Anxiety Attacks: How I Overcame Severe Anxiety Attacks (Without Drugs)

hey there it's Joe Simons like diamonds co-founder here it's salt strong and yes I am gonna be revealing the three secrets to eliminate anxiety attacks out of your life for good let me preface this by saying I'm not a doctor I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist or anything in between I am a real person who dealt with debilitating anxiety attacks and just literally daily fear and anxiety in my life for 14 years before I finally mastered it and now I'm using it as a tool to do some pretty awesome things in my life and in my family's life and my company's life salts wrong and if I don't know where you're watching this or if you're listening to saan iTunes or the stitcher and the podcast this is the 100th episode and why I'm doing this and if you don't know about Saltzman we're a fishing company and yet I'm doing something here about anxiety attacks and here's why we're now as I mentioned episode 100 I look back really just in 2019 of what episodes had the most downloads in just the most comments and feedback and by far was the episode I did not too long ago about anxiety and alcohol and it was the first time I really just kind of put my guard down and was just completely transparent with our audience and told everyone about the 14-year struggle I had and I don't mean just like an occasional anxiety attack I literally let fear and anxiety take control of my entire day of my entire life I lost some relationships because of it I hurt some people because of it which still I hate that to this day some of the people that I hurt that I truly cared for and loved I missed one of my best friend's weddings because anxiety had literally overtaken me I've literally was sweating my heart was beating I felt like I was going to die and I missed one of my best friend's weddings and lied to them and told them I was sick I have now since apologized and told him the truth and I think that was another really big moment for me and it's not one of the three secrets but it's somewhere in between was just letting people know about it talking about it it was amazing as soon as I did come out and actually say hey you know I've been struggling with this like this has really been something I've had an issue with for many years and it's amazing how many people came and say man I suffered the same thing or it's my daughter and my wife or spouse or whoever it might be and it it just made me feel I wasn't alone and I'm telling you where regardless of where you are now maybe you're in the weeds like I was I mean once again 14 years I'm not talking 14 months or 14 days 14 years of my life this is all I thought about I literally would wake up sweating I was avoiding things I wasn't having as much fun in my life I had lost my purpose I wasn't very fulfilled all because of fear and anxiety so if you're there I'm gonna give you some tips I hope you're ready to take them into your life I know I would have paid anything I would literally would have given everything I had for this video that I'm about to share with you today back when I was suffering I think that was part of the problem too you know I'm a little bit older than maybe some of you I don't know where you are but when I first started having these massive anxiety attacks there was really nowhere to go I didn't feel safe telling my friends at it made me feel like I was weak turns out that's not the case I I didn't want to tell my girlfriend I didn't even tell my parents I was embarrassed by it and back at the time I was at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and we shared one computer in our little place our three-bedroom place there in a downtown Atlanta and this might sound foreign to some of you younger people but we did not have smartphones we did not have Wi-Fi back then it was literally an old dial-up and we had Netscape this is pre Google and Yahoo so we had Netscape where we could go in and do searches but our free computer was literally out in the front of everyone so the last thing I was gonna do is type in why do I feel like I'm dying why is my heart feel like it's about to explode I had no idea what I had and I was in too embarrassed to tell anyone so before we get all this if you are there just tell someone ask someone to pray for you tell someone that you trust you will be shocked and how many doors start opening up how many people that say you know what you're not alone I suffer from this as well and to me like that was there's no reason I'm doing this isn't the reason I wrote about it in my book fishing for happiness which is really my journey of finding more fulfilment in my life and overcoming anxiety overcoming just the fear of the daily fear I mean I'm talking about I couldn't even go into public so many days I planned my entire day around my anxiety fortunately somehow God gave me like the perfect job was inside phone sales meaning I did not have to see people face-to-face so I literally just set the cubicle and made phone calls I was good at that I love talking I love talking to people listen to people so that was like the one blessing I had and that's how I was able to get through life and actually do pretty well at that but how do I not have that I don't know what I would have done and maybe you're there I want to give you some help so we're gonna cover three things first of all after my 14 years of dealing with this I'm gonna tell you what not to do these are the traps I tried everything possible as you can imagine as time went on I finally discovered what it was it took me a couple years to even know what I had I literally just dealt with it and had I thought I was just dying I had no idea what was going on in my life why I literally felt this they call it the fight-or-flight you know meaning it's like being in a jungle all of a sudden a puma or a bear something's coming after you that's how your body feels it's literally reacting this crazy amount of fear it's all in your head of course but it easier said than done right I mean I know I for 14 years I dealt with it and I literally felt like something was coming after us my body felt like where I'm running as fast as I can my pupils are dilated I'm sweating like I'm just you want to get out of there you you and it's it kills your body too it drains you of everything so I'm going to talk about all the traps that I did I'm also going to talk about drugs suppressants I tried drugs called I tried a couple different ones and and they were good I think there's a better way which I'm going to explain here and this is just from my experience I think maybe some people might have more severe anxiety attacks I don't know how it's possible from what I dealt with you know from ruining relationships and hurting loved ones to literally happen to plan my day I mean every waking hour anxiety and fear were in my mind this is not something that was just here and there so I believe there is a better way and that I just don't think God made any of us to be stuck on suppressants our entire life and I'm gonna get into that controversial to some of you but I think with this and once you see this and if you were ready to accept this then I think actually I know because I've done it in a few I've coached a few other people's to do it you are going to be able to alleviate and leave all this stuff so let's talk about what not to do first so number one and let me let me preface this by saying why not when I first went out there on the Google on the interwebs and started doing research when I discovered what I had you know I saw all kinds of stuff and this is before even Web MD but even WebMD today I haven't been on there recently but I'm pretty sure it says something about you know changing your diet and no caffeine no alcohol etc I kind of disagree with that I don't think you have to change your diet all that much I did not and every time I did I got more frustrated because I had not truly solved my big issue which is what we're gonna talk about over here so let me just talk about number one and that's just I'm gonna say uppers and let me tell you a quick little story about uppers in my life so I went to Georgia Tech and I had a roommate Scheckter lived upstairs named Amy Tan for those of you women watching who are maybe in the craft the craft field that you do scrapbooking stuff Amy tangerine is her name that was actually my roommate and still one of my really good friends that I keep in touch with and yes she's got she's like one of the best scrap Booker's in the world I mean literally gets flown all over the world which still baffles me to talk about and teach scrapbooking to women and some men who were into scrapbooking and she's got her little scrapbook kits and Target and all that anyhow pretty amazing story Amy if you're watching this Olivia so we were we were going out one night in Buckhead in Atlanta and Amy was a designated driver and I've been drinking that day because at the time I was using alcohol is a suppressant for myself and for my body it was it did help I think alcohol can certainly help calm you down a little bit obviously in moderation is the word that you should usually use after alcohol and I was not doing that I was literally just binge drinking and so I've been pounding alcohol I'm getting even I'm even getting nervous about going out because every time I go out usually in Buckhead if you guys have been there especially at college bars you're in pretty packed places and just the thought of that gave me tongues and anxiety maybe you're in college watching this you know what I'm talking about me you're packed in there like sardines in the fact that I knew I was gonna be like that and even just thinking about waiting in line for the bathroom we're waiting in line for a beer at the bar I mean that gave me like severe anxiety and if you have dealt with this you know that when you have a anxiety attack / panic attack it literally drains you I mean your body is in that fight-or-flight I mean just like if you really were running from Puma in the jungle you were gonna be worn out you're gonna be physically exhausted and all throughout that day I was like literally getting physically exhausted having a little mini panic attacks so what I decided to start decided to start doing is someone had introduced me to caffeine pills yes caffeine pills I'm sure they're somewhat popular still in college campuses and they were easy to get you can just walk into a CVS and get you know a little caffeine tablets and I started popping those things and at first it actually kind of helped it gave me some quick little energy and as you know about caffeine I was young and dumb and naive at the time it kind of wears off after you do so much and next thing you know I'm popping these things like one after another after another and I had run out of caffeine pills once again I've been drinking all day already Amy's driving us out I was like Amy you got to stop it's CVS so I can get some more caffeine and she's like seriously and I was like yeah like I'm so I'm sweating already like it's the last thing I need is putting more caffeine more uppers into my body and I still remember to this day because I was so embarrassed and also I was literally I remember sitting this is on 14th Street in Atlanta I mean exactly where I was at CVS and I'm like is shaking at the counter I'm sure the clerk is looking at me like is this guy going to make it through the night and I'm buying more caffeine tablets this is the last thing I possibly need I get in the car I pop a couple more Swigert with some some water and they go out and that entire night I remember I really felt like my heart was about to explode and I did that for quite some time until I realized I was gonna cause a heart attack within myself so I tell you that avoid the uppers pleaseplease plate and that includes all kinds of different drugs anything that's just gonna get your heart racing it's the last thing you need now I mentioned the word moderation earlier I still drink too little espresso as per day so I think one thing that really got me down is I was reading all coffee and caffeine in your life and I did and I hadn't discovered these three secrets yet I'm gonna share and so I didn't work for me right I cut caffeine out and I got headaches and i-i-i i didn't i didn't like it i like caffeine in my life maybe you loved coffee just like i do and still today i'm telling you dude to two espressos literally every single morning and it has not changed anything i think if you're doing five or six you might have a problem and it's probably not helping your ease ID but number one is uppers number two is alcohol i'm not gonna spend too much time on this if you heard my last episode where i talked about how anxiety attacks came into my life it was caused by alcohol was uh i was my 23rd birthday and i got blitzed i mean if you guys heard the story i literally had my friends putting more marks you know the one mom one and then a across four five on how many shots i'd taken after drinking all day and i should have had my stomach pumped i mean i don't know how i didn't die that night and that was like the very first like full-on anxiety attack I ever had and I couldn't shake it after that that was just one of those tipping points in my life where it got me mentally it literally just messed up my entire body and you know shame on me for not using alcohol in moderation and for many many years I used alcohol as a crutch it was the one thing I knew that would call my body down and yeah let's be honest if you get blackout drunk you're probably not gonna be as anxious cuz you don't even know what the heck's going on that's no way to go through life it's obviously not safe it's stupid and the good news though is I don't think you have to cut out all I still drink I still drink socially I had a mentor that told me this just like mom always said nothing good happens past midnight and he told me Joe he's like listen what I found in life and this is a very successful person who sold a business for tens and tens of millions of dollars and it's done well and he's like I have found that there's not any scenario in my life looking back that something good happened after I had three drinks in any given day so you know you can still do business deals you can still go on the golf course used to go Bodhi you used to go out fishing by having three drinks or less and cutting you off if you can't cut yourself off at three then you probably have a problem just saying and that was me too I had to do the same check in the mirror and cut myself off at three and honestly I have struggled with that a lot I'll go a couple months and I will not have any more than three and all of a sudden there's that one thing that comes along it's a party with the boys or it's a deep-sea fishing trip and we're all just kind of you know all of a sudden three turns into six like ah this is like one time only and then it's like a slippery slope every time so far I'm on a pretty good trend right now and I'm holding myself accountable accountable by going on video and saying I'm not gonna have more than three you seem out having more than three smack me upside the head but anyhow I think alcohol can still be good just like a suppressant a drug could be good and I'm going to be very careful how I say this in moderation right if you have one beer and really just helps calm you down and you can stop and it's not impending your job or your relationships or your family life then I think that's okay I'm a big fan of a book called the Bible and I mean Jesus and His disciples we're drinking wine in there in moderation maybe one cup one glass one beer perfect but I'm telling you if you want some help on the alcohol stuff either quit go cold turkey or try that three drink minimum I'm sorry maximum try that three drink maximum and keep drinking to a minimum so alcohol do not do it in massive quantities or you will get hurt and make your anxiety a whole lot worse number three is diet I read so many places about changing diet about spicy foods maybe you've heard that spicy foods can trigger anxiety attacks and and all these different like weird things about certain fruits and vegetables and meat and I tried everything you can pasta and speaking of alcohol like for a while I was like well maybe it's I'm drinking the wrong beer it's got too much yeast and so I went to wine and then I went to liquor and like no like none of this stuff really matters unless you get control of what I'm about to share in just a little bit so I think if you're if you're sitting there trying the diet fad or something that you someone told you my personal opinion is that it's not going to change things that much yes it might slow your heart rate down it might give you a little bit more calmness but this is not really going to help and this caused me so much frustration because once again for years I was trying a mixture of all this stuff about cutting all the stuff in my life and having the healthiest diet and it was really really frustrating that it didn't work the fourth one and this is so critical these days I'm sorry to have my back to you and it's comparing yourself to others ever done that before this guy has so this day and age why say is so scary right now social media I mean to me that's almost a disease in itself we sit there and we get like this high every time someone likes our common or comments back on our post or a picture or video whatever it is and I'm just as guilty of this as well I think many of us are and when I was dealing with all this anxiety I found myself all the time comparing myself to others meaning I would say oh gosh for me oh I don't want on it when these other people have this what why is it just me God like why am i stuff from visiting daddy turns out millions of other people's were and what I found is everyone's suffering from something everyone and I'm sure you're shaking your head everyone has something they'd like to improve in their life everyone has something that's not perfect in their life and I think the big problem with social media is that you're basically just seeing the best version of these people on social media does that make sense meaning a lot of these celebrities and people that we see on TV in the magazines and on social media you're only seeing their best version you're not seeing all the crap in their life you're not seeing all the stuff they're going through and why so many celebrities and famous people are getting divorced at the highest rate of all time most of them are not that happy most of them are not that fulfilled most of them have a lot of issues and yet we're sitting here comparing ourselves to them and comparing ourselves to others and I'm telling you that is a really really wicked wicked spiral downwards and that's why I don't know if you guys heard my first episode not but I talked about my friend Brooke who took his life committed suicide and a lot of it had to do with comparing himself the others I know because I was doing I mean that was it I was at my lowest lows the time when I got depressed was when I was struggling with all the anxiety and I was comparing myself to others thinking I'm the only one in the world that's dealing with all these issues right now and and I hate it for Brooke I hate it for his parents as parents reach out to me and I'm praying for all you guys your entire family it's devastating that happened instead of sending all the people that are taking their lives and a lot of it has to do with comparing yourself to others thinking that you're never gonna get out of this rut and that other people have it so much better I'm telling you you are not alone we are all struggling with something including me I mean I still struggle with certain things and I still struggle with anxiety attacks occasionally however I have been able to master them pretty quickly now anytime I get in that little rut which happens once or twice a year instead of every single day I literally follow these same three steps I'm gonna share with you and boom it's like it's automatically gone so let's talk about suppressants which could be any kind of drugs I'm not gonna list him out and I'm not gonna spend too much time on this but I did it I feel like I did a disservice on the first podcast where I I kind of poo pooed on drugs and if you whether you heard the story now I'll just tell you what happened so I finally went in I knew what I had and I finally had the courage as a mount of college now I'm adult have a real job and I went in to see a doctor told him everything that's been going on self diagnosed myself that hey I'm feeling the anxiety tax and kind of just told him my story and he gave me drugs and I went out of there like freaking high five and like I was pumped up I was like finally I got a shortcut I got the pill baby I'm gonna be cured let me tell you something it didn't really happen that way yeah it was a suppressant it certainly took down my anxiety levels like I felt I truly felt better but I I found out on the phone I didn't feel like I was myself I feel like it was kind of it was kind of changing just changing my behaviors changing my energy it was kind of dumbing me down I guess is the word I use it was dumbing down my energy I didn't feel like I was the Joe Simon's that God had made me to be in wanted me to be and it hit me real hard this girl Jeanette I'll never forget this phone call was calling one of my one of my financial advisors names Paul in Boston and Jeanette was his assistant she always answered his phone we always talked I had a great relationship with them and and she said Joe like I meant to say something to you last time but is everything okay and and now I'm almost having like a little panic attack thinking I was like what do you mean what's corsets okay and she's like you just you just don't sound like yourself and this is over the phone she's not even seeing me face to face she's like I don't know I feel like I wanted to say something last time but you you just don't have that same energy that same spunk about you and that was when it hit me and I was like you know what I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna rely on these I I know there's got to be a better way once again I know this is controversial because a lot of you are on suppressants but I think you can get addicted to this just like I got addicted to uppers and alcohol and stuff thinking that's the answer it's a crutch that's all suppressed and sorry that's all drugs are it is a crutch that's all having one one drink before going into something that maybe is a little bit anxiety causing your fear causing it is a crutch no matter how you want to no matter how helpful this is you know that and I personally believe for me I don't know about you but I don't think that God put me on this earth to have to rely on some crutch to get over something that's all in my head because that's all it is right and and if you're struggling this don't take this like oh I'm a jerk because I dealt was for 14 years I knew is in my head just like you do and I'm telling I'm gonna give you the secrets to get it out of your head and to finally get control and freedom in your life and I truly believe that getting rid of the drugs getting rid of the crutch is going to be one step in the right direction I don't think there's any problem with using a crutch if you will for a little while just like if you break your leg it's okay to use a crutch for a little while but I don't think you have to use it for the rest of your life that's just me that's my thoughts on drugs so you're probably wondering about the three secrets so I'll start with number one because we talked about it on last podcast and this was got we got so many questions it was all about breathing now I thought breathing was the corniest thing I had ever heard I started reading everything about yoga and meditation I bought some courses I bought some online courses on how to cure anxiety man I literally tried everything and I just felt it kind of corny I think it's because I didn't have these other two things I'm gonna share with you and you know because I just thought oh so it's someone doing and it turns out that's not I mean think about when we're born what's the first thing that happens if we want to actually have any chance at living you have to take that first breath there's so many analogies to how much breathing proper breathing has to do with successful life in health I mean even books like this and I mentioned think religious I got this one as well to talk about about more about the mindset type of stuff we're going to talk about a bit but they even mentioned and towards the back of this about how powerful proper breathing is I mean this is written back in the 1930s and they knew that then the monks and people who have been the Comus people ever in other countries who have been around a lot longer in house here in America have known about the power of proper breathing and how that can actually help out your mental health along with physical health etc so with breathing in particular my story was and this hit me like just man a bag of rocks on top of the the side of the head was my brother Luke and I were signed up to go do a free diving course in South Florida and the free diving course basically takes you from wherever you are now to get down to 66 feet underwater free diving in one weekend so like I'll give you my brothers numbers I never even made this trip and the whole revelation happened after he got back so my brother could hold his breath for like a minute and 20 seconds a minute 20 seconds two days later after going to this course it was three minutes he could do it he doubled his breath hold he was able to go down about thirty feet he got down to 66 with no problem he's even able to hang out down there for a couple of seconds before shooting back up the top game-changing and guess what it all came down to breathing and mindset breathing and mindset crazy right and so I'm asking Luke I missed the whole thing it was like it was almost like if you believe in evil and powerful forces around you it was crazy so the next day we're going to do this already paid my three hundred dollars of this course my wife gets like deathly ill like no explanation whatsoever like deathly ill like literally fell down on the bottom of our stairs definitely like hospital deathly ill still don't know what happened it was crazy and she recovered like two days later but it forced me to miss this it was almost like someone didn't want me discovering this so Luke gets back I'm telling you since this is crazy how it all works out and I'm asking Luke hate like what was what was the trick and he said man it was breathing in mindset it was so much is in your mind and the rest is breathing was like what do you mean breathing he's like well here here's all that really teach you knew they're teaching to you to breathe so slowly and so perfectly that you're calm your entire body down to the point that you can actually hold your breath longer and and he use the word like the fight-or-flight because when you're down 66 feet down or even 30 feet down your body is telling you that something's wrong it is that fear right it's the same feeling it's the same body reaction that you have if you're in a jungle and there's a puma coming after you your body is telling you to go up to the top as fast as humanly possible before you die he's like you're basically tricking your body to get on the opposite side of the spectrum so you can stay down longer so it's a longer term before your body gets in that fight-or-flight and I'm sitting here like goose bumps cuz my brother does not know that I've been stuff from all that anxiety like I hadn't told anyone like I told my wife at this point but like my brother had no idea and so I'm sitting here like alright yeah what what else what I was like what did I tell you and he shows me and I tried it and I'm gonna do this for you so you guys can see it and everyone's lung capacity is a little bit different and I think this is another thing that irritates me about what's on the web or lack of what's on the web is they always say here's the structure here's the diet you need and take out alcohol and caffeine and here's how many seconds you have to hold your breath this is different for everyone for me what I found and you can do this sitting alone in your house or before work or in your car or even while you're talking to someone I think that was a mistake I thought is that oh I got to calm myself down before I go into this you know public area or a church or a grocery store or a big concert or whatever it is run be around people I'm gonna call myself down and just kind of hope to cope with it and it turns out I'm using the same technique even impact situation even when I'm making eye contact with someone and having a conversation with them and here it is one of the biggest things is making sure you're breathing with your stomach meaning your stomach should be going in and out not your chest cuz when you're running like if you're sprinting if you're having a full-on panic attack your breathing your chest your entire chest is maybe you're not breathing through your stomach and so what I mean is this one I'm gonna breathe in through my nose I'm gonna inhale through my nose and then exhale out my mouth and you'll see my stomach will start moving and I go like this and usually for me it's four seconds in through my nose and then a calm eight six to eight seconds out and why I'm doing this in my head I'm saying this to myself I'm actually used singing the word relax relax and I think I got that from Brandon Bouchard mentioned that if you guys wonder he is awesome awesome guy and he was talking about how he just calms himself down and I even do this why I sleep as my wife will tell you I can literally go to sleep usually within 1 to 2 minutes and I use this is the same technique if you're having trouble sleeping even you don't suffer from anxiety this is exactly what I do every single night anytime I get restless am i all right let me do my little breathing technique so here's what I do I'm gonna try to get so easy so you can see my stomach hopefully I didn't eat too much here for breakfast and I just go in and out slowly and once again you can do the same I already feel relaxed you'd see I'm already probably talking calmer just doing that two times if you do that ten times your body is gonna be in a completely different state you will be calmer it is impossible not to and all you're doing is just tricking your mind just like you're doing in a freediving and maybe that's what you need if you're really struggling take on those free diving courses I still haven't taken the course yet I feel I know exactly what to do and I know how to calm my body down I know how to calm my mind down and literally get rid of that anxiety get rid of that tension of that fear by literally calming my body down through the power of breathing once again through the stomach inhaling through the nose and I'm saying relax and then back to my head in the next ceiling now if you're talking to someone face to face let me act like I'm just talking you were listening you never would know that I'm breathing out my mouth and reading my nose I'm still taking the same breaths yes I'm listening to you then that awesome dad that right that alone was a complete game-changer for me that got me to the level I needed to get to conquer these next two things that I am going to talk about so number two man I wish someone had told me about this when I was younger mission mission what do you stand for why are you here why did God put you on this earth what's your purpose why do you wake up in the morning I it took me 37 years I'm now 40 it took me until my 37th birthday to figure this out no one had actually put me on the spot and asked me I think you think of any successful business they give any successful movement out there they all have a why why do they exist why does that movement exist why does that organization exist what are they doing this is a deep one and I don't know the answer for you it's gonna be different for everyone for me I'll just tell you quickly what mine is and it's changing all the time but my first like big aha moment was that hey I feel like I've been putting on this earth I felt like I saw purred through all this to impact people like you through our company our big mission with our company which ties in to to my personal y meaning my I have a personal y and a business Y is to impact families to bring families back back together again right to unite families to unite friends it happens to be through fishing how we do it but to me I want to impact people's lives I believe I truly believe that's why I was put on this earth I believe I suffered through these anxiety attacks someone took my tee off here mi e just so I could do videos like this just so I could impact people and from the emails I've received so far thank you all so much for everything you've send all the questions you sent in I know that is my purpose I get goosebumps when I think about on all the things that that I've done here just in the three short years of discovering this and and this is not something you have to do for a full-time job I think that's what I got so confused on is I was trying to like overlap you know hey what I'm doing everyday you know isn't exactly what my job is but if the only reason you wake up in the morning is to go to work in a job that you hate to make money to pay your bills then you need to start rethinking why you're here I guarantee you God did not put you on this earth so that you could sit there and go to a job that you hate spend the majority of your waking hours doing something that you absolutely don't love just to like eat your way through life to pay your bills think about that and and in and I don't have the answer for you this is something you're going to come up with yourself but I would seriously spend a lot of time coming up with you were why what excites you and maybe it's time for a new job and maybe the job is okay and it's paying a lot of bills and you have something else you're doing on the side maybe through your church or through some other organization or maybe your own little nonprofit or maybe it's just something you're doing with the Boys and Girls Club or helping out with with with with a spouse or a child maybe someone someone through cancer someone tough in your life that you're just helping them out and making their life better you're why does not have to be massive you don't have to be changing the world but you have to be making an impact in the second I figured that out all of a sudden everything started becoming more clear literally the second I actually wrote down my why and this is Hugh you have to write down the why and it's okay if it changes mine has been making subtle changes as I keep figuring out thinking about it but every single morning I am literally writing down my why you'll see it on our website at salt Shauna calm you literally see why we exist and just if you want to know what our our big mission is are why like why we get up is our mission is to unite friends and family through phishing we want to serve fishroom to make their lives better through videos like this and obviously how to coaching and then to honor Jesus Christ in everything we do that's it it's that simple it doesn't have to be this long drawn-out one-page mission statement it could literally be as simple is I'm helping helping young kids who don't have fathers I'm making someone's life better it does not have to be this massive thing and I think that's what I got so caught up and it's thinking oh it's got to be this awesome mission statement that you know someone's gonna be framing one day it could be a one-liner that's so simple but means everything in the world to you that's all and I'm telling you when you do that everything completely changes in the book here I talk about this little village in Japan this is fishing for a happiness the book where it's basically my five years of reading a self-help book every single week so I think I plowed through close to 300 books and wrote down everything that that I loved everything that I that I thought was kind of cheesy and didn't work and everything that happened in my life it was crazy how God put all these write books in write messages maybe like this video for you right now like in my life it's the absolute perfect moment and I talk about just my transformation of getting over exoti text I went through cancer I had a lot of bad things happened to me in a short amount of time I dealt with some serious alcohol abuse and how I overcame every single one of those but one really really cool story is this village in Japan it has the highest life expectancy out there and these people don't know what depression and suicide is they they don't even have a word for retirement like they're not out there killing themselves and bring depress and suck stuck on suppressants they don't have drugs to help them overcome anxiety attacks so what's their story well the story is they have a little word called a key guy which simply means your purpose the reason you get up in the morning and there are people there like they talk about one gentleman who's still teaching karate at 103 years old he's still teaching karate at 103 years old if we could all be that lucky to even live that long let alone be out of a wheelchair out of a nursing home in literally kicking blocks and teaching young people how to use karate in their life and that awesome so literally they're in this village once again the most successful village of all time in terms of people not being depressed in terms of living the longest by far the outlet of every single other person in the entire world they don't have a word for retirement so they don't ever retire they find something that you love something they're passionate about something they're wise their mission and they do it for the rest of their life I think a big issue you hear about so many people who die within 30 days of retiring is their job becomes their why their mission and when the job ends there's nothing left they don't have a reason they wake up in the morning the reason for waking up we're just going to work to pay the bills to get the retirement accountant to retire at 65 and have a million dollars in your 401k that is baloney that's nowhere in the Bible that I haven't met anyone and tell me if I'm wrong here I haven't met a single person in life that said the key to happiness an ultimate fulfillment is working tirelessly to 65 at a job that you may or may not like to hopefully get a million dollars in your 401k and you're gonna retire everything's just gonna be great you're gonna sit on the beach and drink mai tais for the rest of your life that ain't the real world and that's not true happiness that's really really boring in fact you're not making any impact so basically from 65 on you're gonna make no more impacting your life you're not gonna have a mission or purpose why the heck should you get up in the morning think about that and if you're in that situation this is a time to self reflect think about your mission think about what excites you well if you can only have one thing that you could do for the rest of your life got it assuming money didn't matter you have to pay the bills what would it be and then once you've established that write it down and then backtrack how you're gonna pay for it that's it it's that simple I mean for me mine was crazy mine was the impact people bring families gather through fishing how the heck am I gonna do that I had no idea and for a year I'd not pay myself just trying to figure it out and now we have a profitable company more impacting all kinds of hundreds of thousands of people every single month it's a it's amazing it has all took me writing down my mission writing down my purpose and then living it that's it and once again it does not have to be the job you're doing there's so many people that do have jobs they like that pay the bills so that they can go make an impact in their community in their church in a non-profit or even just something you're doing on a day to day basis to bring joy to bring more fulfillment other people that's it that's mission I and I know that might sound corny to some of you but when I started combining these two and I'm gonna do these in the order that I discovered them so breathing was first I got the breathing and it was crazy that was right around the time I was writing this book and that was the time that I started writing down my mission and it was it was it overnight but it felt like overnight looking back now and all of a sudden all the anxiety just started going away and I was able to go to places like church that I literally like I'd stayed away from and yeah I put God out of my life I was I was saved as a young person and all of a sudden these anxiety attacks were like kill me and I felt like I could do it on my own I was living for myself and not for God and I mean it was crazy all of a sudden I started putting these two things together and I I kind of want to go back to church again and when I went to church I didn't have to sit in the far back right corner even though I still did that I've had a bad habit meaning I always wanted to have an escape route and if you suffer from anxiety attacks you know exactly what I'm talking about anytime you're in a situation where you know there's gonna be a lot of people or in a place where you know you're gonna be stuck for a while like Church you always have an escape route and I went through my entire life thinking that now I don't not awesome and that's what I want for you now I'm telling you these two simple things I was able to eliminate all the suppressants I wasn't a little high on alcohol and all this other corny stuff that doesn't make that big of a change these two combined the third one I'm going to talk about all led to a whole lot more control and a whole lot more freedom in my life oh one more thing on this and and this is this ties in with the comparing yourself to others it's on your mission focus on you don't get in the rut of writing this down like getting there and then focusing on other people or maybe I'm not making as big as an impact as someone else I've done that I am so guilty I found myself doing all the time where I see someone else making this big impact or they got they got more people following them on social media or YouTube or podcast whatever it is and and I kind of get down on myself a little bit you have to focus on you nothing else matters your why your mission is completely different than mine it's completely different your next-door neighbor's is completely different your spouse's your why is yours live it dream about it think how you can live your why and focus on nothing else that was a really really big one for me and I got caught in that rut so many times especially as I first got this a bad habit was oh man looking at someone else and just kind of get into scrum with me and hey maybe my whys not big enough I'm telling you if your why makes you happy and you truly believe that's why you were put on this earth then you nailed it live it out don't worry about anybody else all right so number three oh boy and this has a couple different facets and that's faith and that's not just faith in God I'm gonna talk about that and we'll talk about the impact that played in my life that's gonna be faith in yourself faith that you can overcome this and this was the biggest ah-ha out of all the stuff that I'm gonna talk about here this is the biggest aha this is the biggest take away you know anxiety is in your mind right you know that God did not create anxiety God did not create stress stress and anxiety even suffering is a hundred percent man-made think about that stress does not exist it's not physical you can't touch it like a marker it does not exist anxiety does not exist it's a hundred percent in our head right let's just say we have two moms with similar kids they both have two kids they're both doing the same thing that day with their kids and their kids are literally behaving just as badly one mom can completely be stressed out and lose it the other mom in the exact same environment exact same everything could be completely calm and just kind of shrug it off right it's because it's in their mind one is letting stress their little letting stress in their lives the other is not and that comes down to faith in yourself that comes down to a mindset and to me as soon as I realize that I had the power I like the mind is the one thing you can control you can't control a lot of the things around you in fact I don't know you control many of them I think everything happens for a reason but the one thing that you control is your mindset you may be heard the story of the two prisoners of war that were there in Vietnam and got stuck in the exact same prison they were literally shot down on a plane the exact same day went to the exact same same prison I'm sorry this is a world war two I believe not Vietnam anyhow exact same prison for the exact amount of days and when they finally got released it was like seven years later one of them killed themselves they got back to society realized they had lost their place in life they they had nothing else to live for they had no mission no purpose took their life this is a true story and the other man who was literally eating the exact same meal seeing the exact same thing in the cell literally right next to the other person became a Knopf there did really big things I mean literally changed people's life's told his story told the story about what I'm telling you right now I mean literally made a massive impact on world because he had a mission I tell you how to say that it was all mindset these two men were literally living identical lifes for seven years there was nothing different I mean I'm talking about literally the same routine same literally same environment same view everything and their entire life was the same for seven years yet one commits suicide the other does really big things it's 100 percent mindset one of them Chu chose one of them made the choice to let them to be miserable to compare themselves to others to say I don't have a reason to live there's no reason for me to be here the other one says I'm gonna make the best of this just like I'm doing right now I never imagined in my life I would be on a youtube video or a podcast talking about my anxiety and how low I got my life never in a million years but I had to make that choice I had to make choices say you know what God maybe this is happening for a reason maybe maybe this is gonna make me stronger maybe I'm gonna be able to share my story down the road and make a massive impact out there maybe it's just one person I get to impact I don't know everybody done X I've seen some of the messages I've gotten maybe just one person I'm gonna literally change your life and help them not go down the path of committing suicide would it be worth it would be for me so it all came down to faith to faith that everything does happen for a reason and this is the really really really big one here it is that everything happens for a reason everything happens for a reason and when you start taking that mindset and have that kind of faith in yourself and in God and in just this universe that was the biggest game-changer that was when all these combined to give me the control and freedom and here's what I mean I all of a sudden sort of slowly changing my mindset to say maybe it's happened for a reason it wasn't until I combined all these and I nail down my mission where I really nailed on the head and at one point I actually sort of becoming grateful for my anxiety attacks grateful for my anxiety attacks crazy right but here's the deal did you know that it's impossible to multitask studies have shown there's tons of scientists say your brain literally at any one given nanosecond can only focus on one thing at a time we we assume the brain is all-powerful and it is because the mind says the most powerful thing God ever gave us but at any given one second it can only focus on one thing at a time now you can use that to your advantage and here's what I mean if you were grateful if your mind is thinking gratitude it's impossible for it to be thinking anxiety or fear at the same time now think about that I'm gonna say it again if your mind is thinking grateful if I'm now sitting here and praying and say man I am so grateful for the anxiety attack I just had or I'm so grateful that this just happened my life whether it be good or bad it is impossible for my mind to also be thinking about fear and anxiety it could flip a switch in just a second but at that moment as long as I'm thinking grateful and believing and feeling great for my body it is impossible to be fearing a feeling anger or fear anxiety think about that was a massive mind mind shift a hope my mindset was like whoa whoa whoa whoa that's that's pretty that's pretty heavy stuff right because every time now you're angry if all of a sudden you start being happy or laughing or singing a song whatever it might be that they just get you in a better mood it's entirely impossible for you to have fear and to have anxiety and let me just show you oh yeah it's right over here so one of the biggest things I ever did these are my gratitude journals this is so it's certain in 2015 I started doing this all the way up here until 2019 and these are just some of the you know and I'm doing it literally every single day I do this religiously and I simply just write down what I'm grateful for you can see here sometimes it's a paragraph sometime these are each one one day and I literally just write down what I'm grateful for and then many times in there I wrote down that I was grateful for anxiety and what that did to my mindset and my faith was massive it changed everything because now once again I'm grateful for something I'm starting my morning that way like life just seemed to get better and when I started believing you know everything happens for a reason and I'm grateful for all this stuff good and bad everything started turning good and like literally everything just looked at man like that's a good thing that happened it's crazy and that's like that's extreme faith but once you get in the habit of doing that and literally writing down all the people I write people's names down every single morning and I'm just grateful for maybe it was a podcast I listen to her maybe it was someone that that just called me out of the blue and I just write their name and I'm grateful for them and it's been crazy the just the magic that has happened in my life it's been amazing the doors that have opened in my life it's amazing the God's favor that has been flooding on me when I literally just write down what I'm grateful for not just in the morning but all day long once again if something bad is happening you have the choice to let it stress you out you have the choice to be an interest about it or you have the choice to be glad about it or even I'm not glad about it you know what god I don't know I don't understand this right now but I'm grateful for it god I don't have any clue why you just took this person away from we've all lost loved people I mean I'm I promised myself we're not tear up on this lega to last one but you know you lose in your life a loved one a sibling mom dad kid whatever it might be spouse it hurts and and that's natural you're always gonna have suffering I'm not saying you shouldn't but there's always some silver lining I've seen time and time again when I've lost loved ones in my life there is always some reason we might not discover right way but you will discover it quicker when you have a little bit of gratitude about it and maybe you pray God I have no idea why you just took this person of my life I have no idea why you made me suffer 14 years of anxiety attacks I have no idea God why this is happening my life but the second you can end the sentence by saying but I'm grateful that it's here or God I'm I'm I'm I can't wait for you to show me why all of a sudden your entire mindset shifts the anxiety starts leaving your body the fear source leaving your body and all of a sudden you start building in that habit of writing down what you're grateful for every day for five years you start become a little bit happier now my friends they see me like man I can't believe you ever suffered from any kind of depression or anxiety I'm a pretty doggone happy guy it's cuz everything makes me happy it's just a lot of habits of many many years of being grateful for everything in my life my brother Daniel I write about him in the in the book fishing for happiness he was born with cerebral palsy and if you don't know what that means the layman's terms it means that all your muscles are weaker it's so my brother was born never has talked a day in his life he's never walked a day in his life he's 32 years old 33 sorry Daniel and imagine you you've never had the chance to even communicate with someone you've never been able to walk talk do the things that a lot of us take for granted never been on a date before never driven a car never played a sport never done any of that stuff that we've all bitter most of us have been able to do and yet the dude wakes up happiest can be with a smile on his face he literally wakes up saying God thank you for giving me one more day and he is such an inspiration to me and so many others who have met him like man this this young man sitting in a wheelchair is got the biggest grin on his face you have ever seen and guess what it's all mindset and you know what my brother has a mission his mission is to cheer people up and inspire guess what he's got massive amounts of faith he has a mass amount of fake cuz he has two options just like you do he can blame God he could say god you're the one that did this to me you're the one that put me in wheelchair what'd he make me born why did that have to happen when I was born where all of a sudden I get enough oxygen in my lungs what why am I stuck in a wheelchair my entire life he could easily take that in and honestly I might not blame him that right cuz it's tough I can't even imagine I know bad things have my life and cancer and anxiety attacks but I could not even imagine losing my legs and all basically all my muscles and basically just being stuck in a wheelchair of my entire life but he has that choice and he made the choice to be grateful to thank God every single day God thank you so much for giving me life thank you so much for letting me be able to go there and breathe and let me live my mission big or small and awesome I'm telling you every time I have a bad day one I think about the gratitude like God thank you so much I don't have no idea why this is happening to me right now it's not what I was praying for I wish you would have gone differently but I know this happen for a reason and the number two I think about the end the man the guy who's got every every possible excuse to be angry at the world it chooses to be happy choose to be grateful so I wouldn't cry here I go whoo I'm gonna end it with talking about these these three combined in the control and freedom and I have to imagine that's why you're still here that's why you're still listing why you're still watching this is what we all desire in life right control and freedom and I'm telling you for me regardless its anxiety or if it's just fear or if it's depression whatever it is these three things having a pure a very clear mission something's written out something it's like man pure and understanding where you can literally recite it where you know every morning why you're waking up that is a game-changer you got to write it down you got to live it and you got you got to start waking up every morning being grateful and having massive amounts of faith in both yourself and God and realizing that everything happens for a reason when you combine that all with breathing and relaxing your body I'm telling you like these three things combined literally changed my life it got rid of all this anxiety it got where I would never even think about having to take a drug again for this and some of you for especially some of the faith part it's tough and it doesn't happen overnight I push God out of my life for a long time and it wasn't that I hated a number you know was blaming him for all this stuff I just I didn't feel like I needed it and turns out I did and what I saw was a lot of my friends and people I looked up to that not the social media kind of people but people who really had success and really seemed fulfilled in life and had great marriages in great businesses and we're making a big impact most all of them had amazing faith and most all of them had a big mission and most all of them had accepted God into their life and really had that faith that man everything happens to me happens for a reason and I look at it this way regardless if you believe in heaven or hell or anything in between it's it's it's pretty nice knowing that there is someone who created you it is pretty nice to know someone that there is someone in control of you and in your destiny it is someone it's nice to know that there's someone out there that created you for a specific reason you think about that otherwise why are we here well what is our mission what's our purpose why are we on this earth if we're just put here by a complete random choice or by some random selection I truly don't believe that's the case and from all the little miracles that have happened in my life and I shouldn't be here right now for a lot of different reasons oh I literally died one time on no lie that's a whole different story I literally died when I was 16 17 years old for a few seconds completely flat lying on a hospital bed I mean there's so many reasons I shouldn't be here but then again I know I'm here for a reason I know I was put on this earth for a reason and I know you were too I encourage you to go figure it out and to get with faith I don't know what that means for you it's gonna be completely different for everyone it doesn't mean you have to go to church I would encourage you to go to church and define a group of people that you can trust and and and share your stories with both the good and the bad to me that was game-changing to have a group of people in a community that I could trust it was it was massive massive for me but I know these strings combined I make a massive difference in your life to give you more control to give you more freedom and if you if you suffer from any of stuff or have any other questions just like last time I'd love to hear for you my personal email Joe at Sault strong calm that's Joe at Sault strong calm I literally would love love love to hear from you if it's specific questions if you want me to do another deep dive on this is the reason I did this when I had so many questions about that breathing about inhaling through the nose and then exhaling through the mouth nice and slow usually four count for me and then eight out that sum I didn't get to share enough on the last one so if there's anything specifically or anything on the face side because once again that was something I struggle with for a really long time and that could be a whole nother episode by itself because I know I just touched on it briefly and even just how to define your mission if you need some help with that man I have spent years now just trying to figure that out and I feel like I finally got it got it down so if you want help with any of that or have questions or even just a thank you I'd love to hear from you love to hear how any of these things are making a difference in your life or anything else that's making a big difference in your life and I'll leave it with ed my let as a guy you guys all check him out he's got one of the best podcasts and YouTube channels out there the guys making a massive massive difference and ironically I don't know about his breathing techniques but the dude has a massive mission and he's got a lot of faith both in himself in and in God he believes that he is going to go to heaven when he dies and he believes the first thing that's gonna happen is this he's actually gonna meet the maker the creator he's gonna meet God and God's gonna say ed or your name Joe whoever might be come over here I want you to meet somebody he's gonna have someone come up from behind them and say this is who I created you to be this is your full potential this is who you could have become and one of two things are gonna happen when you see this person number one you're not gonna recognize them you literally have not lived up your full potential this is your full potential this is who I created these are all the powers the unique abilities I gave you all this stuff I gave you a mission I give you a purpose and you didn't use it the person is gonna be unrecognizable to you that would be a crying shame the other option of course is this and this is what I'm striving to meeting what you should try to be what edge strives to be the other option is that person looks like a twin looks like you're looking at Emir powerful stuff I get choked up even thinking about it so that is going to be your choice and I regardless if you get any of the stuff out of that use that last one to your own good use your like that last one to build your own mission you know that God's given you some gifts maybe you're not using them right now I know for many years I wasn't I was running away from I was living in fear I literally wasn't using any of the stuff God gave me now I am it takes getting out of your comfort zone it takes conquering some fear it takes doing some big things it takes how a lot of faith it takes a lot of habits it takes a lot of gratitude but once you do it I know when I when I die I want to be able to look at that guy and it's gonna look just like me identical twin not oh man I wish I would have done that or shoot I screwed up you only get one chance at life guys this is it so hope that was helpful thank you guys for all the support all the love please go to Salt's rom-com forward-slash podcast to check all the past episodes and I truly do want to hear from you you made it this far I would love your feedback I'd love any of their topics you want me to cover on this or any other guest that you want me to have on to cover some of these once again joe at salt strong calm you are the best you

Channel: Salt Strong

Views: 503,531

Keywords: anxiety attacks, anxiety attack, cure for anxiety attacks, how to end anxiety attacks, signs of an anxiety attack, panic attack, what is an anxiety attack

Id: Z-U9I6NePp8

Length: 58min 48sec (3528 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2019