Scott Mikesh is an award-winning business leader and pioneer of the Mental Fitness Movement in the U.S., having started 4D Fit Mental Fitness in 2016 after twenty years of experience in applied psychology, including health and wellness, mentoring, marketing and communications, creative arts, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In 2021, Scott published ‘MY BRAIN CAN’T POOP: A mental fitness guide for humans’ to raise awareness about the importance of brain health, mental function, and neurodiversity as fundamental factors in mental health, achievement, and well-being.
In 2023, Scott launched a 501(c)3 partner program MentalFitness4All to provide reduced-cost training sessions for income-eligible individuals and organizations.
Resources:
Website
Purchase his book “My Brain Can’t Poop” on Amazon
LinkedIn Profile
Transcript
John Simon Sr. 00:06
John, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR
Dina Simon 00:14
and I'm Dina Simon.
John Simon Sr. 00:16
Our guest today is Scott nicots. Scott is an award winning business leader and pioneer of the mental fitness movement in the United States, having started 4d mental fitness in 2016 after 20 years of experience in Applied Psychology, including health and wellness, mentoring, Marketing and Communications, creative, violence, diversity, equity and inclusion. Scott, welcome to our podcast.
Scott Mikesh 00:42
Thank you. Thank you for having me, and you nailed my last name on the head. So kudos to you. I take it however it comes. But okay,
John Simon Sr. 00:52
our church, I didn't even ask Dean of that, because a lot of times we have a guest, I'll say, am I pronouncing the name correctly? So maybe we're getting a little bit better with this thing
Dina Simon 01:01
well, and actually I would have said, because I normally say mckeshe,
Scott Mikesh 01:06
yeah, that's very common. Yeah, the accents usually on the eye. But again, that's just because of how my dad said it. So who knows?
Dina Simon 01:16
Yeah? Well, no, so John, you did great, because I would have told you wrong. And so Scott, after known you for over a decade, I apologize, because I should know how to pronounce it much better, because it is big deal.
John Simon Sr. 01:27
So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, and little bit about what you do with your spare time, if you have any of it, right?
Scott Mikesh 01:34
Yeah. Well, you know, quote, unquote, spare so it's like, how you use your time, right? A lot of times. Well, I am based in downtown St Paul, Minnesota, and have been in the Twin Cities. Gosh, I came here for college in the 90s. So I'm originally from Fargo, North Dakota. And really, you know, kind of as the intro alludes, to my journey and evolution to get to this space of mental fitness and well being and kind of diving into the brain and nervous system, you know, really just, you know, as most people can, you can kind of go back in time and see that journey and where it started, and the little mile markers along the way that got you here. But again, growing up in Fargo, North Dakota, my dad, bless his heart, you know, has an eighth grade education. Was farmer, self taught musician, so became a professional musician. My mom graduated high school and wanted to go back to college, but had kids pretty young and again, just the dynamics, she became a drummer in my dad's band. So very highly creative family who really valued creativity, so I was really blessed in that regard. I was more on the academic side too. So I, you know, when people talk about left right brain, I don't really, you know, I'm not really sure how exact the science is on that, but I'm pretty balanced when it comes between analytical and creative. So in addition me being, you know, gay now, and growing up in an environment that really didn't advocate for that didn't understand it, didn't want to talk about it, you know, there was a lot of fear and stigma around it. And so for me as a kid, and a lot of kids, too, for different reasons, right? We we internalize and we maybe think about why we are the way we are. We might hide different aspects of ourselves to try to fit in. And again, this goes across the spectrum. I mean, there's so many different social pressures that impact people in different ways that it's not limited to one group, right? It's you individually. How are you navigating all of those social pressures to be a certain way, to think a certain way, to behave a certain way. And that really led me into, you know, art and music were both passions of mine, and really fueled my ambition. But also, in retrospect, now I look at those as really practices of escapism too, like it allowed me to create in my mind, just an environment that felt empowering, that motivated me, that, you know, I could put music on and just feel motivated. I could feel energized. I could hear words and lyrics that resonated with me, even when maybe my physical environment was less than helpful. And the same thing with creativity and drawing, you know, it's really you're just kind of losing yourself in your imagination and exploring that. And it's really a stress reliever, you know, especially as a kid. And we, you know, kind of share more about just my studies of the brain and why I now realize that was so important, but it really, you know, translated into my education and my academics. I ended up pursuing social psychology and mass media in college at the University of Minnesota, and it didn't really hit me at the time, which, which is striking as well, but for a lot of people, just within the psychology field, the brain just isn't discussed, right? Ironically enough, it's so ironic. I had one class in college I was called chemical psychology. G and it talked about neuro chemicals, one out of, you know, the the four years and clinicians, practicing psychologists that I work with today, who are advisors, they don't even get much training within brain function, neurological health, neurological function when it comes to their training as well. So it's really, it's, it's kind of an emerging area of science, but it's also this, this disconnect within our healthcare system, within our educational system, where we've just haven't been making that connection for whatever reason, and it's just starting to happen, I'd say, maybe in the last five to 10 years. And that's really what, what kind of led me towards mental fitness. So having, you know, focused on communications and advertising and marketing and diversity equity, inclusion programs and all of these initiatives aimed at influencing behavior with no discussion or understanding about what drives behavior, right, other than other than emotion, right? We know, oh, if it's an emotional message, if you can get somebody to to tap into their emotions, you'll, you'll influence them more. But I wanted to know why, like, the mystery wasn't enough for me. Like, I wanted to know what, what harm are we doing to ourselves, unintentionally, unknowingly, and how can we take care of ourselves? You know that that part of our system that is driving our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. So, you know, it was this, this pathway from my own personal journey, yeah, to just, you know, trying to understand myself that then translated into trying to understand other people. You know, why is doing the healthful thing so hard? You know? We, we know, like somebody can give you a list of 10 things to do. We we could probably write that list of 10 things to
Dina Simon 06:44
do, right? Yeah.
Scott Mikesh 06:44
But why is it so hard? Like, it's still really hard and and, you know, the answer really is, is it's our nervous system that we're kind of working against a lot of times. And again, depending on how we were raised, what we're afraid of, what we were exposed to, you know, what was our environment? How has our nervous system developed? And we're still trying to regulate and navigate that activity that's in our system? So that's what led me to create 40 foot mental fitness from my journey. Nice. Yeah,
John Simon Sr. 07:15
did you end up getting the music from your parents, being that both of them were in a band?
Scott Mikesh 07:19
I did. You know, it's, it's funny, because when it comes to art and creativity, there's kind of this, you know, there's this belief that somehow you're just born with it, right? Like you have talent, like talents just bestowed upon you, and poof, like you're good at something, you're not good at something. And that's where, you know, it really was a detriment to me, and I, thankfully, I learned that pretty early on to challenge myself on those things that I wasn't really as good at, because we're, we kind of gravitate to the things we're good at. So again, I had, you know, I was dancing by the age of two. You know, as soon as I could walk, I was there at the performances of my dad's and, you know, the people would love to see little kids dancing and and so, you know, music just was really part of my environment. So, yeah, I mean, I think, I think sometimes we're predisposed to certain abilities and certain, you know, neurological activity or connections, but then it's really influenced by how much is that encouraged, and what do we learn along the way? What I also learned is I didn't want to live in a bar,
John Simon Sr. 08:23
right, yeah, right. Taking a look back at your father being self taught as a musician, that doesn't happen every day,
Scott Mikesh 08:30
no, yeah. And again, you know, for him, and just hearing his story living on a small farm in North Dakota. I mean, you know, their entertainment was radio. So the things that we take for granted today, I mean him listening to music on the radio, was his escapism. Was his connection to the world, was his way of just feeling good. And unfortunately for him, part of his story is he had a sister who was just a couple years younger than him growing up, I want to say she was maybe like nine or 10 when it happened, and she got ran over by a tractor. Oh, man, wow. And she died, and his family was very Catholic, and for the mourning process, they said, no music, yeah, you know nothing in the house, nothing, nothing that you know would go against the grieving process as they believed. And for him, it was really hard, hard, yeah, and he told me that, you know, not too long ago now he's in his 80s, um, and going through some, you know, pre dementia symptoms himself now, but you know that that that was really his outlet. So being self taught, really, you know, he bought an accordion for himself, uh, when he was maybe 12 or 13, and ended up on the radio, I think, at 14 or 15, Kf, geo radio and Fargo on some nice contest, yeah, and yeah. So he was really big in the red in the Red River Valley, if you know that, between kind of North Dakota, Minnesota, he's in the South Dakota musicians Hall of Fame. Wow, yeah. So he's done a lot for himself, but he always had, he always had a gig on the side, like he always had something else to kind of supplement his music career. Yeah, pretty much every pyramid scheme you can think of, we probably, my family's
John Simon Sr. 10:15
probably the accordion was always a great thing for weddings. You know, there always seemed to be in the small town that I was raised in, there would be an accordion player there. Absolutely
Scott Mikesh 10:24
the chicken dance. I have nightmares of the chicken dance, but yeah, polkas, waltzes, he did a lot of the old time music. And it was a lot of weddings. It was a lot of weddings. And then anniversaries, yeah, 50 year anniversaries, six years, you know. So it's, um, for him, it was a really good business model to get into the wedding business, because you kind of had repeat clients. But yeah, it was really interesting. A lot of you know, eagles, VFW, Moose lodges, nice, you know, any sort of supper club you can think of. We pretty much were there somewhere. So
Dina Simon 10:57
I want to ask a real quick question. So Scott, you probably know this better than I do, certainly based on who you are, but with your father early signs of dementia, I've heard just all this amazing stuff about music, right? And so how helpful that is in therapy and stuff and for him to remember. And so that, that I'm sure is a part of part of what you are bringing back to him and encouraging him to do absolutely,
Scott Mikesh 11:22
yeah, again, you know, we know it in our bones that music is good for us. You know, it makes us feel good. With a caveat, I do say music is kind of like food in a way, or art is, you know, you have to kind of relate it on how you're consuming it, because there's a lot of music and art that maybe isn't so healthy or positive. So, you know, if it's like making you angry and want to go beat up somebody, I'd maybe question, you know, maybe you don't, don't want that as much, but yeah, from from even the memory perspective. So speaking to dementia, and I did work as a personal care assistant for a couple of years during the covid period, when everything kind of shut down for a woman with dementia, a dear friend and her family, and did a lot of talks and trainings with them on basic brain function and neurological health, to know this isn't you. She's not mad at you. This is her nervous system, just kind of having a moment. And yeah, with my dad his he told me too, if he didn't have his music, it would kind of like, what's the reason to live, you know, for him specifically, yeah, it is. But that music, language, those things that we practice and do over and over again that really become habitual, they become part of our unconscious autonomic nervous system. So that's why, with people in their early stages of dementia, and even through dementia, you know, that long term memory and that muscle memory and that autonomic part is the last to go. So with music and music therapy and anything you can use to kind of tap into that part of the nervous system that is still firing well and can kind of make those connections, it's, it's really a neurological tool to kind of tap in and help people through some of the symptoms and some of the different stages and phases, especially with dementia, but even other mental health conditions that just help regulate the nervous system and kind of activate that part in a in a more healthful and healing way. It's fascinating.
John Simon Sr. 13:19
I think that's a great segue. In 2021 you published a book. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Yes,
Scott Mikesh 13:25
so that's kind of a story within a story as well. Um, so you know, when I, when I created 40 fit, I it was, it was a learning journey for me too, and diving deeper and deeper into the brain and the nervous system. It was just, there's just always so much more to understand and know and explore and read new research coming up. So I was really excited, like having this concept of, I need to get something out to the mass audience of people who are trying so hard to survive, what what can oftentimes be a very toxic and unhealthy environment, and we beat ourselves up over it, or we beat each other up over it. And just I had this real intense ambition and pursuit to get this information out in a digestible way, because not everybody likes neuroscience, not everybody likes biology like it is gets complicated really quickly. But you know, how can we talk about it in a very practical, pragmatic sort of way, like, how does it apply to you as a person, not just in the scientific field of research and studies and methodologies and blah, blah, blah. So during covid, I kind of found my opportunity to to maintain, helped me maintain my optimism and my motivation, since my work kind of all but just dried up and dyed up to get my book out and and it just was kind of farming a lot of information I already posted and shared, so coming back back into social. Media and different articles I had written and trying to just kind of pull all the pieces together. I published that at the end of 2021 I self published. I looked at different publishers. The tricky part is, at least those that I found is you either have to fit a niche that they specialize in, and a lot of times, you're either gonna pay a lot to work with them and or you need to have a large following, so I had little to no funds, and I had little to no following. So that kind of disqualified me for a lot of it. But, you know, that's kind of, you know, love or hate Amazon. They have KDP publishing, Kindle, Direct Publishing, and it was really an avenue and an opportunity for me to take the bull by the horns and get it done, do it myself and and I leveraged my husband and a couple of other friends as editors who read it, you know, as I was going cover to cover, provided feedback, provided edits. So I didn't have, you know, a professional editor, which, again, had I had the funds in hindsight, I wish I would have, so if anybody's contemplating like that is a value. But I published on a Friday in December, and that Sunday, I was in the urgent care with anaphylactic shock because because of my the stress from publishing my book, and what had happened was I published, and the moment I submitted the manuscript, it's in the system. It's in KDP, the Amazon publishing system, I had this euphoric sense of accomplishment, like I tingled from head to toe. I felt like, oh, the world is right. My life is going to go on. I'm going to make such a difference. This is wonderful, amazing. I think, I think the clouds parted and I saw the sun beam like shine on my face for a moment. A few hours later, my anxiety kicked in, and I thought, I'm going to go look at that manuscript again and just make sure all the T's are crossed, all the i's are dotted, and I started to see little fragments of a word fell off of one sentence, and then there was a missing word or a typo on another sentence, or, you know, where it's plural instead of singular, so it's not something that, like spell check is gonna catch, or your eyeballs just glaze over and you just don't see the mistakes anymore. So I went from euphoria to panic in about 2.2 seconds. And asked my husband on that Saturday, I said, Can you drop everything you're doing today and help me take half of this book. I'll take the other half. Just look for anything, any errors that don't look right, because this is out there now, and I don't want to look a fool. I don't want people thinking this is like shoddy work or shoddy information. And he he told me, I'm too busy, like, I've got too much stuff going on today. And pretty much immediately, my hands started to itch and I started to get swelling under my eyes, and by the next day, I had hives all up and down my arms, and I had lumps on my face and the back of my neck. My nervous system was just shot. Was just gone. So we went into the urgent care and they admitted me immediately and said I was on the verge of anaphylactic shock because I was starting to get a sore throat. Oh, my God. They said the next phase of that is your throat closes up. So I had an epi shot. So people maybe hear of you know, when you have anaphylactic shock, you have an EpiPen epinephrine, which is adrenaline, it's a stress hormone. And they put me on predison, which is a corticosteroid, which cortisol, oh, yeah, is it stress? Is a stress hormone. So both of them are hormones to regulate your stress response. That is what produces your allergic reaction. And it made so much sense to me once I went through it, and I'm like, but what I didn't know? So what I learned through the process, and there's other things related to kind of covid and long covid, and a lot of impact on our immune system and kind of autoimmune, different autoimmune sort of disorders that are kind of popping up now. So I don't know for sure if some of it had been kind of triggered and teed up with covid and everything going on too, but I absolutely know that it was the stress of publishing and that panic of it not being perfect that triggered that autoimmune, autoimmune response. And so now I jokingly say my next book's going to be how my book about mental fitness nearly killed me. Yes, exactly.
John Simon Sr. 19:35
Well, you know, Dana's written a book, and I did a similar thing called my collection of life stories that my daughter set out for me, and I learned something important just from you. Right now, I'm glad I never went back to read the book that I did, because I would be finding all kind of things that I did because I write the way I talk and yeah, and there's probably a lot of grammar. Arco errors in it, and like you say plurals and singulars and everything, but I know the stories, but the kids and the grandkids have read it, they they're probably making me feel good, but they said it was done well, very well, but it was a lot of fun. It took a year to Delict, and every week I would receive a question, and I would, I would answer it, but yeah, I can see the stress because I went through for the year of of doing it data. I'm sure you went through the same thing and writing your book. Yeah,
Dina Simon 20:29
and Scott, I don't know if we've ever talked about this part, because I didn't, I mean, I knew we've talked that you went into that stress episode, but I didn't know, like, all these details. So thank you for sharing that. So I didn't self publish, but I published through Kathy paper, through rock paper star, and so she was my publisher. I did have professional editors and rich and Amy and others reading through my book. So I had maybe 20 eyes on the book. It was off at the publishing house. So I love also the self publishing. I didn't do that. I did it through the Clarion house so you could go to Barnes Noble and anywhere and buy the book. And if I do it again, I would do the route that you went for other reasons. That's another conversation. The book was like, off to the printer, and I was leading like a webinar, and I was talking about the book that was soon to be out, and I took screenshots of a piece of the book, and I'm going through this webinar like 50 people on the webinar, and I look at the slide and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. There was a pretty major error. And literally, I got off that podcast or the webinar as fast as I could. And then I messaged the publisher, the whoever's printing, the printing house, and I'm like, Houston, we have a problem. Like, where are you at in this? And they're like, Dina, we've already laid like the whatever, you know the printing process is, we can stop it, but it's going to cost you X amount of money to do it. And I'm like, Nope, just let it go through. And then I gave, I gave $100 to the person that was the first that found the error, because I knew, I knew people would, and I'm sure there's other errors too, but it was a decent error, and I'll show it to you next time I see you. It was a decent enough error that seemed like, I'm like, okay, who's going to be the first to point out my mistake, you know, like I had that, I had totally had that stress, but I just flipped it. And I'm like, You know what? The first person that points it out to me, they're getting $100 and sure enough, it happens. But so I get it, and I think you can have, you could have 50 eyes on it professional. There's always going to be things like, we try to be, you know, when we put something out there like that, we so much try to have it be representative ourselves, our brand and perfect. But there's always that just error of possible, of air, right?
Scott Mikesh 22:51
Well, that is, you know, related to that. So that is part of the benefit of doing the self publishing through Amazon. I think I submitted maybe 20 edited versions after that, because I would just kind of burn through it, like, Okay, I got this much edited, upload a new one, and then take the next chunk and upload a new one, take the next thing. So it's all kind of on demand. But that also speaks, I mean, that whole experience, even to what you're speaking to, and even John you as well. It is how perfectionism can kill us like it really, it really made me realize, you know, because, again, I've dealt with anxiety for a long time. You know, again, my childhood not fitting in, trying to be perfect, that I even, I've even had loved ones. I won't name names, but I've had loved ones say that they were really glad that I came out as gay because, because they were afraid that I was too perfect, but their implication was that me being gay meant I wasn't perfect. Wow, so that's an imperfection. And I'm like, That's not how I perceive it at all. But
Dina Simon 23:53
thanks, I guess. Right, right, yeah. But my
Scott Mikesh 23:57
my perfectionism comes from trying to meet everyone else's expectations, you know? And that's what ex that's what perfection is like if, if you don't think I'm perfect, fine, like, great, but I but what's hard on me is my own fear of being judged or having people not accept me. And that's for most of it's too again. You know, it's not limited to any certain person or certain group. It's and we can get into that perfectionism realm where we get very competitive. Yep, I personally have never been a really competitive person as far as with other people, because I have always felt really bad when other people fail, like I don't, I don't, I don't get a sense of enjoyment out of watching someone else fail, but I'm very driven. So I'm very driven to have a goal, to achieve it, and I want other people to achieve their goals. And so there is, again, that's kind of that perfectionism piece of it. But you know, again, to John, you're, you're kind of. Approach to it would have been absolutely helpful for me to say it doesn't matter. It's okay. Don't go and scrutinize and analyze everything you've done, because all you're going to do is stress yourself out. That's what that's what kind of keeps your anxiety on high alert. And for me, that has been, it was a real wake up call for me, but also in terms of how I even describe managing that stress and perfection, because I think a lot of people even experience it in retirement, you know, the data and the statistics, or at least the stories. I don't know, I haven't done a ton of research, but I know of a lot of people who enter retirement, and within a year, they, like have a heart attack, or they have some illness that just springs up. And so part of part of the learning for me was really relating it to, you know what? What I like about being in the mental fitness space is you can use these metaphors and analogies of physical fitness that people get immediately, but they don't always apply them to your brain and nervous system. So for example, if you are doing a hardcore workout and you're running your fastest and you're just stressing your system out, do you immediately stop and just start eating, like you have a cool down, like you have to, like, let your body and your heart and your nervous system wind down. Kind of de escalate, kind of get, you know, rebalance. And so we know in the physical realm that you don't just stop doing a really intense stressful activity. You let yourself kind of do a cool down, and kind of gradually get to that sort of balanced state again. And I did not allow myself in that highly stressed state to just accept, okay, I can't drop the baton quite yet, like I need to just slow down to a jog, slow down to a walk, slow down to a crawl, and then ease myself out of that intense stress. And for me, that was really the biggest takeaway that, again, I don't think we're really taught and told, you know? It's because we're just like, succeed, do the big thing, like get the award. And how many people feel depressed after that? Like, we like go into this, we have a huge emotional reaction to like, now what?
John Simon Sr. 27:16
Just think how much easier your second book will be. Yeah, from everything that you learned from the first one
Scott Mikesh 27:22
absolutely. Well, I I think, I think what my second book is going to be, I'm going to rehash the first one, because again, it was quite a brain dump. So I tell anybody who wants to read it or listen to it is, I did create a podcast about it too, and that just allowed me to kind of add more content to do it as a podcast like that. But I tell people just pick and choose where you want to go, because it's a lot, and I feel like there's a lot there where I could just pull out little chunks and, you know, talk about creativity, or talk about this. So John, that's kind of where my mind's going with that is, you kind of reprocess what you've already kind of put together, right? Yes,
Dina Simon 27:58
I have an idea for you, because I may do this, this was my aha, like, maybe about a week ago, is I might take my content and put it into a workbook. Yes, you could take your chapters, your topics, and maybe make a workbook out
Scott Mikesh 28:13
of it. Absolutely. Yeah, there's, do you know, Susie hun. I'm gonna kind of drop some names here, but I'm familiar, but I don't know. So she started a business called teacher thing. She just recently, so shout out to Susie, but she just published her book called I have it here somewhere. Big hearted entrepreneur, nice and and she was, was a trainer, like teacher, and so she would do, I think, a lot of like, more, more corporate training, teaching, workshops, and that type of thing. And so it was very much in the routine of, at the end of a chapter, you had exercises, or you, you know, because you want to engage the people in the content that they just consumed, right? Yeah. So for me, definitely, you know, it's easy to say again, here are the list of things to do. Now, go do them, but to actually provide some sort of, you know, worksheets or right practices that people can apply, kind of in small doses, where I jokingly say to kind of, you know, you want to feed people with a spoon and not with a shovel?
Dina Simon 29:11
Yeah, exactly, yes. Good. So, Scott, we've talked a lot about your business, a little bit about growing up, anything else about your your life, that you would like to share, that you were hoping to to share with our listeners. Yeah. Well,
Scott Mikesh 29:27
I know you talk a lot about leadership and legacy, yep. And you know, the leadership avenue for me was it for, you know, listeners out there, even just people who who are in a leadership role, and maybe kind of lose sight of what, what that even means. I read about this in my brain, can't poop as well. That really leadership, and kind of the whole concept of power, right is, is really, how are you influencing other people, you know, and and the greatest influence we have is through our example. Is really leading by example, which is, again, where people can lead up, even where we talk about leading up a lot, but it is, what's the example you're setting that other people are going to mirror. They're going to, you know, learn from you doing and doing it themselves, and then feeling rewarded by that. So, you know, when I look back, I see a lot of leaders who who were just kind of caught in the corporate grind of production, right? You just had to make sure people did their work, did their job, and you produced and hit your numbers. And that's very stressful, and we just end up being again, kind of doing the unhealthy thing, because that's our that's our default setting, that's our go to when we're stressed. We just want to get it done. And so for me, you know, within leadership training, or just even understanding leadership, that you know, a lot of it is knowing how to regulate our stress response, to really optimize our creativity, our critical thinking, our problem solving. And then how, how do we empower others to do that too? You know? How do we really realize that when somebody already has 100 pounds of weight in their arms, you don't just throw on another five, you know? And mentally and emotionally, we're doing that a lot of times. We don't even know how much someone's carrying, and we just dump more on them without kind of checking in first and saying, how is your emotional load, and can you take on this, and do you need some support? So I think from a leadership perspective, my experience and just even my my learnings and and research that I've done in the mental fitness space has has just kind of, again, kind of made those connections of why a certain style of leadership is so effective and why other styles aren't so much. You know, if we kind of lose sight of of the human condition and kind of what's keeping us going, and that, for me, is kind of the legacy piece too. Like I really, I'm trying really hard, which, again, people would be maybe really surprised when you get really in the weeds, how lacking and how disconnected the conversation and understanding is around mental health as a function of the brain, that that conversation is just not happening as much as it has. It should be, it needs to be. And for me, that's, that's the legacy piece, is even just connecting with other people who are doing that work. Because it takes, it takes a village, like we all kind of need to have it spread far and wide and and empower each other to have those conversations and discussions around brain health and neurological health and how it impacts everything, yes,
Dina Simon 32:43
yeah, everything, and, and somebody's whole self, like, what's going on at home, what's going on at work? You know, everything,
Scott Mikesh 32:51
absolutely, absolutely, which makes it hard for my business, because people wanted you to drill down and say, Who do you serve? Like, right? And I am in that conundrum. I serve everybody, but you know, I am trying to drill down to kind of be more again, leaders, independent workers, remote workers, just people who just feel like they're maybe out there on their own, who don't have the social, healthful social support. But I also like to say, did you ever know that commercial? It's a barbecue sauce where they say that bleep is good on everything. No, you know that. I forget the name I'm, you know, I won't do free publicity, but there's a hot sauce and, and the commercial says, you know, they bleep it in the commercial, but they basically say, like, you know, this bleep is good on everything. And for me, mental fit, that's what mental fitness is, like. It applies to everything, yeah,
John Simon Sr. 33:41
I do have something that I that he brought to my attention as we're sitting here talking, he talked about retirement and what people go through whenever, whenever they retire. And I think, honestly, I think that would be a great discussion for a future podcast. And Scott, I love that and talk a little bit about it, because so many people are going through it, and they don't realize, no matter what age you are, whenever you retire, the changes that that makes in your life. And how do you fill in the time and keep keep your mental capacity up? What do you what are you going to do? So I think that would be a great reason to take you to another area in our podcast and discuss that.
Dina Simon 34:22
Yeah, I love that, Scott, if you'd be willing. I mean, that's one of the reasons that this is so fun for me, because I worked for John in my early 20s, and he retired at age 52 and still, obviously, is approaching this podcast like he would, you know, anything from a business perspective, as far as the research he's doing. And, man, it's just been so awesome. And so, you know, John, what a fun outlet for you to have something to do in your retirement right now. Like, this is a fun passion project for you as well. But not everybody has those opportunities. So like, where, how do they find things? Like, we've talked about music and, you know, those passions and those outlets, and you. Your retirement, those things are so important,
John Simon Sr. 35:01
and maybe that could be your next book talking about the mental health is retirement. There
Scott Mikesh 35:06
you go. Yeah, absolutely. I part of that larger conversation too, is just really dealing with with change, yeah, and that it really is, it really is a grieving process like again, we talk about grief and oftentimes in a very limited, narrow way that we only talk about it a lot of times related to death and dying. But we grieve. Our nervous system goes through the process of grief anytime there is change or loss, and it can even be in the long run, it could be a healthy change. Yeah, right, but your routine is changing. What used to bring you joy and satisfaction is changing. It's basically why people go through withdrawal when they're maybe addicted to a certain chemical, because your nervous system is Where is that thing that was making me feel good? And you go through all these different intense emotions and different, you know, neurological states and and retirement is one of those that you don't just want to drop everything and think, you know your life is done, or you don't have to do anything. Now, that's that's not how the human condition keeps going. You know? Well,
John Simon Sr. 36:15
yeah, it's such a it's such a rapid, sudden change in your life, because most of us, works for 45 years, and then you turn around the next you wake up one Monday and say, Huh, I don't have anywhere to go today. And and that's a real shock to you, absolutely,
Scott Mikesh 36:31
or even if, you know, people have this huge anticipation too, right? Whether if it's a wedding or a retirement or a graduation or your kids going off to school, like, whatever it is, you kind of have a build up to, like, this event. Yes, it's like, this big thing. And again, like I had with my book, you have this huge, like, rush of, like, dopamine and adrenaline and endorphins, and it's this amazing feeling and experience. And the day after it's open, yeah, and it you can just that drop, can just be really unhealthy and can be emotionally difficult and everything else. Because, you know, your system is wondering, where, what happened? Why don't I, you know, where are those good feelings, right? And so I, yeah, I would love to talk more about, you know, that part of the life journey, but just again, how it relates to all of the other experiences that you go through that is those neurological shifts and changes that you just have to take care of yourself, you know, in different ways
Dina Simon 37:32
Awesome. Well, we will have you back on and I'd like to say we've known each other for a long time. When you were the executive director for art buddies, you were partnered with us at Simon says, Give with giving out backpacks, and I think we might have done some birthday stuff along the wave with art projects and things. I'm not sure, but that's where we originally met. We've been friends ever since I've hired you to help me with my mental fitness. So I appreciate the work that you've done with me as well, but just a huge supporter of mine and me back at you here in this community, and we were super excited to have you out of podcast. So thank you for being willing to do so.
Scott Mikesh 38:08
Thank you too. I am so grateful for you, Dina and John now virtually meeting you as well, but just again, just putting out so much, you know, positive, uplifting, inspiring, empowering information for people to consume and to digest and to really think about. I, you know, both just as a person and as a you know, personally and professionally, I just appreciate your work and what you do and what you put in the universe. So thank you. Well,
John Simon Sr. 38:35
we enjoy doing it.
Dina Simon 38:37
Yes, we do. We do. I'd like to thank Scott mckisch for being on our podcast. He is an award winning business leader and a pioneer in the mental fitness space. I have worked with him one on one, and can attest that he does great work. So if you are interested in reaching out to him, we'll make sure all of his information is in our show notes. He's the author of a book called my brain can't poop. We didn't even mention this, but he just launched a 501 c3 that is tied to his 4d mental fitness company. And so maybe when we do have him back on next year, we'll talk more about that, but we'll make sure all that's in the show notes. And thank you again, Scott, just for your partnership in the community. And as always, I would love to thank my father in law for CO hosting with me on this podcast. This is our last guest that we will have for the first season as we wrap up 2023 and John and I are going to do one last podcast where we do a wrap for the year, and otherwise we'll talk to you next year when we launch season two, until we talk again. You.
John, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR
Dina Simon 00:14
and I'm Dina Simon.
John Simon Sr. 00:16
Our guest today is Scott nicots. Scott is an award winning business leader and pioneer of the mental fitness movement in the United States, having started 4d mental fitness in 2016 after 20 years of experience in Applied Psychology, including health and wellness, mentoring, Marketing and Communications, creative, violence, diversity, equity and inclusion. Scott, welcome to our podcast.
Scott Mikesh 00:42
Thank you. Thank you for having me, and you nailed my last name on the head. So kudos to you. I take it however it comes. But okay,
John Simon Sr. 00:52
our church, I didn't even ask Dean of that, because a lot of times we have a guest, I'll say, am I pronouncing the name correctly? So maybe we're getting a little bit better with this thing
Dina Simon 01:01
well, and actually I would have said, because I normally say mckeshe,
Scott Mikesh 01:06
yeah, that's very common. Yeah, the accents usually on the eye. But again, that's just because of how my dad said it. So who knows?
Dina Simon 01:16
Yeah? Well, no, so John, you did great, because I would have told you wrong. And so Scott, after known you for over a decade, I apologize, because I should know how to pronounce it much better, because it is big deal.
John Simon Sr. 01:27
So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, and little bit about what you do with your spare time, if you have any of it, right?
Scott Mikesh 01:34
Yeah. Well, you know, quote, unquote, spare so it's like, how you use your time, right? A lot of times. Well, I am based in downtown St Paul, Minnesota, and have been in the Twin Cities. Gosh, I came here for college in the 90s. So I'm originally from Fargo, North Dakota. And really, you know, kind of as the intro alludes, to my journey and evolution to get to this space of mental fitness and well being and kind of diving into the brain and nervous system, you know, really just, you know, as most people can, you can kind of go back in time and see that journey and where it started, and the little mile markers along the way that got you here. But again, growing up in Fargo, North Dakota, my dad, bless his heart, you know, has an eighth grade education. Was farmer, self taught musician, so became a professional musician. My mom graduated high school and wanted to go back to college, but had kids pretty young and again, just the dynamics, she became a drummer in my dad's band. So very highly creative family who really valued creativity, so I was really blessed in that regard. I was more on the academic side too. So I, you know, when people talk about left right brain, I don't really, you know, I'm not really sure how exact the science is on that, but I'm pretty balanced when it comes between analytical and creative. So in addition me being, you know, gay now, and growing up in an environment that really didn't advocate for that didn't understand it, didn't want to talk about it, you know, there was a lot of fear and stigma around it. And so for me as a kid, and a lot of kids, too, for different reasons, right? We we internalize and we maybe think about why we are the way we are. We might hide different aspects of ourselves to try to fit in. And again, this goes across the spectrum. I mean, there's so many different social pressures that impact people in different ways that it's not limited to one group, right? It's you individually. How are you navigating all of those social pressures to be a certain way, to think a certain way, to behave a certain way. And that really led me into, you know, art and music were both passions of mine, and really fueled my ambition. But also, in retrospect, now I look at those as really practices of escapism too, like it allowed me to create in my mind, just an environment that felt empowering, that motivated me, that, you know, I could put music on and just feel motivated. I could feel energized. I could hear words and lyrics that resonated with me, even when maybe my physical environment was less than helpful. And the same thing with creativity and drawing, you know, it's really you're just kind of losing yourself in your imagination and exploring that. And it's really a stress reliever, you know, especially as a kid. And we, you know, kind of share more about just my studies of the brain and why I now realize that was so important, but it really, you know, translated into my education and my academics. I ended up pursuing social psychology and mass media in college at the University of Minnesota, and it didn't really hit me at the time, which, which is striking as well, but for a lot of people, just within the psychology field, the brain just isn't discussed, right? Ironically enough, it's so ironic. I had one class in college I was called chemical psychology. G and it talked about neuro chemicals, one out of, you know, the the four years and clinicians, practicing psychologists that I work with today, who are advisors, they don't even get much training within brain function, neurological health, neurological function when it comes to their training as well. So it's really, it's, it's kind of an emerging area of science, but it's also this, this disconnect within our healthcare system, within our educational system, where we've just haven't been making that connection for whatever reason, and it's just starting to happen, I'd say, maybe in the last five to 10 years. And that's really what, what kind of led me towards mental fitness. So having, you know, focused on communications and advertising and marketing and diversity equity, inclusion programs and all of these initiatives aimed at influencing behavior with no discussion or understanding about what drives behavior, right, other than other than emotion, right? We know, oh, if it's an emotional message, if you can get somebody to to tap into their emotions, you'll, you'll influence them more. But I wanted to know why, like, the mystery wasn't enough for me. Like, I wanted to know what, what harm are we doing to ourselves, unintentionally, unknowingly, and how can we take care of ourselves? You know that that part of our system that is driving our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. So, you know, it was this, this pathway from my own personal journey, yeah, to just, you know, trying to understand myself that then translated into trying to understand other people. You know, why is doing the healthful thing so hard? You know? We, we know, like somebody can give you a list of 10 things to do. We we could probably write that list of 10 things to
Dina Simon 06:44
do, right? Yeah.
Scott Mikesh 06:44
But why is it so hard? Like, it's still really hard and and, you know, the answer really is, is it's our nervous system that we're kind of working against a lot of times. And again, depending on how we were raised, what we're afraid of, what we were exposed to, you know, what was our environment? How has our nervous system developed? And we're still trying to regulate and navigate that activity that's in our system? So that's what led me to create 40 foot mental fitness from my journey. Nice. Yeah,
John Simon Sr. 07:15
did you end up getting the music from your parents, being that both of them were in a band?
Scott Mikesh 07:19
I did. You know, it's, it's funny, because when it comes to art and creativity, there's kind of this, you know, there's this belief that somehow you're just born with it, right? Like you have talent, like talents just bestowed upon you, and poof, like you're good at something, you're not good at something. And that's where, you know, it really was a detriment to me, and I, thankfully, I learned that pretty early on to challenge myself on those things that I wasn't really as good at, because we're, we kind of gravitate to the things we're good at. So again, I had, you know, I was dancing by the age of two. You know, as soon as I could walk, I was there at the performances of my dad's and, you know, the people would love to see little kids dancing and and so, you know, music just was really part of my environment. So, yeah, I mean, I think, I think sometimes we're predisposed to certain abilities and certain, you know, neurological activity or connections, but then it's really influenced by how much is that encouraged, and what do we learn along the way? What I also learned is I didn't want to live in a bar,
John Simon Sr. 08:23
right, yeah, right. Taking a look back at your father being self taught as a musician, that doesn't happen every day,
Scott Mikesh 08:30
no, yeah. And again, you know, for him, and just hearing his story living on a small farm in North Dakota. I mean, you know, their entertainment was radio. So the things that we take for granted today, I mean him listening to music on the radio, was his escapism. Was his connection to the world, was his way of just feeling good. And unfortunately for him, part of his story is he had a sister who was just a couple years younger than him growing up, I want to say she was maybe like nine or 10 when it happened, and she got ran over by a tractor. Oh, man, wow. And she died, and his family was very Catholic, and for the mourning process, they said, no music, yeah, you know nothing in the house, nothing, nothing that you know would go against the grieving process as they believed. And for him, it was really hard, hard, yeah, and he told me that, you know, not too long ago now he's in his 80s, um, and going through some, you know, pre dementia symptoms himself now, but you know that that that was really his outlet. So being self taught, really, you know, he bought an accordion for himself, uh, when he was maybe 12 or 13, and ended up on the radio, I think, at 14 or 15, Kf, geo radio and Fargo on some nice contest, yeah, and yeah. So he was really big in the red in the Red River Valley, if you know that, between kind of North Dakota, Minnesota, he's in the South Dakota musicians Hall of Fame. Wow, yeah. So he's done a lot for himself, but he always had, he always had a gig on the side, like he always had something else to kind of supplement his music career. Yeah, pretty much every pyramid scheme you can think of, we probably, my family's
John Simon Sr. 10:15
probably the accordion was always a great thing for weddings. You know, there always seemed to be in the small town that I was raised in, there would be an accordion player there. Absolutely
Scott Mikesh 10:24
the chicken dance. I have nightmares of the chicken dance, but yeah, polkas, waltzes, he did a lot of the old time music. And it was a lot of weddings. It was a lot of weddings. And then anniversaries, yeah, 50 year anniversaries, six years, you know. So it's, um, for him, it was a really good business model to get into the wedding business, because you kind of had repeat clients. But yeah, it was really interesting. A lot of you know, eagles, VFW, Moose lodges, nice, you know, any sort of supper club you can think of. We pretty much were there somewhere. So
Dina Simon 10:57
I want to ask a real quick question. So Scott, you probably know this better than I do, certainly based on who you are, but with your father early signs of dementia, I've heard just all this amazing stuff about music, right? And so how helpful that is in therapy and stuff and for him to remember. And so that, that I'm sure is a part of part of what you are bringing back to him and encouraging him to do absolutely,
Scott Mikesh 11:22
yeah, again, you know, we know it in our bones that music is good for us. You know, it makes us feel good. With a caveat, I do say music is kind of like food in a way, or art is, you know, you have to kind of relate it on how you're consuming it, because there's a lot of music and art that maybe isn't so healthy or positive. So, you know, if it's like making you angry and want to go beat up somebody, I'd maybe question, you know, maybe you don't, don't want that as much, but yeah, from from even the memory perspective. So speaking to dementia, and I did work as a personal care assistant for a couple of years during the covid period, when everything kind of shut down for a woman with dementia, a dear friend and her family, and did a lot of talks and trainings with them on basic brain function and neurological health, to know this isn't you. She's not mad at you. This is her nervous system, just kind of having a moment. And yeah, with my dad his he told me too, if he didn't have his music, it would kind of like, what's the reason to live, you know, for him specifically, yeah, it is. But that music, language, those things that we practice and do over and over again that really become habitual, they become part of our unconscious autonomic nervous system. So that's why, with people in their early stages of dementia, and even through dementia, you know, that long term memory and that muscle memory and that autonomic part is the last to go. So with music and music therapy and anything you can use to kind of tap into that part of the nervous system that is still firing well and can kind of make those connections, it's, it's really a neurological tool to kind of tap in and help people through some of the symptoms and some of the different stages and phases, especially with dementia, but even other mental health conditions that just help regulate the nervous system and kind of activate that part in a in a more healthful and healing way. It's fascinating.
John Simon Sr. 13:19
I think that's a great segue. In 2021 you published a book. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Yes,
Scott Mikesh 13:25
so that's kind of a story within a story as well. Um, so you know, when I, when I created 40 fit, I it was, it was a learning journey for me too, and diving deeper and deeper into the brain and the nervous system. It was just, there's just always so much more to understand and know and explore and read new research coming up. So I was really excited, like having this concept of, I need to get something out to the mass audience of people who are trying so hard to survive, what what can oftentimes be a very toxic and unhealthy environment, and we beat ourselves up over it, or we beat each other up over it. And just I had this real intense ambition and pursuit to get this information out in a digestible way, because not everybody likes neuroscience, not everybody likes biology like it is gets complicated really quickly. But you know, how can we talk about it in a very practical, pragmatic sort of way, like, how does it apply to you as a person, not just in the scientific field of research and studies and methodologies and blah, blah, blah. So during covid, I kind of found my opportunity to to maintain, helped me maintain my optimism and my motivation, since my work kind of all but just dried up and dyed up to get my book out and and it just was kind of farming a lot of information I already posted and shared, so coming back back into social. Media and different articles I had written and trying to just kind of pull all the pieces together. I published that at the end of 2021 I self published. I looked at different publishers. The tricky part is, at least those that I found is you either have to fit a niche that they specialize in, and a lot of times, you're either gonna pay a lot to work with them and or you need to have a large following, so I had little to no funds, and I had little to no following. So that kind of disqualified me for a lot of it. But, you know, that's kind of, you know, love or hate Amazon. They have KDP publishing, Kindle, Direct Publishing, and it was really an avenue and an opportunity for me to take the bull by the horns and get it done, do it myself and and I leveraged my husband and a couple of other friends as editors who read it, you know, as I was going cover to cover, provided feedback, provided edits. So I didn't have, you know, a professional editor, which, again, had I had the funds in hindsight, I wish I would have, so if anybody's contemplating like that is a value. But I published on a Friday in December, and that Sunday, I was in the urgent care with anaphylactic shock because because of my the stress from publishing my book, and what had happened was I published, and the moment I submitted the manuscript, it's in the system. It's in KDP, the Amazon publishing system, I had this euphoric sense of accomplishment, like I tingled from head to toe. I felt like, oh, the world is right. My life is going to go on. I'm going to make such a difference. This is wonderful, amazing. I think, I think the clouds parted and I saw the sun beam like shine on my face for a moment. A few hours later, my anxiety kicked in, and I thought, I'm going to go look at that manuscript again and just make sure all the T's are crossed, all the i's are dotted, and I started to see little fragments of a word fell off of one sentence, and then there was a missing word or a typo on another sentence, or, you know, where it's plural instead of singular, so it's not something that, like spell check is gonna catch, or your eyeballs just glaze over and you just don't see the mistakes anymore. So I went from euphoria to panic in about 2.2 seconds. And asked my husband on that Saturday, I said, Can you drop everything you're doing today and help me take half of this book. I'll take the other half. Just look for anything, any errors that don't look right, because this is out there now, and I don't want to look a fool. I don't want people thinking this is like shoddy work or shoddy information. And he he told me, I'm too busy, like, I've got too much stuff going on today. And pretty much immediately, my hands started to itch and I started to get swelling under my eyes, and by the next day, I had hives all up and down my arms, and I had lumps on my face and the back of my neck. My nervous system was just shot. Was just gone. So we went into the urgent care and they admitted me immediately and said I was on the verge of anaphylactic shock because I was starting to get a sore throat. Oh, my God. They said the next phase of that is your throat closes up. So I had an epi shot. So people maybe hear of you know, when you have anaphylactic shock, you have an EpiPen epinephrine, which is adrenaline, it's a stress hormone. And they put me on predison, which is a corticosteroid, which cortisol, oh, yeah, is it stress? Is a stress hormone. So both of them are hormones to regulate your stress response. That is what produces your allergic reaction. And it made so much sense to me once I went through it, and I'm like, but what I didn't know? So what I learned through the process, and there's other things related to kind of covid and long covid, and a lot of impact on our immune system and kind of autoimmune, different autoimmune sort of disorders that are kind of popping up now. So I don't know for sure if some of it had been kind of triggered and teed up with covid and everything going on too, but I absolutely know that it was the stress of publishing and that panic of it not being perfect that triggered that autoimmune, autoimmune response. And so now I jokingly say my next book's going to be how my book about mental fitness nearly killed me. Yes, exactly.
John Simon Sr. 19:35
Well, you know, Dana's written a book, and I did a similar thing called my collection of life stories that my daughter set out for me, and I learned something important just from you. Right now, I'm glad I never went back to read the book that I did, because I would be finding all kind of things that I did because I write the way I talk and yeah, and there's probably a lot of grammar. Arco errors in it, and like you say plurals and singulars and everything, but I know the stories, but the kids and the grandkids have read it, they they're probably making me feel good, but they said it was done well, very well, but it was a lot of fun. It took a year to Delict, and every week I would receive a question, and I would, I would answer it, but yeah, I can see the stress because I went through for the year of of doing it data. I'm sure you went through the same thing and writing your book. Yeah,
Dina Simon 20:29
and Scott, I don't know if we've ever talked about this part, because I didn't, I mean, I knew we've talked that you went into that stress episode, but I didn't know, like, all these details. So thank you for sharing that. So I didn't self publish, but I published through Kathy paper, through rock paper star, and so she was my publisher. I did have professional editors and rich and Amy and others reading through my book. So I had maybe 20 eyes on the book. It was off at the publishing house. So I love also the self publishing. I didn't do that. I did it through the Clarion house so you could go to Barnes Noble and anywhere and buy the book. And if I do it again, I would do the route that you went for other reasons. That's another conversation. The book was like, off to the printer, and I was leading like a webinar, and I was talking about the book that was soon to be out, and I took screenshots of a piece of the book, and I'm going through this webinar like 50 people on the webinar, and I look at the slide and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. There was a pretty major error. And literally, I got off that podcast or the webinar as fast as I could. And then I messaged the publisher, the whoever's printing, the printing house, and I'm like, Houston, we have a problem. Like, where are you at in this? And they're like, Dina, we've already laid like the whatever, you know the printing process is, we can stop it, but it's going to cost you X amount of money to do it. And I'm like, Nope, just let it go through. And then I gave, I gave $100 to the person that was the first that found the error, because I knew, I knew people would, and I'm sure there's other errors too, but it was a decent error, and I'll show it to you next time I see you. It was a decent enough error that seemed like, I'm like, okay, who's going to be the first to point out my mistake, you know, like I had that, I had totally had that stress, but I just flipped it. And I'm like, You know what? The first person that points it out to me, they're getting $100 and sure enough, it happens. But so I get it, and I think you can have, you could have 50 eyes on it professional. There's always going to be things like, we try to be, you know, when we put something out there like that, we so much try to have it be representative ourselves, our brand and perfect. But there's always that just error of possible, of air, right?
Scott Mikesh 22:51
Well, that is, you know, related to that. So that is part of the benefit of doing the self publishing through Amazon. I think I submitted maybe 20 edited versions after that, because I would just kind of burn through it, like, Okay, I got this much edited, upload a new one, and then take the next chunk and upload a new one, take the next thing. So it's all kind of on demand. But that also speaks, I mean, that whole experience, even to what you're speaking to, and even John you as well. It is how perfectionism can kill us like it really, it really made me realize, you know, because, again, I've dealt with anxiety for a long time. You know, again, my childhood not fitting in, trying to be perfect, that I even, I've even had loved ones. I won't name names, but I've had loved ones say that they were really glad that I came out as gay because, because they were afraid that I was too perfect, but their implication was that me being gay meant I wasn't perfect. Wow, so that's an imperfection. And I'm like, That's not how I perceive it at all. But
Dina Simon 23:53
thanks, I guess. Right, right, yeah. But my
Scott Mikesh 23:57
my perfectionism comes from trying to meet everyone else's expectations, you know? And that's what ex that's what perfection is like if, if you don't think I'm perfect, fine, like, great, but I but what's hard on me is my own fear of being judged or having people not accept me. And that's for most of it's too again. You know, it's not limited to any certain person or certain group. It's and we can get into that perfectionism realm where we get very competitive. Yep, I personally have never been a really competitive person as far as with other people, because I have always felt really bad when other people fail, like I don't, I don't, I don't get a sense of enjoyment out of watching someone else fail, but I'm very driven. So I'm very driven to have a goal, to achieve it, and I want other people to achieve their goals. And so there is, again, that's kind of that perfectionism piece of it. But you know, again, to John, you're, you're kind of. Approach to it would have been absolutely helpful for me to say it doesn't matter. It's okay. Don't go and scrutinize and analyze everything you've done, because all you're going to do is stress yourself out. That's what that's what kind of keeps your anxiety on high alert. And for me, that has been, it was a real wake up call for me, but also in terms of how I even describe managing that stress and perfection, because I think a lot of people even experience it in retirement, you know, the data and the statistics, or at least the stories. I don't know, I haven't done a ton of research, but I know of a lot of people who enter retirement, and within a year, they, like have a heart attack, or they have some illness that just springs up. And so part of part of the learning for me was really relating it to, you know what? What I like about being in the mental fitness space is you can use these metaphors and analogies of physical fitness that people get immediately, but they don't always apply them to your brain and nervous system. So for example, if you are doing a hardcore workout and you're running your fastest and you're just stressing your system out, do you immediately stop and just start eating, like you have a cool down, like you have to, like, let your body and your heart and your nervous system wind down. Kind of de escalate, kind of get, you know, rebalance. And so we know in the physical realm that you don't just stop doing a really intense stressful activity. You let yourself kind of do a cool down, and kind of gradually get to that sort of balanced state again. And I did not allow myself in that highly stressed state to just accept, okay, I can't drop the baton quite yet, like I need to just slow down to a jog, slow down to a walk, slow down to a crawl, and then ease myself out of that intense stress. And for me, that was really the biggest takeaway that, again, I don't think we're really taught and told, you know? It's because we're just like, succeed, do the big thing, like get the award. And how many people feel depressed after that? Like, we like go into this, we have a huge emotional reaction to like, now what?
John Simon Sr. 27:16
Just think how much easier your second book will be. Yeah, from everything that you learned from the first one
Scott Mikesh 27:22
absolutely. Well, I I think, I think what my second book is going to be, I'm going to rehash the first one, because again, it was quite a brain dump. So I tell anybody who wants to read it or listen to it is, I did create a podcast about it too, and that just allowed me to kind of add more content to do it as a podcast like that. But I tell people just pick and choose where you want to go, because it's a lot, and I feel like there's a lot there where I could just pull out little chunks and, you know, talk about creativity, or talk about this. So John, that's kind of where my mind's going with that is, you kind of reprocess what you've already kind of put together, right? Yes,
Dina Simon 27:58
I have an idea for you, because I may do this, this was my aha, like, maybe about a week ago, is I might take my content and put it into a workbook. Yes, you could take your chapters, your topics, and maybe make a workbook out
Scott Mikesh 28:13
of it. Absolutely. Yeah, there's, do you know, Susie hun. I'm gonna kind of drop some names here, but I'm familiar, but I don't know. So she started a business called teacher thing. She just recently, so shout out to Susie, but she just published her book called I have it here somewhere. Big hearted entrepreneur, nice and and she was, was a trainer, like teacher, and so she would do, I think, a lot of like, more, more corporate training, teaching, workshops, and that type of thing. And so it was very much in the routine of, at the end of a chapter, you had exercises, or you, you know, because you want to engage the people in the content that they just consumed, right? Yeah. So for me, definitely, you know, it's easy to say again, here are the list of things to do. Now, go do them, but to actually provide some sort of, you know, worksheets or right practices that people can apply, kind of in small doses, where I jokingly say to kind of, you know, you want to feed people with a spoon and not with a shovel?
Dina Simon 29:11
Yeah, exactly, yes. Good. So, Scott, we've talked a lot about your business, a little bit about growing up, anything else about your your life, that you would like to share, that you were hoping to to share with our listeners. Yeah. Well,
Scott Mikesh 29:27
I know you talk a lot about leadership and legacy, yep. And you know, the leadership avenue for me was it for, you know, listeners out there, even just people who who are in a leadership role, and maybe kind of lose sight of what, what that even means. I read about this in my brain, can't poop as well. That really leadership, and kind of the whole concept of power, right is, is really, how are you influencing other people, you know, and and the greatest influence we have is through our example. Is really leading by example, which is, again, where people can lead up, even where we talk about leading up a lot, but it is, what's the example you're setting that other people are going to mirror. They're going to, you know, learn from you doing and doing it themselves, and then feeling rewarded by that. So, you know, when I look back, I see a lot of leaders who who were just kind of caught in the corporate grind of production, right? You just had to make sure people did their work, did their job, and you produced and hit your numbers. And that's very stressful, and we just end up being again, kind of doing the unhealthy thing, because that's our that's our default setting, that's our go to when we're stressed. We just want to get it done. And so for me, you know, within leadership training, or just even understanding leadership, that you know, a lot of it is knowing how to regulate our stress response, to really optimize our creativity, our critical thinking, our problem solving. And then how, how do we empower others to do that too? You know? How do we really realize that when somebody already has 100 pounds of weight in their arms, you don't just throw on another five, you know? And mentally and emotionally, we're doing that a lot of times. We don't even know how much someone's carrying, and we just dump more on them without kind of checking in first and saying, how is your emotional load, and can you take on this, and do you need some support? So I think from a leadership perspective, my experience and just even my my learnings and and research that I've done in the mental fitness space has has just kind of, again, kind of made those connections of why a certain style of leadership is so effective and why other styles aren't so much. You know, if we kind of lose sight of of the human condition and kind of what's keeping us going, and that, for me, is kind of the legacy piece too. Like I really, I'm trying really hard, which, again, people would be maybe really surprised when you get really in the weeds, how lacking and how disconnected the conversation and understanding is around mental health as a function of the brain, that that conversation is just not happening as much as it has. It should be, it needs to be. And for me, that's, that's the legacy piece, is even just connecting with other people who are doing that work. Because it takes, it takes a village, like we all kind of need to have it spread far and wide and and empower each other to have those conversations and discussions around brain health and neurological health and how it impacts everything, yes,
Dina Simon 32:43
yeah, everything, and, and somebody's whole self, like, what's going on at home, what's going on at work? You know, everything,
Scott Mikesh 32:51
absolutely, absolutely, which makes it hard for my business, because people wanted you to drill down and say, Who do you serve? Like, right? And I am in that conundrum. I serve everybody, but you know, I am trying to drill down to kind of be more again, leaders, independent workers, remote workers, just people who just feel like they're maybe out there on their own, who don't have the social, healthful social support. But I also like to say, did you ever know that commercial? It's a barbecue sauce where they say that bleep is good on everything. No, you know that. I forget the name I'm, you know, I won't do free publicity, but there's a hot sauce and, and the commercial says, you know, they bleep it in the commercial, but they basically say, like, you know, this bleep is good on everything. And for me, mental fit, that's what mental fitness is, like. It applies to everything, yeah,
John Simon Sr. 33:41
I do have something that I that he brought to my attention as we're sitting here talking, he talked about retirement and what people go through whenever, whenever they retire. And I think, honestly, I think that would be a great discussion for a future podcast. And Scott, I love that and talk a little bit about it, because so many people are going through it, and they don't realize, no matter what age you are, whenever you retire, the changes that that makes in your life. And how do you fill in the time and keep keep your mental capacity up? What do you what are you going to do? So I think that would be a great reason to take you to another area in our podcast and discuss that.
Dina Simon 34:22
Yeah, I love that, Scott, if you'd be willing. I mean, that's one of the reasons that this is so fun for me, because I worked for John in my early 20s, and he retired at age 52 and still, obviously, is approaching this podcast like he would, you know, anything from a business perspective, as far as the research he's doing. And, man, it's just been so awesome. And so, you know, John, what a fun outlet for you to have something to do in your retirement right now. Like, this is a fun passion project for you as well. But not everybody has those opportunities. So like, where, how do they find things? Like, we've talked about music and, you know, those passions and those outlets, and you. Your retirement, those things are so important,
John Simon Sr. 35:01
and maybe that could be your next book talking about the mental health is retirement. There
Scott Mikesh 35:06
you go. Yeah, absolutely. I part of that larger conversation too, is just really dealing with with change, yeah, and that it really is, it really is a grieving process like again, we talk about grief and oftentimes in a very limited, narrow way that we only talk about it a lot of times related to death and dying. But we grieve. Our nervous system goes through the process of grief anytime there is change or loss, and it can even be in the long run, it could be a healthy change. Yeah, right, but your routine is changing. What used to bring you joy and satisfaction is changing. It's basically why people go through withdrawal when they're maybe addicted to a certain chemical, because your nervous system is Where is that thing that was making me feel good? And you go through all these different intense emotions and different, you know, neurological states and and retirement is one of those that you don't just want to drop everything and think, you know your life is done, or you don't have to do anything. Now, that's that's not how the human condition keeps going. You know? Well,
John Simon Sr. 36:15
yeah, it's such a it's such a rapid, sudden change in your life, because most of us, works for 45 years, and then you turn around the next you wake up one Monday and say, Huh, I don't have anywhere to go today. And and that's a real shock to you, absolutely,
Scott Mikesh 36:31
or even if, you know, people have this huge anticipation too, right? Whether if it's a wedding or a retirement or a graduation or your kids going off to school, like, whatever it is, you kind of have a build up to, like, this event. Yes, it's like, this big thing. And again, like I had with my book, you have this huge, like, rush of, like, dopamine and adrenaline and endorphins, and it's this amazing feeling and experience. And the day after it's open, yeah, and it you can just that drop, can just be really unhealthy and can be emotionally difficult and everything else. Because, you know, your system is wondering, where, what happened? Why don't I, you know, where are those good feelings, right? And so I, yeah, I would love to talk more about, you know, that part of the life journey, but just again, how it relates to all of the other experiences that you go through that is those neurological shifts and changes that you just have to take care of yourself, you know, in different ways
Dina Simon 37:32
Awesome. Well, we will have you back on and I'd like to say we've known each other for a long time. When you were the executive director for art buddies, you were partnered with us at Simon says, Give with giving out backpacks, and I think we might have done some birthday stuff along the wave with art projects and things. I'm not sure, but that's where we originally met. We've been friends ever since I've hired you to help me with my mental fitness. So I appreciate the work that you've done with me as well, but just a huge supporter of mine and me back at you here in this community, and we were super excited to have you out of podcast. So thank you for being willing to do so.
Scott Mikesh 38:08
Thank you too. I am so grateful for you, Dina and John now virtually meeting you as well, but just again, just putting out so much, you know, positive, uplifting, inspiring, empowering information for people to consume and to digest and to really think about. I, you know, both just as a person and as a you know, personally and professionally, I just appreciate your work and what you do and what you put in the universe. So thank you. Well,
John Simon Sr. 38:35
we enjoy doing it.
Dina Simon 38:37
Yes, we do. We do. I'd like to thank Scott mckisch for being on our podcast. He is an award winning business leader and a pioneer in the mental fitness space. I have worked with him one on one, and can attest that he does great work. So if you are interested in reaching out to him, we'll make sure all of his information is in our show notes. He's the author of a book called my brain can't poop. We didn't even mention this, but he just launched a 501 c3 that is tied to his 4d mental fitness company. And so maybe when we do have him back on next year, we'll talk more about that, but we'll make sure all that's in the show notes. And thank you again, Scott, just for your partnership in the community. And as always, I would love to thank my father in law for CO hosting with me on this podcast. This is our last guest that we will have for the first season as we wrap up 2023 and John and I are going to do one last podcast where we do a wrap for the year, and otherwise we'll talk to you next year when we launch season two, until we talk again. You.