Overcome - A Mental Health Podcast

Finding Purpose and Daily Success Habits with Dean Taylor | Overcome Podcast

• Travis White | Mental Health Advocate • Episode 43

Share episode

In this episode of Overcome: A Mental Health Podcast, host Travis White sits down with Dean Taylor, a mentor and speaker who empowers career fathers to rediscover their purpose and create simple daily habits for success. Together, they explore what it really means to live intentionally, develop resilience, and grow through life’s challenges — all centered around finding purpose and daily success habits that align with your values.

Dean opens up about his early experiences with self-doubt, anger, and emotional suppression — and how those challenges shaped his journey toward healing. Through faith, gratitude, and self-awareness, Dean transformed his mindset and built a framework for personal growth that anyone can follow. His morning routine, inspired by The Miracle Morning, has helped him stay consistent for over 800 consecutive days — a true testament to the power of finding purpose and daily success habits that stick.

This conversation dives deep into:

  • How finding purpose and daily success habits leads to emotional healing
  • Why aligning your values, strengths, and goals brings clarity and direction
  • The myth of masculinity and why vulnerability is key to growth
  • Breaking generational patterns and redefining fatherhood through awareness
  • The role of gratitude, journaling, and intentional living in mental health

Dean’s insights remind us that purpose isn’t something we find once — it’s something we practice daily. Whether you’re a parent, professional, or someone seeking direction, this episode will inspire you to begin finding purpose and daily success habits that truly align with who you are.

🔗 Learn More About Dean Taylor

Shop Merch:

https://overcomepod.com/shop

Follow Overcome - a Mental Health Podcast

Listen to us

Want to have a real conversation about your mental health? Fill out this form!

Hello and welcome to Overcome a Mental Health podcast. I'm your host, Travis White. This is a place for you to share your mental health stories. I'm very excited for tonight's guest. I'm speaking with Dean Taylor. Dean is a passionate mentor and speaker dedicated to empowering seasoned career fathers to discover their purpose and develop simple daily success habits. Dean, welcome to the show. Thank you, Travis. It's an honor really to be here and be a part of such a great podcast with, think, a really important focus and mission to help people with struggling with some challenge with mental health is such an important topic. So I'm really grateful to be here today with you. Well, I appreciate you being gone and without wasting any time, I'm just gonna have the microphone over to you and let you share your journey. Well, thank you. Thinking about this and that question a little bit, I think probably for most people, the journey often starts somewhere in our early childhood. We have experiences that impact us a lot. So one of the things that I, when I was probably five, maybe six, probably six years old, We were living in New Mexico and I had a swing set in my backyard and I would get on my swing set and I would start swinging and I would sing and the higher I would swing the louder I would start singing and I would be singing my favorite country songs and just have this vision that I was gonna be the next Glen Campbell singing Rhinestone Cowboy and just... And I just envision myself being this great singer. And one day after I had got off the swing set, I walked into the back door of her house. My mom had been watching me out the back window. And she made a comment that I'm sure she would never remember, and she's since passed away. But just kind of with a little chuckle in her voice and She wasn't a singer and she just made a comment. She's hey, you sing just like I do. You can't carry a tune in a bucket. I. That that comment, even though it was just made in jazz and lightheartedly, it just impacted me because I thought, what? I'm not I'm not a singer. Well, I can't I don't sing well. No, no. And so it was the first time in my life I really remember kind of starting to doubt a bit about what I could do. then I got into grade school and I've worn glasses my whole life. And often kids get teased when they get glasses and four eyes and all those kinds of things. But I had a classmate who... took it, I think, to a much higher level. And I don't know why. I don't know why she singled me out. was a girl in my class. But every day we go out to recess and she would find me and she would just kick me in the groin like every day. And I was just so perplexed. I thought, I don't know what to do about this. And I just I did I did nothing because I thought my parents had told me, well, you never mean to girls. You don't hit girls. You don't. So I did. I never stuck up for myself. and being called four eyes and having this happen every day and kind of getting made fun of, I began to really just sort of retreat into myself and think I wasn't that good, there was something wrong. I think just probably by my natural nature, I was a bit quiet, but I definitely became even more quiet, even so much so that One day my teacher came up to me in class and she said, when did you get here? And I'm like, I've been here all day. She'd counted me absent because I was so quiet. I didn't, I was not interacting. I just was in class. And so I think that was kind of when I look back on life and I was smaller. was born small. I actually, I think I was born prematurely. My mom didn't ever really say that, but I was born, I weighed about four pounds, four ounces. And uh just some stories my mom told me. about the care I received in the hospital. I'm a former NICU nurse. worked in the newborn ICU for about seven years. I started piecing together. thought, well, I think I was born prematurely. Eunice didn't really know what was going on. I was small and I got teased quite a bit for that. I had an older brother and a cousin that would tease me and pick on me a bit. And I had a bit of a bad temper, so I would get pretty angry at times. And think that spur them on to tease me more because they wanted to see how angry they could get me. And so I just I think those early childhood experiences, I just sort of started developing this belief about, you know, who I was and was I good enough? Am I not? this or that and just being small and so that I think that was the beginning of some of those beliefs that I on into my teenage years. And I determined that I was when we moved, my family moved from Oklahoma or sorry, moved from New Mexico to Oklahoma beginning of my seventh grade year. And that was really challenging being a quiet shy person. going into junior high. It's a very awkward stage of life for a lot of people. And I didn't know anyone. Everyone kind of had known each other through elementary school. So here I was, new school, no friends, first day of school. I I kept pulling inward. I just kept pulling more and more inward. And we kind of get made fun of a bit from... for that in junior high even. And finally, my eighth grade year, I thought I'm gonna change this and I tried out for the basketball team and I made the basketball team and some things changed a bit in terms of some friends because I was on the team. So I kind of started feeling like I had made it, I guess. And it's just kind of funny how a lot of those limiting beliefs about yourself, just they they they last with you throughout childhood and even they kind of stick with you. For. into your even adult life. And I think we just start piling them on and we start playing and it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that this is who we are. it was last year I went to a training. Some people may have heard of this called B.U. It's about discovering really who you are and going inside. worked through a lot of those issues that I had carried with me throughout a lot of my life. And it was when I began to discover and feel connected back to that early, the early childhood, the early Dean, prior to that experience on the swing set and really feeling that I was, I had great value. I had a story to tell. I had people I could influence. I had... I had experience in my life that was valuable and that could help benefit people. so I've spent a lot of my change that I have gone through in the last. That was one part of that journey. I I have I've worked on developing myself for the last, I think, really intentionally for the last several years. that was that BU experience is really a very, very impactful moment and experience in helping me to break down some of those. and actually see some of those, where some of those beliefs came from. Yes, it's amazing to me. You mentioned something that I want to kind of touch base on here. How much power one simple statement has over you throughout all of your life. It's like, and sometimes we don't in the moment, we don't realize like what that statement even means or what those words even mean until we actually have the time to think about it. like, Oh, that was hurtful. I didn't realize it then. And I didn't realize that the the trauma it caused, but now I do. Right. Yeah. going back to the teasing and becoming angry, mean, I would get so wound up, I would get so angry at being teased that I would I mean, I did some things that I'm not proud of. And I think back, I knew I could have, well, I went after my brother with a hatchet once because I was so upset because of the teasing. And, you know, and I, and it was that experience when, well, that one and another time when I got really angry and I... chased my cousin down. We were playing water balloon fights and he stuck the hose up my nose and sprayed it and I got really angry with that and I chased him down and I pushed him into a rose bush. So there are a few experiences I have where my anger just overtook me and I sometimes when I would finally calm down I would have a headache because I was so I'd been so angry and upset and when my mom found out about those experiences. And my dad was this man that I looked up to because my dad was so patient and so kind and so loving. And when my mom told him these things that I had done, just the look of disappointment on his face just crushed me. was like, my gosh, I've just, I got to change something here. I was pretty young. I was probably about 10 or 11 years old at that point. But I do remember distinctly feeling like, okay, if I don't control my anger, I could really hurt someone someday and I could see the disappointment on my dad. That's not the way my dad was. I loved my dad. I looked up to him and I wanted to be like my dad. So I thought I got to start figuring out how to change that. I think that was part of my... with drawing and turning inwards, I just thought it was a way for me to control it. I thought if I'm inside here and inside me and I'm not, then people can't, like I couldn't hurt people and I just sort of put a shell around myself and started to protect my feelings. And I think that's kind of part of way I dealt with that. Yeah, I have that problem too. like, it's like, if I keep my mouth shut, like, I'm not going to cause any problems. And I've also been known to personally, like I, you know, I've been on the side of being teased and I've been also the one that has teased people. So I've been on both sides of it. Like I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, but when I was, would. get teased like sometimes I wouldn't realize I was being teased I thought it was like just friends joking around but sometimes I'd take it too far but then I would get mad but I'd store it internally and I would do pretty much what you've been saying is I would just explode there's a couple times with like roommates I pushed them into walls and that type of stuff and looking back I feel like you know, that moment I felt like it was okay to do, but now that I've like thought about it over the last several years, like, no, like doing that type of stuff is never okay. What, what types of things have you had to do over the years to kind of overcome that and, you know, to help you out? Yeah, I think like I mentioned, the turning point or beginning of the turning point for me was when my, uh, you know, with the experience with my dad and wanting to, to not hurt, cause I felt like it hurt him and I didn't want to hurt my dad in that way. so I, my, my family had not been, I, I'm a person of faith and, and, uh, Christian background. And so my family had not really been active in attending church, never churched all growing up. But they started to about that age when I had that experience with my dad and that. That was a turning, that was also a change for me as I began to see. Being more involved in our church meetings was helpful for me, and doing things and turning. I really, I turned to God for help was one of the things that I did was I needed some help to control that. And it's funny, I told my kids this story about how angry I would get, and they're so surprised by it, because they're like, that is not you. And that's true, it's not me now, it hasn't been me for a long, time. And so I really attribute my change to those early experiences with my dad beginning to see myself differently. think church helped me see more of the value in myself. I believe that that began to value myself more. And I think that that helped me as well. And it's something I had to work on. I I I knew that I didn't like the feeling I had after being angry. I think that was also a big factor. I gosh, I did not like I felt so I felt the headache and having those feelings I felt that I just didn't like how I felt. And so I was like, I just have to change it. And so I just worked on. I was determined to not allow my and I I realize that people don't make me angry. I just allow myself when I start taking responsibility for me. And that's applied to so many other areas of my life is that everything I'm responsible for me 100 percent of the time. That's a good way to put it. I like how you worded that being responsible for me. It makes it make more sense like in my mind because it's like no like it's you're allowing yourself to be angry. Yeah, no one made me that way. I allowed myself to be that way and I allowed myself to react. It wasn't something that I overcame immediately. was obviously stuff I worked on. over the years and I think by the time I was in my early, early 20s, I had worked through and understood how to control my thoughts and my emotions and my feelings and respond differently. So when you mentioned this a little bit, you know, a couple minutes ago that you held stuff in internally and you kind of kept to yourself. When you started feeling like that, did you notice this change right away or is it something that, you know, just like that took some time over the years for you to realize exactly what you were doing? I think it took me some time to realize. don't think I didn't realize right away or especially early in my life as a young person. But I think looking back now, I realized that that was kind of a coping mechanism I was utilizing to, I think, protect myself and I think kind of keep myself from getting in trouble. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you what are some of the tools and methods that you have used to overcome these feelings of emotional suppression and like all the other feelings you were. Yeah, I've always, as I've gotten, I would say I've always wanted to be a good person and I always wanted to do good and when I say that I wanted to be the best person I could be and as I got into my early 20s and I always wanted to try to improve myself and I come from A family, no one in my family ever, not that this is a, you know, for everyone, just saying, my. my family, didn't, no one ever graduated from college. I did begin noticing kind of my later teen years. had friends whose parents had gone to school and I noticed that there was a bit of a difference in their family and their lives. And so I thought, I want that. And so I determined that that was gonna, I was gonna improve myself. I was gonna change that. So I... I did go to school and that was a big milestone for me. So I've always had this desire to improve and become the best version of that I could be of myself. And that's carried on to my throughout my life. And it was really. I was maybe two and a half years ago that I read a book, maybe you've heard of it, called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. And I found the book. I've always liked getting up in the morning. It's been a part of I just like the morning time. I love the quietness of the morning. And I read the book. When I saw the title of book, I this is interesting. And so I read it. I started implementing a few of the what's called the savers uh savers is an acronym for silence, affirmation, visualization, reading, exercising and scribing or journaling. So I thought, I'll take a couple of these things and I'll start to do them. And I began to even notice I noticed this shift in how I felt about my day, the confidence that I felt going throughout my day. I thought, well, if I'm feeling better after a week and a half just doing a couple of these things, what if I started doing all of these things? What if I started being really intentional about each of those areas and doing each of those things? And so I began that practice. I began doing them every day. And since I started that, I haven't missed a day. This morning was my day 814 days in a row. doing the morning routine in the morning. And not saying that to boast or any way, but it's just been, it's become who I am. It's become this identity of this is the way I show up for myself, the way that I show up for my family, the way show up for people I work with every day, because it has changed. It's changed, I've changed in a lot of, in so many ways because of... this practice and it's evolved over the time I've done it and how I approach my day. That's been one thing that's been, and I get asked often the question, well, how long do you doing this morning routine? Are you spending hours? I know I probably spend a half hour on most mornings. But just that little bit of time and investing in myself every day has been so life-changing and impactful in my level of confidence, my level of being able to just the way I see the world, the I see myself, the value that I see in myself is completely changed. I think that's really cool. And I would say go ahead and boast about it. You found, that's my opinion. Not that my opinion matters that much, but I'd say boast about it. You found something that works for you and it's changed you. And I think boast about it and share that with others. I think it's really cool that you found something that works for you because I feel like people can search and search and search and it takes a while to find that one thing. And I think it's different for everybody. And it's, I think that's really great that you found something. And that's the thing I love about the routine is I'm kind of a very logical linear thinking person. so I often think I think that's where I kind of got into this. Sometimes if I don't do it perfectly, then I shouldn't do it at all. But that's one of the things I've really learned about from doing the morning routine is that some days I've got more time and sometimes I don't have time to do everything the way I would quote unquote think would be the right way of doing it. And I've just learned that it's not about that. It's about being intentional and it's about progressing and this. Because I think you can get, and I found myself, it's easy for me to slip into a mindset of, well, if I can't do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all. That was something I've learned through this process is that it's okay to not be perfect. Yeah, that reminds me of an experience that I have like almost every single day. I have three young kids ages five, three and one. So bedtime is not always a fun thing. And I have certain expectations when it comes to bed. like if it doesn't go according to plan, like it really, really affects me. Like I have a hard time overcoming it. And so for the longest time, like, I just thought, okay, it has to be this way. It can't change. And my therapist finally, like I brought it up one time and he said, you need to lower those expectations. Those kids are really young. They don't understand. And as soon as you do that, you'll see, you'll see a change. So I did it, took his advice and went forward with it. And it's like, why wasn't I doing this before? Why didn't I think of something so simple? And not saying that the hard times don't come up, but when they do and I feel overwhelmed, I walk out of the room, reset for 30 seconds, walk back in and I have a clear head. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, so good. And it doesn't take a lot, right? It just takes some little bit of intentionality and recognition and being aware. I think that was another thing that I realized that the more I can't really be, I can't grow myself if I'm not aware of where I need to grow. And so becoming aware of those and we all have. blind spots and we need help seeing those. so, yeah, I love that. What a good story. Our kids are all grown and out of the house. But we have some grandkids now and it's so interesting. It's one of things I love about being a grandparent is being able to observe now with my life experience, children and seeing. Seeing them, one of the things I mentioned before we got on, started recording the show about being on vacation last week and we were with our granddaughter. And I was just observing her playing and I made this comment to my wife and our daughter who were there in the room at the same time too. thought it just struck me so powerfully that she's not thinking about what happened yesterday. She's not thinking about what's going to happen tomorrow. She is just so present. She's just concerned about the now and she's living now. And it just struck me so powerfully. thought she's just so, and she's so happy. And she's not worried about all these other things that we, we think we do something yesterday and we let it hang with us. And we think about it today and, I wish I hadn't done that thing or. I've got this thing tomorrow and I'm worried about, well, tomorrow hasn't happened yet and I can't change the past, but what I can only change and I can affect is right now. That's what was going through my mind. thought she's just living right now and she's so happy. It's so true in having young kids myself. I guess I've never really thought of it that way. but it's, if I think about it now, like I can hear them outside the room here. It's like, that's exactly what they're doing. And it's like, and I wish I could have that mindset as well as like young kids do. And I also see like a lot of resilience in my kids as well. And I'm like, I hope that. I can do my duty as a parrot and not mess you up so much that you don't have that. Absolutely. Well, it's so funny you mentioned that. I mentioned the BU training that I did a little over a year ago was it, know, coming out of that, I thought, my goodness, I, and now with looking back and that experience, I thought, man, I really messed my kids up. And they're all fine. They're doing well. I just I see the impact of. What was modeled for me is what I lot of what I modeled for my own kids as a parent and some of the things get passed down. And and that's what I love about. Growing and being and changing is that. And I mentioned going to school. That was a real shift in my family. was a shift for kind of how so as. So my point is being that as we change and as we grow, as we take on things, we can we can break cycles, we can break and improve and make things better. We don't we're not we don't have to be stuck in the same. same situation forever. We always have the power to change that and we can do that if we're aware and intentional about our growth. Yeah, very true. agree 100%. Sometimes I feel like for myself, it's like I feel like I get stuck in this mold of who I'm supposed to be. So kind of making that change and forcing myself to change is sometimes a difficult step to make. Yeah, it's not easy. the changes, not easy. And I think our brains are wired in a way to say we got to kind of protect us. And when we start to step into something different than what we're familiar with, we think, oh, this feels scary. so it must be wrong. And so I shouldn't be doing this thing. But to make those big jumps and changes and leaps in our lives, it's going to feel unfamiliar. because it's unfamiliar doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that it's not familiar. And so it's OK. And we can make changes. And the more we do it, the more comfortable we feel. And the more we realize that this is a new way of thinking, new way of being. That's so true. And I want to change uh kind of direction here just because I'm a little bit scatterbrained right now just because I'm thinking of all the different things you've said. mentioned in your when I introduced you I mentioned that you empower career fathers to discover their purpose. So think of with all your experience how do you help men who don't even realize that they are emotionally disconnected. Hmm. Well, that is a powerful question. This is my thought on this, and this is what's helped me with my purpose is spending some time really thinking about what are the things that I value and what are the values that I have and because one thing I've definitely learned is that if what I desire isn't aligned with what I value, my values are always gonna win out. And so that thing that I desire, I'll never do it. But when I align my desires and my values and my strengths, I figured, I got those things in alignment. to me it was getting aligned with... what I really value and what I desire and what are my real strengths, then my purpose became clear to me. I didn't feel like I was, we often so much hear, we gotta grind, we gotta grind through it, we gotta grind. And what I'm discovering is that as I align my values and my desires and strengths together, then I began to create this flow in my life. And we hear that often in sports that this person's in the flow and whatever they're doing just seems to be happening effortlessly. And they're just, they can't miss a shot. can't miss whatever they're doing, whatever sport they're just excelling. And I think that happens and can happen for us in life when we get that alignment, then. we're not always in this mode of I'm trying to force this thing to happen, but I'm in a flow state where everything is now in alignment and things start to become easy. think often we have this belief that I've had the belief that everything I get, I have to really earn it. I have to work hard for it. I'm not saying that work isn't important and we don't take action for things, but... I'm learning more and more as I align those things that people come into my life, situations happen that they feel like they just start to have, like I'm attracting these things into my life versus making, to force that to happen, if that makes sense. And so I... I truly believe that it really takes spending some time getting clear on what you truly value and making sure that what you value aligns and your desires and values align. also that, what are your strengths? We're often so often taught that we need to overcome our weaknesses. And I just feel like I do so much better when I, and I'm able to excel and achieve more. and make greater leaps in my life and progress when I'm focusing on and becoming and really taking that strength that I have and making it better and really improving that. I love it. I love that answer. And it's, that's, that's kind of off, but that's one of my least favorite questions in a, in an interview, job interview is how do you overcome your weaknesses? It's like, you don't really, like to me, you don't really focus on your weaknesses. You don't really overcome them because obviously like it's a weakness for a purpose and use your strengths. Like, uh in a real life, in a real world situation, mean, we often we when we collaborate. And this is one of the things I have definitely learned over the last several years is that as we. Well, as I as I collaborate and not try to always be in a state of competition, are people. oh I mean, nothing that I'm looking at here around me, nothing was created by just one person. And so was people coming together and taking strength and strength and an area that someone is weak in, someone else is strong in as you collaborate, those weaknesses get overcome. So why am I going to focus on what I'm weak at? mean, that's kind of been my thought. Yeah, that's great. And you mentioned another thing too. Well, you more implied it, I should say, but it's basically living life with a purpose, finding your purpose, finding what you value, and going with it. I just wanted to say that I absolutely love that. It's been so helpful for me to have clarity. the reason I say having a clear purpose and why it's been so helpful for me is the analogy that I think about is if I have, because we all carry these phones around. But what good is the map or the GPS system on the phone if I don't put in a destination? I'm not going to get anywhere. mean, it's not going to take me anywhere. So I feel like the same thing in life is when I have purpose and I know where I want to go. Then the GPS becomes useful. I kind of mentioned before being a person of faith, I believe that now God can direct me or if you don't believe in God, it's universal, infinite intelligence, whatever it is. You got direction and you say this is where I'm going now now now you know and things can come into your life that's gonna move you in the direction that you want to go without it. It's like well Where do you want to go? Yeah, and I'm a firm believer that God, or as you put it, the universe, brings people and things and places into your life to push you forward. Absolutely, yep. So, so agree with that. And what is... Sorry, I'm thinking about how to phrase this. Give me one second here. Yeah, no problem. What is the... I had it right there. What does resilience mean to you? I'm gonna take a different route than I was anticipating. What does resilience mean to me? I would say resilience is the ability to face adversity and not kind of get knocked off course, being able to stick with. the kind of thinking about the purpose we were just talking about. And I think that's another reason why purpose and why purpose is so helpful and valuable. Because when you're, I recognize in my own life, when I'm clear on where I'm headed, then when adversity strikes or when things come up that push against me a bit, I realize that that that is really helping me to get ultimately to where I want to go. I'm never, there's never any growth without resistance. And so having clear purpose helps me to be resilient and staying on course and not being thrown about and thrown off course because something came up that was trying to. There was a struggle, I guess, and just being able to... And I think even being able to see, is this thing that's pulling at me this way or trying to knock me off course? It's not where I'm... I don't get burdened down by thinking, I've made a bad decision and where I'm headed is wrong. I know I'm really clear on what I'm going for and what I want to achieve. Those things just don't bother me. They don't pull me the way they used to. To me, that's being resilient is being able to say, I know where I'm headed and we want to meet a stiff wind or stiff resistance. I'm able to push through it. I, one of the things that I've heard this analogy about buffaloes and cows and how buffaloes and cows face, how they deal with storms. Cows will typically, when the storm's coming, they'll start running away from the storm thinking that's going to get them away out of it. The storm catches up and they're just longer in the storm. The storm catches up and they're just longer. But when a buffalo sees a storm coming, they just head directly into it and they get through it and they're in it for a lot less time because they just, they face it and they push through it and they're out of it quicker. Yeah, really cool. It's interesting to to like think about because I've actually I can think of a storm and I can think of I've seen cows like running away from it. Now I remember what I was going to say since I asked that last question. I lost my train of thought there, but so this one kind of builds off of that. I remember where I was going. So as a man that has built up pretty much what I'd say this is this resilient mindset, was there anything like any type of belief or something, any type of belief that you thought was once true that you had to kind of rewire your brain to think differently? Yes. Yes. And I'll share with you. I think the, well, I shouldn't say I think, because I know the thing that has been the greatest shift for me is, and this has been part of my, and I've incorporated this into my daily routine, is practicing gratitude. And when I think about, what I used to think about gratitude is I thought it was just, It was thinking thankful thoughts and recognizing. And I think that's definitely part of it. And I think it's a first step. But truly being grateful has taken on a much deeper meaning for me now. As I work through a practice of writing down what I'm thankful for, I write down like three things I'm thankful for. And then why am I thankful for them? What are the feelings of appreciation that I feel for those things? And then. deciding on one thing that I'm going to do that day to act in a generous way. think that's another level of gratitude that sometimes gets overlooked. And it doesn't have to be a big thing. Sometimes it's just for me as I'm pausing in the morning and reflecting. Is there anyone that's come to my mind? And if there is, and I've done this several times, it's just, I don't know why this person came to my mind, but I just send them a quick text message or I write them a handwritten note and just said, I'm going to take this to that person. And I've taken them the note instead of just giving it to them. I actually read the note to them and told them why I'm grateful for them or what they mean to me, whatever I felt to write. Sometimes it's just been being present. I'm just going to show up and be completely generous with my time and realize that there's always enough time. If someone asked me for something that wasn't on my schedule, I'm just going to go do it because there's always enough. And so I talk about gratitude in that way because it's my mindset has shifted from a viewing the world from a lens of not enough, I'm not enough, not enough time, not enough resources, not enough love. To you, there's always enough. I always have enough to give, enough I can give a tip, I can give of my time, I can give of my love, I can give of my spirituality, whatever. And there's always gonna be enough. it. That's great. What's one myth about healing you wish more men knew was not true? One thing about healing that it's a myth that is not true. ah I mean, for me, I felt like for a lot of my life that I had to be this role of. I'm still working on it. I'm not perfect. My wife called me out on this just even recently. I've got to play this role as being tough, that I can't be open and vulnerable. I shared something with her the other night about an experience I had a year ago. It just a really tough, tough thing that I was going through and I just never shared it with her. And she said to me, why did you never open up about that? Why did you never tell me about that? Like. If I had known you were experiencing that, I know. don't know why I didn't. So I think and just even sharing, even though it happened a little over a year ago, just sharing that with her and now having it just helped. It just strengthened our connection and it helped me to even feel more. more complete and whole from that experience. so I guess what I'm saying is, I think it's a myth to say that man can't be open and they can't be vulnerable and you can't show emotion. I think sometimes that's a role that I think I've taken on is, and maybe it became maybe it came from my dad always used to say, you can't hurt steel. if he cut his hand or his hand with a hammer, he's like, you can't hurt steel. Like, I know that had to hurt. And it's OK. It's OK to show that you actually feel pain and you hurt. Yeah, that's great. It's like, feel like the more vulnerable I've become, it's almost like the better things go for me in life because I'm willing to open up and talk about it now. Whereas before I just hid behind a wall. Yeah, I agree. And I just want to say what part of me that's been able to allow me to express that and is some mornings I will write a lot more than others. Most mornings I don't. But there have been mornings where I just felt I try to follow that intuitive thought where it's just like I just have a need to just get all this out of my mind. And so me handwriting. and a journal, physically handwriting, not typing on a keyboard or typing on a phone. I keep my journal in an actual notebook and I just write and that writing slows my mind down because I process so much more and I get so much more out of my head and onto paper, so to speak, and it just helps me process everything. cool. doing that type of stuff, like kind of like journaling and writing stuff down, it's something that I'm trying to get a little bit better at. Like I go to times where I like I do really well, like I'll do it for a week and then I don't do it for a week then I do it for a week. So was like, I just need to set a reminder and just do it at the same time every night. Yeah, yeah. So just have a couple more questions here for you. So if you could, so thinking back to the times you were bullied, the comment that your, I think, I believe it was your mom said to you about singing, know, knowing what you know now, like what would you say, if you could go back in time, what would you say to your childhood self? Or what advice would you give yourself? I would definitely give advice to myself to say that. life is going to work out way better than you think. that if you'll just. I say being the real and the true me. As I think back on that that child who had confidence and had. had a vision for what I wanted to do, what he was going to do. I would just say there's definitely challenges ahead and things people will say and do things that intentional or even not intentional, but being true to myself and realizing I am, I guess I would sum it up this way that I'm I'm always enough and I would tell you, you're always and you always will be enough and you have everything you need to succeed in life and you don't need to be any more than what you are. So my 100 % agree. This one is a very, like, I always say that it's a very generalized question. I love to hear the response I get from my guests. So I ask it to everybody. What do you believe is the biggest stigma when it comes to mental health? Well. Well, I think about this when as a nerd, I mean, my background, had nursing background, a healthcare background. If someone's heart is not functioning or their kidney or their liver or whatever organ, we take care of it when we talk about it and we seek out treatment and we seek out help. And for some reason, our brain, which is this super awesome, amazing, complex organ inside our heads. When it's not. When it's a need of help, we often just think that it's wrong to talk about it or it's or something. It's just. Yeah, that we can't talk about it and if someone needs mental health services or some sort of help that it's that it's it should be done in. that it's secretive or that it's wrong or you can't be open about it. to me, think that's one of the... And I love that, I think in society, we're becoming more open about that and not... We're more open about talking about it and realizing that, if there's a challenge there, it's totally okay. And so I think one of the biggest stigmas, I guess, to answer your question was just that you can't talk about it. or it shouldn't be talked about. should be, you know, it's embarrassing or it should be done in secret or whatever. I agree, that's a huge one. I feel like too many people hide from their feelings because of how they think others are gonna feel about them. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm going to be I'm going to be people are not going to want to be friends with me. They're going to not going to want to be around me because I've got this this challenge. And little do people know that there's that person has most likely gone through something as well. Yeah, yes, so true. Yep. I have two more just kind of follow-up questions. Where can people find you? I have an account on Instagram so people can find me at Dean Taylor Official. Speaking of social media, I know there's a lot of mental health. There's been a lot of things in the news and rightly so about some of the effects of social media. But I've tried to take the approach of if I can just share good things and share positive, uplifting things that are helpful to people. That's a good use of it. And so I try to share things like that, lessons from my life, things that are helpful that I think could be uplifting or inspiring to other people. try to share goodness. And so that's how I use my Instagram account. And I have a website, DeanTaylorOfficial.com, so people can find out more about me there as well. and I will make sure all those links get put in the show notes as well when I release this. And last question, we covered a lot of topics here, however I understand that sometimes things get left out unintentionally. So is there anything that you'd like to bring up that we did not discuss? I think we've a lot of ground and I think this has been, I've loved our conversation. I guess if I had one parting thought I share with people and I say this a little bit because of my stage in life and a belief that I had for a while and that I think sometimes when we're going through life and rough experiences that the dreams kind of get beaten out of us and we start saying, I just got to be realistic. I can't go do that thing because what would people think of me? So I say that it's never too early to start dreaming again, but it's always too early to stop. I absolutely love that. It brings a different perspective because I've never... because it's like I feel like you know there's times in my life where I'm like you know what my dreams in life just feel like they're crushed but hearing that it's like no you can open them back up again it's up to you to do it. Right. Yeah. And I just determined that I don't I don't want to be at the end of my life and have the regret of not doing the thing that I felt compelled to do. very well said. Dean, thank you so much for coming on the show. I agree with you. think this has been a great conversation. I've loved it. Yeah, this has been so good. I'm so grateful that you would have me on your show. It's such an important message for people. So thank you for inviting me on. Yeah. And thank you for taking the time out of your busy day and meeting with me. And to all the listeners out there, thank you so much for listening. Best thing you can do for us right now is to subscribe to our show, follow us, share all of our stuff. Just get every, just get the name of our podcast out there. That's the best thing you can do. And thanks again for listening until next time.