagram: @learn2cope

Website: https://www.joshcopelandspeaks.com/

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Travis White (00:01.152)
Hello and welcome to Overcome a Mental Health Podcast. I'm excited for this episode. I have on the show with us tonight, Josh Copeland. Josh, we're just going to go ahead and go right in and dig in with your story. Josh is here to speak to us about how he was able to overcome anxiety and depression, amongst other things.

Josh Copeland (00:25.474)
Yeah, thank you for having me, Travis. I'm excited to get to the conversation. So my name is Josh Copeland, as Travis said. I'm a motivational speaker. I travel the country and I speak about mental health, emotional wellness, character development, leadership, ultimately how to become the best version of yourself and what that looks like for whatever stage you're at in your life. And so for me, I grew up in Fairborn, Ohio.

right by Dayton, if you're not familiar with that, is it's an hour kind of north of Cincinnati, hour south of Columbus. So Southwest Ohio, I have kind of a biggish family, if you will, I up with four brothers and then my parents took in two of my cousins when I was a little younger and one of my cousins that they took in had a baby. So it was a lot of us in the house kind of growing up in early childhood.

because of that, so many of us in the house, my parents put us into sports. And so it put us into sports as a way to just kind of keep us active. So many boys in the house just kind of run off some energy, keep you out of trouble. And because of that and having a lot of older siblings, I got to play with them a lot. And so I became pretty decent at a young age at sports just because I got to play against my older siblings.

in baseball, basketball, football. We're big baseball family. And so when I got to play kids my age, it was a little easier because they wasn't as fast. They wasn't as big. They wasn't as strong as my older brother. So I had some success early on because of that. And that led to me going into high school, being able to play varsity, two sports as a freshman, and ultimately led to me getting a scholarship.

Travis White (02:02.38)
Okay.

Josh Copeland (02:21.198)
played football at the university at Buffalo, which I'm very blessed to have played there, graduated from there. And I say, I kind of let every preference, everything I'm about to say by telling a little bit about my story. So you understand kind of where I am, who I am, where I come from, because sports plays a huge part in my life. Like most people, it plays a huge part in life. But for me, because I was

pretty good at a young age. Everybody around my town having so many brothers, my town was not super big. So kind of everybody knows everybody if you will. Because I was pretty good at sports at the young age, sports became my identity. That's how everybody knew me. That's how I kind of knew myself. Ever since I would probably say I was sick from about six years old to

22, 23 when I got done playing in college, I would say about 80 % of the people that I met during that time frame, I met in some way, or through sports. So whether that was a coach, whether that was a teammate, his family, coach's family, friends, everybody I kind of knew that I was involved in outside of like my family in a church that we went to, I knew in some...

Travis White (03:22.988)
Thank you.

Josh Copeland (03:50.102)
way or shape or form through sports. And so that kind of became who I was and I didn't know how to function outside of being an athlete, playing three sports and all year round. That's just what we did. It was just what we did. So, and when I didn't realize this until I graduated and I can kind of get into the story about how the depression and everything kind of kicked in when I graduated, but

Travis White (04:05.685)
Thank you.

Josh Copeland (04:20.268)
Looking back on my life, I didn't realize I was showing signs of depression and anxiety at a real young age. But because I was always in sports and always was in school and always had something to do, it was easy to kind of hide it. It was easy to not address it. of course being, you know, you're, and this was late 90s, early 2000s, right? growing up, mental health was not talked about.

It was not a thing that was even mentioned, depression, anxiety. None of that was even in anybody's thoughts. So was just, hey, you're dealing with it, get over it, right? Like stop being soft, get over it. You're playing sports, you have to be mentally tough. no.

Travis White (04:50.956)
Thank

Travis White (05:05.068)
But yeah, still feel sorry. I still feel like it's that way to a point. Just.

Josh Copeland (05:11.518)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it is. think some people, you know, it's, starting to change a little bit where you having these conversations in school more. And, when I go speak to high school kids, or if I speak at a school assembly or college or whoever I work with, it's always part of the conversation. And sometimes the, in, I like to tell

Travis White (05:21.334)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (05:39.35)
I like to tell kids and there's a balance, right? Because yes, you want to take care of your mental health, but you also can't use that as an excuse not to do what you need to do. And I think that's where it's a balance of, okay, I still had to take care of my mental health, but I also have homework and a test and four assignments due tomorrow that I have to get done. You know what I mean?

You know this being a parent, right? It's like, as a dad, I have all this stuff going on, but soon as I get home, I gotta be dad and I gotta be a husband. So I can't let anything take away from that, regardless of what I have going on in my own personal head and everything. So I just think it's an interesting conversation to have and you can have, it's...

talked about differently depending on the age and the generation you're talking to it about. And I think that's where the dynamic is, especially like in a workplace or especially somewhere where you have multi-generational gaps or whatever if you call it, working in the same spot. So they're all looking at each other in a different way regarding mental health and...

regarding all these things. So it's an interesting conversation for sure.

So I think, trying to go back to where, yes. So when I graduated college, all right, and I came back home, I really struggled with identity and I really struggled with who I was and which direction I wanted to go in my life. And I came home and I felt like a failure, thought I was gonna go to NFL.

Josh Copeland (07:35.646)
never really was too, was not never really arrogant. I was just confident in my ability. And when you're able to have any type of success at sports and not only sports, but in life, all right, when you're kind of good at something, especially at a young age, people tend to love you more for what you can do than who you are.

And that's where it really got me was people started to love the idea of me being an athlete. And I didn't know life without being an athlete. So I started to love and try to develop Josh the athlete and never really took time to develop Josh the person.

because I just didn't think it would ever end. I was just like, I will play until I'm 38 years old, retire, have millions of dollars, be set, be fine. And when that, the reality, when that didn't happen and that set in, I was lost. I was lost, moved back home and living with my brother, not really making money. So.

For the first time in my life at 24 years old, I was failing at something.

And it's kind of weird because I never really want people, you know, I never want people to feel sorry for me and feel like, he's trying to get sympathy. He was a division one athlete, if you will. He had a free college. He doesn't have debt. What is he depressed about? You know, so what are you anxious about, Josh? You just came back from playing college football.

Josh Copeland (09:32.032)
I internalized all that, so I didn't tell people because I didn't want it to feel like, woe is me kind of thing, you know? But I was struggling, and I didn't know what to do. And I started applying for jobs that I wasn't getting any. And so, like I said, for the first time in my life, true adversity had hit.

is different with adversity in sports because you have a coach, you have a game plan, you know what to do, you know what you need to work on, you have practice, you can work on these things all the time. And then when adversity hits in the game, you have your training and the coaches and your teammates to fall back on. Sometimes when adversity happens in life, you don't have a coach to help you through it.

Sometimes when adversity happens in life, you don't have nobody, no other teammate to pick up the slack the way you're slacking. You know, if I got beat in a coverage and we got a sack, we won that play, right? But in life, sometimes you just one-on-one with life and no help. And no help at all. And so you have to live with the result, good or bad.

Travis White (10:39.082)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (10:53.792)
And so that was, it was a reality check really, really quickly. And I learned a lot about myself during that time. And it was an interesting time because I didn't know what to do and let's talk about depression and anxiety. Now I'm starting to feel all these emotions again that I always suppressed.

And now I have to start addressing them.

So yeah, at any moment you can come in, you can comment, know, ask questions, whatever the case, or I can keep going, it's up to you.

Travis White (11:34.604)
You know, no, it's, I have the same way. It almost takes some time to like realize like what's actually going on. Like when it comes to anxiety and depression, it's like with my side of things, like I didn't admit it for years. Like my fiance at the time, now my wife, was saying, you know, I'm gonna have a problem. Like something's going on. You need to get it looked at. And I'm like, no, I think I'm fine.

Josh Copeland (12:01.89)
Yeah, yeah, it's tough because if you don't know the right way to articulate what you're going through, you don't know what to label it, you don't know what to call it, and you don't want to like link yourself to depression. You don't wanna link yourself to anxiety.

Travis White (12:23.948)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (12:29.676)
So when all this stuff started happening, what mechanisms did you use to start coping?

Josh Copeland (12:36.35)
Yeah, so I did a terrible job of coping with it when I first was going through it because like I said, it was at a time when I was lost. So, and when you're lost, whether it's spiritually, mentally, physically, you just don't know what direction to go. That's a very delicate time because I started just clinging to whatever would give me attention.

I started clinging to whatever would make me forget this feeling that I'm feeling, because I don't know how to address it. And I don't like feeling this. I don't like feeling like I don't want to leave my house for a couple of weeks. I don't like going down a dark hole where I don't want to talk to somebody. I'm a real social person. So all these things, I'm starting to see different versions of myself that I would just categorize and just decide in college, I'm just tired.

I had a long work week, you know, I had practice, I'm just gonna sleep all day on Saturday. And then Sunday we got to go in or whatever the case may be. And so for me, I turned to alcohol. That was my first way to cope with these things. And I didn't drink at all, at all in high school or college. I was the straight and narrow, the designated driver, my teammates knew they could call me at any time.

and I would be there and I didn't drink. And so when I got home and I was like, man, why am I? think everybody that I know that drinks seems like it's a blast. You know, they make it seem like it's just the best thing to have such a great time when I pick my friends up, they're all laughing and stuff. So I started to drink and I quickly became addicted to the numbness that alcohol brings.

Travis White (14:18.732)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (14:32.652)
that was what I quickly became addicted to.

Travis White (14:37.804)
It's crazy just like...

how much addiction affects your personal life too. And it goes hand in hand to me with mental health as well.

Josh Copeland (14:49.303)
Yeah.

Josh Copeland (14:54.926)
100 % it does it does and it's one of those things that I never really realized until you know you I was in it and I was saw I was abusing alcohol for about three years and It was two or three years and it was one of those things where I never really knew how bad it was until I took a step back and tried to

I gotta do something different. You know, cause you're right. You just start to slowly spiral and slowly spiral. And for me, I was creating a new norm for myself, slowly but surely. when as before my norm and my routine was to wake up, go to practice, go to school, workout.

play a game in the off season, was the same thing, wake up practice. in growing up, I always had something I was trying to achieve. Let's say that. was, it was always a goal. It was always, okay, I didn't like the way this season ended or how I performed. have now four months to get ready for the next season.

Right, five months, so I can train, I can train. So it was always something to chase.

Travis White (16:21.356)
It's almost like when you get rid of that structure in life and you get in one of your depression modes or having, you know, in the middle of an anxiety attack or whatever you want to call it and there's no structure around it, things just get worse and it's easier to dig yourself into a hole.

Josh Copeland (16:38.606)
100%, 100%, because as things are getting worse and you're trying to, for me, I was trying to dig myself out of a hole, but I didn't know I was digging one deeper. Yeah, I was digging, but I thought I was climbing out of it and I was actually digging deeper and not knowing. And so it was...

Travis White (16:53.716)
And they're done that.

Josh Copeland (17:04.566)
It was definitely a delicate spot. And so I started to drink. got a DUI coming home from a bar. I was a mile away from my house. And it was so then the reality, the shame, the guilt, the embarrassment starts to kick in. Now I started to gain weight because I'm drinking a lot. So people are starting to notice. So now I'm physically not looking like myself and I'm mentally not feeling like myself. So I'm it's, it's complete loss. And so

I didn't share any of that with my brothers. They just thought, you know, Josh is gaining a little weight. He's back home. He's not working out like he used to kind of thing. And, you know, it was, it was really, really a trying mental time. And I had a bit back panic attack. It was just, it was just, it was, it was a time when, you know, you just trying to figure out stuff in there and I wasn't doing it the right way.

Travis White (18:00.716)
And at what point, like what made you kind of get to that point where you're like, you know what, I have a problem. Like I need to do something about it. Like what was that kind of, I want to say like rock bottom, but not rock bottom moment for you.

Josh Copeland (18:17.55)
Yeah, think for me it was, I live with my brother, I think I said at the time. And I really couldn't keep a job, so I was being a bus boy at a restaurant, Texas Roadhouse back in my hometown. And so, like the reality just kind of stood in that like, here I am 24, 25 years old, have a college degree, just played.

college football, division one football. Now I'm back home and I'm bussing tables of people I went to high school with. I'm bussing tables of like their parents who knew me since I was like seven years old. I'm bussing tables of high school kids now who used to look up to me when they was in like elementary school, being the athlete in high school. So it was, it was like a humbling kind of like a weird

time where it was like, this is, this is what's, this is what life is right now. And I don't like it. So I started, so that kind of propelled the drinking even more because I was like, I'm embarrassed to go to work every day, but I have to go because I had to make some type of money, even though it's not a lot, but I'm just bussing tables so I can go to work drunk for real. It was just like, I'm just, I'm literally wiping off the table and then taking it back there. Like,

I don't have to be super sober for this. And so it was, I found myself drinking six, seven days out the week, like all day. Like it was just, I was constantly in a state of being drunk and intoxicated. And a thing that kind of brought me...

Travis White (19:45.323)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (20:04.142)
kind of that was a real reality check was after the DUI. then here's another kind of crazy thing that happened. was once one thing happened, it was like a domino effect. Then stuff started happening quickly. It was like a slow burn. And then once one thing fell over, then it was like out of control. Just spirals really fast. It's like a slow time to get there.

Travis White (20:27.03)
Just spires and spires, yeah.

Josh Copeland (20:34.11)
And then once it does, an event happens, something happens that in life, then it just like, you just, you're just on the rollercoaster now. You're like, I don't know what's going on. I'm just hanging on. And so that was me. had a DUI and then about a couple months after DUI, I was like, I can't drive anywhere. So now I got, I have to have a designated driver. So, so I'm drinking even more now because it was like, I can't, I can't even drive if you want me to. got

the papers that say I can't. So, ha ha, you gotta take me. And so, and one night, we were hanging out with my friends and I start to talk to smoke too. So now I'm smoking. I wanna say I never really smoked anything. So I'm starting to smoke weed and nothing wrong with it, whatever your beliefs are. But for me, I just didn't, I didn't know how my body was gonna react to this. So I went from 24 years of doing nothing

to now I'm drunk constantly and then we're smoking and then doing edibles and it's just, it was just a whole concoction in my body that I didn't know how it was gonna react. And so one night we go out my friends and I make a long story short, one night we go out with my friends and we drinking, smoking, they gave me an edible because they were like, weed make me like really paranoid.

So I have the alcohol, then I had the paranoia like right on top of it. And then the anxiety starts to kick in and then everything's everybody's watching me. you know, it just, and it's all in like happening in real time. And so my friend gives me an edible. He said, hey, eat this, you'll calm down. I didn't know how strong the edible was. And he just said, don't eat the whole thing. But me being drunk high and at a bar, I just eat the whole thing.

And so it all hits me at one time when we get back to his apartment and we're watching the movie, like the matrix. And so now I'm laying on the couch and we're watching the matrix and there's a scene where like the metal octopus and like the first one is like this octopus looking thing is like attacking this ship. And it's attacking this ship is attacking this ship and I'm laying on the couch and then I just see it just start crawling out of the TV.

Travis White (22:43.596)
you

Josh Copeland (22:53.582)
And I'm like, oh, this is bad. Yeah, yeah, I was like, I don't know what's going on, but like, don't, I've never been in this situation. So I don't know how to like calm down. I don't know. So I get, start panicking and thinking it's coming after me and my friend lives on a college campus. And so I get up, it's January 18th. And so it's in Ohio, it's cold.

Travis White (22:56.63)
Full on trippy.

Josh Copeland (23:19.584)
I get up and I start running down this college campus in a full-fledged panic attack.

thinking that this octopus looking thing is coming to get me. So when you ask what's rock bottom, it was that moment where I'm running down a college campus in a panic attack, drunk, high, not knowing what's going on, trying to figure out something, not knowing who I can call because I like, quite frankly, I didn't want to call the police because like, I'm just a, I'm a bigger black dude and I don't want, you know, I don't know how I'm gonna react if they come.

try to help me and now I don't know, right? I don't know how I'm gonna react if I see somebody. So I ran about five miles home and I woke up in the fetal position in the bathtub because that's the only place I felt safe. And I woke up like my brother banging on the door because he thought I had died because my phone's dead. The front door is wide open, but the bathroom door is locked. So he just doesn't know what's going on. So.

That was kind of a long-winded answer when you asked what was my rock bottom. I kind of had to give you context to the situation. And so it was, I woke up and I'm in the tub and my brother looks at me and he said, man, I don't know what's going on, but you got to do something.

And for me, was, I was like, you're right.

Travis White (24:47.082)
And at this point, did you have to like, what did you do? Did you have to like seek therapy or did you do all yourself?

Josh Copeland (24:54.062)
So I did it mainly myself. I found therapy and I found speaking to be therapeutic. So I was always speaking to the younger groups under me when I was growing up. So if I was in high school, I was speaking to the middle school students about making the right choices. I was always a good

kid in that aspect. I was very respectful, never really got in trouble, wasn't a troublemaker. I just kind of did what I had to do and then kind of went about my day. And so I would always be asked to do community service and I love doing that. And then when I got to college, it was the same thing. I got to college, I would go around to the local high schools in Buffalo, work with the community service team and we would constantly do stuff like that. So when I came home and I was actively in the situation I was in and mentally,

my high school would ask me to come back and speak to a college and career readiness class. So I would do that. And so that was a little bit of therapy in that sense. it kind of, a crazy part is like sometimes I would go there drunk or hungover. You know, from the night before and it'd be like 8 a.m. on a Friday and I got to be there to talk to these high school kids.

And it's like their first period. So they're half asleep and I'm hungover. so, and so, but in the same time, it was, when I say it was therapeutic, because I finally, I got to tell something about myself to somebody, whether they listen or they didn't, but I got it out of my head and I vocalized something.

Travis White (26:43.572)
Yeah, that's one thing I'm finding out, like since I've started this podcast is speaking up and telling your story and thinking that there's, there's whether somebody gets something out of it or not. it's very therapeutic. The hardest part for me is being vulnerable, which I'm still learning to do.

Josh Copeland (27:01.378)
Hmm. Yeah, the vulnerability part about it is something that I'm a lot better at now that I'm kind of removed from the situation, but it's hard to be vulnerable when you're in the middle of something because you're trying to figure out how to get out of it and you don't want to keep reminding yourself that you're in it. And it's easier when you're out of it to say, last year I was here.

Travis White (27:11.947)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (27:24.012)
Correct.

Josh Copeland (27:30.228)
and let me tell you. there's some truth to that and there's some truth to being authentic and people can relate to that and they can relate to authentic stories. But sometimes, and this is the hard part, we talk about mental health, the hard part is when you're in the middle of it, speaking up.

That's the hard part.

Travis White (28:00.352)
Yeah, and I think I told this to somebody else I talked to, but I've had this idea to start this like for a long time. And I feel like I couldn't start it because I was still going through the motions and dealing with all the crap that I was dealing with. And once I figured out how to get past that, I was like, you know what? This is gonna be really easy for me to do now.

Josh Copeland (28:09.592)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (28:26.306)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and that's the hard part is because sometimes, and I find this out even speaking now, I will be speaking and I will be going through something personally myself outside of speaking. And I would have to help and encourage people that I'm talking to, to overcome their adversity, to overcome things.

in their life. So I'm actively trying to get people to do that while I'm still going through something in my life. You see what mean? So it can, sometimes it can come off as a little hypocritical. can feel like it's not, whatever it is you got to feel like, because you're like, I'm helping you try to get through something, but I'm going through something too. You know, and like, and so it's, it's hard to kind of balance that.

Travis White (29:02.156)
You

Travis White (29:20.608)
Yeah. So those moments when like you're, you're, you know, giving a speech or whatever, trying to help somebody out and you kind of think, like I'm going through this. Like, you just basically work past it? Like, is there some kind of trick that you have to do to get through the speech or? I mean, I, notice, yeah. If that makes any sense, like, I'm just curious, like how that works. Like if you, you know, obviously it's like your, it's your job. It's what you do for profession.

Josh Copeland (29:48.974)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, it's, I've learned to navigate that now a lot better. I've been speaking for, like I said, since college and high school. So I've learned to kind of how to navigate those situations. And a lot of times what I do is I learn to kind of...

Act like I'm an audience member. So act like I would be telling this to myself, if that makes sense.

Travis White (30:24.566)
No, it certainly does.

Josh Copeland (30:26.582)
So that's, so if I'm up there talking, I'm not necessarily talking to them about getting through their stuff. I'm trying to motivate myself to get through what I'm going through. You know, it's just like, it's like, you can get through here. So I'm trying to hype myself up and speak to myself through the avenue of talking to other people. So that's what the therapeutic.

Travis White (30:45.91)
Yeah.

Josh Copeland (30:55.63)
part for me is still now. I can tell, can, you know, it's one of those things it's like, I can, you know, kind of do as I say, not as I do kind of thing. And so, and I say that because I'm actively trying to, you know, I try to live everything I preach. And sometimes in order for me to know what to talk about and how to articulate it on stage, I have to go through some things myself.

Travis White (31:06.924)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (31:24.908)
so I can know what that feels like. You know, so I can relate to be like, I know exactly what this feels like because I just went through it. And now how can I articulate it and talk, can I talk to myself while trying to talk to you?

Travis White (31:29.653)
Yeah.

Travis White (31:43.331)
That makes sense.

Travis White (31:52.716)
See sorry I lost my place so like how do you Like today do you still have like any issues with depression and anxiety or alcohol or anything like If so, how do you how do you manage it like in present-day life?

Josh Copeland (31:55.106)
No you aren't.

Josh Copeland (32:10.2)
Yeah, and I what I realize is that I have kind of, I say depressive episodes where I've just like kind of shut down for a couple days. I'll have some anxiety kind of issues where like I can't sleep because I'm so like, my mind's wandering and I'm so anxious about the next day. I'm worried if this is gonna happen. So I have those. And so what I realize is,

The idea is not to not have them. The idea is to know how to manage them when they come.

Travis White (32:47.84)
exactly.

Josh Copeland (32:49.014)
and just accept that they're going to happen. And so a lot of times what I tell a lot of people is you have to find moments throughout your day where you can be selfish for you.

And it can be 10 minutes, it can be 20 minutes. know everybody has, people have families that have different responsibilities. So it's really hard to find any time to yourself. But that for me, that time to myself, whether I wake up earlier than my, I have a five, well, she's about to be five in like two weeks, five year old daughter and a wife is, do I wake up earlier than them and just get some time to myself? Or do I stay up later and get some time to myself or

Do I kind of go on a drive? Like there's some time when I have to do something for myself to either clear my mind. I love to golf. So sometimes I'll go out and golfing or go to the drive-in range, but there's something that you have to do that's only for you.

that nobody else can enter, whether that's playing with Legos, like not playing with, making Legos, whether that's drawing art, whatever it is. All right, and so that's what I found is I have to create time for myself and be there for myself so I can be there for other people.

Travis White (34:17.852)
Nice. You said golf is one of those things for you. Is there anything else that you do?

Josh Copeland (34:23.446)
I like golf is golf is, is, up there and golf kind of replaced all the competitive juices that I have. kind of compa because it's one of those things you can never perfect it. So you're constantly. So once again, it's that chase, right? It's like, I'm trying, I'm constantly chasing, trying to be better at it. And it's extremely difficult. So that's what I

Travis White (34:43.649)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (34:50.806)
I love to do. I obviously spend time with my family, my wife, my daughter. And then also it's trying different things. I think that's what I love to do is to learn. So I'll try something out, whether it's cooking or whether it's art or whether it's whatever it is. I just think there's time that you have to explore as well.

So you know what kind of what you like to do and do that. But then there's also a time when you gotta explore and try to learn something new. And that's what I love to do.

Travis White (35:29.984)
Nice. Yeah, it's funny that you brought up cooking because like I've learned in the last like year that that's one thing that really like calms my anxiety. So I end up cooking a lot of our meals. And I don't know if it's necessarily because I love it. But once I once I start doing it, like follow a recipe, like I'm just calms me. So it's like, you know, even if the kids are in the background, I can deal with everything like it's just like.

Josh Copeland (35:58.007)
Yeah.

Travis White (35:59.348)
like suits my nerves or whatever you want to say. it's... But I think another one for me would be like music. I can put on some of heavy metal and just sit there and listen or read a little bit. But like you said, it just takes 10 minutes.

Josh Copeland (36:07.896)
Hmm.

Josh Copeland (36:15.363)
Yeah.

Josh Copeland (36:19.054)
It takes 10 minutes. I love that. I like to meditate as well. And sometimes at night or in the morning, that would be what I take 10 minutes to like just meditate, focus on breathing, try to clear my mind. If I had a real busy day, then if I meditate at night, it was just trying to be the relax and get rid of some of the stress and anxiety of just sitting there in silence. And that's scary because when you finally sit down in silence, the only thing that can move is your mind.

Travis White (36:49.708)
When I stay in silence, sometimes I wonder what my kids are up to. I wonder if they're like flooding the house or if they're making a mess.

Josh Copeland (36:49.709)
And NASA's scary, sometimes that's scary.

Josh Copeland (36:58.198)
Yes, yes, yes.

It's kind of, you know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, if I sit inside, because we're so used to moving and we're so used to, and that's part of anxiety as well is always feeling like there's something that you have to do or something's going to happen wrong. You know, it's that always the underlying fear that if I'm not around to control something, something's going to happen.

Travis White (37:11.35)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (37:33.992)
What are the major things in life that you would say give you anxiety?

Josh Copeland (37:40.332)
Hmm. That's a great question.

Josh Copeland (37:45.546)
I think for me, outside of like the safety of my kid, right? Like that's, she's not around me, then it's always you're wondering where she at, is she safe? Is she safe at school? Is she safe at grandma and grandpa? Like, am I just gonna get a call randomly? Like, so that, but I think majority of parents, if not all, kind of have that kind of always underlined. So.

But one thing that truly kind of gives me anxiety that kind of keeps me up at night that I worry about is

Josh Copeland (38:26.146)
failing.

Josh Copeland (38:30.336)
I don't want to say failing because I'm not scared to fail. I think one thing that truly worries me is...

Josh Copeland (38:41.811)
me trying as hard as I can and doing all the right things and it's not working out.

Travis White (38:50.432)
Yeah. Yeah, I can understand that. I think one of my biggest issues would be like I had a time where I got laid off like three times in seven years. It was never like performance based. Like I've always performed really well. It was all like, you know, like budget issues or the company, one of the companies got bought out.

Josh Copeland (38:51.33)
That, that what keeps me up.

Josh Copeland (39:06.862)
Hmm.

Travis White (39:19.998)
Stuff like that. So now it's like, I have this fear of like always losing my job and not being able to provide for my family.

Josh Copeland (39:28.514)
Yeah, wow.

Travis White (39:30.12)
And then just anything that I can't control, like when it comes to my kids bedtime, I can't control it. So it just drives me up the wall. Like the other night, was so bad that like, because in my mind, I'm like, okay, well, things have to go this way. They have to be a certain way. So when my kids don't follow that, I just, it drives me nuts. So the other night I was like, I have to walk out. I told my wife, was like, I have to walk out of the room. I have to calm down for a minute.

Josh Copeland (39:47.022)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (39:59.722)
And then I'll be back in here." And she said, okay, go do what you need to do. It only took like two minutes and I was able to do like a breathing exercise and I went back in and that was good.

Josh Copeland (40:11.222)
Yeah, and I think that's beautiful that you kind of know what you need to do. Because obviously being overstimulated is a real thing. And sometimes when you get overstimulated, especially about stuff you can't control, it feels like you're just kind of spinning and nothing can stop it.

Travis White (40:23.02)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (40:37.518)
It feels like everything is just chaotic. There's all this stuff that's going to go wrong. And so what I had to truly learn to do in sports helped out with this a lot growing up is a coach used to, you know, there are all the coaches that I've had always used to say something along the lines of control the controllables, right? Control what you can control. Everything else outside of your control, you can control how you react to it.

So you can't control the situation, but you can control how you react to it. So when I get in a situation where I can't control the actual thing that's going on, I always take a step back and what can I control in this situation? Sometimes it's my reaction. Sometimes it might be, I can only, I can't handle this. So I got to leave. I can control that for a little bit. And then let me come back when cooler heads.

Travis White (41:32.524)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (41:36.654)
can prevail, And so, that's something that you can control. And so for me, like I said, it's trying to, in those situations when I can't control something or in those situations where like I'm trying as hard as I can and I still not getting the result, all I can control is my effort.

Travis White (41:37.804)
Exactly.

Travis White (42:01.696)
Yeah. And it's, it's, you kind of mentioned it before. It's kind of just learning when you're overstimulated so you can make the right move.

Josh Copeland (42:13.068)
Yeah, yeah, and that takes some time to know and admitting that, it's okay for me to take a step back right now. Like, there's this, even when I talk with people and there's like this idea that everybody has that I have to fit this type of mold of a person. There's like this imaginary person that it,

everybody's trying to live up to. Right? And it's like, I'm trying to live up to some type of standard that either I set or somebody set for me, but there's this imaginary, invisible, perfect person that everybody's trying to live up to. And if I don't do what I think that person would do, then I'm failing. And that's not the case at all.

Travis White (43:06.72)
Yeah, and I honestly think that our world or our society kind of teaches that. We have to fit within the mold. It's not okay to feel down. It's not okay to anxiety when in reality it is. It's part of life.

Josh Copeland (43:22.722)
Yeah, it's all these things are, they're human emotions, right? Like they're just human emotions and you go through the emotions based on situations. And I think that's the beauty of life is being able to experience everything that life has to offer. The good, the bad, the sad, the unexpected, the frustration.

Travis White (43:30.784)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (43:52.684)
That's all part of existing in this life. And I think the moment we can accept that all these things are going to happen is just a matter of when.

Travis White (44:06.828)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (44:08.716)
I need to be prepared for when they do not try to prevent them from happening.

Travis White (44:15.148)
Good stuff. Since, you know, in dealing with the struggles that you did deal with, how did that change your perspective on life?

Josh Copeland (44:25.9)
Mmm, I became

Josh Copeland (44:32.47)
I became extremely...

forgiving towards myself.

and like forgiving myself. Cause I used to be really, really hard on myself and not wanting to make a mistake and trying to be perfect, trying to be this perfect version of me. And so I learned to not try to live up to anybody's expectations, but my own.

and then allowing me and forgiving me and giving myself grace to make mistakes while trying to be the best version of myself.

Travis White (45:13.357)
That's a good thing to have because I feel like it's always hard to forgive yourself.

Josh Copeland (45:19.116)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's hard to forgive yourself and then somebody who done something wrong to you. Those two are the hardest. And sometimes it's harder to forgive yourself because that's, can, one of the hardest things is living with the repercussions of a decision that you make.

That's one of the hardest things is because there's no telling when that's going to die down. Right? And it's kind of like one thing, you can choose your actions. You can't choose how people respond to your actions. So if you do something and it affects somebody else, you can apologize all you want.

But it's up to them to either forgive you or not hold a grudge. And it could be a month, it could be a year, or you could never talk to that person again. And they never choose to talk to you. And you just have to live with that.

Travis White (46:26.316)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (46:27.722)
And that's the hardest thing about it is making mistakes and living with the repercussions of your mistakes and having to still forgive yourself in that. So for me, what I try to do to help out with those is once again, knowing that I'm still going to make mistakes and just accepting that that's part of life. It allows me to

have pure intentions every single day because...

The intention is what I can rest on.

not the result.

Travis White (47:12.288)
Awesome, good stuff.

Josh Copeland (47:14.55)
You know, appreciate it. Yeah, that's, that's just, that's just how I do. I'm like, if I go every day with the right intentions, with trying to do the right thing at the right time, at the right moment, when it calls for it, regardless of the outcome, I can sleep at night saying, Hey, I tried my best.

I, pure intentions always allow me to sleep better than if I try to manipulate or, you know, trying to take advantage of something.

Travis White (47:46.186)
Yeah. Yeah. I think trying your best is the end. That's like what matters.

Josh Copeland (47:54.626)
Yeah, once again, that's all you can control. That's all you can control in this life. you know, as my daughter is getting older, she's starting to get out, you know, be out of the house and being active more. And, you know, she's starting to be influenced by friends and things like that. And so I can't control what she consumes or what she sees when she's outside the house.

All I can control is trying to be the best version for her while she's in my presence and emulate how she should respond through my actions and hoping that by me doing what I can control, she will see how to navigate certain situations and respond in certain situations.

Travis White (48:28.64)
Anyhow.

Travis White (48:43.018)
Yeah, and my daughter is pretty much the same age as yours. And that's a hard thing to do too.

Josh Copeland (48:51.182)
It's extremely difficult. They're extremely, they're challenging and they pick up on everything. So now I have to constantly watch my facial expressions, my body language, what I say. I have to constantly watch those, not when like I'm laughing and joking, but when I'm really frustrated.

Travis White (48:52.716)
Very challenging.

Travis White (49:12.52)
Mm-hmm. They pick up on it quick.

Josh Copeland (49:15.918)
Yes, they do. And they're like, oh, that's how you're supposed to respond when you're frustrated. And I had to constantly be like, no, no, no. Daddy just has a lot going on right now. Sorry.

Travis White (49:21.1)
Yeah.

Travis White (49:26.442)
Yeah. Daddy should not have done like reacted that way. Yeah.

Josh Copeland (49:31.126)
Yeah, yeah. And I also think, you know, just the parenting thing. I think for me, it's I want my daughter to see and experience me saying I made a mistake.

Cause I want my daughter to trust me, but I don't want her to think I'm perfect.

Travis White (49:54.54)
Yeah, it's funny that you said that. Sorry, I'm kind of throwing it off here. She... Let's see, I did something, this was a couple weeks ago. Like I made a mistake, was... I can't even remember what it was. Like I spilled something of hers or something on accident. you know, we always, I'm always like, if they spill something, like, you know what? It's not a problem. Like, let's clean it up.

Josh Copeland (49:59.116)
No, you're good. You're good.

Travis White (50:24.094)
you can get even more milk or whatever it was, like it's not an issue. So I try to never get mad for them spilling something. And I spilled something and she looks at me and the same tone that I use, she says, it's okay, daddy, we all make mistakes. And she went and grabbed like a paper towel and started cleaning it up for me. like, I'll help you.

Josh Copeland (50:47.566)
Yeah, that's beautiful. then you won't really know that they're watching until a situation like that happens. know, because you're just doing stuff just naturally and trying to be patient and stuff with them. And then when a situation like that happens and they emulate it, you're like, you're watching. And that's beautiful. That's beautiful, man.

Travis White (50:58.998)
Good luck.

Travis White (51:12.108)
again.

Josh Copeland (51:15.756)
Being a parent is one of the best blessings that I could ever ask for. And it's scary to see different versions of yourself as a child. That's scary. You're like, I know exactly why you did that.

Travis White (51:31.444)
Mm-hmm. I totally agree. wife and I will be like, know, something will happen, like, okay, well, does he get that from you or does he get that from me?

Josh Copeland (51:47.03)
Right, right, which side is that coming out of? Because now you know how to address it, right? And so, yeah, it's interesting.

Travis White (51:53.244)
Yeah. Back to mental health side of things. I just have like one more, maybe two more questions here for you.

Josh Copeland (52:02.926)
That's fine. I like said, I'm however long you want to go, I'm good.

Travis White (52:08.287)
What is one thing that you wish that people understood? Like, well, yeah, let's see. is one thing that you wish people understood about mental health and addiction that like might come across like most people are like, you know, it might be, uh, kind of think about a word.

Travis White (52:32.096)
Well, I missed a word. What's one thing you wish more people understood about mental health and addiction?

Josh Copeland (52:37.262)
That's a great question. I think one thing that I wish people knew or understood more is that mental health and addiction, they don't discriminate.

It doesn't matter your race, doesn't matter your color, it doesn't matter your gender, it doesn't matter how much money you have or how little money you have. It doesn't matter where you grew up, it doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married with 10 kids. Mental health struggles and addiction.

comes for everybody at some point. And when I say comes for everybody, it's not that it's like actively, if this analogy, right, it's not like it's actively like coming at you, but there's opportunities for it.

Travis White (53:24.278)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (53:29.826)
There's opportunities for your life to spiral out of control and you to pick up a bottle or you to turn to a substance to kind of remove yourself from that reality. There's an opportunity in life for you things to just not happen time and time again and time and time again and you not know how to react to it. And the only thing you know to feel comfortable doing is secluding yourself.

Like those are going to happen in life no matter what. And sometimes people think if I get a social, if I get a certain level of money, everything will be okay. Right. And there's a level, there's something to that, right? If you don't have to worry about bills, you have a little different level of peace. Then, somebody who has to struggle, you know, when, when me and my wife were looking through the finances and it's a tough month.

Travis White (54:20.041)
the

Josh Copeland (54:28.684)
That's very, very stressful. And then that compiles onto all the other stress that's going on. So if you can have money, it doesn't eliminate problems. It eliminates some of the stress. But even then you have a greater level of something going on. So if it's not necessarily stress, maybe it's the anxiety that you might lose it all. You know, maybe it's I got this, but

I don't have the best family life because I'm working.

60 hours a week to maintain whatever we have. So that's one thing that I wish people would understand is that, and what people know about is that it doesn't discriminate and everybody, it comes for everybody at some point. It's just how do you want to react and handle it when those opportunities for that happen comes about.

Travis White (55:30.188)
So what advice would you give anybody that's struggling with anything? Just in life in general.

Josh Copeland (55:43.17)
Yeah, I think.

I think I would say this, I would say that you're worthy of your own time.

I think that's one of the biggest things that I see is that people, especially as you get older, you have more responsibilities and more responsibilities is you don't make time for yourself.

for whatever reason. And I think a part of addressing mental health is having time to address it. You know, like I think that's part of the process of healing is allowing yourself to heal. When you're working out, right, when I would work out, a part of the workout, one of the most important parts is the recovery.

so you can do more. And I think sometimes you talk about overstimulated, sometimes we overstimulate our minds with all the stuff we have going on in our life and we don't take a second to give our mind a break.

Josh Copeland (57:03.306)
And so one of the advice I would give people is figure out a way to give your mind a break and regroup so then you can handle more things.

Travis White (57:03.595)
Yes.

Travis White (57:17.782)
love it. I want to just know a little bit more about your business. Is it learning to cope?

Josh Copeland (57:24.834)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Learning to cope. Yeah. And so, started in like 2017, I was working full-time at a community college. After I became, you after I was a bus boy and going through all that, was kind of on the climbing out of that. And I got a part-time job at a community college and met my wife at the restaurant that we was working at. And...

As I was working with students in college and going back to high schools and talking, I wanted to create something where I could help people with mental health because now it dawned on me that that's what I'm struggling with. And so learning to cope, started it, like I said, 2017, we go around and we do workshops and speeches and programming regarding mental health to...

We do professional developments. go to school assemblies, athletes. We just talk to different organizations about it. And the COPE is kind of two kind of fold, if you will. My last name being Copeland in sports, everybody called me COPE.

Travis White (58:40.34)
Nice.

Josh Copeland (58:41.492)
and then the mental health, you learn how to cope with mental health. So it's like a double meaning and it's kind of just like a, it was like a play on words, but it kind of fits so perfectly and it was learned to cope. that's where that comes from.

Travis White (58:47.52)
Yeah, well, I love it.

Yeah.

Travis White (58:58.764)
That's awesome. And do you guys like travel all over and do assemblies of that type of stuff? Or do you stay in like one main area? how does that work?

Josh Copeland (59:09.132)
No, we'll go anywhere in the country. We've been to LA, been to Vegas, New York City, Tennessee, going and all over the Midwest, know, the surrounding states of Ohio, just kind of anywhere, anywhere that would have us, I should say, you know, and

Travis White (59:13.355)
this.

Josh Copeland (59:35.83)
A lot of times it's either a lot of it's with schools or school organization education, whether it's staff development or because even staff, right? I could talk to the high school kids or college students or athletes about mental health and how to overcome stuff, but sometimes the staff need to hear it as well. Sometimes the staff need to understand that it's okay to take time for yourself as well.

You know, and when you do that, you're able to be more present for the students, which that's the reason you really are doing what you're doing is because you want to help somebody else. But sometimes you have to help yourself so you can help somebody else. And so we do that. And then when we go, we're venturing now into more corporate spaces, if you will, and professional developments there at conferences and things, kind of talking about the same thing.

how to, know, high achievers and how to maximize your time at work and work life balance if there's such a thing and how do you navigate all this crazy stuff that life has to offer while still performing at a high level at your job. And another big one that we started doing was a workshop on bridging the generational gap in the workplace.

and having these conversations, because I do work a lot with high school and college students who are now becoming the entry level position in corporate world. And how do you navigate that when you have a college student that just got out of college that's just their first kind of real job, if you will? How do you navigate that with and put that in the same room as somebody who's 55 and been doing the same job for 25 years?

Yeah. How do you, how do you have that conversation and, and get them to have the same goals and reach those goals at the same time?

Travis White (01:01:39.56)
Awesome. Is there anything like topic or anything that you'd want to discuss that we do at touch base on tonight?

Josh Copeland (01:01:48.686)
Oh man, oh. I don't want to say, know, like I said, I'm here if you have any questions popping in your head, I would love to answer them. But now I would just want to appreciate, say thank you for, you know, allowing me to be on the podcast. I kudos to you to trying and doing it and taking that leap of faith and just saying, you know, I'm do it because it can be hard to get.

with people's schedules and sometimes they get guests on and then you have to schedule time and the wife and the kids and trying to find a way to be quiet, you know, like, so it's a lot, but kudos and hats off to you for taking that step and doing it because you're making a difference in people that you will never even know. You'll never meet some people that you're making a difference in.

Travis White (01:02:17.452)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (01:02:22.38)
Yeah.

Travis White (01:02:38.518)
Thank you, thank you. I'm still pretty young, so I'm hoping that I'll make a difference. I'm hoping that it's just that one person, sometime will be like, you know what, you changed my life, or this episode really helped me in this way.

Josh Copeland (01:02:56.876)
Yeah, and it will. And I would love to give you some encouragement, if I could, not getting discouraged and stopping when things aren't going the way you think they should or hope they should. Or if you're not, for whatever reason, not getting subscribers or views and you think you should and just...

Travis White (01:03:04.214)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Copeland (01:03:24.738)
Don't get so discouraged that you stop.

Travis White (01:03:29.036)
My wife keeps me on my toes with that one.

Josh Copeland (01:03:34.542)
I love it, I love it. Because a lot of times people stop right before, and I'm talking to you, like kind of talking to myself through, you see what I mean? So it's like, it's sometimes people, know, and you hear the stories all the time of people want Disney, he went to however many banks to try to get a loan and nobody gave him one. It was like 200 or something, right?

Travis White (01:03:36.556)
you

Travis White (01:03:41.44)
That big break, yeah.

Josh Copeland (01:04:02.098)
Excuse me, Oprah didn't start our show till she was a certain age and all these things and you know, it can sound cliche until you're in the middle of it. It can sound like, yeah, right, until you're like, you know, hey, we're 30 episodes in and we're getting to have a couple listeners or you 30 episodes in and you have hundreds of listeners and you're just like, how can I maintain this?

How can I still keep them entertained to keep them coming back? So no matter what level you're going to hit, and you're going to hit all the different levels of it, right? There's always somebody there that's going to take something from whatever you're doing and you're providing an opportunity for that to happen. So hats off to you.

Travis White (01:04:46.412)
Well, I thank you for the words of encouragement. It's sometimes it's a little frustrating because it's like things don't move as quick as I want them to, but then I see like, you know, just even a couple of views here and there like, I'm doing something, I'm doing something. So it's just kind of a reminder like why I'm doing it. So where can the listeners find you? Like Instagram, website, anything that you want to mention?

Josh Copeland (01:05:05.611)
Yeah

Josh Copeland (01:05:13.848)
Yeah, so I have a website. You can go to my website at joshcopelandspeaks.com. That's my website. Instagram is probably the social media platform that I probably use the most that you can kind of find me at. And my Instagram is learn the number two and then cope. So my Instagram is learn to cope. And that's the number two, not T-O or T-W-O. It's learn the number two and then cope. I would love to connect with y'all.

If you see this message me, we can connect. I want to help and I want to be a resource if I can be to anybody. I don't know everything, but I'll tell you everything I do know.

Travis White (01:05:57.012)
and everything that he just said I will add in my show notes. So add links so it's easy to navigate to.

Josh Copeland (01:06:04.462)
Okay, I appreciate that.

Travis White (01:06:05.888)
Yeah. And I want to thank all of you for listening. You can find us on Instagram at Overcome Pod or on YouTube as well. We also post the podcasts on all major podcasting platforms, know, Spotify, Apple, Amazon, you name it. It's probably on there. If you can go on and give us a follow, a like, a share, it really helps us out. I appreciate it. Thanks everyone. Until next time.