The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Real Conversations about things that Matter
All things life and health - physical health, nutrition, mindset, mental health, connection plus society and culture with Fiona Kane, experienced and qualified Nutritionist, Holistic Counsellor and Mind Body Eating Coach
Frank discussions about how to achieve physical and mental well being.
I talk about all things wellness including nutrition, exercise, physical and mental health, relationships, connections, grief, success and failure and much more.
Some episodes are my expertise as a nutritionist and holistic counsellor and some are me chatting to other experts or people with interesting health or life stories. My goal is to give you practical and useful info to improve your health and tidbits that you may find inspiring and that may start discussions within your circle of friend/family.
The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Self-Perception in Mental Health: (Rewiring the ‘Never Good Enough’ Mindset) | Ep. 108
Self-perception in mental health shapes how we experience the world—and how we recover. In this deeply moving episode of The Wellness Connection, Greg Wasserman shares his personal mental health journey after reaching a breaking point two and a half years ago. Through an intensive healing program, Greg discovered how long-held beliefs like “I’m not good enough” and “I’m a burden” were quietly driving his pain—and how learning to be emotionally vulnerable became the key to reclaiming his life.
This episode is for anyone navigating mental health struggles, those supporting loved ones, or simply anyone curious about emotional growth and connection. Greg’s story offers powerful insights into how we can retrain our inner narratives, build emotional awareness, and embrace vulnerability as a strength—not a flaw.
In this episode, we explore:
The weight of feeling “never good enough”
Why emotional awareness is crucial to healing
How distorted self-perceptions form and how to shift them
Rewriting family expectations and inner narratives
Redefining strength through emotional honesty
Finding belonging through community and conversation
You are not alone. You’re not a burden. And it’s okay to ask for help.
Whatever you're feeling—you're not the only one.
Contact details for Greg:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregwasserman/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/gregwasserman
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I have another guest and his name is Greg Wasserman. Hi, Greg.
Greg Wasserman:Hey, Fiona, great to be here.
Fiona Kane:My husband's a Greg, so I quite like Gregs. I've had good experiences with them. We're good people, definitely, definitely. So today we're going to be talking a little bit about stress and anxiety, and really, you're going to be sharing your story and telling us a little bit about your experiences and some of the things that you have learned. So initially, though, let's get started with you. Just tell us, for anyone who doesn't know who you are, would you like to introduce yourself?
Greg Wasserman:Well, I'm on the other side of the world here, so, based in Los Angeles, born and raised in Chicago, I came out here for college and just never left. Worked in advertising and business for the last 20 plus years. Love my family, which we'll be talking about as we discuss the rest of this today, work in podcasting and I truly believe and we'll talk about. Life is about time and relationships. I'm a big believer in connections.
Fiona Kane:Okay, yeah, yeah, so am I. And already, guys, I've had quite a few free tips from Greg on podcasting, so he's been really helping me out. It's really good to connect with people that say say, hey, um, maybe if you did this or if you did, that'd be really useful, because I don't know, I just like to talk about stuff but I don't really know what I'm doing in regards to the podcasting world. So, uh, so, thank you already for, uh, all the help that you've given me with a little brief uh bits of conversations and things we've had hey, my pleasure and when and when listening.
Greg Wasserman:I'm here to help. I want podcasters and I want us, as guests and listeners, to just have the best experience.
Fiona Kane:Yes, yeah, exactly. So let's get right to it. You have a bit of a story. You've told me a little bit of it. I've had a bit of a glimpse into it, but it sounds like an interesting story and something that maybe a lot of people would relate to in their own ways. So maybe start by telling us a little bit about that.
Greg Wasserman:Yeah. So, as I said, I love my family, but we're here to talk about them. In some regards so grew up in Chicago, normal, what I would, a normal household, loving parents. I have an older brother, good public schools, great athlete student but I never understood why I never could find happiness. And it wasn't until two and a half years ago that I had a breaking point and really kind of came to terms and realized what was going on.
Greg Wasserman:And so for me, um, I came to realize that, no matter what I did, no matter how much I worked, no matter the money I was making or anything, it just wasn't enough. But it wasn't a matter of wasn't enough, it wasn't just I didn't feel satisfied, I felt incredibly lonely, I felt inauthentic. There is nothing but fear in me and, as a result, no matter what I kept doing, no matter the emotions I kept going through, I just couldn't figure out what was going on. And so what ended up happening is my partner at the time realized that we weren't aligning on where we were supposed to be. And she's like Greg, we're not where we were supposed to be. And she, uh, she's like Greg, like we're, we're, we're not where we thought we would be Um and I had to come clean and I had to break down and literally told her like I was having suicidal thoughts. I didn't want to be here. Um and yeah, and so at the end of the day I was lucky that she was able to at least help me and get me the support I needed, which allowed me to check into a clinic, and I went through this three-month intensive program that literally helped me retrain my brain.
Greg Wasserman:Through this three-month intensive program that literally helped me retrain my brain. What I came to realize during that entire program is why I was feeling the way I was, and what I was feeling was I was trying to live up to the expectations that I put on my own mind, my own self, that came through my family. I'm a big friend of Brene Brown and so a story I love always to tell that I probably quote Brene wrong, but it really hit me once I realized this. Brene likes to tell a story of when she was a kid and she would get sick. Her parents did everything for her, you know, take care of great loving parents and so forth. Same experience for me. Work still got to get done, job still got to be done, Food still got to be there for your kids, and mom and dad still have to be mom and dad, even though they are human themselves.
Fiona Kane:That's what Brene saw, doesn't she say their family motto is lock and load, or something along those lines?
Greg Wasserman:Right. And so in her mind, what she saw was oh, sickness is a weakness, right, you can't be sick, you, you have to keep going, you have to keep pushing through it. So that's where I had you know, uh. And so I always look at it as I had a lens that my parents, my family, didn't put on me, but it was the lens that I saw through things that I was never good enough, that it was a burden, that I had all these negative views on myself that made no sense to anyone. And so when I finally told everyone that I was suicidal, they're like hold on, if you're looking at me now like this is who I am, you would never know that I'm not a happy-go-lucky, that the glass is in half full kind of person.
Greg Wasserman:But on the inside I was hurting so bad, and it was through this program that allowed me to realize hold on, I'm not those things. Realize, hold on, I'm not those things. Um, that the biggest lesson was how do you love yourself? How do I care for myself? Um, and so it was an incredible, incredible experience. And then I can say, two years later, I'm in a lot better place than I was, um so, yeah, it's wonderful to hear that you are.
Fiona Kane:uh. One thing I would like to ask you, though and you know I always like to be careful about how I word these things, but you answer what you want to and how you want to when you finally had that conversation with your partner now I can only imagine, because I haven't been in this situation it must be a huge deal to even think about saying it to anyone else or admitting this to anyone else. So tell me a little bit about that feeling where you don't really want to tell other people what's stopping you, but also a little bit about, well then, what was it like when you finally did come out? Come along, come out and say how you were feeling.
Greg Wasserman:What changed for you? That's the biggest question that I kept having to answer to myself and not vocalize to other people. Right, the how do I tell people what I'm feeling? How do I tell people what I'm feeling? How do I tell people what I'm thinking? I can't tell people those thoughts because what are people going to believe? What are, what are they going to think?
Greg Wasserman:So it's part of like go back to Brene, right, like shame, there was so much shame and so, while you keep that all inside, it allows the shame to foster um as opposed to vulnerability being the strength. And so that is all I knew. Going back to the family once again love my parents. My dad rest in peace. But like generation where he knew three, I only knew three forms of emotion happy, angry, sad and the standard guy. In that regards, you go like hey, craig, how's it going? I'm fine, that's, that's usually how things were Right. So, like I had no verbalization of how do I describe what I'm feeling, to know that anger is actually a secondary emotion and that the the underlying is I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed, whatever those other emotions are I had no clue what they were right no clue, not only what those were, because I didn't know them, I didn't learn them but also how to vocalize them.
Greg Wasserman:So to have that conversation with my partner and ultimately just break down and say like I'm fearful, I'm alone I'm trying to remember what else I said besides just breaking down and having to tell her that it was the hardest thing because I finally vocalized for the first time what I had been feeling and had never been able to vocalize, not only internally because I didn't know how to, but also to another person, and that just led to the most lonely, lonely feeling ever. Had told her that, but, like this, now truly felt alone, that I've now shared this moment, but I feel so alone so initially, when you told her it didn't feel good, it actually felt you felt quite alone, I mean it's the uh vulnerable hang.
Greg Wasserman:Uh. What is it?
Fiona Kane:vulnerability hangover where you tell someone right talks about yes, yeah, um, that was exactly it uh sharing your vulnerability.
Greg Wasserman:You're like I can't believe I said that. I can't believe I vocalized this. I can't believe I told someone that I'm thinking of suicide. Like I can't believe I vocalized what I've been feeling. And once those words are out, yeah, you're like I can't believe I did that. Now someone else knows the secret. What are they going to think about me? How am I thinking about myself? And you just go through that. That, uh, that spiral.
Fiona Kane:And how long did that last for before it moved into a place where you know because you were sort of saying before, in regards to vulnerability it's actually a strength, not a weakness. But initially it feels like a weakness, it feels like, oh my God, I've just laid myself bare, can't put this back in the box, whatever it is. How long before you started to feel more like it was a positive thing and that it was ultimately a good thing for you?
Greg Wasserman:positive thing and that it was ultimately a good thing for you. So this program was incredible. Five days a week what is it? Eight hours a day, four classes, like it's literally like going to school. Four different classes a day, five days a week, so 20 classes there and every class you are, in a sense, in a group setting checking in. How are you feeling so clearly?
Greg Wasserman:Day one, uh, and I'm watching I was only male in this group, so watching all these other women go around who'd been there before me talking about what their check-in comes to me, it's like, greg, how you, how you doing, I'm like I'm fine, knowing very well this is day one, I'm overwhelmed, right, but like then you just start flexing that muscle and and I think that's been the biggest thing is flexing. So if we think about what are the ways to get over stress and anxiety, just that flex of how do we check in, how do I share, whether it's journaling or sharing with other people so there's two girls that are still from that. I check in, we do, we do weekly or whenever we want to check in with each other, and they're from my program. So two years later, we're all like, hey, we went through this together. This is we're here. We know and we'll continue to see our progression.
Greg Wasserman:But I took frivolous notes. I was like a kid in a school. I'm like I'm just going to sit here and write down everything that the teacher said and learn and blow my mind of like wow, I never thought about that. So I'd say it was probably. If I did it 13 weeks I'd say maybe halfway through that I could start seeing a major change, just not only the way I thought about myself, but the way I was thinking about all the different things we were learning in the program.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, so for you it very much was about intensive learning being part of a program. It's not sort of sitting around at home wondering if it's going to, if you're going to feel differently, because the whole point is, I suppose, that the the way you got there, to where you were, to that point in your life, that the thinking that you had to get to that point wasn't helpful. So it was actually to go and learn a different way of thinking or a different way or different stories to tell yourself and different ways of, like you said, identifying emotions and then knowing what to do with them. That's not something that you could necessarily figure out sitting at home on your own. That does require support from somewhere else 100%.
Greg Wasserman:I mean, look, I was going to therapy before that moment, but that was the first time I did therapy before, or I guess when I was a kid I did therapy, but this was the first time as an adult. Well, if you don't know what to say, if you don't know your own feelings and how to even access that, then therapy was great. It was great in the sense that I talked about things, but a program where you are literally day one you want to twip for anyone that's listening. I highly recommend doing identity map.
Greg Wasserman:That was the biggest breaker because I sat there in a group with strangers and you go okay, what's your identity? How would you define yourself, right? So if we look at how I introduced myself, like I'm from Chicago, I live in la, and you just start going down those pieces, but then you start realizing like I'm a burden, I feel like a loser. You just start seeing like the words that you're associating with yourself, like wow, and then to see those on the board and strangers now seeing that who've never met you and they don't know who you are, and you're like, and the teacher's like, so how does it feel seeing what you think about yourself, like would a friend say those things to you and you're like probably not, um. And so going through that entire emotion of being able to reprogram your brain to think differently, to understand the gift you give to people as opposed to the burden you think you are to people, is a huge thing.
Fiona Kane:Yes, and also what you laid out there when you were talking about the identity map is that we cannot fix a problem if we don't know what it is, if we don't assess it first. A problem if we don't know what it is, if we don't assess it first. And if you want to fix a car but you're not doing any assessment to see well, why is that rattle happening or why is it broken down, you can't just sort of start and think, oh, I'll just go over and fix this part over there. You've got to actually find out where it's coming from and even like a health problem, you need to have the scan or the blood test or something. You need a diagnosis. So this is the same kind of thing, just saying, well, unless you know where you're at, you can't fix it.
Fiona Kane:Or even just like, actually, you know what a great example probably a better example would be a financial example when a financial planner came to see us a few years ago and things were quite a mess. Now you have to actually realistically, realistically, look at it and go this is what it looks like right now. And as hard as that is whether that's in regards to your emotions or any finances, which can sometimes be linked. But when you look at it realistically and really look at it and go, oh my God, that is where it really is right now, and really look at it and go, oh my God, that is where it really is right now, then you can actually at least, first of all, understand why whatever's going on is going on, but then also you can make steps to make it better. So you can't fix something that you're not aware of. I suppose is what I'm trying to say. So that sounds like that's what that identity map did for you. It allowed you to see oh okay, this is what's going on inside of my head.
Greg Wasserman:Having someone ask the questions that you don't know how to ask yourself, right, so therapists could do that.
Greg Wasserman:But like eight hours a day, five days a week of an intense, different programs, uh, literally then starts to get you to understand, uh, journaling in a way that you've never thought about journaling. When people are like, yeah, just start writing down your ideas, I'm like, okay, I could write them down, but if you're given a journal prompt, you got to go do that. And so for those listening and watching, like for me, I was reading self-help books, I was going down, like I said, brene Brown, I loved it, therapy. But it wasn't until I sat in a classroom setting for me, intense, know what the questions they're asking feel like with a teacher and you're back into that classroom setting. It was like that was the only way my brain was going to end up and you're back into that classroom setting. It was like that was the only way my brain was going to end up reprogramming, as opposed to me trying to do it myself ad hoc, if we want to look at it that way.
Fiona Kane:Well, when we do it ourselves, it's very. You know, we're just learning information, so we are gathering new information and new ideas, but it's quite different. It's like very academic, isn't it? And when you actually do learning, that's experiential and personal and you ask the right questions, or you ask yourself the right questions. It's a very different experience. So you can academically learn a lot of things, but just academically know them and not really ever integrate them or understand them at a personal level. So, like you said, knowing the information is part of it, but it's actually what you do with that information yeah, that was.
Greg Wasserman:I would say that's definitely the key, um and then. So, after those 13 weeks, um, it's been important to continue to do check-ins. Gratitude Um, I didn't know what gratitude was you asked me to, to write gratitude every day. It was incredibly impossible. So now you know gratitude jar, where you're realizing I have a place. You know, I live in Los Angeles. A lot of people I know lost their homes.
Greg Wasserman:We were talking about a storm coming. So who knows who's getting impacted by that. So grateful that I've got those things. It's just like simple things that now start changing your mind and taking things that you had for granted. Is you know what? No, this isn't.
Greg Wasserman:And if we go back to my origin story, so the reason I was what I was is my mom's parents were Holocaust survivors. So my mom always said anything that happens, how do I compare this to the Holocaust? And what my parents went through my grandparents went through right. So that whole mentality is if you're always comparing what I'm going through can't be as bad as anything else because that is the most horrific thing, then your mindset is like, well, then I just got to push through it.
Greg Wasserman:Or you know what? This isn't bad, dust it off. But you really start realizing hold on, my pain is okay to have, it's okay to sit in this, it's okay to recognize you know what? Maybe my pain, in comparison, is a death to all of us. So if I'm comparing my pain to your pain, going like, well, yeah, you're probably worse, but like that doesn't negate the pain I'm in, and so just changing that entire mindset of going like it's okay to be not okay. It's okay to take a moment to rest. It's okay to not always be go, go, go, and I'm very much of a go go, go guy.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, yeah, and look that context thing, I get the context thing. I think it is good for us to all know that, generally speaking, there are other people in the world who are probably doing it worse than us most of the time. So it is useful as a context thing to not stay in victimhood forever and ever and ever, to understand that, yes, the Holocaust happened and yes, obviously that is a good thing. To just have that knowledge, because people can be very caught up in their own world and self-centred and not understand that there's a world out there and that their problems, comparatively maybe, are not the same. In saying that, exactly what you said, when you're going through the problem, when you're in the middle of the problem, it is a huge thing for you and I don't think you can get out your measuring stick and measure these issues.
Fiona Kane:And I sort of learned this from a friend of mine who she has been on this podcast. Actually I've talked to her about death and about grief and several years ago she lost a child he was an adult, but her child and it was suicide and it was very traumatic in every way imaginable. And a few weeks before he passed away I had an aunt pass away. And then my mother passed away a few years later and I used to feel really like, oh, I shouldn't say that I'm feeling bad about my mom or my aunt or whatever, because that's not a child, you know. And she said no, no, she said, even if it's your dog, that doesn't matter, it's big to you. So your grief is still your grief, your pain is still your pain.
Fiona Kane:So, no, you don't get out measuring sticks and we're all allowed to have the pain that we have and it's our experience. And, like you said, if you don't allow yourself to have the experience and work through it and identify it, work through it and do the things you need to do to manage your physical and mental health around it, then it can have catastrophic consequences. So it is actually really important that, yes, we have our own pain and we don't have to kind of say, well, I didn't go through the Holocaust, so it can't be so bad for me. However, just as an ongoing kind of life thing, it is useful to know, it's useful to have context, but no, it doesn't mean you can't or you're not allowed to experience pain. Does that? Does that sort of make sense of, like the clarifying the difference of those two things?
Greg Wasserman:100 and you bring to to mind something that we were talking off, uh, before we we jumped on the recording is I truly believe we have a fix it and a me too mentality in a society, and that affected me. Um, because take your, your story here. You, you want to go like I didn't lose, I didn't lose my kid, but I've lost the parent, and so you're trying to relate with this person, going like I know the pain of losing someone. Right, and that's what most people will do. They'll try to relate, going like, oh, I've lost someone, so I know the pain you're going through.
Greg Wasserman:It's like, and that's what I consider the the me too moment of of. I want to create connection and the connection is through a shared death, the shared grief, the shared pain, whatever the shared uh topic I guess is. But in reality, what most of us need is just someone to sit beside us and go. That's hard, that's difficult. I can imagine what do you want me?
Greg Wasserman:What would help you right now, as you share this story with me, to support you. And that becomes such a huge power move, because now you are truly sitting with that person and connecting with them because of the story they told you and you're recognizing that story as opposed to oh, let me connect with you by sharing my own story, so we can both be in a moment of connection, of grief or whatever it is. And I think if we did more of sitting with each other and going thank you for sharing that, not only just in that story, but I do this all the time now, and that was one of the biggest things I learned after my program is like you're like, hey, greg, I got, and you come to me and you tell me something. I'm going to go.
Greg Wasserman:What do you want me to do right now? Do you want me to share an answer? Do you want a solution? Do you want me to just sit here and listen? What would help you support, what would support you right now? And most of us don't do that. We don't, and that becomes what we should be doing.
Fiona Kane:Yes, we are part of a fix-it society and, look, I am as guilty of this as anyone because it's just a society that we're in and we grew up watching TV shows and things where that's what they do. In TV shows, someone sort of says, oh, so-and-so has got a problem, oh, let's go and fix it. You's that fix-it mentality. Whereas by the time of an episode ends, of Friends or whatever, I'm showing my age, but by the time the episode ends, that we've fixed the problem. So we've got however long the TV show goes for 22 minutes or 24 minutes or something for half an hour by the beginning, we have a problem. By the end of it, we've solved it.
Fiona Kane:So I think we do have a society that is much like that and I think we do want to feel connection with people. But also I think that one of the issues, one we just don't know, this we just don't know, we don't understand this, we don't realize until someone stops and kind of explains like, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Also, I think that if we are not comfortable to even be in our own emotions, if we are not comfortable with our pain, we're certainly not comfortable with somebody else's so sitting and being with someone in their pain or bearing witness to someone's pain or grief or despair or whatever they're going through is not the easiest thing to do, particularly if you've not learned how to be comfortable within yourself with that. So I think there's also that as well. So it's easier to kind of smile and kind of go oh yeah, I had a hard time too than it is to kind of really sit in really hard emotions.
Greg Wasserman:Yeah, you, um. So you, you jumped then to the, the, the fix it piece. So I get the me too, and the fix it is the um, I tell you something and then all of a sudden your reaction is, oh, have you done this, have you thought about that? And so that becomes the fix it mentality. And so, to your point, I felt that as well, because I had as parents parents who love their child, who want to take away their pain, who want nothing but the best for them. If you tell them, hey, something happened, they want to take that pain away. Or maybe, to your point I'm not a therapist on this Maybe they're like I can't sit with my child right now in their pain. So I got to try and take that away. And that was probably more of what it was. So let me try and fix it. How do I help solve this, even though I never asked him to solve anything? We didn't ask anyone to solve anything. We just are telling you what we're going through. And so, yeah, that becomes the.
Greg Wasserman:I think you're very correct and most people can't sit there and go hold on. You're telling me a problem Great, I know a solution. Or you're telling me a problem. I got to fix this, this, and then they'll make me feel good, and that'll make you feel good and we'll be good. But now it's just sit in it and and how do I support you? What do you need?
Fiona Kane:um, and that that led to, uh, to, to all those negative words that I had in myself yeah, and I think that, as a nutritionist, I think it's actually also what leads into a lot of emotional eating, because I think that I don't know about your experience, but certainly in my experience and you know, god bless my mother, she, she met well, she, she's not here now, but you know, she, her kind of solution to if you were having a problem or if you were sad or any emotion, really was oh, he's a chocolate or he's a lolly or he's something. And you know it's because she didn't. You know she had her own challenges, she had big challenges in her life and she struggled and had a hard time of it, and so I think that she really wasn't able to be that present with the things going on for her, let alone know how to deal with my pain. And, of course, children too small children in particular, because we haven't been socialized out of showing our pain. We, you know, we're not happy, we're jumping up and down and we're yelling and we're screaming, and you know we're very small. Children, are very in touch with their pain and they want it dealt with. You know, I want something now, you know, and it's so.
Fiona Kane:They're very strong emotions that children have and I think that the strong emotions that children have can be very challenging for people who are not comfortable with strong emotions, and so an easy fix is here's the ice cream, here's the chocolate, here's something. And the child learns very quickly, I think, a couple of things, and I'm not shaming people for doing this. This is our society, it's just things that we've learned. But I think there's a few things that the child learns. One they learn that it's not okay to have strong emotions in public, or at least not with that person or in this situation whatever. But they're starting to learn that strong emotions are a problem. They also learn that a really easy way to fix it is with sugar. Sugar makes everything better, kind of thing. And so I think that's part of what has introduced us or led us to down this path of emotional eating and using food to manage our stress, because it's kind of a relatively socially acceptable way and simple, fast way to manage our emotions and stress.
Greg Wasserman:Not that it's ultimately useful in the long run, but you know, I can see how that sort of has come about 100, you know, mean whether it's overeating or under eating, or overworking out, or perfectionism, like all those are kind of traits of perfection. Managing, uh, stress and anxiety.
Fiona Kane:Or managing what was modeled to you uh, to regulate without knowing a healthier way of regulation yes, yeah, exactly, and you know I I'm in australia and we've had a very kind of I suppose I've got a very kind of british ancestry, scots, welsh, all that kind of stuff, and very much it was like stiff upper lip, don't show emotions, can I? So that was sort of that, the society that I suppose I have grown up in and many of us have, and, um, and you know, and every you know, because I'm a gen xer, are you a gen xer or are you a millennial? Where are you?
Greg Wasserman:I'm borderline, so I am an older millennial, as they like like to say Okay.
Fiona Kane:So every Gen Xerals in my generation, maybe your generation as well our parents, or most of us, our parents, well, like you if you're grandparents went through something a lot. You know inverted commas harder. You know, I walked to school in my bare feet, or you know? And the Holocaust?
Greg Wasserman:Up and down in the snow a mile, yeah.
Fiona Kane:And we didn't get to eat and blah, blah, blah and all these. I shouldn't be laughing when I say that, but you know, our ancestors, a lot of our ancestors, did go through some really, really hard times and so, yeah, our generations were trying to like shut up, get over it. What's wrong with you? And you know, I think you could argue that these days it's got a little bit too far the other way. Uh, it's like there's got to be a balance here somewhere. So I think that's why it's always like it's good to have context, but it's also okay to have emotions and learn how to understand them, identify them and just do something useful with them. Uh, so it's sort of. But yes, it's getting the balance right and every generation is trying to sort of figure that one out, aren't they?
Greg Wasserman:i's, it's I. The biggest thing I can take away is our parents did the best they could. Or, as I like to say, no matter what our parents are going to mess us up, we're all going to need therapy.
Greg Wasserman:We're all going to need therapy, whether our parents go for it or not, at our age and our parents' generation. But we'll all need therapy is a good thing. We all need support. We don't know what we don't know and that was the biggest thing for me I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know how to ask for support. I didn't know what was feeling inside, until that moment happened, which I'm grateful. I got the support. I did that. I can look at it now far different, and then be able to come on to a show like yours and share that story and a fraction of it.
Greg Wasserman:That hopefully helps someone else understand you're not alone. I think that was the biggest thing. Anytime I hear someone who passed away from suicide like it hits because you're like I don't know what they're going through because every story is different, but you know to do that, to think that, to take that action. Um was not, was was not without its own internal demons, um that some are unfortunately not able to get through and some are able to get the help and move on. But yeah that's a tough one.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, yeah, definitely, and something I wanted to ask you as well, just to get your perspective on this I've always thought that really, men and women, we're quite different and I know there's crossovers and we can be what we like and all the rest of it, but essentially there's some things that I think are kind of inbuilt, and I think from back in the day, from way before our time sort of thing. In that what I'm trying to say speak, fiona, speak, make sense. What I'm trying to say is men were the ones who had to go out and fight, and so you are the guys who and I'm not saying that this doesn't happen now in society, I get it, but once upon a time, if we were in the cave or if we were in the village or whatever it is, if someone came to attack our village, the men had to go out and fight. And the men had to go out and, you know, basically kill the beasts and kill the enemy and protect the family and whatever. And you know, and in our sort of you know, my great grandparents or maybe further back or whatever, but they were, you know, the people who were down coal mines or doing, and men still now today often do the jobs that are really really hard jobs. You know, like I was just saying, at the time we're recording this, it'll be a little bit after when we release it.
Fiona Kane:But the time we're recording this as a cyclone about to hit in Australia, in sort of Southern Queensland, and it's going to be affecting Southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales, now the people who will be going out to doing rescues and fixing the power lines and all those hard things, most of them will be men. Right, it's just the reality. It won't be me. I know there are some women that do those things and like doing those things, but I'm not one of them. But it's mostly men who do those things.
Fiona Kane:So men can often be in a position and particularly historically, historically were in a position to do really really hard stuff and different hard stuff, because women do really hard stuff as well. It's just different hard stuff, right. But what I'm trying to say is the hard stuff that men had to do didn't require you thinking about how you felt, right, it wasn't like, well, how do I feel? How do I feel today? How are my emotions? You had to go out and get rid of the bear that was attacking the village or fight the enemy. So I get that. When, historically, if your roles were that way that it would make sense that men wouldn't learn or wouldn't be as naturally in touch with their emotions because being in touch with the emotions probably wasn't particularly useful in those situations Does that make sense?
Greg Wasserman:A hundred percent. Yeah, I mean long story short. Yeah, it makes complete sense, based on the way society has been and just where we are. Based on the way society has been and just where we are. That's why, like, what is it? Esther Perel is another therapist that I follow stuff, and her book Meeting Captivity is a great one, but it's kind of in the sense, like the last hundred years even less everything's changed. It used to be your partner wasn't everything and anything to you, but now, in the current state, I want my partner to be in my case. I want him to be my wife, mother, my child, my best friend, my sexual partner, my confidant, like all these things. But 100 years ago it like hold on the village. You had multi-generational homes, like there were other components that allowed you to get all these different pieces of your needs map as opposed to sufficing it with just one person yes so we've changed that entire.
Greg Wasserman:So that also was probably why she's saying we've got such a high divorce rate because we're putting all this pressure on one person, putting everything on one person.
Fiona Kane:Yes, liz Gilbert wrote a great book about this, called Commitment.
Greg Wasserman:Okay.
Fiona Kane:And it was exactly on that and she went and visited different sort of tribes in, I think, northern Thailand and places like that where they still do live like that. They're part of like a community or tribe or Brimby village and they have very specific roles that they're born into. And this is the role that you're going to have and this is a person that you're going to marry. And she said, I think they all kind of live, they all sleep on the floor of the same homes together, sort of thing. And I think she said when they get married they get two or three days or something where they get to sleep in, like the broom closet or whatever, so they can have private couple. That's the honeymoon and then the rest of the time everyone's in together. But she said, in the morning the men go up and they go out and they do all the man things and the women are together and are raising the children, and so essentially the men are hunting and the women are gathering or whatever, and the women are looking after children. And so you know, you have the wise person in the village and you have the health person in the village and you have the women and the aunties and the mothers and the grandmothers, and then you have the warriors and whatever, and so everyone has very specific roles. And so, no, your husband is kind of just someone that you see sometimes at the end of the day or you sleep next to him, you happen to have a child together, but you don't do any of it together really, you do it as a village.
Fiona Kane:And they laughed because one thing she talks about that was really interesting. She says that in Western society specifically women too, and I know as much with men but if you ask any woman her love story with her partner and it could be a disastrous love story about how much I hate him and how much I'm glad I've left him, or it could be a great. You know we're so happy together, blah, blah, blah. But most women in Western society, part of our identity is that love story. So you sit down, a woman sits down at the hairdresser's. Within five minutes that hairdresser will know how she met her husband, where she met him. This is a story and whatever the story turned out to be.
Fiona Kane:But part of our identity is our love story, because I suppose we've been grown up with Disney and all the different stories, right, so we're very connected to our story, our love story and this whole kind of thing of uh, having you know soulmates and all this kind of stuff which you know lovely and everything but in their societies kind of. She talked to them about the stories and they didn't have stories because they just married that guy that they were supposed to marry, who was in the village, and he's all right. I sort of like him, he's okay. And it's not about the big love story and about, like you said, relying on that partner to be all of the things they're going to be your confidant and your lover and your wise person and the person who you cry in their shoulders and the person who whatever, historically we weren't meant to be that, and now that's what we've created in Western society, which does put a lot of pressure on a marriage. If you've got to be all those, you can't be all those things.
Greg Wasserman:That was part of my downfall is I was trying to model, I was trying to be my mother and my father and and, and and be everything and realize, like, hold on, I'm trying to juggle, like who my mother is, who my father is, and and embrace all of that. So is the caretaker as well as the, the providers, the um, the social as well as this, and, uh, it just broke me because, cause you start realizing, hold on, I'm trying to do everything. That's a big burden to try and take on, as opposed to asking for help and go realizing like, hold on, your friends can help you, your partner can help you. Instead, like no, I gotta, it's all me and I can't ask anyone else for help, because that's what I know. So, yeah, yes, yeah.
Fiona Kane:So really a big theme of this, from what you're sort of telling me one is that it's so important to ask for help and to talk to other people and to get advice, because we just don't know what we don't know, and that's not weakness. Also, with what you've been saying, a big part of this is having connection. Having connection with other people, having other people around you maybe that you can talk to or you've had shared experiences with, but also just the reality of the stories we tell ourselves, understanding the stories we do tell ourselves and how powerful they are, and how marriage should be or how society should be or how I should be as a husband or a father or whatever the role is. And you know, is that true? Kind of tell myself a different story. Can I assess really those roles, just the ability to be curious and question all those things, rather than just assume it's all true, everything that we've been telling ourselves all of our lives?
Greg Wasserman:Yeah, assumption's the mother of all blanks, right. Assumption is the mother of all blanks, right. And so curiosity is a good one. But the biggest thing I've learned through all this is asking for help is a sign of strength and not weakness, because you don't know. What you don't know, and so I love your point is the should. We should remove the word should from our language because you shouldn't do anything.
Greg Wasserman:But yeah, it's asking for help because how else are you going to grow, how else are you going to know what you're thinking and check it against other people? But also think about it as a society, like if I'm in a group of people and we all are thinking this one way, then great, what I'm thinking has to be right. But there's so many other people out there, so can you start asking for others, can you go to others and start understanding the, as you said, curiosity. It's one of my favorite virtues and getting that feedback, because there are different ways to do things. There are different ways to think of things. There's other. There's 8 billion of people here. We're all not as much as we're connected, as much as we think we're the same. Everyone's got a different take and experience and view. So having that open mind and being able to go with the curiosity of asking for help becomes such a big flex.
Fiona Kane:Definitely, definitely, and it really does it. Just, you get I, when I was very young, I remember I I came from the suburbs and sort of Western Sydney and it was quite I thought I knew a lot about the world, but I really didn't, of course I was so young, but I started work in the city when I was 16. And what was really interesting for me is all of the people I worked with. They were all much older than me and they were all from all over the world or had all different interesting jobs and all of a sudden my world opened up a hundredfold because I had all, even before I started traveling.
Fiona Kane:It felt like I started traveling then because I started traveling through these people and I wanted to know well, what was it like growing up in Singapore? Or what was it like growing up in England? And you know, tell me about, you know. So you don't know what you don't know and we sort of think that all the rules we have for ourselves are all the things that we're thinking are all absolutely set in stone, and true, but, like you said, there's billions of people all around the world living very different ways, and so when you open yourself up to the world and just learn a bit more about what other people are doing. It sometimes just gives you really good ideas or helps you kind of go oh okay, so those expectations I had on myself.
Greg Wasserman:maybe they're not realistic or it's not helpful did you, um, because of that experience as a child, did you catch the travel bug and go like, all right, I'm seeing and experiencing these cultures.
Fiona Kane:Right now I've got to go to these places and experience them and and their full uh flavor yes, I did, as when I got older, I did, and I haven't done as much as I'd like to, but I've done a fair bit. And I even well, I, we got married in scotland, uh, which is a long way from sydney, uh, so, yeah, I'm very, very interested in cultures and and places around the world. So, yes, I've done a fair bit, but I'd like to do way more. And, yeah, I really do love uh just going experiencing other cultures and seeing, uh, just learning things that you just don't know, or seeing things just from a whole different perspective that you never thought about it was, um, the catalyst.
Greg Wasserman:A partner at the time said she noticed a change when I went on a trip to go visit a friend in another country and came back and it was very different and said there was like the catalyst of like, seeing the world through the opportunity of like I just want to see the world, I just want to, and that that was. That was actually it. The way I felt about suicide was I have money in the bank, I'm not going to just end my life today, I'm going to go travel the world and see the world and just be free, and then, when the money's gone, I'll worry about it then. But yeah, it was the freeing view of just the curiosity of seeing the world and what could you experience? There's so much to do, there's so much to see. Financially, we don't have all the means Time. We don't have all the means Time, we don't have all the time. But being able to explore that, even in your own town, even in your own job, whatever opens, your eyes to new possibilities.
Fiona Kane:Yes, look, even just going to someone else's house in your own town, you'll go there and you'll go oh, you use that brand of that thing. Oh, you do that that way. Oh you, and all things that you just thought everyone did the same. And you go there and they do it. They don't, they do it differently. And I might might sound silly, but it's just we. We just so caught up in. This is what we do and this is how we do it, and we're very set in our ways. And you go somewhere and you realize that not everyone does it the same way that you do. And so even just go into a friend's house and see how they do things, uh, you kind of go. Oh, that's interesting.
Fiona Kane:And sometimes every time I travel whether it's go and stay with friends for a couple of days, or whether it's traveling around the world I come home and there's something different. Or I've learned something different, or there's something different about the way I approach things, or there's something different about the way I see things, or maybe I've just learned some. We just had a little technical hitch for a moment. We're back. Okay, you can hear me now. Yeah.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, I don't know I dropped out for a moment, but anyway I learned, I just I grow and learn from just being open to looking at other people's experiences, other people's lives, whether or not it's here or whether or not it's in other countries.
Greg Wasserman:And that's why I believe life is about time and relationships, Like the only thing that humans need is connection, and the only thing we don't have more time and you can't control it's time right. So let me go have and have these relationships, connections. Let's learn from people, have that curiosity, uh, that has always fueled me, but now I can be the vulnerable person as opposed to uh, that the stoic person who can't share, and that's that's a that creates even better connections. That creates and that's what I love about podcasting, you know is you have to be vulnerable, Otherwise anyone that's listening here is like who is this person? Or this isn't the authentic version of them, right?
Greg Wasserman:So, I love that.
Fiona Kane:So, Greg, thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing your insights. I've really appreciated having you on today.
Greg Wasserman:Thank you so much for having me giving me the uh, the, the errors uh, and and the uh, the attention.
Fiona Kane:So thank you, and is there anything that we missed that you would like to add before we, before we finish up?
Greg Wasserman:You're not alone. You're not a burden. It's okay to ask for help alone. You're not a burden. It's okay to ask for help Whatever you're feeling, whatever you're fearing. You're not the only one. We all think we're the only one, but people love you, they're there for you and you just have to be willing to share it, whatever's going on, because no one's going to look at you differently and if they do, probably not someone that you want to deal with at the moment. But they will love you, and that is true.
Fiona Kane:That's beautiful, thank you, and if people want to get hold of you, where can they find you?
Greg Wasserman:I live on LinkedIn. You can't miss me. Greg wasterman and my my picture's there. Title says life is about time and relationships. I would love nothing more to have someone reach out and create a connection. I'm always open to talk, whether it's about podcasting and business or uh, or life. Uh, you have no clue where one conversation is going to take you, and I always love having conversations great thanks and look for anyone who's listening or watching.
Fiona Kane:I've put the links in the show notes as well and I would like to remind everyone please like, subscribe, share, rate, review all of those things so that my podcast can grow. And thank you again, greg, I've really appreciated having you on today.
Greg Wasserman:Thank you so much.
Fiona Kane:We like to have real conversations here about things that matter, and that was really a really important conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you everyone and I'll see you all again next week. Thanks, bye.
