Jeff had always wanted to do something great with his life; explore, discover, build, help people. But in 2019 he had been suffering years of anguish, fear, lonliness, declining health, and worst of all a negative mindset.
You see Jeff had been though a lot already and now was in a massive amount of debt with no way to pay it off. In 2019 he was not only robbed and sued, he tragically lost his mother in an accident, and within two weeks lost two more important people in his life. If that wasn’t enough, in late July he narrowly missed bullets at a mass shooting that occurred just a few miles of his house.
2020 he hoped would be better, but after the Covid-19 crisis tore through humanity, he found himself in August in the ICU at a local hospital with a massive infection that nearly killed him. It wasn’t Covid, but he did remain an entire week at that hospital. With no visitors, no cell phone, and no connection with the outside world. He had nothing to occupy his mind and distract him from the constant inflow of new Covid patients. While incapacitated he languished though the seemingly endless codes being called over the intercom, codes that were signaling that a patient was in distress. This time gave him a chance to reflect on his circumstances. Which led him to taking a very painful and embarrassing first step, but one which would prove to be the best action he would ever take to improve his life - he sought help.
He finally came clean to his doctors about everything he had been feeling; his mood swings, his anxiety, his loneliness, fear, apathy, guilt, his quick temper, and his sometimes very low and dark estimates of himself - his low self-esteem. He told them all about how he was suffering. About his inability to hold on to a job for more than a couple months. How his relationships were suffering (he had been estranged from his family for nearly two years), and had about lost contact with nearly all his friends. He told them about the severity of his depression, his inability to complete even the most mundane tasks, and his disinterest in nearly everything around him.
What happened next? Well, the doctors did what they do best - they helped him become healthy again; not just in his physical self, but his psyche as well. His doctors referred him to a counselor and psychiatrist.
While he felt very uncomfortable at his first few visits it was only a few visits, and several months more when he realized he actually looked forward to these appointments. He learned simple actions he could do to help him stay grounded and in the present. He learned how to cope with stress, how to let things go, and even how to forgive.
He now had a growing psychological quiver that became increasingly filled with specialized arrows to attack many of the psychological roadblocks that often blocked his way. The gave him a mild tranquilizer to help him sleep at night and eventually he stoped needing those. He not only found himself being able to sleep through the night, often without the night terrors that, in the past, would frequently led to him waking himself and his neighbors with rousing and blood-curdling screams.
It was only a matter of a couple months post-care that he realized that he felt happier. But it didn’t stop there. He also realized he was more productive, more communicative, and more optimistic about the future. He communicated better, he rediscovered his interests in things he had forgotten about, he became less lonely, less angry, and more ambitious than ever. Wouldn’t you know it, he even once again found himself in the company of old friends. As his best friend put it there was something different about him - he seemed “so much more happy and pleasant to be around.”
Indeed things were improving, even perhaps they were better than they had ever been.
Which brings us to the present. Now, Jeff has fulfilled a life-long dream of owning his own business - a business of helping others who currently may find themselves in a position similar to that of Jeff’s back in 2019. Jeff not only has turned his life around from rock-bottom chaos where he was in a mental nose-dive, to a life of clarity, focus, determination, ambition, fortitude, achievement, and purpose.
He does not believe, however, that the stagnation and suffering he experienced at rock-bottom was all in vain. In fact, quite the opposite. You see, Jeff now fervently believes that he has gained unique skills, perspectives, and insights because of these challenges. His experience, then, both hurt and helped him. It is out of this experience that he now believes that anyone, anyone, has the power to realize their full potential no matter where they are at. In fact, he even would go as far as to say that people who have experienced this hardships, those who have hit rock-bottom, are the ones who perhaps might just have the most to offer society.
Which is why and how this website, the 180Rs group, and Speak Easy (his business) came to be. It is his firm belief that everyone should have the psychological armamentarium he was equipped with. It is with this website, his blogs, his posts, and with the operations of his business that he hopes to arm the world with a mental toolkit. To take a society that rewards negativity and self-victimization to one that promotes deliberate actions toward self-improvement, happiness, and a positive mindset. To help end the stigmatization surrounding mental health, and most of all, to remind others who may have lost sight of it - the power and greatness that dwells within their minds.
It is a never-ending but highly-rewarding journey - a journey that we hope you’ll choose to embark on with us. The question is, are you up to the challenge of this amazing adventure call life?
