Origin Story (Welcome)

Rich Jones, a certified wellness coach and master's track and field athlete, shares his personal journey of finding balance and creating space in his life. He discusses his struggles with alcohol, trauma, and mental health, and how he made the decision to prioritize his well-being. Rich also shares more about the podcast.

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Transcript

0:00:10 - (A): Yo, what's good? And welcome to find more balance, a podcast about creating space to live the life you want. My name is Rich Jones, and I'm a certified wellness coach, career coach, and master's track and field athlete, competing in both the long jump and triple jump. By day, I work in Dei and big tech, but through boundaries and intention, I'm able to create space for everything else. I started this show because I know what it's like to be out of balance. In fact, I spent most of my adult life out of balance.

0:00:39 - (A): I spent most of my adult life struggling with alcohol and appearing to be externally successful, moving from job to job, winning awards for online projects. But deep down, I was wrestling with trauma that ran deeper than I thought possible. And honestly, it impacted the way that I showed up for myself. It impacted the way that I showed up in my various personal relationships. It impacted the way that I showed up in business, whether that was at my day job or entrepreneurship or in my side hustles.

0:01:05 - (A): And it impacted how I was showing up in the greater world and in the various communities that I was a part of. But in 2020, I decided enough was enough. When I made the decision to quit alcohol on July 1, I can remember it was 08:12 a.m. I was sitting at my kitchen island with last night's malt liquor there, and I had this realization that I was becoming just like my father, who also had problems with alcohol and who also had problems with regulating his emotions and the way that he showed up in various dimensions, which, as I can reflect on now, translated to many of the issues that I've had as someone who's now living with complex PTSD as a result of this past trauma and also the trauma that he faced. So quitting alcohol was the beginning of my physical healing journey. That's when I began to create physical space after destroying my body for years upon years. It impacting my sleep, it impacting the way that I felt every morning, it impacting the way that I felt throughout the day, just never being at my best.

0:02:08 - (A): And finally, I released myself from that. And then one year later, when I celebrated one year free from alcohol, I made the decision to get back in the track and field after 15 years off because I finally had the physical space for it after multiple attempts to get back into it, falling off, falling back into the cycle. And after that, it felt like things were going great until I found myself in an emotional tailspin, and I'd actually been in the tailspin and didn't realize that it was happening. It's one of those things that you don't realize until you're through it and you're reflecting back. But I got into a point in August of 2021 where basic work tasks had become really difficult.

0:02:44 - (A): Things like sending follow up emails, adding things to the calendar. I constantly felt like I was doing something wrong, like I was letting people down. I can remember having my camera off during video conference calls and crying, tears streaming down my face, wondering what was going on, heart racing, only to find out later that I was having panic attacks. And so I made a decision around this time that I needed to create space for myself, and I didn't know what I was creating space for. I knew that I couldn't keep going the way that I was going, feeling the way that I was feeling. And what tripped me out about this experience at the time is that I was in a role that was the most, and I'm still in this role by day. I was in a role that was the most fulfilling role that I'd been in in my career, the most values aligned position, working with great people.

0:03:27 - (A): And I just kept getting what I wanted and still wasn't happy I was getting back in the track and field. I'm in this role. Things are happening, and I'm still feeling this way. So on September 1, I officially took a mental health leave from my day job in corporate America. And it's one of the best decisions that I've ever made for myself, right up there, right next to quitting alcohol. Because when I took that mental health leave from my day job, that was the beginning of the emotional healing journey, the emotional healing journey that I didn't even know that I needed.

0:03:57 - (A): Within a couple of weeks of being on that mental health leave, I learned that I'd lived with complex PTSD for most of my life and didn't know it. And in case you're unfamiliar, complex PTSD comes from experiencing chronic trauma. So it's experienced over time. Sometimes it's prolonged child abuse or domestic violence, being in a tough situation at home, being in an emotionally distant home, and it's very closely related to PTSD, but there are some other things that come along with it, primarily difficulty managing emotions, being distrustful toward the world. There's a bunch of other stuff. So if you've never heard of complex PTSD before, and some of this sounds familiar, I definitely encourage you to look that up. But learning about that diagnosis changed everything, because it explained everything.

0:04:41 - (A): Then a couple of months later, I ended up starting eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, EMDR, which is a therapy type that's proven successful for people with PTSD. And I've also spoken to some folks who've had complex PTSD, who've had success with it and jumping right to it. I had a tremendous amount of success with it myself, and it's been absolutely critical in my healing journey. And it hasn't been easy. It's been very, very difficult, but it's been worth it, because now I can see the bigger picture.

0:05:10 - (A): And I'm not reliving things that have happened in the past. And I'm able to be cognizant of the different things that I'm saying to myself that I've been saying to myself for years based on experiences that took place years ago. So I went back to my day job around the same time that I started EMD are. But I made this decision because I knew going back to work that I did not want to feel the way that I felt when I went out on leave, and I would do whatever was in my power to ensure that I never felt that way again. And that's when I learned to get clear on boundaries with myself, boundaries with others, boundaries with work. And that's what's enabled me to be able to do everything that I've done as far as track and field, becoming a two time national champion, experiencing the best stretch of performance and satisfaction at my day job, working toward healing difficult family relationships.

0:05:57 - (A): These things don't happen without creating the physical space and then the emotional space to process and understand and get to the root of what was going on so I could ultimately figure out who I really was or who I really am. You can put that whichever way works best for you. Then in 2022, after seeing the power of creating space and managing my well being, I decided to become a certified wellness coach.

0:06:21 - (A): And then a few months after that, I became the first time national champion in the triple jump as a master's track and field athlete in my first year back in the sport. Then later in 2022, I bended knee. I bended knee and proposed to my now fiance and a lot of the relationship, progress and things that I needed to work on on my side. I don't know that I would have been able to tackle those things the way that I did had I not created that space for myself with the leave to learn the various things that I learned so that I could become more aware of my communication skills and myriad other things.

0:06:53 - (A): And then in March 2023, when I turned 40 years old that same day, I won my second national championship in master's level track and field. But this time in the long jump and it really felt like the start of a new era. And the enjoyment, the satisfaction. I felt a different type of satisfaction winning the first one, but that second one, it felt like, man, I arrived. This is where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I'm going to stay to flow. I love where my life is right now. This sport thing that I thought I would never do again, I'm doing it. I'm performing really well at work. I'm adding value, I'm speaking up.

0:07:28 - (A): Projects and opportunities are coming my way. I love this and I want you to experience this. And that's why I started this podcast, because I know what it's like to be out of balance. I know what it's like to be stressed, burnt out. I know what it's like to feel like you're not showing up as your best. I know what it's like to feel like you're not showing up for yourself, you're not showing up in your relationships, you're not showing up in work, whether that's entrepreneurship or you're in corporate America and you're not showing up in the various communities that you're a part of, being the leader that you know that you're capable of being. And when I say showing up for yourself, I mean physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, whatever that means to you. I'm talking about your holistic overall well being. And when I say relationships, I'm talking about your partner, your family, close friends, and then business.

0:08:17 - (A): Like I said, entrepreneurship, corporate America, side hustles. There's other things that could fall into business, but how are you showing up on a day to day basis at work? How are you showing up as a leader in that space? And how are you operating at a high performance level? And then fourth, community, whether that's schools, sports, interest groups, church, board memberships, these other places that you want to be showing up in with similar or like minded people.

0:08:40 - (A): We're going to spend this season of the podcast on showing up for ourselves in the form of physical wellness. And we're going to also talk about physical well being. And we're going to talk a lot about the distinction between wellness and well being. I'm actually going to talk about that a bit in the next episode, but prepare for this first season of the show to be all about the various aspects of physical wellness and physical well being. We're going to talk about sleep, of course. We're going to talk about working out and movement.

0:09:08 - (A): We're going to talk a bit about nutrition. There's so much that we're going to cover in the realm of physically showing up for ourselves. So I can't wait to get into this season with you. And if you're wondering when you can expect new episodes, they're going to be dropped every Monday, and so you'll see a few different episode types. Sometimes it'll be me solo, a bit longer form, and then other times it'll be my Monday message where it's a reflection, a thought to carry you through the week. And then there will also be guest and expert interviews. So there's going to be a mix of things through this season and for the rest of the podcast going forward, and can't wait to have conversations with some of the people who've been highly impactful on my journey and can share the wealth of knowledge that they imparted upon me with the world. And if you have not already, I encourage you to subscribe.

0:09:53 - (A): Follow whatever the free thing is in your podcast listening app of choice to make sure that you don't miss any episodes of the Find more balance podcast going forward. And there's also a LinkedIn newsletter of the same name, find more balance. So I encourage you to subscribe over there. You'll find all the links for the show in the description for this podcast episode, and you'll also find everything else@findmorebalance.com. But thank you so much for listening to the first episode of the Find more balance podcast. I'll see you in the next one where we're talking physical wellness and well being, but until then, be well and be dope.